Customer Reviews

Bastion of Faith (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book gives an excellent, highly detailed, description of a very large, metropolitan temple. Not only do you get a detailed religious order, complete with descriptions of how they interact with non-members, but you get an interesting sub-plot, and sub-religion -- there's a bad apple in the barrel, and it's rotting...

I really like this product: you get a detailed map of a very large religious order's major citadel; you get detailed information on how the order works, and how they interact with the populace; you also get a wicked twist of what you think is a bastion of good. For the details, you'll have to purchase a copy.

The fault that I see is that the religion is very detailed about its beliefs, but this makes it hard to incorporate if you alreday have a detailed mythos for your campaign world. My mythology is quite complicated, but it's cohesive, and it works. This 'module' (resource book, mostly) has a well developed, thoroughly described, religion -- this makes it somewhat difficult to adapt to my mythology.

If you're looking for a highly detailed, coherent temple complex (good aligned), then this is worth your investment. Just purchasing it for a reference work is worth your while. If you haven't developed a detailed mythology for your campaign world yet, even better: this work will provide you with a fully fleshed out, lawful good (for the most part...), cult to start you in the right direction. All in all, I give it 4-stars because of the fact that you can't easily adapt it if you already have a detailed mythology; otherwise, I'd rate it 5-stars.

The Bastion of Faith is perfect for someone who wants to unite PC's under the service of a Lawful Good diety. Affiliation with the temple gives non-priest characters significant benifits. A new specialty priest and lots of new magical items and priest spells.

Although written to the specs of a LG deity (and most appropriate to Heironeous) with easy conversion to a LE deity (most appropriate to Hextor), what this supplement really does is give a great deal of thought into how a holy temple (or bastion) might impact the city or community in which it is based. It also does the same with the structure and politics within an AD&D religion. I especially liked the idea of "favors" introduced in this book. In my opinion, that simple concept was really nothing short of brilliant.
What you will really find, all that aside, is a good model by which you can create your own faith, be it utilizing pre-conceived deities or your own world specific pantheon. It really gives you a basic format that can be tweaked to create your own religious organization, and does a lot of the work for you.
The last aspect of this book, in classic Cordell style, is that it also gives you a fairly deep story line which you can also easily incorporate within your own campaigns quite easily. I have found that his ability to weave a tale, and consider it from many, many angles is almost always compelling, imaginative, and very much something your players will enjoy playing through. This book is no exception.

Enjoy!