[Free RPG Day 2024] The Shining Shrine

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The Shining Shrine is a preview of Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting, a supplement for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition published by Loot Tavern. The supplement contains adventures as well as rules for tracking, crafting, and harvesting, and also new monsters, spells, and Player Character options. The Shining Shrine includes just a little of that, making it essentially, a mini-version of the full book. Thus, it contains a full adventure and not one, not two, but seven appendices. These in turn provide new magical items, spells, creatures, familiars, a wizard, and more—including a QR code for a soundtrack! All of which is illustrated with some lovely artwork. The Shining Shrine opens with the eponymously named scenario. This is a short affair designed to be played in roughly one or two sessions, and contains the stats and details necessary to run it for between three and seven Player Characters of Second, Seventh, or Twelfth Level. Ideally though, there should be an average of four Player Characters. The scenario takes place in the Springarden, a bounteous and blossom-filled estate at the heart of the Springwood. Here the barrier between the Plane of Fey and the Material Plane is at its thinnest, enabling the fey to slip into our world. The barrier is at its weakest during a confluence of stars and this when Feyfest is held. Unfortunately, during the most recent confluence a creature called the Suneater Owlbear slipped in the Springarden and has subsequently made its home in a shrine holy to the Blossom Union, a sect of druid-monks that cares for the surrounding Springwood.

The scenario set-up is nicely detailed and gives a clear explanation of what is going on as well as some adventure hooks. The scenario is itself is quite structured. Designed as a hunt, it is split into two parts. In the first, much shorter part, the Player Characters have the opportunity to gather three clues pertinent to the hunt itself. These are primarily delivered by Threeflowers, a timid Gnome Druid who would rather be in some quiet corner smoking a pipe, but there are other means of gathering clues too. The authors both make it clear what the clues and their significance are and that the players and their characters need to know all three. It is not subtle about this. Once the Player Characters have their clues, they are ready to face the creature, a Sun-powered version of the Owlbear. The battle is fought in three stages, or waves, and each is described in detail including the tactics that the Suneater Owlbear and its minions will use each time. Making use of the given clues will at least ameliorate some of the deadlier attacks that the creature can deploy. Ultimately, the scenario is a one-session affair, primarily combat-based, but with a little bit of roleplaying and puzzle solving thrown.

There is treasure to be found at the end of the scenario. Some of these are magical items held in the Blossom Union, whilst others can be crafted from the unique components that can be harvested from the Suneater Owlbear. These and others are detailed in the first appendix in The Shining Shrine. They include the Bonze’s Bokken, Wind Ripper, a wooden sword which can create increasingly strong gusts of wind; the Suncatcher, a staff which can catch and absorb radiant energy, and even imbue spell attacks with radiant agency; and the Sunwing Bow, which requires no ammunition in sunlight and marks targets with radiant energy. There are magical meals such as Suneater Steak and Eggs, that grant healing every hour spent in sunlight, and so on.

The other appendices contain spells like The Bends, which creates bubbles of nitrogen in a target’s blood, effectively poisoning him and Endoleech, which with a touch allows the caster to absorb the energy from the target and slow its metabolism. It also inflicts cold damage. These two spells come from the new school of magic given in The Shining Shrine and thus in Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting. The school specialises in the manipulation of the biology of both the caster and others. This includes ‘Self Improvement’, by which the caster can give himself an extra appendage like a prehensile tail or an arm, make a hand detachable, owl eyes to see in the dark, and spidersense to gain a bonus to his initiative. The main feature of the new creatures is the Suneater Owlbear, a fey rather than beast-aligned creature with radiant energy abilities. Three versions are given—young, adult, and ancient—complete with stats so that the Dungeon Master has the right version to match the Level of the Player Characters for adventure in The Shining Shrine.

Although the Tamer Class, new to Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting, but not detailed here, The Shining Shrine gives tantalising glimpses of what it can do. This includes the ability to harvest and craft familiars from remains of powerful creatures. The accompanying example is of a Sunsnacker, a tiny Fey creature that can grow with the Tamer as the Player Character gains Levels. In doing so, it gets bigger and it gains abilities like a Solar Beam and eventually, the power to appear to be an Eye Tyrant in low light or darkness. More obviously playable is the ‘Rakin’, a playable raccoon-like race known for their practical jokes. It has three subraces consisting of the Urkin, the Posskin, and the Tanukin. Of these, only the streetwise Urkin with a penchant for theft and the nomadic and tough Posskin who will play dead when in a dire situation.

Physically, The Shining Shrine is very well done. It is decently written and the artwork is excellent throughout.

The Shining Shrine is a mixture of playable content and hints at what is to be found in the pages of Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting. The latter is intriguing, whereas the playable content is decent, the adventure in particular, presenting a tough challenge for the Player Characters whatever their Level. Overall, The Shining Shrine is an engaging preview that nicely showcases a little of what is to be found in Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting.