Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
This is not a playtest review.
Sword Of Justice is an adventure designed for characters of 1st or 2nd level. At $13.95 for 56 pages its relatively expensive for its size. This is not aided by its fairly wide margins, average text density and occasional chunks of white space.
The artwork runs from poor to average, with much of the character sketches seeming a bit chunky and lacking proper proportions. Maps are fairly average.
Writing style is generally fairly good, although it lapses into verbosity at times. Editing is also good.
Sword Of Justice is based on a scripted adventure hook - that the PCs get arrested for a crime they didn't commit - the murder of an Arocha (a new race introduced in the module) activist (called Joshua) seeking fairer government in the city of Om Amarna (whose citizens tend to be subtly racist towards Arocha). Several options for forcing your PCs to be dragged into this nasty situation are given. If they fall for it, the result is that they are accused of murder, and sentenced to hang in 48 hours time. Luckily, they are given an Advocate (a kind of paladin/judge multiclass) who can bring them around the city to try and prove their innocence to him during this time. In addition, Joshua's companion Nadok (also an Arocha), and the councillor Joshua was arguing with at the time of the murder (Dasa), are also arrested with the PCs and sentenced to death too. These NPCs join the PCs and the Advocate on their quest for redemption.
Much of the remainder of the adventure centres around numerous locations and NPCs around the city that can help or hinder the PCs' attempts to prove themselves innocent. The plot here is completely loose and PCs may visit locations and interact with NPCs in any order they like (or go off round the city looking at the sights if they wish). The NPCs and locations are well detailed, each having something in the way of information to offer the PCs. Various clues to the murder can be found along the way.
A number of possible endings are detailed, as are a number of optional action scenes such as an ambush by thugs, a meeting with the Dark Guard should the PCs pursue extreme methods of uncovering the mystery, or Arocha rioting because Nadok has been arrested.
The Appendices give the new PC race of Arocha a thorough introduction, outlines the Cult of Justice and the Prestige Class of Advocate, gives descriptions and stats for the main NPCs, and offers six special items including a cursed dagger that forms part of the trail of clues to the murder. The structure and organisation of the Dark Guard, the city watch of Om Amarn, is also detailed, and the module ends with an optional system to introduce tainted magic into the adventure, where spells cast in Om Amarn can be weakened or strengthened, a mild variation of wild magic.
The adventure has a number of positive attributes. There are a number of sections that flesh the city out, including a rumours section,and various details about the Horse Fair which is meant to have drawn the PCs to the city (the Horse Fair also includes shows of some much stranger animals, such as wyverns and dire animals, that occasionally get loose in the city causing chaos, as well as magic shows). The trail of clues and the open system for discovering them seems to fit well together as a means of uncovering the murderer and the Arocha PC race seem to work quite well as a backbone for the subtle racism that lends the murder mystery some extra depth. However, the adventure also suffers from some serious flaws.
The biggest flaw, to my mind, is that one of the NPCs that accompanies them is one of the twelve councillors of Amarna, a rich and powerful man. Some fleeting examples/suggestions of this NPC using his money or influence to get a wizard to cast a spell to help the proceedings are made, but the author fails to take this aspect to a logical conclusion.
If the NPC (or the Advocate/Dark Guard) has the money/power to purchase the use of any of the following spells: Zone of Truth, Speak With Dead, Discern Lies, Hypnotism, Detect Thoughts, Charm Person, Suggestion, etc., etc., the murderer should be relatively easy to find. To deny the NPC(s) access to these spells would be illogical in view of their description. Not to mention the ability to raise dead, etc., which would be in any good priests mind if it meant stopping the rioting that Nadok's arrest has caused. At the very least, the module should have addressed these possibilities in more depth.
In addition, there are a number of instances where the information to flesh out the setting went way over the top for what was necessary to the adventure. It was never detailed enough to really broach the city in full glory but was too detailed to be of use in the adventure. In other words, a lot of unnecessary stuffing.
As in some previous Monkey God releases, stats were not fully thought out before release; for example, the Arocha receive odd-numbered ability bonuses and penalties (e.g. +1 to Strength, -3 to Charisma).
The scripted hook into the adventure might also bother some, though I found the various possible explanations for initially involving the PCs in the situation reasonable. However, most PCs I've GM'd would never allow themselves to be taken to prison quietly by mere city watchmen, nor would they meekly walk round the city looking for clues when they could down the Advocate and sneak out of the city through the sewers. Again, these possibilities are not dealt with in enough realistic detail.
Various other holes in the logic of this adventure require a lot of re-working by the GM in order to make this useable. Extremely restricted access to magic, stronger guard presence, and a stronger reason to remain with the Advocate would all be absolutely necessary to figure out before running this.
Conclusion
There are some positive attributes to this adventure and it could be made to work with a great deal more work and some background thinking beforehand. However, the module is fairly expensive and to my mind did not give good value for money. My advice - spend your cash on something else.
