D2_Temple of Earth and Water

A lonely monastery keeps its secrets on the black waters of a nameless lake. Below it, a village has fallen silent, and something foul has taken root in the surrounding swamp.

Deep in the trackless fens north of Gul Hud sits a temple no map quite agrees on. A handful of monks live there in silence, and their Abbot is said to walk on water and speak with the spirits of the swamp. Whether that is faith, madness, or something else entirely is what your party is about to find out.

But first they have to survive what's between them and it.

Gul Hud has stopped pretending to be a community. A black-market drug trade gone catastrophically wrong has left the streets full of the shambling, hollow-eyed dead — and the men who caused it barricaded in an old garrison house, starving and increasingly desperate. Beyond the village waits a swamp that punishes carelessness and rewards patience: sinkholes, ancient horrors risen from the bog, and secrets rooted deeper than anyone in town understood.

And at the end of it all, an island temple in disarray — a monk murdered, an Abbot's quarters ransacked, and a stolen tome that may be the only thing standing between a dying order and a swamp that remembers everything taken from it.

Your Adventure Begins

A patron's plea, a missing shipment of contraband, or a dying priest's desperate hope — any of these can put your party on the road to Banorak. Two fully-realized adventure hooks are included, each leading to a different emotional payoff at the journey's end.

What's Inside:

    •    A complete, non-linear village crawl through the damned streets of Gul Hud — 25 keyed locations, from a besieged outlaw garrison to a widow's fish stall nobody wants to enter.

    •    A swamp worth crossing carefully — sinkholes, ancient elemental guardians, and a resident horror born from the bog itself.

    •    An atmospheric temple dungeon built for discovery, not just combat — read the room, piece together what happened, and decide what the Abbot really was.

    •    A final confrontation in a cave warren where the party must choose: fight, negotiate, or outwit the shaman who took what wasn't hers.

    •    8 original monster stat blocks, including the Doom Bloom, Swamp Lurker, Elemental Snail, and Ooze Spirit — creatures built for this adventure and easily ported into your own.

    •    8 magic items, from the Belladonna Scimitar to the Naga's Tome of Elemental Enlightenment itself.

    •    Full GM support: a session-by-session pacing guide (18-21 hours across 6-7 sessions), difficulty scaling for weaker/stronger/roleplay-heavy/combat-heavy tables, and critical reminders to keep your table's version of the story on track.

    •    Fully illustrated, gridded maps for every chapter, ready for use at the table.

A Standalone Adventure

No characters, factions, or locations from other OnceWas modules are required. Temple of Earth and Water is designed as a complete side quest — easily dropped into any existing campaign, or run as a stand-alone weekend of dark swamp gothic horror.

Compatible with the OnceWas Core Rulebook, and easily converted to any OSR or d20-based fantasy system.

Read the Novel. Play the Adventure.