Daniel Bishop's The Falcate Idol, published by Purple Duck Games, is the first installment of the "Campaign Elements" series for DCC RPG. While written specifically for DCC, it is easily adaptable to the OSR game of your choice. As of the time of this review, there are five other Campaign Elements adventures (even a bundled version of 1-5), but here we'll focus on the one that started them all.
This adventure (as well as others in the "CE" line) helps the judge provide a short, 4-8 hour quest to respond to some new element in the campaign. Perhaps the wizard is hunting for a spell, perhaps the cleric is suffering extreme disfavor with her deity, perhaps the warrior is looking for a some clue of the fabled sword whereabouts, etc. The Falcate Idol is a fantastic drop-in quest for those situations, and many more. It is also an ideal one-shot for a con game.
Along these lines of versatility, the adventure suggests using 2-8 level 2 PCs, 1-2 level 3 PCs, or a solo level 4 thief. This is not "hot air" from the author; the adventure, as written, is that robust. Essentially, the adventure consists of a small temple with a secret underground portion. Ten encounters in all. In addition to planting your own hooks, you can use the ones suggested: a thief must steal the Eyes of the Harrower; an arcane caster must retrieve the Egg of Creation.
Thematically, The Falcate Idol, is quite tight in the way it presents a temple devoted to the Harrower, a neutral god of both the moon and death. Every encounter reminds the PCs of where they are, and what they are up against. Some "dungeon crawls" have generic rooms that could be in any crawl; this is not one of them. Every room says "Harrower" in one way or another. To enforce the feel, there are simple guidelines, as well as an "additional effect" table, to alter the way magic works within the temple; there is also a treasure table for looting corpses.
Like any well-written adventure, The Falcate Idol provides many areas of expansion into the present campaign. There is a curse, a "Walking God", a few supernatural/magical items (my favorite is the moon die!), and a creature's "transformative" special attack that could spawn a new adventure, just to find a way to undo the transformation.
In my own game, I've used it as a shared dream sequence for the party whose cleric was disowned by his god. This quest provided a means to regain some favor.
I highly recommend The Falcate Idol. Buy it and try it out!
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