Echoes of Salvation is a mystery/investigation adventure set in the world of Eberron for a 5th-level party, by Kirill Asanov.

Disclaimer: We were provided with a free digital copy of this product.

The Story & Setting

The High Walls District of Sharn is rife with tension. A brutal murder has left people unsettled, and a new self-styled prophet called Old Man Garin is not helping. His inflammatory rhetoric preaches that society has lost its way, turning away from the gods (whose voice he claims to hear), putting their faith in technology and arcane magic instead, and blaming a community of Droaamite refugees for the murder, outsiders and monsters in his eyes.

In addition, a new drug is ravaging the community, and the Captain of the Guard is cracking down on any malcontents with extreme prejudice, inadvertently helping Garin’s cause as he accuses her of only doing it to help the Droaamites, especially since she’s a tiefling. When a mutated abomination rampages through the streets, Garin whips up a mob and launches a pogrom which attacks the refugee camp, prompting another round of escalation from the Guard in return, and things start to spiral out of control, though the players have a chance to stop this early.

Finally, Garin initiates a ritual – supposedly for “protecting the faithful”, but by now, the players must have found out at least part of his true intentions, and they have to stop it before a new threat makes its home in Sharn.

The whole story takes place across 3 in-game days, and as you can guess can get pretty grim. High Walls is a post-war ghetto where desperate people live, complete with a crumbling orphanage, a drug problem, and heightened political tensions, making it the perfect place for cults to recruit new members and criminal organisations moving in to stake their claim. Regardless of how well the players roll or play, it’s almost inevitable that people will die.

Art & Layout

I really like the look of this supplement – there’s a distinct black and white theme, with gorgeous portraits for every notable NPC and plenty of additional art sprinkled it. There’s also a detailed map of the district, as well as a map for the final encounter.

The adventure is neatly segmented into 3 parts, for each day. The first part also contains a lot of background information, and the NPC profiles, with lots of detailed information for the interactions, along with plenty of boxed text and additional DM guidance, optional rules, and stat blocks.

Extras

There is some additional stuff included that I’d like to mention. First of all, there are some extra rules and statblocks for crowd battles – not really “mass combat”, but stuff that makes it easier to handle the riots and clashes of the mob with the guards. There’s also a very useful tracker for the passage of time, and Garin’s influence – certain actions that the players take can increase or reduce it, which has massive effects on the outcome of the adventure.

Final Thoughts

Echoes of Salvation is a gripping story about the descent into fanaticism, and certainly something more intriguing than a simple dungeon crawl (though you know I love those as well). If your players like high-tension stories with a lot of investigation, and you can easily run it in 3 sessions – however, keep in mind that it’s got some heavy themes and things can easily go wrong in the story, leading to a darker ending.

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