Another snappy little adventure from Adamant Entertainment. (Let's face it, the cover illustration alone is worth a buck!) The papers of a deceased professor eventually enable the players to learn that he had discovered a lost civilization buried in the jungles of central America. They also learn of the golden idol these tribesman worship, and the unscrupulous nephew of the dead professor who has rushed to steal the treasure. Our doughty heroes follow after to save the tribe from the dastardly nephew. Along the way, they are captured by the tribesmen (who have been seduced by the nephew and told they are evil men trying to kill him), and are brought before the Chief of the tribe. If our heroes can confuse the issue enough, they can prevent their own deaths and undergo a test of their honesty; however the nephew may manage to force them into the old temple to overcome the hidden boobytraps and recover the golden image of the god, with the intent of stealing it from the tribe and fleeing back to civilization. Can our heroes overcome the ancient defenses of the temple and triumph? Will they prevent the nephew from stealing the idol? Only the Players can tell for sure. This particular adventure could be of great use to the GM, setting up not only an Indiana Jones style of adventure, but also perhaps even creating a villain that can appear again somewhere along the way to confront the players. I liked this one a lot.

Bought purely for the conversion to Fudge/Fate in the back of the PDF. Although the adventure felt a bit standard, the characters were really interesting and made the adventure better.

A solid attempt to bring the Amazing Tales line and the Spirit of the Century line together in one product. I do hope they consider going back and updating their earlier works.

Very very disappointing, especially since it was written by Steve Long, for whom I've always had great respect.

This isn't a pulp adventure - it’s a dungeon crawl with a thin 'pulp' veneer. Worse still it suffers from the cardinal sin of asking the players to make skill rolls to discover clues which are absolutely necessary for the game to continue, and it railroads the game from beginning to end - which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn't so obvious.

The layout and production values are good, as are the maps. The Spirit of the Century stating is okay - but it doesn't feel remotely suitable for use with SotC. If I was rating it as a Dungeon Crawl if would do a lot better. If you are looking for a pulp adventure though, as opposed to a D&D adventure clothed in a pulpy setting look elsewhere.

Despite it's cover, which suggests Adamant are moving into the 'spicy' genre of pulp, 'The Golden Idol...' is very much a traditional adventure scenario. The players are led along a pretty linear route to a good old fashioned 'dodge the traps and retrieve the treasure' type ending. Whilst this simplicity may be off putting for experienced players, this adventure would be a good introductory story for a new group.