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The first chapter of the product, The Earthquake Hits sets everything up - two adventures, Disaster Strikes! and Prison Riot! provide the PCs with their first challenges in the post-quake world. In Disaster Strikes!, relief efforts to the stricken city are complicated by the appearance of a deadly super-powered arsonist with designs on the wrecked and highly-flammable local refinery; can the heroes halt his rampage in time? The second adventure, Prison Riot!, gives the heroes a sticky hostage situation to deal with - the local meta-human prison's power has been knocked out by the quake, and a villain named Dr. Anarchy has taken the warden hostage. Complicating matters are the inmates, some of whom have already reacquired their full powers. It's up to the PCs to contain the chaos and stop any loss of life. Several options are presented for spicing up the adventures in Section One, including role-playing opportunities, set pieces that could affect the adventure, and excellent summaries of important plot points for the GM.
Section 2 of the product, Life After the Quake, is exactly what it says - dealing with life in the campaign city after the massive earthquake. Several notable sections of the city are outlined, along with factions battling for control of them. A plethora of options are presented for the GM, including arming the local gangs with high-tech weapons provided by a villain from Section 3 of the adventure, Atomiknight (in Arms Race), a gang of supernatural criminals (appearing again in Rise of the Undead) and the desperate civilian authorities trying to hold the city together. Statistics for the major NPCs and suggestions for running them and any gang members they are associated with are provided. A small gripe I have in this section is the inconsistency of the artwork - several of the viallin characters have art that's really quite good, but the section on NPCs is somewhat undercut by some characters lacking art entirely (Silver Lynx) and one fairly mediocre piece of art (Nektrotic, leader of the supernatural Ghost Possee). Overall, though, Section 2 of The Sixth Seal is a strong bridge to the final part of the toolkit, Post-Quake Adventures.
The 3rd section of The Sixth Seal presents the GM with several adventures to challenge the PCs. in Arms Race, a street gang attempts to hijack a vitally-important aid shipment to the campaign city. Making matters worse, the gang is armed with high-tech weaponry, supplied to them by a mercenary that has plundered stores of technology from the city's devastated industries. Rise of the Undead has the campaign's heroes attempting to capture an internationally-wanted criminal, only to find themselves up to their necks in vampires, zombies, gang members and a villain who's not what they may have expected. The final adventure, Barbarians at the Gates, takes place several months after the quake and stacks the PCs against a coalition of the city's gangs, backed by their super-powered leaders. Much like The Earthquake Hits, Lafftery and Adamant present the GM with plenty of options to spice up the adventures, all presented in their introductions.
Section 4 of The Sixth Seal is easily its weakest point. Little more than a short advice section on the recovery efforts as the campaign moves forward, it nonetheless presents a hopeful coda to the fairly grim material preceding it, making any sort of sting the purchaser might feel passing at worst.
Two appendices are set after the four main sections of The Sixth Seal. Appendix A is a collection of short 'seasoning' encounters, intended to be inserted as a means of bringing the flavor of The Sixth Seal across. Appendix B provided GMs who are reluctant to devastate the continent with an alternate plotline that confines the disaster to the heroes' campaign city. There's a real gem here for those who want it - an eminently-punchable supervillain, the Omni-Agent, who may be responsible for the devastating earthquake! For campaigns that are less concerned with the moral ambiguity of a faceless disaster, the Omni-Agent provides a clearly-defined and extremely credible (within the genre) cause, not to mention an appropriate ending villain for the campaign model presented in The Sixth Seal.
Overall, The Sixth Seal is an excellent product for those GMs looking to inject a serious disaster into their campaign world. Despite some minor editing and typo issues, the look of The Sixth Seal is tight, easily-read and well laid out. Kudos to Lafferty and Adamant for an outstanding entry into the growing Superlink family of products.
