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Ibir Publishing1 day ago(+1)

The theming is on-point for the jam and the illustrations and map are fantastic, and like others, I enjoy how the writing really evokes the setting. Walking skins are definitely my favorite elements here! I think the idea of putting the PCs in robes that forces them to carry only 5 item slots is great, and the communion moment seems like it could be fun to run, and the magic item seems really powerful.

Some general feedback:

  • At the page size chosen, with such a thin font, I think it becomes really hard to read the text at the intended size. I’m zooming to 125% to be able to read comfortably.
  • While I love the idea of the pilgrimage as a setup to the adventure, I want to raise three points about it:
  1. I can see players choose to either always carry only 5 slots to not worry about the tests, making encounter 3 irrelevant; or, the one character with good DEX carries all of their inventory and barely worries about the test. If I’m running this in the future, I’d enforce the limit of 5 items and replace encounter 3 with losing one of those 5 items.
  2. At 33% chance of encounters in 6 opportunities, we are looking at an average of 3 encounters, each a simple setup and a single roll, and the possibility of repeating the same encounter more than once. If running this adventure, I think I’d skip rolling altogether and just place all of them in front of the players.
  3. While I love the quick encounter resolution, I don’t know how I could present some of the challenges in a way that describing it doesn’t give the solution to the challenge. Maybe I could present the Thirst encounter exactly as written, and make it a dilemma to the players, but if I do so, they know they have a choice between 100% becoming unworthy, or just over 50% chance of taking little damage. Maybe the tenets of the faith described in the first room should actually be at the start of the pilgrimage and it should be explicit that there’s no rest in these 3 days (so the damage actually means something during the trials)
  • The trials feel a bit one-dimensional and I don’t see them giving much leeway for players to be creative when passing them. Some might depend on players guessing what the room wants from the players. I could see players just asking the molted in 5 what they are meant to do, or just kneeling and praying in wait for judgment (as instructed over the gate, if they noted that down)

Overall, great use of the title, and so many fantastic ideas explored. Maybe it’s a matter of personal preference, but I feel like I’d want to redesign the trials if I were to run this adventure.

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sceluspress1 day ago (1 edit) (+1)

Because of the constraints of the Jam, I intentionally used the small page size with small type to be able to fit my content into the format, as I expect that pretty much everyone reviewing it would be looking at it either on a computer or an iPad at full screen. It was never intended to be printed and read at its current size.

  1. Pilgrimage encounter 3 is there to punish players who try to take more than would be prudent. If the PCs were to give all contraband to one high DEX PC, that’s a clever means of bypassing security, so there’s nothing wrong with that. And of course, as with any module, I could be down to do a hard 5 slot limit.
  2. I was balancing running a hex crawl without the hexes here to save space and create a more narrative section. A three day walk through the marshes and swamps would be 36 miles, and each day PCs would roll for an encounter every 2 hours for a total of 4 checks per day. I did not want to call for the GM to make 12 checks, so I truncated it, and in hindsight would just say they have two encounters per day. In my expanded version I am going to be adding the overland map through the marshes.
  3. That is cool. I will probably add something like that to the expanded version. I like the idea of the pilgrimage being a straight walk to the temple with no pit stops, pushing endurance.
  4. The trials are meant to be pretty pass or fail without a lot of creative solutions. They are not puzzles. They are expressions of faith within this cult that the characters are crashing. Ultimately, they have no faith. They are thieves. That’s the dilemma, the sword and sorcery of it. The trials are actually simple to pass, but most will probably come to the end Unworthy. They are completely bypassable as well. The monastery has no roof and scalable walls intentionally there to tempt the party to just try to sneak in. If I was running this and one of the PCs asked the Molted what to do in Area 5, I would have them respond, “Unworthy,” immediately, lol!

Good food for thought. Thanks for taking the time to give me a write up! I will definitely take these notes into account when making my expanded version of this module!

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