I absolutely love this zine. The theme, which is I assume inspired by the Franco-German fairytale circle, is lovely and so fitting to the title. Sprinkled with a namedropping Hastur for Lovecraftian Eldritchness, superb. The beautiful map with the locked doors, ensuring the players “see” everything. The mansion and it’s surrounding, telling a story like all those eerie, bit spooky walking simulators, asking the players to read them without telling everything from the getgo. The visuals, the easiness to transport sich into a system. It’s wonderful.
And because I love it and will totally run it, I will now – unasked – tell you everything I will tweak. Because this was an almost perfect match to me – up to the. Very. Last. Paragraph. So let’s begin with the first paragraph.
The backstory is a bit up and down. One thinks “Oh, fairytale”, then “Oh, family drama”, then “Whoah, that escalated quickly”, then “WTH a cryopod doing here?!?”. Long story short: I’ll ditch the cryopod. Dead wizards can lie in marble tombs and are able to teleport eager adventurers, as well.
My startingpoint won’t be a dungeon with a fight. The players will prepare characters, but they will be children for a few minutes, playing an adventurer party as a game of chicken, delving into an old mausoleum near their village. There will be tension, but no combat. They will turn into their characters after they teleported.
Absolutely nothing to change in the mansion. I have an idea for the book in the library, turning it into a Mimic that reveals itself when they turn they third page just saying “Hastur”… Should be warning enough.
But – for me – there needs to be one big change: based on the story you wrote and for the sake of a twist, this cannot end with a battle against a wolf/knight hybrid in a Shellyian laboratory. It will take a bit of work, more than to be done in a itch-comment, but this has to turn against Hastur, breakting Illaria from him and ending all this: the experiments, the pain, the regret. All this came from Illara’s longing to be loved by her parents by being able to do magic. Because of this she turned to The Old One. We’ll have to make her understand that one does not have to change so others love you. Perhaps going the Disney-route and letting her parentghosts appear (That might be over-doing it).
This might have gotten more ranty than constructive. I’m very invested into your zine already 😉
Good work.