itch.io

I'd invite you to look carefully at the sorceress. Everything is intentional. And failing that - google: "My Wife and my Mother-In-Law"

Let us know how you liked your run!

There are some minor updates coming for a 1.1 that might improve the experience - if I remember I'll make sure to get that to you before the judging period. 

I don't (yet) know Cairn but if you told me this was the flagship product or the perfect starter scenario - the must have - I would believe you. It can't be blowing hot air to say that this is a near perfect entry. A completely stand alone and fully formed adventure from nose to tail, or toes in the case of the Weaver. 

It's also sold me on the virtues of point crawls given how non-standard the interior space of this adventure is. 

An impressive addition to Mythic Bastionland not only for the textual quality that fits right in with McDowall's writing but for how it presents a complete entry into the playspace. The system this module belongs to is a beautiful thing with too few 3pp offerings and here the community has an example of what to expect (in my humble opinion). 

The Sea Knight in particular is such a nice addition. Adding Knights to the game is a task and imagining this mythic take on the one to wear the helm, master or rivers and such, warms my heart. 

And just imagine the roleplay around that passion??? I want to play a Sea Knight. Now. 

Well there's a zeitgeist you attuned to I suppose!

Do you have any touchstones for Knives? 

You might very well fall in love with Doskvol. The lore is sort of spread through the book but it's surprisingly detailed and every hook seems to snowball into another hook. There's a 3rd party (advised) map that is absolutely massive and high res that also renders every single street. Famous stuff and this module reminds me of it. 

Great application of neat art and layout in what reads to me like a sort of 9/10th draft of a mini rpg. With a tiny carve out for a core dice mechanic you could probably submit this to a 1 page RPG jam, albeit with a swapping around of the layout. 

Great job there!

I can see the influences of Blades in the Dark here and the majority of the writing provides worldbuilding for the space one would play in. As a GM this gets the gears going and it's all pretty cool but it would require some work in terms of putting it all into practice. 

A very cool entry that lacks the context of an adventure in strict terms but can absolutely help you to generate this very specific flavor of Thief-y, underworld dealings.

It almost feels sacrilegious to critique this submission in conventional terms. It's an art piece and one that it is absolutely more of  a spark-table in all ways than it is a typical module. It's not clear to me on first reading exactly how either of the maps are used but if given to a GM for whom this really vibed they would improvise, create, and explore this material. 

The locations themselves have more than enough to go on so long as you're comfortable with providing clear and present context to the why of it all. 

This reminds me a lot of things like Hylics, Troika, and other kind of psychedelic, weird fiction. 

At any rate, as something system agnostic, any adventuring group that could venture to the moon in the first plate should absolutely adore the evocative situations, characters, and logic that the prose summons up. 

There's old school spirit in this here 5E offering. The first time a DC is set in this material it's the oft forgotten Nature, used to sus out something about the three suns in the sky. That's the kind of consideration for the fiction that's going to make some players happy. 

I appreciate that there's a bit of a point crawl, bit of a delve, and a nice little random encounter table which isn't exactly commonplace in the 5E space. It all paints a great picture of the realm of fire and if anything I'd like to see the results of that table expanded to provide even more interesting encounters. Love that Fire Giant tug'o'war result!

Toward the end of your pages there's also a great bit of occultism with the nails and wraith that just warms my heart to see. Weird magic and esotericism is so goddamn good. 

This is kind of jam packed even if it's limited by the format of the game jam. If you wanted to expand on this I think it would be really interesting to see fleshed out!

My only critical thought in terms of what's provided here is that it's not clear to me that a level 10 party would be challenged by the mechanical numbers provided. This is a pretty faint critique but it's worth saying that in 5E small amounts of damage, checks to open portcullises under no pressure, some of the DCs in general, can all probably go up a ways. Similarly I suspect that the titular Efreeti could really use some bespoke statistics, maybe even legendary status in order to provide a proper climax!

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Finally I just want to call out your art process as worthy of a bit of praise. You blended several sources really well and I'm not even really sure where some elements might be edited or not based on the intelligent use of all these assets. Tutor of the Ifrit's Art looks really damn good!

A very thorough thank you for the thoughtful, thorough review!

If I do expand this into a longer format it will be the first time I've done so in publishing!

The only correction I'll make is for the sake of my sister Morgan who is the very talented artist. She's snooping these comments I'm sure <3

And I appreciate all the above thoughts! 1.1 will be all the better for them.

From the adventure overview I found myself won over by the informal approach to explaining the goals and form of this adventure. It has a very "dear reader" quality to it which I think provides a certain voice to a kind of writing that can leave the author's style indistinguishable from their peers otherwise. 

The question of how the adventurers will be involved at all is provided by the end of that first page. 

Swallowed ( •᷄ᯅ•᷅ )!!
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The Title, the name of the pellet-bound place inside of the devil thing, and the guy it's named after do have a certain confusing quality that might lose a reader or two early on but it reminds me a lot of characters with unconventional names in storytelling. "The Talons" is a bit of a unique way of saying "The place that is Talon's". Anywhere else it might be Talonston or Talonsville. It could be "Mine" and provide a different kind of aha once the player figures out why. 

It's a fun take once you grok it either way. 

The concept oozes a very particular genre style that might belong in things like Planescape, Spelljammer, and all systems and worlds weird, fantastic, and outside the box. 

There's an array of NPCs complete with motivations and a sparing profile, a backstory and considerations for the construction and balance of power in this really bizarre, kind of liminal place. 

It's almost like an afterlife story. It's a prison most might succumb to. 

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So I come to the compliment sandwich. This is an incredibly inventive and unique concept that knows what it's about and has set up the dominoes so that you and your GM may watch them fall. 

That being said it absolutely will require a bulk of adaptation and translation by an experienced GM to be fully appreciated. Some of the text is repeated which could easily be edited, and on the pedantic side I might say this is a scenario, very much suitable to any game you'd like to bring it to. But the gameability will require buy in. 

The plus side is that I want to know all about Stolas and Talon and what kind of wider world they might belong to that would provide for waylaid souls to languish inside a devil's gut. 

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Awesome, awesome concept. Thank you for submitting to the jam!

Thank you for taking the time to make a super insightful review!

in the writing of Time's Needle I kept in mind the label of "Tribesmen" as being something I did want to find a replacement for and that adjustment slipped through the cracks. I think it's very astute - and I realized only too late - that it could very well be Yasha-Gok Cultists! 

Someone in the Discord joked - "What, not living up to your name?" Absolutely roasted!

So you're completely right, regardless of the superficial aesthetic of the warriors from the past, versus folks from the future, that will be reframed for 1.1. 

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As to the era shifting there's some ambiguity built in although that's not a satisfying answer. Outside of the space-limited format I would definitely further clarify that my intention overall is for the entire tower to shift and often. Some missed content is to be expected of course but you're right that it would be a shame not to have players see the interesting changes if the rolls were unlucky. That's something I learned in playtest too. The danger level is either going straight to Deadly to be sure more encounters happen or some adjustments will be made for more static encounters. 

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Again, thank you!

The only difference between this and some very professionally presented efforts is a bit of formatting and layout. What's here is very evocative, awesome prose. You'd be surprised how elevating a simple piece of art, an underline or bold, a box or a text frame can be. 

Please keep at it!

Evocative text, incredibly unique design for the Crane and overall an art style that I can't say looks like anything else I've yet seen. 

When writing sings in the reading, as a GM, I can't be more thankful. I could recite it direct to players and that means the gameability shoots way up. Do the hard thinking for me and you've got a winner. 

Nice job!

This is such a cool mix of the weird and esoteric. When I started reading I had a lot of thoughts about the broad applicability of the idea of these power words....hmmm Power Words! There should really be more out there beyond the classics of D&D in Stun, Kill, Pain, etc. It evokes Truenames and the fabric of the universe - all well at home in any genre and any system. 

Very cool use of your title and theme. Well done.

There's room to grow into formatting and layout but it's clear that you've been playing and/or reading the material of this great big hobby of ours. Please keep writing! This is the kind of completeness that turns out great modules. I hope you got to playtest this because it's pretty cool!

Just the way you described the arcane ooze reminds me to always keep the prose evocative, even with simple descriptions of a creature. 

"It flows against gravity, squeezes through cracks, and leaves smoking magic in its wake."

It sure does! 

4E brought a lot of great ideas into or in support of mechanics-forward ttrpg design. Seems like you're carrying the torch there. Love the inspo and framing here.

Feels a lot like some long lost entry directly from the Appendix N era! And I mean from the text to the map and the stylings of Zorax and his disturbingly realistic beard. Well done!

While there are tons of awesome entries into this jam with beautiful art and layout and fantastic amounts of creative content with few words, many of them are struggling to evoke the Appendix N theme that we're all here for. 

The Sword and Planet vibes here are indeed to be praised!

I enjoy the term beam cookers and look forward to any other unique nouns that don't fall back on well worn tropes like lasguns and such. So good!

Would that we could all have point-crawl map spreads this beautiful. Awesome, awesome, awesome. 

The freezing/heat mechanic is well considered with routes for exploration likely ending in a tough question as to whether players should return to Greenleaf or not - a fine line for lock and key design that often nullifies the effects of things like cold instead - and that means crucially, that they will actually be used and seen and players will take at least some damage, experience the cold, and consequences. 

That's the win from page one onwards in my book.

The unique layout and approach to design will require a little study from a prospective GM upfront but wowee all of your prose and instructions are very well written and often evocative of a scene. Great economy of words.

The maze construction mechanics and visualization is super clever and space efficient. Kudos on that!

Following a really stellar piece of cover art the contents of your submission have some hierarchy of information issues that would be easily rectified for a 1.1. The backstory runs directly into GM advice, then into magic item description, and a header in between these or some other kind of formatting break would be super helpful. 

The profile and situation with Temujin is great, as well as the rare (if not unique) take on locale that is the interior of a great beast which... I mean you did a great job it gives me the willies just reading Gills and Mouth let alone imagining myself there.

The art is very eye catching and the overall concept could easily be appropriate to a region-wide adventure if not for the space limitations of the jam. I really appreciate the dedication of space to an extensive backstory which helps to give enough context for all of the other panels to be run in probably any game if desired.

My one nitpick is that the lines surrounding the map and separating other parts of the layout don't feel purposeful even though they might be evocative of a soft line between day and night, waking and dreaming - they were to me distracting.

Overall a great effort either way!

This is a very skilled distillation of all that makes the stalker enemy type and the classic slasher villain of the 80's, what they are. 

If the Liminal Horror rules or a primer had room in the layout this could almost be considered a complete play resource which is to be applauded. 

Set up, hook, history, and a ticking clock (which is so crucial for this kind of one-shot material) and I really think you have an easy pickup for Liminal Horror enjoyers. 

Nice job!

So there are entire small games published in the vein of this premise. I had no idea I needed a polymorphic chicken demon caper like this but wowee hahah. Great idea, great premise as an adventure itself...great all around.

The name of the game here is really those temptations and it summoned up 2015's The Witch for me in particular. 

I genuinely think you could make a micro game out of this premise but regardless of what you do, great entry. I might have to find a place to use this at my table ASAP. 

Being that we're in the "Adventures with Towers" club, it's important that I come by as a show of solidarity. 

I appreciate the Sci-Fantasy here as it caught me by surprise! There's something about Fey, the forest and its health, and the presence of weird magic and artefacts that blends really well, no more so than here. 

There's quite a bit of interconnectedness here and it seems to me that these few locations could very well keep adventurers busy while they figure out how to deal with the troubles at hand.

There are a couple novel mechanics here, my favorite being the "using food" table. Rerolling reactions checks is such a simple, elegant ruling to what food might do and not one that's ever occurred to me. That's worth kudos!

The adventure itself is a convincing mesh of sci-fantasy and makes me think I should have gone a little farther future with my own entry.

Thank you for your entry!

Novel mechanics like the storm are awesome to see for Shadowdark! In a way it's a lot like framing the random encounters of a typical dungeon to an outside space and that just makes all kinds of sense in a system that dispenses with overly complicated systems.

I am not specifically a dino kid, current or former, but this and their sentience might have converted me.

All in all a very tidy little point crawl that could easily evolve into a mini hexcrawl if you were to develop just a few more pages. Very fun stuff!

My final thought is that with the exception of the 4 spell scrolls bringing the average for loot up this is maybe just a little stingy on loot, totaling maybe 10xp depending on your reading of the rewards. This is of course a very personal design choice.

There is a (somewhat sordid) history of Wolf hunting in recent recorded history which lends the adventure's hooks authenticity. All of the preamble and explanations of exploration are appreciated and set the scene for a GM more than amply.

As a point crawl of sorts I'd like to have seen at least an NPC or two with a personality, wants, and drives that align with or against the Wolf-Riders. 

The content and locations of the adventure are all fun and I enjoyed the magic items design.

There's not a delve here, nor hordes of loot, but I appreciate the trend of above ground content coming to Shadowdark. It's clear that this adventure would fit right in to the Western Reaches and slot just about anywhere into a hex to provide a nice drop in adventure for players on their travels.

This is a tidy puzzle, a tragic backstory, and also a complete loop for a one shot with a ticking clock. All well done!

The presentation as a Shadowdark adventure specifically is only thin because there are no typical random encounters, no certain necessity for a torch or spelunking, no treasure.... but, as a point of design if this had been explicitly system agnostic all of these things might be provided in some other context.

As is I believe that The Pale Palace feels like it would be a good finale scenario to a regional story or hook that leads players to investigate and for that it sparks the imagination on how one might get there. 

I'm considering changes to the Boon table for a 1.1. In my mind I wanted her contribution to spells to be specifically divinations but I could maybe widen that somehow or make it unique. As is, she can provide Augury as the most common roll. 

I'm glad you enjoyed the pamphlet!

Level 8 has got to be the highest level Shadowdark material I've read both in this Jam and anywhere which is already a nice thing to see. 

Right off the bat I appreciate the secret door that allows the opportunity to go left or right rather than tunneling the crawlers onto a certain path. I'll suggest that the secret room as written is kind of a lock with a key provided in that it will be very difficult, maybe even impossible, to miss or fail as written. A tiny bit of misdirect or uncertainty might help there but it's also not an imperative thing that it's difficult to get into. 

The horde mechanic is pretty novel and I'm not sure I've seen another in SD material yet, very well designed from reading it anyway. 

The specificity of the thermal-based trap in room two seemed odd to me at first but then I realized that if there's a way for players to anticipate this it gives them a neat way to interact with that sense and of course it's neatly signposted by the lizards!

I digress of course but the early rooms really grabbed me. 

The whole conceit for this dungeon is really cool and of course a great use of the title you were provided. I'd be interested to hear about how the hordes work out in playtesting. 

My only concern on reading is that the loot might be a little light for the trouble of an 8th level party but that's to taste and balancing for sure. 

Thanks for entering this cool idea!

That cheeky stat block on the torn cover is chef's kiss and I smiled like an idiot at the idea. I promise I'll wait a while before I steal it!

Praise aplenty for the prose, inside and outside, and of a timeless kind I found them to be. 

Forsooth. 

In any case I have to start off by echoing other commenters - this is brevity done with style and confidence. I've said in this jam before that I thought folks were doing a lot with a little and this has got to be sub 1k words by a certain margin!

And once again all of the interior, playable text, is basically in character? Wow. Every bit a flavorful piece for the GM to prepare from and the kind of spark-table style game design that I'd like to try a whack at myself. 

Bravo. 

If I had to dig up a nitpick and I mean really dig, this seems particularly system agnostic in all ways except for that Water Weird. Awesome either way!

Your entry is a fantastic effort and the form factor is always a challenge! Any criticism is just to help us all get better at the job!

Keep up the good work!

Of course! Thank you for your contribution, truly. I enjoyed your take!

Love the oblique thinking on what could easily have been well-worn territory. The magic items in particular are lovely, particularly that amulet that protects you but might just undo you too! 

Another fine example of an entry doing a lot with a little. This is one of those you pick up and drop in wherever you like, whenever you need it. 

There are some really novel ideas in here that I don't often see in adventure design. Stuff like a passageway that folks wearing metal armor can't go through. Those gems are among some rooms which are archetypal and perhaps a little straightforward but certainly at home in Shadowdark.

Some of the room descriptions have an informal quality to them and there might be a lack of information hierarchy that's helpful in modules. Bold points of interest, indented text, bullets, etc. These things aren't requirements but they can help with readability and knowing what's in a room at a glance. 

That being said the contents of this module shine in the genre they belong to and I would happily add this to the Western Reaches to provide more places to delve.

First praises are for the clear writing, formatting, and layout. The color palette and sparing use of collage art works very well with just a little.

The "What's in the Room?" table had me smiling as it reminds us that the apprentices inside are just living their lives!

A couple of the rooms, namely 5B have a lot going on and therefore a lot of bullets to explain, some of them not necessarily listed depending on importance. There might be some room to edit here, although at times the room text is written to be read from what I understand.

As a fellow Wizard's Tower entrant this year I applaud your efforts! I particularly enjoy the sentient sword as there are not enough of those in modern ttrpg material!

As we are fellows in using Silkworms within our modules I felt I had to come over and give yours a read.

Wow!

So far this might be the lowest word count submission I've read and it's such a cool little premise. With this and the goal of being system agnostic in mind, you've done very well to highlight motivations, stats guidance, and the situation at the Silkweaver's locale. 

I really feel everything a GM who enjoys improvisation needs is right here. Plug'n'play, add your system's particular mechanics and away you go. A fantastic little sidequest!

Thanks for your hard work.