itch.io

absolutely fair game :)

good spot! Updated links, and here for good measure

thanks for the heads up :)

I’ve also just posted my submission, if you want an example to go off of. :)

Hey, thanks for asking!

The short answer is… any of the above!

To elaborate a bit… The end goal of the jam is to have a fully keyed map of a city district. So when the players ask that dreaded question - “what’s in this random house?”-, the GM has an answer!

You have 2 a4 pages, so it’s a pretty limited space. There’s no need to go overboard. I’d be grateful if you wrote down a single NPC statline with a description and motivations, and nothing else.

If you’re struggling for inspiration I’d recommend starting with a random NPC. Either with the generator I linked in the Resources tab, or using the Notable Denizens/Secrets tables from the Swyvers core book.

I’d also recommend joining the Discord. Somebody has been posting examples from their submission, which might help with layout queries.

I thought it might be useful to make a little guide on stats for Swyvers!

The first thing I want to make clear is that it is broadly OSR-compatible. HD 2, Armour as Chain, Dmg as Knife will absolutely do just fine, so don’t worry if you’ve not got a copy of Swyvers to hand.

Below is a quick run down of the different stats an Arsehole or Adversary has.

HD number of d6es rolled to determine HP

ATK bonus to hit, dice rolled to determine damage.

DEF and INI are the target number to hit, and their initiative order, respectively. for humanoid combatants, DEF and INI are dependent on the weapon they carry. so ‘DEF and INI as Weapon’ is fine.

ARM armour lets you roll to reduce damage and each has a different value, but I wouldn’t get too lost in that sauce. However, armour can be either Ratty, Decent, or Mint, which incurs disadvantage, a flat roll, or advantage, respectively.

MOV Movement rate. Given as a comparative measure rather than in feet per round. For example, as slow man or as horse.

Example stat block: Bear

Bear. HD 6/DEF 8/ ARM as ratty leather coat /MRL 8 /ATK +1 (Bite 2D8+2) or +4(Maul x2 d10+1) /INI as Unarmed /MOV as Bear

great suggestion. I’ve reassigned the 4 ish people already signed up, an email will go out in a sec!

If I can get Daniel or Luke or someone to sign up, they can have the church. otherwise it will just be luck of the draw.

I hope you can forgive some self-promo – I made a little supplement for Swyvers that adds new tables for Dominant Functions, Rumours/Opportunities, and Notable Denizens/secrets: Crown’s Wood

Assignment List

Make sure to double check the licensing and attribution requirements of any media you’re using.

Infinite Twin has graciously allowed me to highlight their excellent Swyvers tables and generators, with such fine specimens as What’s Wrong With Your Dog?, Random Swyvers, and Nobs and Church Brass.

Old Book Illustrations!

Wikimedia Commons – Floorplans!. Some of these images will be Creative Commons while others are public domain.

Names names names of real old-timey Londoners!

Whooooops! should be fixed now thanks!

This is so f***ing weird. I love it. You writing has a great depth of gameable detail to it.

Interesting that you statted it for Into The Odd. Would totally slay as a Troika! adventure. Funny coincidence that you used the same font that the troika! core rules are printed in as well!

So far the best module I’ve read. Just really really solid!

Theme: On point. Nittiyam is a great name. The time travelling concept is really well done. Love the chronovores and raptors.

Writing: Includes exactly what I need to know and nothing else. Content wise I initially felt that it was a little spare — most rooms being empty — but when I got to the final room I realised where the meat of this module is. Also, the magic items are very throughtfully written.

Layout: Exceptional. Your typography is so good. Extremely readable. I’m sure you had to do lots of editing to keep the word count low enough for a larger point size, and I assure you it was worth it.

Art: Good art, used with intention.

Playability: Like I said earlier, I initially struggled to conceptualise running this as I was reading through, but this is because I imagined running it as a standalone module/one shot. Clearly this module would work excellently as a random encounter in a hexcrawl or similar sandbox. It made me really want to throw a party into that final room and see what they did.

Thanks very much for the kind words. For the way the NPCs are written, you can thank Josh McCrowell and Warren D’s Designing Dungeons course, which I closely followed to make the entire module. A link to the course and my initial workbook is on the project page!

Thanks for reading and leaving a comment :) My personal fave is of course the gorilla!

Thanks so much for taking the time to read and leave a comment, it is much appreciated :)

The art is by my lovely partner. I will pass on your prause! Attribution is missing from the pdfs, definitely an oversight on my part.

You’re totally right about the power. I facepalmed a bit reading that. Intuitively I had decided that the ship absorbed lightning from the perpetual storms, but seems to have been one of those things that felt obvipus to me while running it but in fact is not mentioned anywhere in the module :p Further to that, I would have loved to make the fact that it’s a boat more relevant – adding an engine room, mechanics for sinking the ship, and fleshing out the Kraken more come to mind

First off, GNU Terry Pratchett.

Second off, I am really grateful for the thoughtful feedback you gave me so I will try my best to do the same in turn :)

Theme: The unmortals is a strong idea and feels just on the right side of weird for a traditional fantasy game. I do wonder if making the module system agnostic/easily adaptable has resulted in a slightly more generic setting.

Writing: The writing is clear and readable. I respect the choice to provide an in-depth rationale instead of providing detailed individualised keys, allowing GMs to have a better idea of how to fill in the blanks. However, I do think that in some cases you could have your cake and eat it too. A few things could be worded just a little more evocatively to help GMs down the right path, without impacting word count. The Sword of St Tomaz is a good example. Cool name, but how important is it for the GM to know which saint it is attributed to? At the moment it’s a piece of lore that doesn’t really point anywhere and is hard to come up with a concept for. “The Sword of Petrification”, for example, is perhaps more gamey-sounding but easier for a GM to rustle up an item description for.

Layout: Clear, well sized font. Good line spacing makes such a difference to readability. No notes.

Art: I love your art! The illustration of Death(or an Unmortal?) is really good. Personally, as a GM I wouldn’t be able to get much out of the owl illustration, although it looks nice. I think I would have preferred it if the owl was omitted and the cartography was in turn expanded and made more informative.

Playability: This module isn’t your typical pick-up-and-play. Locations like the fort and lighthouse are calling out to be keyed beforehand which would be take a fair amount of prep time. However, I realise that this is a feature not a bug. I’d be super interested to see more of the material you used when running it in your campaign.

I really like your Rumours mechanic. The customised reaction table combined with encounters is excellent too. Loads of emergent situations could come from those alone.

If I was running this I would 100% introduce an alternative to killing the witch. Maybe something to do with the sword.

Overall this is a nice little campaign frame. It is similar to Andrew Walter’s Fronds of Benevolence in that depending on the GM’s tastes and style, it could last a gaming group just a few sessions or be the basis of an entire longterm campaign. An excellent effort in 4 pages!

I like it!

Amazing! Thanks for playing. honey heist is a perfect choice!

5 stars all around. I wanna be a brine baron!!!

Awesome! :)

Hey this is freaking excellent!

Did you end up finishing the embroidered map? I would LOVE to see it!!!

Thank you! :)

Thanks!! Haha, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure myself. It is taken verbatim from the article this is based on (link on the project page). I think it speaks to the moral corruption of the conspicuously pious. Maybe it makes more sense in Dutch. But it also feels right that it’s a bit nonsensical

Thank you very much!

Utterly bizarre, I love it!

Thank you very much! Yeah, I am thinking of making a background based on it as well, perhaps even a little dungeon – who knows?

Love it!!!!!!!!! Just a heads up, it looks like the pdf might be broken? looks really garbled and cut off on my phone.

I like it, very clever!

Glad you like it! Yes, that’s right - whatever weapon they can get their hands on!

This is super cool and extremely readable. I am thinking of mixing it up with Swyvers.

Thank you very much! :)