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Thank you so much! I'm happy to hear you enjoyed my work!

I'll keep an eye out! I'm expanding mine as well!

Im expanding mine as well! I'll keep an eye out! 

Beautifully designed an illustrated, on theme!  I love meeting with death and his demand, love the climax of the soul pool! Fun and tight adventure! Would be great to throw at your players as they wake from a wild week of carousing!

Most definitely inspired by Clark Ashton Smith! I love his work second only to Howard! 

Thank you for you comments, I'm happy you enjoyed the work! 

Thank you so much! Yes, I really wanted to make a scenario that screws the PCs no matter what they do, in an interesting way, of course!

Yes, the Giant Snake is bolded, which calls it out as a creature found in the Shadowdark core rulebook. I was going to append a page number, but I was in a tug o' war with economy of space, so I left it out.

The DC to open the door is high, but since the guards have been alerted, they will soon be coming through it to apprehend the PCs. Also, the open-air nature of the cloister begs them to escape by climbing out. A treacherous climax indeed! As Valeria said to Conan, “Do you want to live forever?!”

I really enjoyed this submission! The idea of a crew crossing impossible spans of time with only one person awake at once is wonderfully evocative, and using private messages between watches is a clever way to turn that isolation into play. I also love how each character’s “prison” gives the journey a personal dimension while leaving plenty of room for the players to interpret the strange events in their own ways.

The presentation is great, with its NASA imagery, old computer terminals, and science-fiction paperback atmosphere. The sudden transition into a fantasy dungeon took me by surprise but gives the entire piece a wonderfully strange final turn. This is compact, imaginative, and great work!

Love your submission! As a local POI, it works well for any sandbox/West Marches-style game. I love that it is more of a liability that needs to be dealt with eventually, and the table of “Cult Activities” drives that home over a standard encounter table!

Also, I love your illustration style. I really need to get better at architectural illustration myself, so this is inspiring. The way you laid out the keyed locales around the landscape illustration is especially wonderful. Again, I’m inspired to break out of my columns and boxes looking at your work!

High marks!

Thank you so much! I really appreciate your enjoyment of my work and kind words! I am definitely a big believer in delivering the promise and hook of flavor and tone, and setting the mood to inspire the DM and players. I think it comes from growing up fascinated with 2E campaign settings like Dark Sun and Planescape. Not to say I don’t believe in or use cleverness in design or layout of locations, but one must deliver the tone!

Thank you so much for your kind words! I liken it to a heist because stealing the spine is the goal ultimately; whether by sneaking in or posing as pilgrims is up to the PCs, and yes, it is intentionally simple, relying upon the PCs to muck it up! As for duping you with the cover art, well, maybe the cover art was intended to be more evocative of the sum of the adventure’s parts, like a James Bond intro, the woman representing the pilgrims and the molted ones. Again, thank you!

Thank you for your kind comments on my work. I'm happy you enjoyed it! Haha! Yes! I have been listening to a lot of Clark Ashton Smith lately, which definitely inspired the nonchalant line about some extremely occult subject of study!

Thanks So much! Yes, if I could change it I would have set the Cody typography to medium!

thank you so much!

Very cool pointcrawl! It reminds me of classic Planescape adventures and would fit right in with the adventure anthologies Well of Worlds or Tales from the Infinite Staircase. The isometric maps are very well made and sit beautifully within the layout!

Some general feedback:

I love the idea that characters can wake and return to their bodies, but since they can do it instantly, can they just escape any dangerous situation? I was also unsure what happens when they begin dancing again. Do they return where they left off, or start over at the ritual site? Are the enemies still waiting for them? A little clarification would help.

The ending seems to come down to one DC 18 Strength check to throw the Coils at Mrepytun. What happens if it fails? Can someone else try, or can they recover the rope and keep trying? It might be nice if choices made during the adventure could improve their chances.

I was also unsure how possession works. The main rules say the body is taken and the spirit suppressed, but the final encounter says it lasts 2d4 rounds. What does the character do during that time, and what happens when it ends?

Thank you so much! Appreciate your comments on my efforts!

Hey there, thank you for your comment. Yes, all the art is mine. I'm an illustrator and designer by trade, a lifelong RPG player, and about two years ago I decided to start making TTRPG content. Scelus is some world building I have been working on for a long time, and I do plan on releasing more adventures set in that world!

I have been reading and collecting sword and sorcery books, including old paperbacks, for a long time. R. E. Howard and C. A. Smith are my favorites, so when I saw the Jam was open, I jumped in. There is definitely some "Tower of the Elephant" and “The Garden of Adompha” in there.

I felt the same about your submission! Its really great, I would also love to see more of your star sorcery implied setting!

I'm happy you enjoyed my work, and thank you for giving it a review!

Thanks for the thoughtful review!

The uncertainty is intentional, though I may not have made that clear enough in the text. The trials are not really meant to be clever puzzles. They are simple rites of faith and obedience meant for pilgrims who come in good faith. The PCs are thieves and impostors who only have the warning from the first chamber:

“Drink only when offered. Do not step over a serpent’s shadow. Do not speak your true name unless commanded. Kneel and be Judged.”

From there they have to read the rooms, decide what is being asked of them, and choose how far they are willing to go along with it. In the Hall of True Names, the tablet and stylus point toward writing a name, but for a group of thieves using false identities, giving up a true name should feel risky.

The real trial is whether these scoundrels can submit to the rites without their true nature coming through. They can also ignore the trials and try another route. The complex is open to the air, the walls can be climbed, and stealth is always an option.

The whole scenario is built around the fact that they are infidels sent to steal a sacred relic. In classic sword and sorcery fashion, they are in trouble from the start. Their best chance may actually be to take the pilgrimage seriously and somehow become worthy before they reach Zempra. Once they steal the Spine, the whole monastery turns against them anyway, and they still have to escape through three days of marsh while the monks and the great serpent hunt them down.

I'm working on a expanded Version of this module and I really appreciate your feedback!

Will Do! Shadow Dark right now, but I have been itching to play another system.

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!

Thank you so much! Means a lot! 

Just read through your work here it's great stuff! I love horror in my games and I will be putting this in into my option stack for my monthly sword and sorcery themed sandbox game! 

Really great work! I love the implied setting and the brutality of the timer and the temple denizens! Dialting the tunnels is also very very cool!

I love that you tackle time travel here. It feels weird in exactly the right way while still being very usable at the table. This would also be a great way to maroon your PCs in an entirely different setting once they reemerge, opening up all kinds of possibilities for the campaign.. I look forward to 1.1!

Thank you so much! I am going to be putting out a expanded version!

Again you honor me! It was a blur! I have been writing shadow dark content for the last two years so maybe im just getting used to trimming and compromising ... there were many compromises! Thank you buddy I appreciate you enthusiam! 

Thank you! Pulpy adventure and vintage paperback art were exactly what I was aiming for, so this means a lot. I’m really glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you so much sir!

Yes my Bad I joined on Sunday with my old account by accident(Dangerswift) I rejoined today. So yes technically i just joined. Sorry for the confusion! Thank you so much!

Hello I joined the jam several Days ago I'm reaching out to see if I can get my title! Thank you so much!