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What an ingenious take on Europa! The layout is very clever and evokes the feeling of a field notes/manual. Great job instilling an eeriness throughout the module, from the area descriptions to the margin notes.
I'm a little unclear on the Revenants and how players might see them or move the clock forward. Are they the White Bull, Talos (Blue), and Crying Europa (Purple)?
It’s impressive how simple and effective the layout is to set up the mood for the module! Really interesting to play on Europa being both the moon and the mythical entity!
One thing I was not sure if I understood: In the node map, is the dashed lines meant to be difficult terrain?
Thank you!! Yeah, I couldn't decide between which Europa so they're both in here, haha.
Doh! They were meant to be secret paths initially, but I forgot to mark them. Difficult terrain is also a good one...Thanks for pointing it out. I'll have to fix that post-jam :)
If I got that title, I would finally wrote my LotFP Wiedergänger module in 1700s Vienna.
But sure. You go with the other two meanings of the word :-D
I think it went a bit over my head, first the notes for the player’s IN my GM-texts, then the switch from scifi exploration to ancient myths. But I went with it. I got the Taurus-constellation, bit of the lore and the ending.
Was thrown of again by the list of revenants and their Tags, but I assume that’s my non-knowledge of the system.
Overall it’s impacting me by curiosity and its intransparency. Your writing doesn’t hurt either :)
Very clever and fun! I loved what you did with the field journal and notes in the margins. The map was great, as was the torn cover. Would be fairly easy to pick up and play.
The visual style is original and immediately draws you into the narrative. The margin notes are intriguing to read individually and seem to be addressed to the game master, until it's later revealed that they are notes the players can find—a very nice twist.
I feel it's written more to be enjoyed by the game master who will lead the adventure than to be easy to run, which is an interesting experiment, but it slightly diminishes its playability value. An interesting submission.
Five seconds into opening the document and I'm already sold on theme. I don't even care about the contents and instantly want to keep this in my collection. Torn cover with shading, yellowed paper, handwritten notes in the spare spaces between typed fonts. I almost always suggest that if you are using a cover page in a low page count jam, you make the cover carry as much weight as possible. This one does very little for Writing or Playability, but it is absolutely carrying a heavy weight for the visual and theme elements.
The rest of the document has a lot of open space. Again, this goes a long way on visual and theme, but is limiting the impact and elements there for game aspects. This is not to say you didn't make the space work well. Right away, you give a clear objective. No fluff and filler. Detailed, concise, and on target.
Immediately after is a danger clock to outline the scope and consequences. As I read through the map, I find myself feeling like I can pretty easily work out the details or extra mechanics as needed from what is here if I need to. I would probably flip the numbers on 4 and 5 since the obvious path is sequential in that direction, but just a personal choice.
In 5, you mention an item that can kill Talos, but when I go to Talos, I don't see it there also. For GMs who skim, that might get missed. That said, this whole document doesn't have that many words, so it isn't as big of an issue as it might otherwise be. On 6 is the first time I paused. The notes are still damp... on a frozen planet in a ship that's been here who knows how long without life support since it's split in half? I have so many questions and I'm never going to get answers. This would be a perfect place to have one of those handwritten call-outs asking how it's still damp. It doesn't answer the mystery, but does show you're aware of the oddity and suggesting to the GM to use it as a creative point however they want. It's pretty neat to have the meta of the blue notes being found also being this paper in the setting itself.
7 could use a few adjustments to the way it is written for clarity sake. First is “She cannot be consoled, and she will not leave unless convinced successfully 1d6 times.” The word successfully assumes you did it, but then you need to do it potentially 5 more times. I would instead change it to something like “She won't leave and cannot be consoled unless 1D6 effective reasons or impactful arguments are given to convince her.”
The second is “Once convcined, the moon leaves Jupiter’s orbit, and the party is returned to their spacecraft before crashing on the surface.” Typo aside, some people may accidentally read this as being returned to the ship and then crashing again somewhow. I would instead have probably reworded this to “Once convinced, the party finds themselves on their restored spacecraft prior to the initial crash. The moon can be seen leaving Jupiter's orbit.”
The Revenants end up being at the end and kind of threw me. Only now do I realize what the dancing comment was written about. I go back and skim and don't see anything about Purple Princess though. I am only now finding out Talos from the block above is the Blue Queen. Maybe add a small (The Blue Queen) in small print under the name Talos.
I imagine a chance of encountering Purple Princess as a random moment to appear and really complicate situations. Imagine being in the middle of a fight with the White Bull or Talos and a moment of friendship helping one another causes Purple Princess to appear and coax the players into letting themselves be killed! I just wish it was clearer early on that the emotion events are a trigger. I darn near overlooked this thinking I was looking for a random table of some sort.
Overall I love this. When a document is full color background, I need it to be solid to be willing to print them due to ink usage. I would say this is worth it. I'm probably not going to run it, but only because my groups favor settings where there aren't spaceships or earth solar systems. I'd have it just to have and maybe adapt at some point to a similar concept like shipwrecking or something. If nothing else, it just looks really good and clean. Good job.
Oh, I also forgot to mention the note on Talos was a nice touch for a way to maybe stop them if you didn't get the proper weapon. I always like having multiple options on handling a situation.
Great job with your first page. The ripped cover and the handwritten notes really sell the vibe.
I would love a description of the surface or Europa at the start, though. It sounds icy?
A nitpick about key 6, when you have a paragraph continuing to the next page, its helpful to put a (cont.) at the end to inform the reader there's more on the following page:
In 7. Talos' Home, a Con test that becomes a potential one-hit kill is pretty brutal. I'd probably change this if I were to run it. Also, would be good if there were clues on how to convince Europa hidden throughout the other locations.
I love the Revenant triggers being emotions. That's a really cool mechanic.
Overall, the layout and design is clean and easy to parse, and the adventure nails the Appendix N theme, well done.
Encounters being trigger by certain emotions is fantastic.
Thank you so much!! I went for small twists haha
Loving the tactility of the design. It’s a cool feeling as the grounded descriptions give way to the poetic lore of Europa.
Intriguing premise landing on Europa.
A fine blend of scifi and greek mythology
Reaching Talos's Home and encountering Europa was such an experience!
Really loved this one, especially Talos. Feels mythic in all the right ways.
Thank you! I tried to follow the layout of Lore Blocks when creating the stat block, since it's a system agnostic scenario.
Great Premise, Excellent Writing!!!
Great entry! I love what you did with the cover; the tear and the half-revealed text is awesome. You also get a lot of great mileage out of those blue annotations. I think you really hit the spirit of the jam too. I can totally picture this as a novel of the era.
Thank you! Most of my time was spent making the cover, so I'm glad it paid off. I haven't read much Appendix N, and my main goal was to improve my vibes from last year, haha. :)