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Love to see a Saunders shoutout, and I genuinely appreciated the thoughtfulness behind your designer notes- clearly telegraphing your intent & limitations, all approached with due consideration & sensitivity. That rules! The encounters were great, and I’m a huge fan of the visuals. About the only thing I’d change is add some loot to make this whole delve worthwhile lol
Loot was definitely something I wound up handwaving in this one! If I manage a v2, that's one of the things I'll likely give some further thought.
Much is already said. I adore the little historic animal illustrations. They give massive “We are explorers”-vibes for the adventure.
This is the second time in this jam I hear about Arwe. Seems to be quite important :-D
One note outside of the game but inside your submission: Would be great to get some starters for the research you’re suggesting. Perhaps some initial wiki-links on the project page or perhaps there is some kind of work describing the not-so-well-doings of fiction of the past?
Well, I would hope that it's fairly self-evident that the way, e.g., Robert E. Howard wrote about and portrayed Black people in his fiction (in the Conan stories and elsewhere) was pretty terrible, and unfortunately you don't need to dig all that deep to see it. Which is not to say you shouldn't read or enjoy Conan - Saunders certainly did both! - only that it's a notable flaw, and one he shared with a lot of his contemporaries and followers, including folks in the fantasy game hobby.
As far as where to start for alternative views, I began my own research for this with the Wikipedia article on Abyssinia and followed several rabbit holes from there, including some dives into the specific history and folklore of Ethiopia and Eritrea. But even more relevant is probably the work of the Sword and Soul writers, which I would take as a pretty clear picture from POC of how they'd like to see themselves depicted in adventure fiction. Imaro itself is a great read; if you want a sampler of what the field looks like more recently, there's an anthology called Griots (which I confess I haven't read yet, but comes highly recommended) that also got a follow-up volume a few years later, where you can find the work of the major voices in the genre. There's a lot out there, and it's very cool!
A hexcrawl with an interesting theme and a clear vision. Very solid writing, and kudos for the Designer's Note! Many cool ideas to be found in this module. The visual design is crisp.
Great to see Saunders represented and cool worldbuilding described here. Bouda super sinister too
great world building and adventure.
This absolutely rips. So well constructed and so flavourful. The little bit of extra resource and respect for source material really shines through. Great work!!
I love your world building and NPCs. Also thank you for including the designer's notes and advice on the first page!Reading this was really insightful.
A nice submission outside the usual western settings. Well done too!
I presume this in part stems from trying to stick to inspiration stories that I am yet unfamiliar with, but I would have liked to see more going on in the random tables. Limiting nearly all entries to being either minor mundane effects or (as written) just sightings of mundane animals. I was also disappointed to find that the city Qoloe was only described via a single location. The page limit gets us all but I think perhaps this adventure could have provided more adventure material had it focused only on the overgrown city rather than a mini-dungeon, in a city, in a hexcrawl.
Great submission overall! I hope a few lines of critique don't come off as anything less than appreciation for the piece.
Very fun hexcrawl. Looking forward to seeing my players tackle it. An also, thank you for teaching me about Charles R. Saunders. Will start reading Imaro soon.
I love the use of the theme, great map, easy to run!
How could this be anything less than 5/5 Theme? Great work!
You've picked up a setting that's not easy to handle, but I think you passed with flying colours. A very modern and respectful take on a classic setting, very well done!
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and research that went into this. Good stuff.
This feels like an adventure that needs more space than what the jam allows. I’m hooked by what’s here, but then felt like it ended just when it was getting really interesting. It would be cool to see an expanded version of this one day.
I really appreciate learning about a new author I was unfamiliar with in the note at the end too. Well done!
Hi Cats! Thank you so much for your kind words. Yeah, I was definitely feeling the pinch of the space limits by the time I got to the end of it, and resigned myself to doing the best I could with painting in broad strokes; there was also some additional detail in the encounter tables that I wound up cutting for the same reason. So it goes. Working within the limitations of the jam was a great challenge, though!
An expanded version sounds like a very cool idea, and I'll definitely put some thought into what that might look like, and maybe add it as a tier at some point. After I get some of these other projects off my plate, of course....
Same. I had an entire table I cut from mine, and it still ended up being super cramped in layout. It’s fun working in the restrictions, but also tough.
I know how that is having too many ideas you want to get out there. But I do think this one would be legitimately cool as a bigger adventure.