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Colorful and evocative. Very Dying Earth. Just a little thing, but I appreciate you provided a printer friendly version.
Hey no worries. I had always planned to buy another player told me it was a bit of an accessibility issue for them so I made it a priority.
A well written adventure that you can drop in anywhere! Super easy to read with a clear, thematic goal.
Thank you! Yours was great too.
A pretty cool entry! It is definitely packed with content, and after a careful read you understand it more. The art and color choices are on point, I wish there was generally a bit more whitespace, but given the amount of words, I’m pretty sure you had to fight to make it fit 🤣
Haha yes I was fighting for my life to make it fit. Especially with the pregens. After the comp I'd like to build it out into a guy fledged adventure book.
Very cool, and a good atmosphere. I like the physical setting in particular, it’s a great location for a dungeon. Great job!
Thank you! I'm glad the location was appealing. I tried to write it so that it could be played as a one shot or explored in more detail within a campaign.
Looking forward to taking a look at yours :)
It's an interesting twist from the title, and I enjoyed the plot, even if a bit convoluted. My only doubt, judging from experience, is that this seems a really deadly adventure, good thing you prepare 8 pregen, but still the frequency seems really high. The layout is cool, but the differents fonts are a bit hard to read, I had to pause quite often. I would suggest a printer friendly version with a single, high-legibility font.
Great idea. I'll whip it up when I get the time :)
Great entry! Tying the pregens right into the module feels very novel to me. It took me a few passes to really understand how much the pregens are tied into the challenges being faced. Do I understand correctly that the party starts with no torches or weaponry other than what's listed in their statblocks? And the large numbers of Jade Tears in rooms A3-5 are meant to keep the party trapped until they lift the curse?
In any case, I love the entry into this adventure. What a great way to kick things off! The conclusion is great too. Everything fits the theme and the title you were assigned really nicely.
How do the Houri's abilities interact with the Jade Tears, beetles, and the crayfish gargant? Can they be seduced? Sleepkissed?
Thank you for having such a close read! I wanted to make it so that a DM has everything they need to run the one shot - and yes, the various PCs all have items/skills that explicitly help with specific environmental challenges.
Correct, they start off with almost no items and have to scavenge things (although the Houri was able to sneak her hair pins past the Jade Order). Re: rooms A3-5, they will definitely make it harder to flee the site but I would advise DMs to be open to creative player solutions. If you look at the map, there's a number of ways in which the NPCs could by-pass the blockages. They don't HAVE to resolve the Lament (this is also why I gave the pregens conflicting "wants").
Funny that you picked up on the question around the Houri's skills. I purposefully left that a little ambigous, so that DMs can decide how they want to play it. The powers would certainly work on any human/humanoids. The rest is up to the DM.
Given all the comments this adventure's received, it's difficult to find feedback others haven't thoroughly covered already! But I'll rattle off some impressions—
Love the pre-gens. The brutal start and how tension never lets off is excellent. The cult is delightfully funky, and their disconnect to their prophet is a great twist. It's truly impressive how much content you managed to fit in. Some text is a lil difficult to read, but that's a very easy fix.
All in all, outstanding work.
Thank you! Yeah the cult are real weirdos 😂. The pregen character class that I made is inspired by a very old White Dwarf character class. I think after the Jam I'm going to give them a proper character class treatment so they can be played and leveled in an OSE game.
I had a lot of fun reading your entry. It's made me want to try Salvage Union.
Very cool, moody aesthetic. I love the map!
I appreciate it! Your map was pretty great too.
This is a very deadly module and i love it all the more for it, the random encounters really gave a sense of a living breathing adventure, nice work!
Thank you! Yes , especially if you run it as a one shoot with the sacrificed "sinners" the players will need to keep their wits about them.
it's just so vivid. the rain, the olive sky, and the immensity of the statue set the mood beautifully. i love how much the current jade order can't stand that their prophet got a little bit freaky on the side. great work fleshing out the space, it feels like everything here flows out naturally from your core concept.
a few thoughts while reading:
high: lots of great keys, but my fav is A18. by that point i'd stopped thinking about the whole intro hook and the brutal realistic followthrough hit like a sack of bricks. great addition.
low: these fonts are all over the place!! i think you've got such a bold visual language in the background that i don't mind a little punky chaos in the fonts, i just think you can bring that energy without using off-the-rack Impact lmao. your title font was a great pick, but it's busy and distracting as the intro text (even overlapping with lower lines in the second paragraph). i think you could have made your intro pop more by using your normal body text there to really make the shiny title font stand out. idk much about working with fonts to be clear, so, grains of salt etc.
in-between: it was a great choice to make the jade tears pantomime search for Zalphia in A20. there's no shortage of good flavor in this module, but i think you could have added a lot of depth by giving them a similar action to take in their other appearances, even if it's subtle.
overall, getting to see stuff like this is what makes the jam worth it. great work!
Wow thanks for the detailed feedback! Your module had very strong atmosphere as well so I appreciate that you enjoyed that about my submission.
I think that's a good catch re: A11. It is probably a bit more of a "gamey" room. I wanted it to evoke the famous sphere of annihilation in Tomb of Horrors, to give players something to argue over.
Re: being able to read the clue: I didn't explicitly state it. But my idea would be that if you're running it as a one shot the players get all of the pregens. Because they are so under equipped, I made sure to give them all some specific utilities (either in the form of items or inate skills).
If they're visiting it as an adventure site in a campaign then it'll be incumbent on the players to prep well enough. So I'm not too fussed if they can't read it straight away (they can always come back if they're curious).
Yes I think you're right, the usage of the site is pretty weird 😂 I feel like it reflects the gradual decay of the Jade Order and their weird ideas. They're really flailing at this point! I'd like to build out their back story a little more with a hometown in an expanded version of this module.
Yeah fonts... I'm not a designer by trade but I wanted to have a go. Theres some reasons for the font choices (impact is legible at smaller point sizes). But at the end of the day if it doesn't hit for the reader, it needs an overhaul! Glad the colour combo works. That is something I always enjoy designing. Harmonised colours can cover up (some) visual shortcomings haha.