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Big fan of the layout & art doing most of the communication, as well as each NPC’s worth (or lack thereof) not being pre-determined, so that the PCs have the chance to judge for themselves and/or fuck up entirely. Great work!
The cover is fire. So good. Overall the graphic design is really excellent. This is a great adventure.
Really interesting concept, really beautifully executed, but I have to say that the economy of words got me lost a few times and double-taking if I understood the intention of the adventure:
These are some solid questions, thank you for the feedback!
You’re right that in the pursuit of terseness of text some things/intentions may have been a bit lost in the sauce.
While it won’t be applicable for the jam’s ratings itself, I may include a play FAQ as an additional document for those interested. Thank you again!
Original concept, beautiful cover and clever visual layout and a pointcrawl-like diagram to ascend to the goal. As it was discussed in previous comments, probably adding something like "level 1", "level 2", etc, to the 3 stairs symbols would make it even clearer. But this is a really cool idea, putting the PCs in a very specific and uncommon role as guardians of the fountain. Great work!
Unique scenario and properly “N”. Seems easy to run. It would be fun to see how different parties determine who they think is worthy. Do you envision it as all role play or specific magic or both, etc.? (Just curious about Borg specifically as I’ve only played a few times.) Does the party earn the fountains wrath for one mistake? Two? Up to the DM? Seems great for slotting in basically anywhere in an adventure or campaign. Well done.
Hats off for submitting such a marvelous piece early on in the Jam period, it surely helped me get my idea off the ground. The content itself is great, of course; a challenging encounter that is sure to inspire some great gameplay and be remembered by the players that experience it.
Love the art and design. Fun writing; feels like it would be a wild ride at the table.
Immediately thinking of how much fun I’d have putting my barbarian detective (Killumbo) in this situation. Like others pointed out, front and back cover are fantastic. I can see this being a great time for any party who are iffy with vibe checks and a devious GM who has a roster of characters they’ve been begging to try out.
Killumbo is an absolutely inspired name and concept!
Thank you for the kind words and review!
Visually stunning homage to the Appendix N theme of the jam! Artwork, fonts, graphic design are all beautiful.
I like the way you kept the look of a book cover but didn’t waste space, with the Water Weird behind the front cover tear and the premise of the adventure formatted like the blurb on the back cover of a pulp paperback. Very inventive.
The adventure is fairly well explained, but a couple of things were not clear to me. It seems that the pilgrims arrive one-at-a-time in a random order? I didn’t understand the significance of the three staircases or the purpose of the diagram with the squares and circles and arrows.
I can imagine this would be fun to play, with plenty of opportuunity for role-playing as well as combat, with the consequences hanging on the players’ actions.
Visually stunning homage to the Appendix N theme of the jam! Artwork, fonts, graphic design are all beautiful.
I like the way you kept the look of a book cover but didn’t waste space, with the Water Weird behind the front cover tear and the premise of the adventure formatted like the blurb on the back cover of a pulp paperback. Very inventive.
The adventure is fairly well explained, but a couple of things were not clear to me. It seems that the pilgrims arrive one-at-a-time in a random order? I didn’t understand the significance of the three staircases or the purpose of the diagram with the squares and circles and arrows.
I can imagine this would be fun to play, with plenty of opportuunity for role-playing as well as combat, with the consequences hanging on the players’ actions.
Thank you for the kind words!
You’re correct that the pilgrims arrive one at a time randomly over the course of an evening. The players must decide which two to allow to drink from the fountain’s enchanted waters as they make their case.
You’re also right that the circles with stairs and ultimately the fountain are not clear enough. My apologies! The original intention was they’d serve as a sort of point crawl-adjacent abstracted map depicting the ascent up the stairs towards the fountain. I wanted to give a sense of space and scale, but could have been clearer and see where that may be difficult to parse.
Thank you again for the review, it is very much appreciated!
Such a great idea, beautifully presented. So many clever little touches. A masterclass in how to commit to a focused concept.
I said it when I commented on the main page, but I think this is so clever! It’s not an exploration-based adventure (which are wonderful, to be clear, but common compared to something like this!), and it’s of a perfect format for a one-shot. You inspired me when I was making my entry. I think this remains one of the most creative entries, and one of my favorites—and I love your back cover. Super on theme!!
Awesome. I agree with @giantbrain you should expand this. 🙏🏽
I want more of this. You should definitely expand it. Giving me holy grail vibes. Great job!
Awesome! I'd love to run this one. You've focused in on something really great here. I think this would work really well as a one-shot or as an episode inserted into a longer campaign. The judgement angle is great, and the NPCs here are well-drawn. Torn cover is the perfect cherry on top.
I want to see more of this Moon Witch! What else does she have that she needs judges to guard?
That cheeky stat block on the torn cover is chef's kiss and I smiled like an idiot at the idea. I promise I'll wait a while before I steal it!
Praise aplenty for the prose, inside and outside, and of a timeless kind I found them to be.
Forsooth.
In any case I have to start off by echoing other commenters - this is brevity done with style and confidence. I've said in this jam before that I thought folks were doing a lot with a little and this has got to be sub 1k words by a certain margin!
And once again all of the interior, playable text, is basically in character? Wow. Every bit a flavorful piece for the GM to prepare from and the kind of spark-table style game design that I'd like to try a whack at myself.
Bravo.
If I had to dig up a nitpick and I mean really dig, this seems particularly system agnostic in all ways except for that Water Weird. Awesome either way!
Thank you for the kind words. I'd also agree with your critique about everything being system agnostic except for the single stat block. Looking back, if I had to do it over, I think I'd try and squeeze some more of that agnosticism into the Water Weird. Thank you again for the review!
A remarkable example of less is more.
Very creative entry in a sea of crawls. The art is stellar, and easy to use in any game.
A unique way to make the player judge their decisions. Worthy adventure, good choice of fonts along with showing the creature on the cover for the stats of the creature.
I left a comment on your main page :) p.s., though—I love the font choice on the back cover!