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dungeon crawl on one hand, drama on the other, this scenario menage to get two kind of play together and make them get along well. And all this with powerful viking huis clos vibes. This a good one.
Great premise, very Appendix N vibes, and I love the fact that every NPC seems to be at odds with one another, particularly the mother-son tension at the heart of the adventure. The rather spartan layout is a bit plain, but is quite legible, and everyone enjoys a nice isometric map. Good work!
Thanks for taking the time to review it! And thanks for the shoutout on Bluesky!
Awesome stuff, especially with such a broad prompt! The cover is great and paired with the following hook and explanation, really set the tone. The implied setting here is right at home in Appendix N. and the magic and creatures present in the castle really sells it.
The Axe, Mercy is a fun magical item and potentially very useful too, it is tied in well to the central tension of the module. Each room key is clear and well formatted and the layout is clean and well-presented, the only error I can see is that the room keys are labelled with numbers, but the map itself shows the keys without numbers (not something that makes it unusable, just something to note, in case you wanted to change that).
Awesome work and I'll definitely be running this!
Thanks for the review! The room key is the number one thing I am looking to change once the Jam is over.
I'd love to hear from you if you do end up running it!
A lot of people did the retro novel look but for some reason this one is the most convincing for me! I also like the background story. It's very Arthurian.
I appreciate the comment!
I think you did a really good job with the named characters especially with such limited space! Great sense of their motivations. I also love the imagery and vibes you describe, very cool direction for the theme (and the idea of a cold forge is sick). The isometric map is cool, though I would echo what others have said vis-a-vis numbers. The bold text for important bits that are detailed in bullet points is kind of genius for the limitations. And of course I have to say the art is amazing. Nice work!!
Thanks Marcy! I really wanted the Cold Forge to be something players can experiment with, though idk how much can be done with "gets very cold" I just wanted to leave it open ended to see what players would come up with.
Overall, I like how you interpreted the title a lot and you have an eye for tone and imagery. The cover design is phenomenal, though I agree with others that "Trunkless" seems like the title. (Love the font, care to share what it is?) But it is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of my score for the visuals. The interior design leaves a bit to be desired and the map is not the easiest to read. I didn't really get why or how the PCs get involved, but that could be warden/table dependent. Really a nice module.
Thanks for taking the time to reply! I'm gushing over the tone/imagery compliment. Despite my inexperience in layout/etc, I'm just really glad the vibe of the place is being picked up by so many people!
I considered a hook table, but I didn't do myself any favors with space - the intention was that the PC's are inexplicably affected by the curse overnight, which kind of forces their hand on resolving it one way or another.
I like the theme. I would love to see an expansion that fleshes out some of the characters and lore. Nice work on the crawl itself. Good job!
Thanks for the reply!
I think the foundation of this story is solid, history to the place and interesting encounters. One challenge I had is that the room descriptions reference other numbered areas, but the map just having the area names... it becomes a 2 step process to reference areas.
I am really appreciating that I was able to communicate the story and history through the text, I was mostly worried about that since I have trouble with terse writing sometimes.
GREAT point about the map - I had been working off of numbered boxes while writing, and the map came together later. Huge oversight but easy fix for after the Jam!
A very solid mini-dungeon! Everything is very well connected and feels important to the story. I particularly like the cold forge, which feels like exactly the sort of BS that shows up in pulp fantasy! The cover was also very impressive, Daniela did a great job with it!
My one nitpick is that the random encounter table feels a bit unmotivated, since only the eyebats are really interacting with the story, and even they don't tell you much.
Thanks Scott,
That's a good tip RE: the encounter table, I'll check that out if I revisit this one after the Jam.
(Daniela is eating up all of these compliments)
I think it has a little bit of everything I like in a small adventure like this. Great dungeon exploration, but also opportunities for role-playing and making meaningful decisions. Monster lovers are also in for a treat.
Throughout the entire book, I couldn't help but read “Skyrim” instead of “Skrymir.” I think I have a problem.
Good job!
This was such and encouraging reply! I'm really happy my intention comes through!
On my first draft I kept mis-spelling it as Skyrmir and THAT is just a mouth full of marbles to say!
Very clean layout and very usable map. Cool submission!
Thank you!
After reading though this, the adventure makes perfect sense. I think it would be pretty straightforward and fun to pick up and play.
The cover art looks good to me for the most part. Having Vast and Trunkless first and larger than Mercy in the Ram's Hall makes it seem like "Vast and Trunkless" is the title and "Mercy in Ram's Hall" is a subtitle, which confused me a little at first. Also, I think you should do away with the curve in the ax handle above the shoulder.
I think this sentence could use some cleaning up, "The shepherd became the lords Carnifex, and, Each winter, the serfs were to elect a champion to challenge the Carnifex, or risk joining the lords' obedient herd." "each" should be lowercase, and "lord's" instead of "lords'", unless there are multiple lords. Also, I think "risk joining the lord's obedient herd." could be clearer, do you mean all the nomads would become his servants and no longer allowed to wander?
OK, based on that they're growing horns, I'm guessing if the pact isn't fulfilled they all turn into sheep.
"The cell is overwhelmed with a weathered, huge blue-skinned man with bull horns in undergarments" Initially, I read this as him having horns in his undergarments, haha.
The layout on pages 2-4 is perfectly serviceable. I wouldn't think anything of it if this was an adventure I bought but for the purposes of the competition it's not a dynamic visual design. Maybe consider a more weathered page background as a quick change to add more flavor. One thing, I would like to see the map and the writing on the map to be a bit bigger to improve legibility.
Hope this helps, it seems like a super fun adventure! I could see myself playing it. Let me know if you have any questions for me.
Thanks for the in-depth feedback! I will definitely do a writing cleanup run after the jam, and I hope you do play it!