Really appreciate the clock. I agree with the general consensus that this concept simply needs more space to breathe. Please tell me more about the windmill, lighthouses, and zeppelins on the map. (All cool ideas for features on a dinosaur island.) I dig saurians (pun-intended), so looking forward to the 2.0 version!
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I’d love to see this expanded. The concept is cool, the setting is cool, the factions are cool, they just need some more space to grow in. The clock is interesting, but the lack of explanation (as others already noted) about what will actually happen once the Saurian King gets his ritual going strips it of its fangs. The clock itself would also highly benefit of some kind partial effects (like adding new types of monsters when it’s halfway or something like that). It also itches me a little bit that you mention “a safari spot for the wealthy and famous” and don’t use that at all, because it would have been a very cool addition to the general caos of your factions.
Plus, given how cool the factions and setting is, I’d love to see a bestiary for this adventure with appropriately jurassic monsters and researchers.
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The Hidden EmpireI enjoy the knockoff Jurassic Park: Lost World vibe of the intro :D The locations are interesting and evocative, though I did ended up with a few questions about what was intended for the overall structure of the module:
- What happens if the ritual happens? Does it just happen where the Saurian King is? What exactly is the Saurian King?
- Is it correct that the king corrupting fossils advances the clock, or should it say it sets it back? If it should be set back, given that there are 10 clock segments and 8 locations, and the Saurian King acts is parallel to the party, would it ever be possible to get to 10 segments? It seems like the best strategy would be to find the king and face it head-on.
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Dance with Danger [Shadowdark]The Marrow River is such a cool concept and I love the way you've illustrated it in my mind with your description! The tar pits, a classic concept in and of itself, is so much more terrifying and interesting here thanks to your inclusion of things still being trapped beneath the surface near the Black Spine. Normally I expect to encounter a tar pit and only see the remains of things which never quite got away but coming face to face (kind of I guess) with the active struggle of things writhing is such a great aspect to it. This was a great read and I'm glad I got the chance to check it out!
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Blood In the MoonlightQuite the Jurassic event here! Great details and concept.
A few favorite things:
- The core Stop the Clock conceit, good direction on clock advancement, and it sounds fun to run into a corrupted hex or blocked passage between hexes
- Fun, bonified environment descriptions in a clean layout
- Inclusion of interesting factions
The Burrow Fields, Tar Pits, and Shatter Flats have amazing and unique descriptions, but they mechanically all feature ground characters might fall into. I may only have noticed this because they were listed sequentially.
@chipsandsolstice mentioned this, but I'm not entirely sure what “secrets of fossil knowledge” means, though it seems to be important. I would probably rule that this means investigating a landmark; however, the Stop the Ritual Clock supposedly advances "when the party uncovers fossil knowledge and also when they uncover a secret of a landmark." I might have missed something, though!
Nice work! I imagine running this and nerding out over dinosaurs as prep.
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The Chimes of Undoing- Super clean/minimalist layout.
- Big fan of dinosaurs! This just feels like it would be a fun adventure to run.
- Interesting factions that give a lot of flavor to the adventure.
- Would be very cool to see this expanded in the future!
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Race Against the NuckelaveeI like the little mechanism you devised to govern how much time players have. I think given that some terrain says it punishes speeding up, it would have been cool for there to be a sprint/forced march option. Other than that, very neatly laid out, workable scenario!
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Lament of the Jade Prophetidk why but i'm so tickled by the phrase "a focal point for jurassic magic." i read it twice before stopping to marvel at how much it says about the world that dinosaur magic both exists and is some kind of studied phenomenon. in general, dinosaurs land on the boring side of appendix N for me, so i'm impressed with what you've managed to make here! lots of fun, descriptive keying that sells the environment well. the factions, especially the bone-ferals (again, with a fascinating line like "prehistoric energy"), are a great touch. the ritual clock is the most interesting thing here, IMO - gives it kind of a board game-y feel and an interesting strategic element that i don't see often in hex crawls. idk if the saurian king's parties are meant to be player-facing, but that's how i'd play it. it's interesting and ominous to me that the central spires go unkeyed. nice work!
high: i appreciate the bone / general bodily theming across each region. i felt the more i read that this entire island was one big decomposing corpse. my fav spot is the marrow river - the emphasis on its slow, gunky pace makes it sing to me
low: with how much i like the race against the Saurian King, i would've liked a little more care given to where these landmarks are on the map. it'd let players feel a twinge of fear as they see one of the saurian king's groups make a beeline for an unknown spot, and add more strategic nuance in terms of exploring, i think!
in-between: you mention in the intro that the island is a safari spot for the wealthy and famous, but don't explore that much in the text or encounters. i wish you had! some useless NPCs to distract players from the impending ritual would have been an interesting campy touch.
jurassic magic, man. i can't stop thinking about it lmao
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The Gravity PlagueI like the cover a lot, super fun use of the t-rex skeleton. I like your title font and the use of the white background here as well. It might be worth making the title font a bit larger, it feels a little under weight to me looking at it.
The odd quotation marks on stop the ritual are fine, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to getting from them and it seems like you drop their usage after the first paragraph. Given the centrality of the Stop the Ritual advancement, I think adding some kind of tracking table would be useful.
One thing I'm a little unclear on, is the Saurian King himself on the island or just his agents? Also, I get that he's the bad guy, but who is he and what is the ritual going to do?
I think the layout of the text heavy pages works. Given the white space on page 3 , it might be nice to have an additional illustration.
I would use the red border completely around the exterior of specific locations. and change the interior borders to be clear. The black borders with the ocean and interior kind of threw me off and there is a bit of an optical illusion effect with my tired, old eyes when I look at it. Alternatively, you could add a legend. I would also include the relevant number in the location titles on the map.
Overall, I think it's a really fun idea and I would be able to pick up and play this with some prep. I think the locations are really strong and vivid, as is the race against time and the people we will be competing against. I would like some more characterization of NPC personalities and worldbuilding around the ritual and why we're trying to stop it.
First, I love the layout. I think it’s deceptively simple and so legible. It feels like an actual magazine spread. Great use of negative space to let the content breathe.
I like the story and the procedures. Each location feels evocative with cool ideas. I’d love to see a more fleshed out version with specifics on what secret fossil knowledge the players are looking for and some more concrete info about the ritual.
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Fording Fabled AegeaExcellent system-agnostic adventure here. Tons of evocative descriptions that give a DM plenty of material to work with in adapting this to their system of choice.
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Lucid Dreaming in GandaharA lot of dino themed stuff, the Ossified Orchard is such a neat idea. Cool factions too.
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The Corpseless CoffinSuper crispy clean layout, the hex map reminded me of The Isle!
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Locked in Silver ShacklesSolid writing and theme. The hex map is simple but clear and easy to use. Nice.
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The Quest for Koschel's Death
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