Heya,
I'm working on organizing a collaboration between all of the Shadowdark creators from Appx. N Jam. If you're interested find me on the SD Discord or msg on bsky.
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The writing here has a real Infocom flavor. (Which is a good thing, to be clear.)
The blunderbuss stats make me wonder if you have a background in Pirate Borg, which uses similar stats for their blunderbuss.
I think the theme is really strong here, although there's no real player choice (go inside or have your skin torn to pieces by the sandstorm!). I'd want to see one or two alternate paths through the adventure, like an alternate means of traveling between the maps.
One or two typos to address in a future version, but I found this fun.
Thank you for the read and the comment; I appreciate it! I have not ever used Pirate Borg or really any of the Borgs - but I find it interesting that we independently came to the same understanding of how a Blunderbuss should work!
To clarify about the storm, the sandstorm does not necessarily just go on forever. If a DM wanted to make it a hazard to keep players in the Mons, they could. It is left open ended in the module so the DM can decide things like length, duration, ect. if players decided to leave the Mons. But there is a house at the bottom of the mountain for players to use as a base if they wanted to go explore Mars. Since getting back to earth is what the adventure is about, the palace within the Mons is the focus, and the rest is left open. The storm's purpose in the module is meant to be an indicator that being outside on Mars is dangerous, hence why the majority live in the Mons, not to force players into the Mons.
I'm a bit confused by how map 1 & 2 are connected. An overall intended progression might be necessary? It is however an interesting adventure and I love the different types of Martians.
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The Anima InscriptionThank you for the comment; I am glad you liked the adventure! For the purposes of running the adventure, the text of the adventure connects the maps within the relevant room descriptions. Map 1 and 2 are connected by the item text in the middle of page 2 regarding room 5. Within Map 2, they are connected by the teleportation circle at the top of the stairs in the hall marked 1.
Great science fantasy entry! I love all these martian species.
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Lure of the Vulpine VoiceLove those blue and white maps, excellent stuff. The framing was great and particularly enjoyed the poem about Mars bleeding to death. Gnarly!
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Locked in Silver ShacklesA few favorite things:
- Multiple usable maps!
- The idea of divergent Martian groups
- Oshara as an intriguing character
“The blade has already pierced the artery, and now all there is left to do is bleed.” Siiick!
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The Chimes of UndoingI know the title forced you in that direction but I still love to see some sci-fi (and blunderbuss!). I also love how easy it would be to work in to any campaign; it lends itself really well to squeezing in as a one-shot (or however-long-shot, I guess). Great work!
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Tutor of the Ifrit's ArtNow this is appendix N! But now I'm curious about why you made the Green Martians elflike. Otherwise, the theme and gameability is spot on!
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The Artificial AlchemistThank you for taking a read and thank you for the stellar question! Two reasons for the “Elflike” nature of Martians; on the one hand, a lot of early, early copies of Mars literature has these illustrations of Martians where they look almost batlike - and I wanted to do an homage to that at some level. Second was that in a lot of the old Appendix N literature, there is this evolutionary adaptive theme applied to its fantasy races (you see this theme leak into D&D in Dark Sun). So I tried to apply this in Pits of Olympus Mons - the Green Martians who live in the outlands have longer ears to catch more sounds and sharper features to give them better vision and agile movement capabilities, making them better hunters and better at avoiding predators who could harm them. Similarly, the White Martians have elongated features because they live in the highlands and need their arms and legs to reach across chasms. Their ears are longest and eyes are widest because they need to be aware of predators in a full horizon. Their torsos are also small because they live in high altitude environments and need less air to survive, therefore having smaller lungs. The Red Martians used to also have the features of Green Martians, but when they moved into the cramped caves where sound carries and a pin drop can be heard throughout, their ears became smaller and their eyes also became adaptive to the environment, to make them better at seeing in the dark, and they grow shorter to accommodate or avoid constant crouching in cave systems. Due to space, I was only able to allude to this with the brief descriptions and then the Yellow Martians, who tried to speed up their evolution and instead turned themselves into (batlike) monsters.
Nothing is more Appendix N than humans being transported to Mars! I really like the NPCs in this. Fun encounters, too.
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Window to the Third EarthI am reading the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars stories right now! The how to continue section is a great idea.
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Scepter of the Thorn-Headed RegentTheme feels extremely on point for Appendix N! I haven't dug too much into shadowdark to comment well on gameability.
My main critique would be regarding layout and readability. I did find myself jumping around a little to try to understand elements and I feel the importance of certain things is not immediately obvious.
My example would be yellow versus white martians. It seems yellow martians are more prominent, and therefore I would expect them to have the more featured box, where there appears to be only 1 white martian, so could just remain in the box at the end.
Nothing that breaks the module, but I feel a good second pass and editorial would really help make it shine post jam.
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Trial by WaterYou nailed the theme! You made good use of your title too. I thought to myself, "Why are there no gladiator pits in this module?" about half a second before I hit the section where you battle the three-armed troll in the gladiator pit. Four colour-coded martian clades, scientist princesses, pit fighting, earth tombs with Mars portals, the garden at the end: you didn't let anything go to waste.
I liked the way you've presented several different locations here too. Tomb, Surface, Castle, Pits, and Garden go a lot harder as a group than the mountain fortress would have alone.
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The Spiral Path of ChaosVery good for a one shot setting. Players trapped on Mars hits the Appndix N theme well. Great job!
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What Shines in the Darkness?I love the cover, the section fonts, and the maps! Lots of theming in such a short space - I appreciated the very fast characterization of the martian races.
I also really liked the suggestions at the end for other martian modules!
I found the formatting to be inconsistent - some table entries started with capitalized letters and some just started. Another pass with an eye towards technical consistency will serve the text well.
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Where Outel's Edge Was ForgedThe science-fantasy vibes are strong here and remind of Clark Ashton Smith and some of the other classic Mars authors. Really well done.
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The Quest for Koschel's DeathA decent premise but very linear with unused potential; mostly series of empty rooms with few encounters/interactive elements. Lacking in detail: (e.g. Ancient runic writing - what does it say?) Many NPCS lack mention which of the three types of martian introduced at beginning they are. Unadvisable placing notable NPCs (lord, wizard) just as random encounters if they don’t have a fixed location they can be normally encountered. Unsure how the PCs were supposed to use diadem as in most cases whenever the touch it they get transported somewhere else?
Also Shadowdark specific qualm: Most stat blocks were missing the creature’s lvl, which is required for some spells, etc.
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Thaumaturge of the Alizarin PoolThank you for your comment. It is appreciated. For the purpose of running the module - answers to these questions are found within the text of the module (using blue diadem, significance of runic writing, Martian race, ect), but the layout could have made this info more apparent. For creature levels, as per Shadowdark, HP divided by 5 (4.5 technically, but here rounded up) will give the creature level. Once again, thank you for the feedback! I hope you get the chance to run the module in the future.
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