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I'm really digging the Annihilation vibes here with the floral transformation. The art is evocative, the layout is clean, and the tables make it easy to drop the Priests into any given location the players are exploring. I think the only thing I'd want to see expanded on would be short example adventuring sites ideas for places touched by the Priests or examples of how ordinary fauna and monsters might be changed by the Bloom as well. But this is already a lot of great, table-ready content packed into a small booklet.
Very nice layout, and the stark white really stood out against the colorful, floral illustrations! Big fan of how you made flowers gross lol, and I think The Father would be an excellent NPC to add into an ongoing situation where the PCs already have way too much to deal with.
The neat thing about this supplement is that it can kind of be used as a "B" plot to any other ongoing adventure. That's really cool and supremely gameable. The multiple tables and the useful progression system support that notion as well. Your prose is clear and at times fairly striking - you can't sell body horror without good descriptions and I would say you sold me.
Credit goes to Gabe L. of Daily Ritual Press for these fabulous descriptions.
Cover name, creator, system, jam, and an idea of what we can expect. At a glance of everything as a whole, seems pretty obvious that everything ties together well. As a whole, when I take the work to the scale of what it would print at, it's a bit small on font for my liking. On the up side, the stark black on white element means I won't have to be worried about contrast issues from a less than amazing printer rendering it into a bunch of unreadable fuzz.
Tracker along the bottom is a nice setup. Keeps with the visuals and creates an easy way to follow what's happening. The only down side I can think of is when needing to access information from the other side. Then again, switching from laying a token on it to a paperclip instead probably works just as well. Trigger section kind of frustrates me. It's interesting, but there's only a 1:6 chance of infection. Since I can assume immediately the infection is vital to the story, this is an issue for me. A few lucky rolls and no one is infected. I think the easiest solution for this is to make 1 item automatically infectious, while all others have the chance. This way you are sure to have one infection, but potentially several.
Progression is simple enough. I'll have to see how the game is meant to play to know if some groups might screw this up somehow or not, but it's probably fine. Treatment catches me though. It says explicitly that after stage 1 it is incurable, but then goes on to talk about advanced reversals for stage 4. I think what you're aiming at here is the disease becomes a chronic and permanent thing the player has to deal with after stage 3, but that stage 4 and above can only be dealt with through advanced methods to prevent full change. So a lifetime of dealing with it through expensive and difficult methods if they allow it to progress too far.
Then I look back at the rumor table and realize the 'halt' element comes up as something more than it initially seemed. Having thought it through some more, it seems what you are trying to say here is that you can reverse the 'progress' section, but any 'mutations' will remain even afterwards. I think if you are going to focus anywhere, this is where to put your attention. Adding clarity to the way this is written would go a long way.
Rumor table seems fine. Good choice on the True/False element. I started doing that with my own and it makes it a lot clearer to the GM how to handle their rumors when they happen. I've taken to enjoying adding a half-truth in there as well when space allows for explaining it. On progress, I like how the early stages are beneficial, making some players think they can hang on to it a bit. It's a strong method to coax them in to allowing it to get past stage 1. However, I think I would make the 3rd a trade-off stage. Not just a negative, but a positive and negative together. This is the hint to players they may be getting the worse end of the deal if they let it go on. It's storytelling through the mechanics and lets the ones who decided to 'let it go a little longer' before curing it look back and realize exactly when they made the fatal error. One final element is that 11 is basically death anyway. I suppose there's a chance one of the other players undoes the effect by dropping you down a few notches somehow, but since the player in question won't be helping them at that point, that player is out of the game for a while. I'd probably have them lose memories and consider the priests favorably, but let them still interact with the group rather than having them /only/ respond to priests.
Roster of enemies is pretty clear. The only thing that threw me was the infested priests. I assumed the good father and his lot have plant-associated powers due to their faith. Apparently being of the faith and infected means you don't turn full shrub, but get nettle fingers. Makes me wonder if the players can joint the faith to avoid permadeath.
Mutations are interesting. I could see 3 having a mechanic attached. 4 having a risk of infecting the other players, etc. Mutation 10 overlaps with Progress 9, which could make a weird overlap of effects. That last one with the mushrooms I would love to have fruiting 1/day with edible fungi that count as a ration if one of the other players is willing to do so.
Last page of the single page format puts everything together. Why they are here, what they are doing, etc. It's the first entry I have read that wasn't an adventure, or map, or similar attempt at a larger scope. Instead, you've focused more tightly in on an element and allowed it to sit freely to be placed into an adventure of the GM's choice. And honestly, it works. I feel like I have everything I would need to plug these guys into my own campaigns. I don't play Cairn or Into the Odd, but I could still make these work with minimal effort on the games I do play. Several of them in fact. It would be so simple to add hints of their existence months before they show up, building the stakes in advance and allowing players to know full well they shouldn't allow this to progress.
I think you've made something very solid here. If you decide to expand, I am going to make an odd suggestion. Instead of expanding this, just clean it up and keep it either free or low cost. Do an expansion that is a full adventure set around using these guys in part of a larger setup. It lets people see the quality of what you have made and I think as long as the price was reasonable, it is a solid incentive to purchase whatever future expansion is associated with it. Just my thoughts though. Good work.
Thank you! It was a real challenge but I’m happy with how it turned out. I shall take most of this into consideration! I’ll be keeping it as a pay what you like option (unfortunately in my current situation I just can’t make all my work completely free), but I will be looking to develop this into a fully fledged zine around Christmas as part of my MA.
An original twist on the cult theme that could be really fun to use in a Cairn campaign. I think the presentation is superb. I love it.
Very beautiful little booklet. Little detail, but I love how well the original art works with the heading font.
Beautiful art and writing. Beautiful body horror. Love this.
thank you
The visual design is amazing and I love the tracker at the bottom of the page. The tables are full of great idea. The whole module looks like being a blast at the table!
“Not thriving communities, but blossoming ones” does more work than most supplements manage in a full page. The creed reads like real doctrine, not villain notes. The vine strip running the full width of the interior looks decorative but it’s the 48-hour clock, so the art is the thing you drop a token on. The real prize is the double-d12 wares roll: rolling what the priests gave you, then rolling again to learn whether that gift was the poisoned one. Nobody at the table knows which kindness carried it. Stealing that.
A perfect little faction put inside a perfect little booklet. I love these drop-in things, and this one feels very complete. I'm immediately putting them on my random encounter table :)
p.s. the ceremonial staff of Blodau mentions "more stats under the rumors table", but I don't see any?
this is to be edited as we ran out of space 😂
Incredible art. I would definitely stop to pick this up and look if I saw it while walking through a store.
Some of the weathering effect is making the text hard to read, maybe consider selectively erasing or moving the weathering that falls directly on words.
So if an 11 or 12 is infected, that’s only like a 16% chance. It seems like that might be too low, especially for a small party, as infection is central plot for the story moving forward. I kind of feel the same way about it only being curable at stage 1. I’m reading this as a “race against the clock for a cure” adventure but it seems like it might be more “try and seek revenge before you die” type of scenario. Alternatively, the players are trying to save an infected NPC, but I think that lowers the stakes some.
Ok I just reread that section and see it’s reversible up to stage 4. Maybe change the first sentence to it’s only “easily curable” or “curable with a potion”. Or if your intention is this is a chronic condition that keeps coming back if it progresses past stage one I think you should explicitly say that. “Halted or reversed but will return when wounded” or something like that.
I love the rumor table and that you list which ones are true and false.
I see that the Bloom is spread through a restorative potion but that doesn’t appear to be for sale on the wares table. If I were to run this, I would probably start as if they were just shopping ahead of the adventure and this is a flavorful stall at the market. Then when they take the potion mid combat, they start sprouting flowers from their wound, haha.
Really fun adventure, excellently executed!
thank you! All this will be taken into account but the redevelopment of the zine into a full adventure/module in the future!
Great art, the bloom tracker and the time tracker running along the bottom is very cool. Very creative set of stages, could see this working very well as a central point of an adventure! Great module! 🌺
Layout and art elements lead a great economy of words that all fit together nicely. So much flavor between the disease, the faction of priests and their wares, and the mutations.
Dropping these into any game should be super easy regardless of system because of the profile provided here.
High marks!
A stellar entry. Beautiful and well-written.
THANK YOU!
This was amazing to read! Great stuff!
DIOLCH!
Gorgeous art! Very interested to see what this looks like in play!
THANK YOU!
I love your art style. So evocative. Great work.
THANK YOU!!!
I unfortunately cant rate this game (as I am only co-creator of an entry), but this would get high marks for visuals and layout!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!