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very classic and full of vibes, truly an AppN installment
Congrats on getting it done. Some evocative ideas here. I really like the idea of an entire town disapearing. The Lich has a great vibe too. Killer name and I like how tall you've made her. Probably a bit on the weak side even for a fledgling lich. But overall fun times!
This is clear and easily read! The rooms itself are described in a manner that don’t need a flashy map, so the diagram is a great way to reduce complexity!
It somehow took me till room 6 and the word cocoon to connect all the butterfly-hints. Seems I’m a bit slow:-D
Two questions:
why is the monarch on the random encounter table. This doesn’t seem logical ingame as she is ritualizing and preemptively shows the big bad?!
where’s the story connection between a butterfly-chrysalis-themed lich and the vanishing of a village? I would’ve assumed a huge cave with hundreds of cocoons or such…
Big points for layout and descriptions!
Thank you for the kind words and checking out The Vanishing Vale!
And all great questions.
I think the intent behind the having The Monarch appear on the Random Encounters table is to make the dungeon feel alive and not just limit her to her domain or lair. If you feel like it doesn't make sense maybe up everything else on the encounter table and have 1-2: Nothing, instead. In fact I might do that myself in a v1.2.
The thought behind the village vanishing and the lich is kind of described under the subheading Tracking the Ritual. Admittedly I could have been more explicit in what was happening but I was kind of strapped for room with the formatting. Long-story-short, the town flickers in-and-out of existence each time her ritual surges. As that happens, Evanstref looses 100 people (which converts them into butterflies, see below). That sacrifice makes the village flicker between planes and fuels The Monarch's apotheosis (ascension to the next level of "lichdom", which would reset HP and stats).
Fun additional note that came up during playtesting (that I absolutely don't have room to add in the bi-fold format), each butterfly that the party encounters is the consciousness of a deceased village member. So each time the ritual surges, more butterflies are summoned into the dungeon, thereby increasing The Monarch's power.
If I ever get around to an expanded version of The Vanishing Vale, I'll definitely include all of this in the written adventure to hopefully make it more clear.
Thanks for your reply!
Some of the cleanest layout design I’ve seen so far, and I love what you did with the color gradation throughout. A simple dungeon, with easily legible map, and multiple paths towards resolution. Also, a huge fan of the butterfly theme- fantastic work!
Thank you so much!
(And thank you for posting about this in your BlueSky mega-thread.)
This one is an easy five stars in terms of information design, and a style of adventure that I love for jams like this: something to print off and stash in your GM’s notebook or binder, ready to pull out at that perfect moment to delight everyone at the table.
However! It’s driving me crazy that the tab stop after the ‘!’ bullets aren’t set to the same position as the other bullets.
Thank you for the kind words.
(And I'll definitely try to fix that in v1.2; partial issue with Affinity's handling of bullets.)
Awesome adventure with clean layout and design! Love the main villian, I could see myself running this very easily.
Thank you! I hope you get it to the table soon!
Great color palette, and some handy layout choices like the light & door indicators in the room keys. The Monarch’s description is badass - head replaced with butterfly wings! Very cool. The party would absolutely HATE butterflies after this one.
Thank you! I love taking a kinda bog-standard encounter and flipping it on its head so re-skinning a lich felt like a good way to do it for this setting. Always beware of butterflies!
Really good layout and font, looks really easy to run with minimal prep. Good job!
Great design, it looks fun!
I like the premise of the adventure, and as far as the design goes, I think it's one of the most elegant I've seen in the jam. I'm a big fan of the labels next to the titles of each room. Great job.
Thank you! I glad to see that people are taking to the room labels. That was a fun exercise in design.
Love the sleek layout and the tags
Also the reminder that the town could be integrated into any setting or campaign
BANGER BANGER BANGER
Thank you!
JUST DOPE!
Thanks so much for the love!
Really nice looking and useable layout, love the butterfly/lich theme.
Thank you so much. I love the idea of motifs like this in settings so it seemed like a nice variation on a theme.
Amazing cover, great layout (love the tracker!), a joy to read!
Love how the cover really illustrates the inciting incident so vividly. Also, very thoughtful to encourage tying the adventure to an existing town in your campaign. Makes it very usable.
All killer no filler. The quality of life bits (whether a room is lit or not especially) are excellent. Love the aesthetic, love the dungeon, love a lich.
Thank you so much!
Yeah, I have seen a few others do the room tagging in this way and I definitely think it should become a standard for room-based exploration modules.
Cool cover. The tabs with light and dim light was clever. I am a big fan of lich encounters.
Thank you so much. Hope it's enough flavor to make it not just another lich encounter but is something new and unique too!
Did you potentially upload the wrong pdf? It's just one page with a design layout and no words :o
Yes! And as soon as I realized it Itch went down for a bit.
It's back now though and should have the correct PDF. Thank you for pointing this out!
Yes itch going down when it did was major jump scare 🤣