That's what planescape should have been and never was. There is some misplaced nostalgia in my comment i'm afraid. Anyway. A nice one, a craty use of poincrawlity
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I love that you used the seal of Stolas as a map! The location itself is fascinating and with great potential.
I did get a bit lost in the writing. Although humorous, it overextends itself a bit. For example, I don’t know what to do with the dead rat puppet show and how I would ever get that communicated to players and have them use that in their plans. And as a GM, I’m not sure if I can use that example to extend and come up with 25 other ludicrous weaknesses. I would’ve liked to know more about The Talon besides that they created the place. I feel like I know a bit more about each other NPC than the Talon.
Also, maybe it’s a matter of preference, but I think you could’ve skipped explaining the hooks and how to use the adventure, and consolidated a few explanations to not need to duplicate them (like explaining what folks learn in area 1 when it’s already explained in the intro).
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Dance with Danger [Shadowdark]As a long-time Stolas fan I enjoyed this a lot, I love the use of the sigil and your commitment to the titular apostrophe. I do agree with some others (and you, I think!) that a lot of the first page isn't needed and that space would be better used on other elements. I would particularly like to know more about The Talon as a character - what are his motivations, characteristics, powers? why does he want the specific mushroom? and also about the magical item in the Library that produced the simulacra - and I also agree providing the specific weaknesses would help with the 26 simulacra, you can still give the option for players to invent their own but at least some more examples would be helpful.
Will definitely keep an eye out for v2, there's a lot in this I really like.
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Temujin and the Iron Bridle"Hooking your players" ha! this is such a pleasing use of old etching art, so on-theme. It is a fun read, too.
I really love the horribly medieval world Stolas' terrestrial existence implies - sometimes there's just a huge flightless owl out in the farm's hinterlands. It'll eat the help! That's Devils for you!
My favorite bit of DM advice you present:
You may choose to write out twenty six weaknesses and let your players use their skills and abilities to find them, or you may simply say yes to whatever weird things your players suggest as weaknesses. There are no shortage of copies to explode. Have fun with it.
How mischievous! You do a lot with a little here, and I really appreciate the map-sigil-goetic-spirit mix you've enacted.
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Where Outel's Edge Was ForgedThis premis feels very folk taley. In an authentic way! Writing tip: You could probably have cut the introduciton in half with a bit of an edit. THe rest is great!
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Lament of the Jade ProphetDelightfully meta joke for the title, I am all in on meta, and yet while reading I have some doubts on this adventure. mopstly related to some interesting elements that are just too generic.
There is no GM support whatsoever: asking me (as a GM) to write down 26 hyper-specific, absurd weaknesses for the simulacrums doesn't make my life easier, and I think modules should offload prep work, not assign homework.
Also, there are no stat or power baselines. Being system agnostic shouldn't mean completely devoid of mechanical context. There are no stats or guidelines for how dangerous key NPCs are. Is the Librarian a high-level archmage or just someone who shushes loudly? Having to build every stat block from scratch defeats the purpose of buying an adventure.
I really hope for an extended version with a bit more support for the poor GMs out there who already have to do a lot of work with unreliable players and overcomplex rules.
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The thirteen counts of charmWeird, creative, and kind of nasty. I want to run it immediately.
That errant apostrophe was the seed of some delightful fruit.
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Venom on the Amber ThroneThis is very creative and a lot of fun! I love the introduction. It shows that you put a lot of thought into it.
That title would have given me a headache but you made something great out of it.
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Sorrows of the Seventh SonFrom the adventure overview I found myself won over by the informal approach to explaining the goals and form of this adventure. It has a very "dear reader" quality to it which I think provides a certain voice to a kind of writing that can leave the author's style indistinguishable from their peers otherwise.
The question of how the adventurers will be involved at all is provided by the end of that first page.
Swallowed ( •᷄ᯅ•᷅ )!!
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The Title, the name of the pellet-bound place inside of the devil thing, and the guy it's named after do have a certain confusing quality that might lose a reader or two early on but it reminds me a lot of characters with unconventional names in storytelling. "The Talons" is a bit of a unique way of saying "The place that is Talon's". Anywhere else it might be Talonston or Talonsville. It could be "Mine" and provide a different kind of aha once the player figures out why.
It's a fun take once you grok it either way.
The concept oozes a very particular genre style that might belong in things like Planescape, Spelljammer, and all systems and worlds weird, fantastic, and outside the box.
There's an array of NPCs complete with motivations and a sparing profile, a backstory and considerations for the construction and balance of power in this really bizarre, kind of liminal place.
It's almost like an afterlife story. It's a prison most might succumb to.
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So I come to the compliment sandwich. This is an incredibly inventive and unique concept that knows what it's about and has set up the dominoes so that you and your GM may watch them fall.
That being said it absolutely will require a bulk of adaptation and translation by an experienced GM to be fully appreciated. Some of the text is repeated which could easily be edited, and on the pedantic side I might say this is a scenario, very much suitable to any game you'd like to bring it to. But the gameability will require buy in.
The plus side is that I want to know all about Stolas and Talon and what kind of wider world they might belong to that would provide for waylaid souls to languish inside a devil's gut.
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Awesome, awesome concept. Thank you for submitting to the jam!
Thanks for the review! I totally expect some potential confusion between "In The Talon's of Stolas", the Talon himself, and his domain The Talon's. It all sprung up from the apostrophe in my title. I really wanted to honor it, and it just organically turned into this weird little place called The Talon's and the guy who made it, who obviously would be called The Talon.
I definitely agree that there's some duplicated information and clunky writing. I lost a good chunk of the middle of the month switching jobs, which took away some of my focus. I found myself editing the doc last minute the day before submission and the writing quality absolutely suffered as a result. I've read several other submissions and have a much clearer picture of how I'd like to rewrite some of it.
I also totally agree that playability suffers from the decision to make it system neutral. In the rewrite, I intend to focus on improving that by working in more details on the locations and the encounters that can be found there. I also want to provide some more context on Stolas, as he sort of falls by the wayside as "the setting." I think The Library and The Talon's Private Tower will be heavily beefed up to provide some more opportunities for exposition and encounters that a GM can use to flesh out the experience for the players. After a great conversation in the discord about how to portray enemies without using system specific information, I've got a good idea for how to do that.
It's almost like an afterlife story. It's a prison most might succumb to.
This is a really insightful thought. I think it is where a lot of these Appendix N entries landed - little parable tableaus.
I wonder if next year, the organizers might mix the format up and ask for 16 page B&W copy-place underground lit. modules, and produce a totally different set of emergent themes.
So… you took the apostrophe in the assinged title and ran with it without ever looking back, did you?
This is a great location and premisse. My players will absolutely choose violence, guess I’ll prepare some backup characters :-D
I think the zine could loose lots if the first and second page as some things are explained multiple times. The locations themselves could benefit from a bit more space for fleshing out.
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The Prison of the Star SovereignI felt like it was the only way to do the challenge justice. I also think it took me in a much more creative direction than I may have gone otherwise.
Yeah, I think you're spot on. I want to slim down the intro, maybe add a brief prose intro like I've seen in some other submissions and really enjoyed, and expand on what could be found in The Library Tower, The Hostel, and The Talon's Private Tower (particularly the last one). I definitely repeat information which is an artifact of editing while trying to meet the deadline. I should have managed my time better in the middle of the month. Something I definitely want to clean up going forward. Thanks for reading it!
Hah, what a crazy read. I think this adventure will play out very differently dependant on the players; either becoming a very social affair or very combat heavy, hanging on the question whether or not they'd give up their magical stuff. What's your own expectation of that front?
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the Silver Spires of ShanduYeah, I definitely wanted to leave it open ended. I had a solution baked into an earlier draft to cover "What if they just try to fight their way through everything." However, I ended up cutting it to save page space and because I didn't want to paint the GM into a corner.
My thought is that if they refuse to give up their magical items, they'll be confronted by a lone Man in a Golden Mask. If it does come to combat, then it does. It doesn't necessarily have to indicate everything afterwards will be combat. In retrospect, I think I could have done a better job of giving an idea of the number of people who are stuck here, which I picture to be at least several dozen, but probably not quite 100. There is a consistent enough influx to provide some plausible deniability that they weren't the ones who did it. From there, they know that if they flaunt magical items, they'll be confronted. If they can keep it on the downlow, they may be able to get away with killing the man on The Landing and then moving on through the adventure however they like.
It definitely has the potential to turn into a bloodbath if the players just want to fight everyone outright, but I think that lots of adventures contain that possibility for the right group. It could be an early combat that tells them a rule about this place that now they can plan around. It could be that they choose to give up their weapons and then steal them back from the giant treasure pit that they get tossed into while everyone else is asleep. It could be that they just choose to let them go and get them back before they leave.
I think one thing that I think might help with avoiding some of the more dramatic results would be if I rewrite the three things they learn to prioritize them learning that there is no teleportation out of here and that if they cause trouble, they're getting tossed into the acid. If they know that before being confronted about having to give up their magical items, I think it'll inspire more caution.
If it wasn't clear: I don't think the diversity in play is a bad thing! Once you take down one simulacrum though, I assume the player will be inclined to seek combat to take down the others as well. At least some of the NPCs will be inclined to help them overthrow the status quo either way.
What's the intended power level of a simulacrum?
Oh for sure!
In my prep document, I had written that Simulacrums were similar to Cultists in terms of power level, as a combat first party might end up facing 10 of them at once if they try to interrupt the ritual directly. I do see now that I missed including that in the doc though. I also wanted to bake in the critical weakness as a way to take them out without direct combat, allowing them to be taken out rapidly without much difficulty. There's enough of them available that I'd like for the party to feel like it's relatively easy to take one out, but difficult to take them out in large numbers. The item that The Talon used is also in The Library. I put that in there so the GM knows they have the ability to bring more in if they feel like it's something The Talon might do while hunting for whoever is killing off his clones.
I think most NPCs would be willing to join the fray against The Talon. I could totally see the adventure becoming a sort of Seven Samurai type of story where they're rallying everyone against The Talon and the simulacrums.
Ha a belly of the beast adventure. I love the idea. Great job!
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What Shines in the Darkness?Love the use of the sigil as a map. Did you know about Stolas beforehand? This one is definitely a strange tale for sure, very on brand for the theme.
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The Echoes of UpheavalThanks! The sigil looked to me like a little floating island and ultimately was the seed that led me to putting that little island in Stolas' stomach.
And yes, I was already familiar with Stolas. A few months ago I released a game titled, "Oh No! The Devil Shit His Pants". While writing that game, I picked up a copy of the Infernal Dictionary and used it as a reference. The only things I feel like I would try to incorporate in more detail in a future rewrite are Stolas' fascinations with astronomy and the values of various gems and minerals.
I think the title including an apostrophe in "The Talon's" pulled me in a much weirder direction because I wanted to make sure I honored the title as it was written, rather than treating it like a grammar mistake.
Nice use of public domain art. A creator after my own heart.
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The Quest for Koschel's Death
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