Play module
Scepter of the Thorn-Headed Regent's itch.io pageRate this module
In order to rate this submission you must be logged into itch.io and have submitted your own entry. Anyone with an account can leave a comment.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Clean, on-theme, player-agentic (crawl some hexes, explore some rooms in a dungeon). Who doesn't love a werecrocodile?
That's what old school is about. Dense, terse, tight knitted outland+dungeon. For B/X, too!
There were some serious rockstar moves done here. Tight, clean, information-dense layout. Releasing it to the public domain. A well-populated hex AND a complete dungeon with sweet treasure. Old-school feels that make it seem like a pamphlet that fell out of a 1980s D&D book. The hex crawl is threatening, but yields helpful items for dealing with the very old-school dungeon. I liked that.
Nice work using typst (there are dozens of us!). Did you use an idraluna-archives template? Either way, you implemented it incredibly well. Love the use of footnotes.
Thank you for the kind words; and well spotted! I did indeed learn of Typst and how to use Typst from idraluna-archives. I used Thomas's templates as a basis for my own layout. I think the monster statblock is lifted almost verbatim from the 1e template.
Can you ping me with your details? I would love to see your rates for layout.
What a HUGE W! Clean, concise, imaginative, easily understood and packed with enough springboard to launch a whole campaign! Yowza!
an excellent old-school module, and the author's nerdness for mesapotamia shines through. one complaint i could have: palace map is too small to read and could benefit from a compass rose, but i know too well the page limits, so it is what it is.
I love how well worked out this adventure is. Very workman-like. Extremely gameable, extremely on theme!
Great old school adventure! I love the Mesopotamian vibes in particular.
That's how you do it!
Incredibly dense in the best way, but also a little challenge to grok on a first pass. Having grokked everyhting on the second pass, though, it's obvious these 3-and-a-half page could fill multiple sessions of content. Amazing stuff, creating a full bronze age world!
Stunning piece of work - you did so much in the limited space. This is just so impressive and so whole. I'm going to plan to run this as a full campaign and I already know it will be so much fun. Thank you for the great module.
I dig the hex map!
I have a weak spot for mythical Persian-themed adventures!
To echo another comment: Expand it! More art! It's great.
Super dense but good stuff in here for sure, I'd love to see an expanded version with a bit more artwork and room for the text to breathe a little more!
I thought about this comment for over a month now. But I think I have to disappoint you. There will be no expanded version. I'd rather take the lessons I learned in this project and apply them to a future module. I enjoyed writing this immensely, but I don't think I'd get much of revisiting this. It would probably feel to much like a chore.
I'm coming to the same conclusion with my own module! It's hard to revisit projects, especially after a bit of time passes. Following you on itch, excited to see what's next!
You have done a tremendous job evoking the layout and feel of the first D&D modules. The fonts, the .layout, the maps, the headings. Marvelous. It gave me the feels.
An incredibly thorough module. The hexcrawl is dense, the dungeon is dangerous, what more can you ask for?
Very cool. Love the details in the writing. Dig the sandbox with tons of content and multiple layers. Very clean if tight layouts. I have a weakness for older editions of D&D. It turns out my entry has some echoes with what you cooked up - so I appreciate the setting and motifs. Thanks.