itch.io

Arriving at a convention with a fishtank full of water and ruins sounds awesome and also the sort of thing that gets you banned from conventions.

As it was nearly midnight, I wound the adventure up there, allowing them to escape the island with their loot and their stories, mourning the deaths of their two elvish comrades. The magic user used his Helm of Comprehend Languages to communicate with Boby the Mechanical Owl, allowing him to ask questions about some things they hadn’t fully understood.

If we had had more time, I would have had Talos stomp on their boat and stop them from leaving. Of course by this time they had the Wings and some other items that might have allowed them to escape.

Conclusion: It was a fun evening that put the adventure through its paces. I plan to incorporate what I learned from the playtest into a revised version.

Finding their way into the mechanical workshop, they started to suffer from the poisonous fumes. In the Pyraion, they were driven back by the intense heat.

One of the clerics used her Scroll of Resist Fire on the halfling, who volunteered to sneak past the flame salamander. She made it and grabbed the first things she could lay her hands on: the Wings of Daedalus and the Antikythera Mechanism.

Meanwhile the rest of the party were locked in battle with the Zodiac automatons in the mechanical workshop. The fighter was hit by Skorpios’ poisoned sting — but made his saving throw. They grabbed what items they could and hurriedly left.

The party moved quickly past the dancing platforms and ran into the mechanical fish, which they were able to defeat, helped by their sword +1, +3 vs. regenerating creatures.

In the Taureion, they puzzled over the bronze cow for a while and were very disturbed when they figured out what it was for. Together with the bull horns on the wall, they began to piece together the birth story of the Minotaur. (Although the Greek players instantly recognised Daedalus and Talos, they were unfamiliar with this particular legend).

Unsuspectingly, they headed into the Lair of the Sea Gorgon. They saw a shape flitting between the broken pillars. The surviving elf advanced and Pasiphaë emerged from the watery shadows to attack! The elf landed a blow against her before meeting her gaze and being instantly petrified. He was wearing the aegis but unfortunately had neglected to clean it so could not avail of the bonus to petrification saves.

The rest of the party averted their gaze. Three had mirrors, the rest closed their eyes. Eventually Pasiphaë, wounded, fled into the open sea.

I had included a scroll of Stone to Flesh on the magic item list at the start. Regrettably the magic-user had chosen a scroll of Fireball instead.

We started in an anonymous port town where a local pearl diver reported his strange discovery. The party asked some questions and chartered the boat of the pearl divers to take them to the island. They learned from the pearl divers that shoalgat would allow them to breathe underwater, so they harvested some weed and left it on the beach to dry while they explored the structures on the shore.

The stone satyr masks perplexed the party. They tried to interact with the masks but didn’t think to ask a question. They were unnerved by the medusa head relief. They found the aegis but didn’t think to clean it.

Eventually they investigated Talos. The Greek players recognised him and started checking to see if he had a bung in his foot (I had omitted this part of the legend but perhaps I should put it in).

One of the elves started hitting him, causing him to animate and pursue them. They figured out if they left the aegis where they found it, Talos would not pursue them further. Despite this, the elf provoked him again, stabbing him with the javelin. He was smashed to death with two blows of Talos’ fists. The rest of the party got chased to the beach, where they grabbed their dried shoalgat and dived under the waves. The magic-user crept back for the aegis while the others distracted Talos and dove deep underwater to escape.

Due to this precipitous exit, they did not explore the labyrinth, instead finding the edge of the sea shelf and diving down to the sea bed and the Workshops.

Report of Playtest, September 2026

We played the adventure using the Moldvay Basic Set rules from 1981. Played BtB, apart from changing descending AC to ascending as that’s what everyone was used to.

It was a big group (9 players). Three were Greek, one German, one French, one Italian, one Finnish, one British, one Irish. I let everyone roll up 3rd level characters: two clerics, a dwarf, two elves, a fighter, a halfling, a magic-user and a thief. I let everyone choose one magic item from a list I had prepared (four items per character class).

It’s a fair comment. The adventure is a fairly straightforward dungeon crawl.

When I got the title, I spent some time on research: reading up on the legends of Daedalus, watching the old Ray Harryhausen movies inspired by Greek legends (Jason and the Argonauts/Clash of the Titans) and I went down a rabbit hole reading the Mazes & Minotaurs RPG. I made a ton of notes but in the end Jeremy and I pulled the actual artwork and writing together over the course of a weekend.

While I’m happy with the thematic references, I agree with you that Daedalus is missing something. I felt more satisfied with last year’s entry (Witchbreed of the Sunken Vale).

I’ve arranged to run Daedalus with a group including several of my Greek friends. On the basis of their experience and feedback, I may do a revised version.

If you would like to give more specific feedback I would be pleased to hear it.

Like all the best ideas, this one is simple and elegant, “I wanted to take that familiar world of rain, neon, corruption and synthetic people and push it into the heart of the movie industry”. I already want to play it.

Cover: impactful cover with stark, arresting white background and effective use of fonts and public domain art.

Interior layout: continues with the stark minimalist theme. Everything is clear and immediately makes sense. The interior artwork with table “The ascent” underneath tells you at a glance what this adventure is about and immediately sets the mood. The layout of hexes on the back page is very attractive (though it was less easy to see how the hex illustrations relate to the text).

Adventure setup: OK, so they have to climb a mountain. The why is left to the GM. Might be nice to have some lore about the mountain or suggested adventure hooks to give the motivation.

Climb mechanic: 1d4 days for a lateral climb, 2d4 days for a vertical climb. So in the end, it’s the same either way, except a vertical climb has less encounters. I think I’d like to see a different benefit/risk profile for the two approaches (vertical climb takes less time but more chance of injury or whatever).

Scavenging: do all the equipment items have some mechanical effect? Rations is obvious, it’s the main resource that needs to be managed. But does finding warm and dry clothing or tents help the party in some way?

Otherworldly phenomena: When do you roll on this table? What are the mechanical effects (e.g. of low gravity)? “Walk on ceiling”: it doesn’t seem there is a ceiling to walk on?

Random encounters: are these creatures listed in the rulebook (Sorry I have not played Into The Odd)? Otherwise a few words of description would be helpful (What is a Biolith for example?)

Encounter hexes: You succeed in capturing the atmosphere and mood of each hex in one sentence.

The summit: The shack is a Greater Arcana? I didn’t understand that, but again I may be missing some info that is explained in the rulebook.

So there is a final combat and… a ghost town? It seems like a strange thing to find on top of a mountain. If there is a town then it would be reachable by road? Or … airship? I feel the presence of the town needs some explanation.

Overall: The premise of an ascent on a mountain is interesting and you do a good job of creating interesting and atmospheric encounters on the way up. Layout is beautiful. Having a hexcrawl mountain ascent is a great idea.

It does seem to me (without having played it) like success or failure is a bit random. You get 30 days rations and you have to subtract 14d4 days rations (minimum) to reach the summit = 35 rations on average. The chance of finding more rations is 1 in 10 every 2 hexes = 17% chance of finding rations if you take the direct route, 47% if you take the lateral route. So the chance of making it to the top without running short of rations is a little less than even, and it doesn’t look like there is much the party can do to improve those odds. Chances are they will all die on the mountainside like their predecessors.

Cover: unusually for this jam, you did not include your cover graphics in the PDF, even though you went to the trouble of creating an attractive cover image. It doesn’t seem that you are particularly short of space, why not dedicate at least part of the front page to your book title and image?

Some of the information on the itch.io page is missing from the PDF, like author names and “System agnostic Weird Fantasy dungeon crawl”, which seems like an important detail. Including this info in the PDF would make it more self-contained.

Layout: everything is clearly laid out. The page margins are generous, perhaps overly so (smaller page margins could be traded for including more title information/graphics). In contrast, the Enchantman pop-out box would benefit from some spacing/padding between the box outline and the text.

Art: The cartography is simple, clear and attractive. I like the interior art for the Enchantman. You could consider using the background tint for the entire “Enchantman” pop-out box, not just the illustration.

Adventure setup: As I understand, the characters are going about their business in a fantasy world until a spaceship lands, bringing them into contact with elements of sci-fi/Weird Science for the first time. The spaceship is the scout/vanguard for an invading empire. You provide a few good hooks to get the party involved.

The Enchantmen look like formidable opponents, immune to all magic and with powers of regeneration. One would be tough, 3-6 could be a TPK unless the party have plenty of high-level fighters. Even running away seems to be of limited help as they “won’t ever stop”. Maybe they should have some vulnerability so stopping them becomes a puzzle/solvable problem?

Would be nice to include some weird science technology “magic” items.

Cover and background texture: it’s quite pretty. The cover art is evocative and a little mysterious.

The worn paperback texture works well on the outer cover, though I find the same worn look on the inside pages a bit jarring. If this was genuine wear, the inside would be less worn than the outside. The folded corner on the inside middle panel does not seem possible (and there is no corresponding fold on the outside panel).

Layout: Very effective use of fonts and colour. The map is beautiful. I like the way the formidable warrior artwork uses the same palette as the map and text. Overall layout is very clear, everything is understandable at a glance.

Prelude: I didn’t get it on my first reading. After reading the rest of the intro material, it made more sense on a second reading. The relationship of the local people to the Pale Prince is a bit ambiguous. He is the “elven master”, so like a fief lord? Or do the elves keep to themselves and the local people being affected by his malaise is purely circumstantial? Maybe you could add a sentence to explain the relationship between the people and the elves, it seems like important context.

The adventure: I love the coherent theme of the complex: a series of tombs of dead lovers, each with their own unique characteristics.

Presumably the locale is within Crescent Hill? Or is it a structure atop Crescent Hill? The intro only mentions, “under which the paramours of the Pale Prince rest” so I assume it’s underneath. What is the entrance like? An archway on the hillside? A hole in the middle of a ring of faerie stones? Is there a door?

System neutral is fine, but unique monsters could perhaps use some explanation. What is a “ditsy skeleton”?

It is not clear to me how the spirit of Lorelei can be interacted with besides reading the poem to her. Does she respond if spoken to? If she is attacked do weapons just pass through her, does she fight back, or does she just disappear?

Was Angoirix also one of the prince’s lovers, or is the prince’s sexuality left to the discretion of the GM?

The wandering monsters fit with the theme but it seems like a lot of creatures wandering around quite a small complex. I suppose some of them could be encountered outside the tomb.

Overall: it’s a nice adventure with strong theme, good use of environmental storytelling, and mix of combat and puzzle challenges. Would require a little work by the GM to make decisions about the ambiguities above and create stats.

Cover: The artwork makes me think of Robert E. Howard’s The Black Stone (1931) or Dr. Who The Stones of Blood (1978) or British folk horror children’s TV series Children of the Stones (1977). It has a definite horror vibe.

The background colour is quite dark so you have to look hard to see what it is. A little more contrast between the sky and the stones might make the image more arresting.

Nice choice of fonts but looks a bit squeezed at the edges of the page. Some space around the text would give it room to breathe.

Interior layout: I like the double-page interior spread with map and descriptions, with detailed stat blocks on the back page.

Moon phases in place of page numbers is a nice touch.

Text is very tiny. Stat block text is even tiner! I have to zoom in to read it. If it was printed out on a single A4 page, I’m not sure it would be legible.

Adventure: The setup is a classic quest for the missing princess. The read aloud section sets up the mood nicely.

After that I was a little confused. The language is quite evocative but I didn’t follow the logic of the scenario. The mechanic about pools of blood is interesting, but why? I didn’t really understand what had happened to the princess. Why is she now a bloodsucking monster?

The numbers on the map presumably correspond to the creatures on the left. There are 10 or 15 of each number, is the intention that the party encounter them one-by-one? The first encounter would be interesting but after that it could quickly become repetitive. If the intention is to encounter a group, you could just write the number of each creature in the description.

It would have been nice to include the creepy standing stones from the cover into the adventure.

There are a lot of interesting ideas and potential here, but I felt like I am missing the link that draws it all together. I admit I don’t play Draw Steel so forgive me if I am missing some important background info about the game or setting.

One more thing I liked but didn’t mention in the review: the environmental storytelling aspect.

I use that in my own writing and I always enjoy how it plays out at the table, as the players get bits and pieces of the story in some order and start to put it together.

I’m glad the feedback was useful!

Cover: The layout and typography is pure Appendix N. I like the image of the throne and the way the same colour palette is used for the background.

But who is the guy on the throne? It looks like he wandered in off the set of Trainspotting. Is that a joint between his fingers? Is this fantasy or social realism?

Interior layout: Overall fonts, colours, layout work quite well, it definitely has a zine vibe to it. White text on blue background is very easy to read, but black text is not high-contrast enough.

Map: very clear and I love the hand-drawn illustrations. Again it says zine to me. I did the same thing as you, putting the map and location descriptions on the double-page interior spread and detailed stat blocks on the back page.

Editing: some of the text would benefit from reordering/reorganisation. e.g. “Roots” describes legs sticking out, then the plant, then “his head and hand have been dissolved”. The spectacles in room 4 should be mentioned in the description for room 1. “Throne Room” describes Cadwin, then frog-people, then Cadwin again. There are a few typos (spelling/punctuation).

Adventure: It’s a classic setup, a quest to learn the fate of the king’s sons.

You succeed in creating a whimsical ambience which I imagine would be a lot of fun to play. Some of the encounters combine whimsy with deadliness, which means that it’s not too predictable. The party are kept a little off-balance and have to have their wits about them.

I love the pamphlet with tips for self-esteem.

Overall, this looks like a quirky and fun one-shot adventure. Nice work!

The cover image is evocative. Even though you squeeze it into a mere quarter page, you include all the important cover info, and save your page real estate for the text of the adventure.

This is probably the most economical use of space I have seen in the jam. Yours is one of the entries with the most words: you even have room for the luxury of read-aloud text. The adventure is very clearly laid out, with judicious choice of fonts, colours, boxed text. The clear and attractive page layouts will increase playability at the table.

At first glance, the setup is a classic quest: break the curse, find the treasure. But the additional requirement to learn Ser Koschel’s story adds narrative and role-play elements. I like that the story is revealed piece-by-piece through player interaction as the adventure progresses.

The adventure is presented as a series of atmospheric locations, with random hazards and three repeating encounters. The fixed order of revealing Things Known means that the narrative will be progressively revealed. This looks like an entertaining night’s play, with plenty to keep the party engaged. Nice work!

Minor nit-picks:

In the “spreads” layout, shouldn’t the first page be on the right-hand side of the A4 spread, so it is the front cover when folded?

The factions are listed in a different order on p.1 than on the back page. (It adds a little unnecessary cognitive load to match them up.)

Typo on p.1 “amiral” → “amoral”

GURPS is also a good choice. Or BRP, another generic system that is designed to be easily adapted to specific genres.

The first adventure I have reviewed in this jam that went for A6 page size. Nice to offer the different layouts, though the two layouts I would find most useful would be: (a) A6 distressed pages without bleed, for viewing on a screen; (b) plain pages laid out 4 per sheet on 2 A4 sheets for printing at home.

Cover: captures the Appendix N vibe perfectly, with effective use of (I assume) public domain imagery, bold choice of fonts and intriguing teaser.

Interior art: Generous use of interior art, quite impressive for the size of the adventure, given the tight space constraints of the jam.

Looking at the art before reading the text: I get the feel that this adventure is leaning into Persian or Achaemenid mythology (except the dinosaurs, I look forward to reading how they fit in). Art styles are not totally consistent, but I think that still works, giving the adventure an unpolished OD&D/Zine/OSR feel.

Text: Use of alliteration is a fun conceit, it gives the impression that this is an adventure that is not taking itself too seriously.

Location descriptions: evocative, concise, well-written, thematically strong and consistent. Several encounters (ox, lammasu, demon) offer opportunities for role-play as well as combat. Might be nice to also have a puzzle or trap.

Gameplay: it’s a classic dungeon crawl with simple quest setup and a unified theme. Looks good for a fun evening of play, as a one-shot or with hooks to a future adventure navigating the cosmos.

I now read that the dinosaurs are “dragon hybrid creatures”. Why are they here? The other encounters are either desert dwellers (scorpions) or spiritual beings (lammasu or demons) or linked to a magic item (the spirit of the High Priest). The dragon encounter is the only one that lacks a clear explanation for why the creatures are there. Maybe they should be bas-reliefs that come to life when the sword is touched?

Random encounters: The dungeon has only a dozen rooms, so it seems infeasible that there are 6 different groups of monsters wandering around. I’d probably drop all the random encounters except the manticore, as it fits with your achaemenid theme and manticores traditionally haunted empty tombs and shrines like this one.

I would probably also drop the OD&D-specific rules references (“per page 24 of Monsters & Treasure”) as I imagine many people will run the adventure with a retroclone or compatible system. Or at least relegate it to a footnote.

Overall very nice work! I can see myself running this adventure.

I read your fake book review on Mastodon, that was a great idea. Now I want to see your follow-on adventure with the full masquerade!

You could include a few of the ideas you developed in the fake book review in the intro to this adventure (e.g. the bit about the long masquerade thrown by the prince while the king is away on endless war campaigns). The masquerade ball is a nice twist on the dungeon escape, I think it’s worth giving this context.

The intro page is has all the necessary information. Paragraph 1 is great, simple and to the point. I think I would move paragraph 2 to the end of the page, and group the introductory info under, “The Masquerade”, “The Masks” and “Player Intro”, with a natural segue from Player Intro into Location A.

The map is very easy to follow, with an interesting choice of locations. You could make more use of the isometric layout by having more 3D features on the upper level, e.g. towers or battlements around the courtyard, or a balcony in the main castle where the half-eaten waste and torn clothes are thrown down (p.1).

I wondered why the escapees don’t have to pass through the barracks, and why the stairs from the dungeon lead straight into the masks atelier. A slight rearrangement of the rooms would put more obstacles in the way of the players, forcing them to be inventive to escape the dungeon and obtain masks.

Overall this looks like a fun and very playable adventure. Although it’s system neutral, I can see it working well as a zero-level funnel for Dungeon Crawl Classics or gauntlet for Shadowdark.

Map: stunning artwork/map, absolutely beautiful. Great choice of colour palette.

Concept: nice interpretation of the Appendix N Title. In a few words and images you have created a coherent and evocative setting. I love the weird science angle of location X.

Gameplay: The point-crawl adventure with warmth as a resource that gets depleted is simple but effective. Several interesting factions and challenges to overcome: resource depletion is an issue not only for the players but also for the village. There are many ways that the adventure could play out.

Locations: The number order of the locations on the map didn’t seem completely logical to me: I connects to II,III,IV; II connects to IV… why not number them sequentially around the points?

Each location is simply explained with an effective use of subheadings and colour. You could help the reader by labelling the cross-references between locations (e.g. “weakens support for Kieran Mason (II)”).

Layout: The map page is perfect, with key information easy to find. The unlabelled version and print-friendly version are nice touches.

The location descriptions are also nicely laid out with effective use of fonts and colour. The only thing I would change would be to right-justify the text (especially as you are using hyphenation).

Very nice work, visually appealing, sound theme and concepts, well developed. I can imagine a fun evening playing this adventure.

Cover: I see it’s your own artwork — fabulous! The cover works very well as a teaser: the theme and inspirations of the adventure are evident but it leaves enough unanswered questions to make you want to turn the page.

Interior art: nice stock art choices that complement the text and enhance the theme. I’m not sure about the ochre colour though, it clashes a bit with the muted tones of the cover.

Writing: “It has been many years since you all hung up your plumed hats, soubrevestes, and flouncy collars.” Love it! In one sentence you set the tone.

Gameplay: The single-use things that give protection/an opening are a great idea. They do require some familiarity with the genre, maybe an idea would be rather than providing examples, to have random tables for these items (with the option for players to choose/invent their own).

The Manse: I would probably prefer to have a map rather than a description how to create the map.

Fonts: The handwritten look of the main heading font looks fine. I’m not sure it works so well to have a similar but different font for the subheadings?

Layout: “Preparation” should be a main heading?

Usually full justification looks better than ragged right, especially as you are hyphenating. You could reduce spacing between paragraphs to half a line. Consider contouring the text around your images. You could remove the bullet points before Luckily/Trickily/Wittily.

The game is system-neutral but perhaps some systems would be more suitable than others (Pendragon? Chivalry & Sorcery? The Might Deed of Arms rule from Dungeon Crawl Classics?)

Overall this looks like a lot of fun for an evening of play. You set the genre and the tone and provide the players and the GM with lots of options to lean into that. Nice work!

I love this expansion of the Ratcatcher!

The personage of Oswald Fink was inspired by the eponymous character in Roald Dahl’s short story, The Ratcatcher (1953), which was adapted into a short film The Rat Catcher (2024) by Wes Anderson.

Cover: An arresting cover that ticks the Appendix N boxes: a haunting oil-painted portrait, fonts that scream 1970s and distressed paperback look, as if you had just picked it off the pulp fantasy shelf in your local second-hand bookshop.

Interior art: Weird Tales pencil artwork works very well.

Interior layout: I like the limited choice of colour palette, it’s a case of less is more. The green bars on the table are lighter than the green used for the bold text and on the map, maybe it would look better if they were all the same shade? Though the dark green/black combo is harder to read so maybe not.

The columned text layout is for the most part attractive and easy to read. Just a few places where the text bumps up against the table and artwork could do with more space to breathe.

The Adventure: Nice concept and outline, with a lot of potential for role-playing, investigation and negotiation. Due to the space constraints imposed by this jam, the GM will have to put in some time fleshing out the details (or be good at improvising). Given the space constraints, I wonder if the table of terrain types and distances is a good use of space. I think if I was running this I would be inclined to hand-wave the moving from location to location and focus on the political and personal interactions.

Nice work, very pretty!

Visually stunning homage to the Appendix N theme of the jam! Artwork, fonts, graphic design are all beautiful.

I like the way you kept the look of a book cover but didn’t waste space, with the Water Weird behind the front cover tear and the premise of the adventure formatted like the blurb on the back cover of a pulp paperback. Very inventive.

The adventure is fairly well explained, but a couple of things were not clear to me. It seems that the pilgrims arrive one-at-a-time in a random order? I didn’t understand the significance of the three staircases or the purpose of the diagram with the squares and circles and arrows.

I can imagine this would be fun to play, with plenty of opportuunity for role-playing as well as combat, with the consequences hanging on the players’ actions.

Visually stunning homage to the Appendix N theme of the jam! Artwork, fonts, graphic design are all beautiful.

I like the way you kept the look of a book cover but didn’t waste space, with the Water Weird behind the front cover tear and the premise of the adventure formatted like the blurb on the back cover of a pulp paperback. Very inventive.

The adventure is fairly well explained, but a couple of things were not clear to me. It seems that the pilgrims arrive one-at-a-time in a random order? I didn’t understand the significance of the three staircases or the purpose of the diagram with the squares and circles and arrows.

I can imagine this would be fun to play, with plenty of opportuunity for role-playing as well as combat, with the consequences hanging on the players’ actions.

The folding map is a clever and original way to maximise the size of the adventure within the space constraints. Great idea. Nice hand-drawn cartography too.

The overall layout (tri-fold, margins, fonts, headings) works very well and you pack in a lot of text.

The text is quite dense and I found it a little hard to navigate at first. It’s not obvious where to begin, maybe number the headings to guide the reader? Also there are some internal references and context that are not obvious until you read the whole thing through. Perhaps more paragraph breaks/subheadings would help to guide the reader around?

Very nice entry with some great ideas!

Dungeon Crawl Classics is a tabletop role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons, but more heavy metal.

The goddess Pelagia gets barely five words of description in the DCC Core Rulebook (“Neutral goddess of the sea”). I thought she deserved more, so I wrote this 17-page supplement detailing her creation myth, the philosophy of her religion and the special powers of her priesthood.

I also changed her alignment from Neutral to Chaotic, for reasons explained in the book.

This is the second edition, with revisions to the text and new artwork and layout. https://strangequarkgames.itch.io/the-priesthood-of-pelagia

I bought this hoping to receive a comic telling the story of the Haft Khan-e Rostam. What I got was a disjoint connection of scenes from the story with repetition, missing scenes and an incoherent narrative. It’s like someone watched a movie about the Haft Khan then fell asleep and had a dream about it and wrote down the bits they could remember as soon as they woke up.

Contents:

Page 1: Title page. OK. Page 2: “Here begins the First Triel” [sic] Page 3: 3 frames. Repeats exactly the same text as page 2 for some reason, but with different spelling errors. “Rostam, the mighty, rode into the uneknow” [sic] Page 4: “As Rostam journeved [sic] through the Seven Trials, a mighty lion east [sic] its fierce gaze upon him.” Is this still the first trial? Not really clear. Page 5: “Sure enough, the demon of the desert emerged with fury in its eves [sic] and an ax in its han” Page 6: We didn’t find out what happened with the demon but now it has vanished and “in his third trial” Rostam faces a fearsome dragon. Page 7: “On his third trial [is this a different third trial?], Rostam rode on through darkening wood.” This is also about a dragon, even though Rostam already smote the dragon until it was no more. Is this the same dragon or another one? “Rostam held his gleaming blade aloft”. That’s where we leave this challenge, without finding out what happened to the dragon. Page 8: Rostam meets a snake. “Brandishing his sword, Rostam bellowed a challenge to the”. This challenge ends in mid-sentence. Page 9: “His foe vanquished, the White Demon tumbled to the earth” What? First mention of this demon. Where did the demon come from? Was the “foe” the snake or the demon? “Thus did Rostam lead Prince Kavus and his men, at last, from the forsaken cavern.” What? Who is Prince Kavus? First mention of this cavern. Speech bubble “Come, my prince—yaa, you are free” spoken by the prince, not Rostam. Page 10: “Rostam stood in sorrow over the fallen White Div”. Is this the same demon as the one on p.9? Not really clear. Page 11: Back cover with blurb. Page 12: This “12-page comic” has no page 12.

The story is a jumbled mess that makes no sense. Surprise, surprise, this is AI slop. At the bottom of each page is text that says, “Created in Photo-to-PDF One Click Converter. Download here: https://firehawk.ai/phototopdf/”

I love the combined cover/map. Original and effective use of space. Artwork is gorgeous.

The layout is beautiful! Even before reading the text, it’s possible to see at a glance intro, tables, encounter areas, stats. Great use of boxes, colour, fonts.

Imaginative interpretation of the title: the staff is not just a found object or goal of the quest, it is the location in which the adventure takes place. Allows the adventure to be dropped in to any campaign without any elaborate setup.

Slightly bonkers setting, great Appendix N vibe. Nice balance of puzzles, traps and combat. Would work very well for DCC or Moldvay Basic.

Overall, looks like a great adventure. I would use this.

Critique:

• If the party succeed in obtaining the Eldritch Staff, what are its powers? The same as the Spirit?
• Just a thought: might it be better to put the intro text and random encounters on the back page, so all the numbered encounter areas are together on the inside spread?
• Minor nitpick: a few grammar errors (singular-plural accord between nouns and verbs) and strange punctuation choices (unnecessary comma, semicolons where a comma would make more sense). Really very minor with no affect on playability.

I loved the overall look and mood of this module. The choice of colours, fonts and artwork contribute to the creepy atmosphere. I liked the weirdness of the front cover and the way the back cover looks a bit like the précis on the back cover of a novel.

The adventure itself consists of a backstory, a set of tables and a final encounter. It could make a fun side-quest. The encounters are mostly classic tropes, which is fine, but it would be nice to have a few “unique” encounters.

Critique:

• It feels more like a toolkit than a complete adventure. The GM will either have to do some prep to flesh out the encounters or improvise as they go.
• Some of the colour choices are hard to read (black on dark green). Full-colour layout makes it hard to print at home.
• If you are using full text justification, consider also hyphenating, to avoid excessive spacing between words (ideally, choose software that can adjust the inter-letter spacing as well as inter-word spacing).