Mini Encounter Contest - Heat Six

It's been a while since the rules for this encounter contest have been published. It was a contest where everybody could send in his encounter.

It had to be set on 3 pages (a fourth was possible for maps), one containing the encounter itself, one for the location, one for the NPC. Both NPC and location should be usable seperately. Also, the type font should be Times New Roman 12 or similar.

You can't enter anymore, but you can vote on the best entry still. This is the sixth heat, two more will come (I think) - and then the final heat with the previous winners.

DL and read the entries, compare to the contest rules, choose your winner.

Have fun!

Berandor

I really liked 3 of them:

The Blood Soaked Seal:
This was really a cool story and NPC. Really an epic event.
Freeing someone long imprisoned by the gods is a staple of
a lot of good books. I liked the imagery of his blood seeping into
the grooves of the seal.

To Defy the Setting Sun:
I really liked the NPC. The idea of two great enemies controlling
the same body one at night and one at day. That's an idea I
might use. The shrine was a clever idea (The "punny" subtitle
was horrible

The Granite Beak:
This was straight forward. I liked the location a lot. A little bit
of legend thrown in and a great place for bandits. Harpies as
a monster are unexpected.

I couldn't make up my mind so I asked myself which one was
I more likely to use in my campaign at a moments notice?
The Granite Beak got my vote. The others would take more
work to fit into my campaign, although I enjoyed reading them
more.

The Haunted Box Canyon
This was kind of a nice quick dungeon. But no real NPC.

Ruins and Statues
The NPC and the location were interesting. But they were
very, very seperate. I kind of thought the NPC and location
were suppose to be seperate and the encounter brought them
together. I didn't see an encounter with the gargoyle.

Mom's Butcher Shop
Because this is winning in the voting I won't make
the author feel too bad by insulting it. After all, everyone else
says it's good. I'm just one kook. I thought this was horrible.
It just seemed contrived. The bad guys went through a lot
of unnecessary effort just to be gruesome.
I just can't envision this set up. Hmmm, Perhaps if you said the
bad guys used the shop infrequently it might be more
believable.

But claiming that murder victims create a CHEAP supply of
meat is ridiculous. There is not much meat there. The murderer
must be paid. The thugs who arrange transportation and
and butchering must be paid. And they will need to be paid
a premium in order to keep quite.

Prisoners for the Web
This was also a nice quick encounter to throw in at will.

My campaign:
http://home.indy.rr.com/ahwmrklas/dnd/summary.htm

Drat, I missed this heat...aw well, if someone wants my comments on their entry, let me know.

Someone asked about the rules earlier, here they are:

For reference, here are the Rules:
1) Entry should consist of three pages. The first page should contain the encounter, the second page should describe (and, if necessary, map) the location and the third page should include your NPC, complete with background, roleplaying notes and combat tactics (if relevant). Your entry may optionally contain one fourth page for illustrations or maps; this is not compulsory.
2) You may not exceed one page for each of these elements, and your text should be in Times New Roman font (or similar) at a font size of 12 points.
3) The full 3-page document should bear a title and an indication of its Encounter Level, and sent as an email attachment to me at morrus@d20reviews.com.
4) The location and the NPC should be useful independently of each other and of the encounter itself.
5) The encounter should be one that can be easily inserted into most campaigns.
6) The encounter should be clear and easy to run?


For what it's worth, I didn't think Mom's Butcher Shop, the winner of this heat, had a location and NPC's that were independent of each other, and of the encounter itself (was there even an encounter really?).

The winner is Mom's Butcher Shop.

The next heat will be posted tomorrow. We're nearly finished!