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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 5626489" data-attributes="member: 150">Round 1 Match 4 Judgement: Wayland the Slayer Vs. PentiusRound 1 Match 4 Judgement: Wayland the Slayer Vs. PentiusJudge: Radiating GnomeI'm running late again, so lets just jump right in. I'll be referring to "Alomir's End" (AE) and "'Til Death Do We Part" (TD).Ingredients:Hive Queen - AE doesn't have an actual queen of the hive per se, but her mind is imprinted onto Alomir's by the magic of the axe, Dakkor. It's an interesting solution to the challenge of the ingredient -- I have some questions (I'll get to them later) but it works for the sake of the ingredient. For TD, the hive queen is Lydia, enslaved "queen" of the skum that serve the aboleth. It's a bitter stretch from the ingredient -- while aboleths dominate and enslave the minds of their victims, it's not quite the same thing as a "hive mind" in my opinion, and lydia isn't quite a queen, either. It's interesting, but calling her a hive queen is pretty thin -- certainly more thin than that in AE, so advantate AE. Hidden Watchtower - In AE, the adventure location is a tower than was part of the fomorian queen's city. It's hidden, because no one in Mistfall has any idea that's what it was before it was the strange land formation their city sits on top of. It works, I guess, but those details don't really add much to the story -- that detail could be removed from the story without impact. In TD's case, there are multiple watchtowers -- a few ruined ones and an invisible one that is used by the Skum. While I'm not a fan of trying multiple uses, the primary use (the illusion watchtower) covers the bases well enough. I find myself wondering, though, about the watchtower part of the ingrendient. In this case it's an active watchtower, and it's invisible, so presumably the PCs are observed by the Skum while they approach. Once the tower is revealed, the screams of the skum guards are meant to be enough to alert the others, but if it's really a watchtower, wouldn't that alarm already be raised by the time the PCs have entered the tower? Anyway, both have towers, but at least TD's tower serves it's sentry duty in some fashion, so I'll give the advantage here to TD.Righteous Wizard - Both have wizards, Alomir and Abner. Alomir does not really seem righteous to me. He's tossed off the spire because he won't stop pursuing Liandra, not because of any sort of righteousness.  Abner's motives also are not righteous -- he's also driven by love (for his wife) and not some sort of moral or social code that could be labeled righteousness.  No advantage for anyone here. Crystal Axeblade - In AE, Dakkor is the blade of a crystal axe that imprints the mind of the last enemy killed by the axe onto the axe's bearer.  It's a pretty cool artifact, something that has a lot of potential. It seems to me that it would need a little development, especially if it's something that the Pcs will be able to pick up and use. How much of the original mind is left when the imprinting takes place? What does that "imprint" really entail? Must the axe strike the killing blow? Another issue for me is that the axe isn't really an axe during the course of the adventure, just a bit of heavy and dangerous-sounding neckwear (don't trip!). The axe in TD is an actual axe, and is used to sever the tentacles that tie Lydia to the Skum, freeing her. It's serviceable, but not truly integral. It could be removed from the adventure and the PCs could remove the tentacles with a standard action each without the help of the axe. So, even with it's problems, I do favor AE's crystal axe.  Advantage AE.   Unending Pursuit Well, yeah. Unending pursuit should be unending.  Alomir's pursuit ends when he's tossed off the cliff -- even though he survives, he stops pursuing Liandra, and instead seeks revenge.  So, when the adventure actually starts, the pursuit is over. In Abner's case, his pursuit is ongoing, and in the end of the adventure, assuming the PCs manage to rescue her, it can finally end. For a pursuit to really be unending, I'm not sure that I like that it ends, but at least that pursuit lasts through the entier adventure. Advantage TD. Lover's Leap - AE's lover's leap is actually a false lover's leap (since Alomir was thrown), but that's a trivial distinction, it works. TD tries to make do with a sort of figurative leap, as it's described in the ingredient breakdown at the end, but it's pretty clear that AE's use is better. Advantage AE.  Creativity - Overall, these are both pretty cool adventures. If we look at the independent of the ingredients, they both seem like they'd be cool, interesting advntures to play. I have questions about both -- I already mentioned questions about AE and how the magic of the Axe works (if Alomir's mind has been taken over by the Hive Queen's, why does he still seek revenge?) but I have similar questions about TD. Why would the Aboleth have taken the risks inherent in venturing up to the surface to capture Lydia in the first place? She doesn't seem special at all? Abner is the one with the power in the family, right? If aboleths are so crazy smart, what is so special about this girl? And if she's special, why isn't that an important part of the adventure.  In the end, I think both need a little more development, but they both work pretty well. No advantage to either on creativity. Playability/Desire to Use - I find that I'm drawn to AE more -- I'm interested in the alien setting of the Formorian hive, which seems to be a lot more "natural" than the Aboleth's 3x3 complex which seems to be less "natural", more artificial, a dungeon level rather than a habitat.  The PCs end up with an interesting artifact that has cool ramifiactions for future play, and the detective work seems a bit more interesting than the simple delve that TD offers. Conclusion - It's pretty close all along, but AE made slightly better use of the ingredients and the adventure seems a little stronger to me. So, @Walyander the Slayer wins, and advances to Round 2. Thanks to both of you -- [MENTION=6676736]Pentius[/MENTION], your entry was very good, and very well could have come out on top. Thanks for your entry!</blockquote>

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