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-Loonook.
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Ready to go... But what is the Word Count Limit? Also, image limit?
Slainte,
-Loonook.
Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
2000 words. Images and stat blocks neither required or encouraged.
Secrets of the Green: A Fantasy Tale for 4 Stalwart Adventurers
Cast:
Background
Fiddler’s Crown and the Widows of Hawken are known throughout the land. Beautiful women who lost their betrothed on the eve of their weddings, the Ladies hold a tournament in honor of their beloved each year. Buttressed between Widow’s Walk Peak and the Quiet Forest, Fiddler’s Crown is the castle that guards the Tree of the Worlds, built high within its branches and overlooking sea and land. The Crown is applauded for its beautiful architecture, and the beautiful aquaculture contained within the room known as the Seaside Solarium. The Greencup Tourney is a place for the Masters of Mirth, a group of skilled court magicians, to show their skills. And when a knight of notable bearing comes to court, the players are caught up in a tale of a jugged mage, twisted love, and a mother’s betrayal.
Introduced By:
Act 1: The Widows of Hawken and the Greencup:
The Tourney at Fiddler’s Crown begins anew. Mages of note travel to create traps and monsters for the Grand Hunt. The tourney is a day-long search for the Emerald Chalice, an given the Widows upon the elimination of the Greencup Bloodline. This year’s site is a mystic island environment built from the designs of the Master of Mirth and populated by the creations of the mage’s contest. The Master has created a grand multilayered desert island dungeon, populated by various beautiful natives, spiraling up with views of the interior provided by the Mages through elaborate illusions for spectactors.
Twelve men are allowed into the Dungeon, from the bottom to the top, and as soon as one man reaches the next layer the lowest layer descends into the sea, slowly drowning any below. Any individuals who are ‘drowned’ In such a manner immediately trigger a water-breathing effect and are brought to safety by spotters. When the Greencup is taken everything shifts; structures weaken and the terrain buckles. It is an escape scenario to get away before being sucked down without flight or teleportation.
Act 2: Accusations, The Jugged Mage, and a Trip Beneath the Canopy.
The instability of the Greencup is unexpected, and Mirth is furious. The players see the Master speaking into a large cone attached to a barrel. The barrel contains Lord Emon Malmsey, the Jugged Mage. A scholar of architectural spellcraft and transmutative illness, Malmsey’s poultice recipes are legendary. Living inside a hyperbaric cask to pressurize his body, afflicted with a expansive polymorphic curse. Malmsey examines the item and if asked discusses regarding polymorphic instability/psychosis, and other magic illnesses.
A strange new fault within the Greencup is spotted by the Malmsey and Mirth The mage’s discussion, leads to the Greencup family and the disappearance of the young knights. The ladies tell the tale; how they were promised to the Greencups, keepers of the Worldtree’s trunk. Thistledown, home of Greencup, lie below these fifteen years, along with answers.
The party is beset by invisible creatures in the night, winds that attempt to throw them off the criss-crossing walkways to death below. They find a scrap of fabric with the symbol of Eberhardt upon it. Malmsey, if still trusted, suggests a trip below.
The Worldtree’s deep trunk descends, protected by the Earth. Travel is made on a rickety spiral ramp (The Great Thread), with small buildings for rest. Sounds of wildlife chatter, and some buildings may contain beasts enthralled by the saboteur. Long branches as thick as a waist radiate away, allowing access to the Canopy. Several spots along the path have been broken by brute force, a broken Hawken ax visible. Creatures seem to stalk the players, and eyes can be seen shining from the canopy on the hours-long descent.
Act 3: Thistledown, Lady of the Ruins, and A Sister’s Shame.
Thistledown has been reclaimed by nature, but the land is still viable. Greencup banners hang above the gates of the estate. More spartan than Fiddler’s Crown, Thistledown’s walls are bare, and various beasts nest within.
In the throne room sits a bear wearing a crown made of gold, covered in thistle flowers, with a beautiful girl with alabaster skin sitting in its lap. The girl, when she opens her eyes, has clearly seen better days, as her eyes have been torn from her face and replaced with two silver coins. She seems to sense the party, coming out of the bear’s lap and straightening her skirts.
The bear ponders the newcomers, and then speaks in a deep bass voice. He asks how the PCs have come to his manor, and why he and his love are disturbed. If asked, the bear claims to be Lord Shardin Baixista, Lord of Thistledown and Protector of the Land Below. If angered the bear becomes enraged, charging the characters to “tear from root and branch”
When bloodied the bear cries off, and explains. His soul, along with the souls of his brothers, has been trapped within the forms of animals by foul magic just after he found Bianca’s body. Though it was claimed she jumped over the Widow’s Walk for love of a stablehand, the truth is that she was cast down to die in the Land Below by Prata when she was caught in bed with Baixista. He claims Fiddler’s Crown cursed them to live as the animals of their nature.
Baixista, hearty and stout, was changed to a bear. Passaro, the handsome ranger, became an eagle and flew afield. Lebre, lusty and quick, turned to a hare. None know the faith of Peixe, Bianca’s betrothed. Bianca wishes to return to the Land Above, and reclaim her birthright. The curse placed upon the brothers seems to be immutable, and Bianca has tried all of the skills she learned in her tutelage with Lord Malmsey before his disease. Skilled in shapechanging, Bianca can take the form of any natural creature.
Interlude: The Lady’s Favored and the Battle of Thistledown.
Outside Thistledown on the Thread a dozen large warriors bearing Hawken colors attack. Some of the men are recognizable from the house, with Sir Filo wearing The Lady’s Favor.
Sir Filo has been promised the hand of the Silver Lady Hawken if he can murder the group. The rest are under an enthrallment. When Filo is killed the enchantment is broken, and the guards will rally behind Lady Bianca.
Act 4: The Family Secret, Closing
The players leave Thistledown and learn Passaro has stayed beside his Lady as a hawk since his transformation. Prata is exposed as the Hawken Family Secret. When House Hawken built Fiddler’s Crown they sacrificed seven peasant maids to protect their household. From this corruptive influence a creature rose to stalk the Hawken line, slowly corrupting the world outside of its demense and reveling in destruction… Until the Greencup. Now she hopes to use the Greencup to buy her freedom, creating a new bond between herself and the Cup so she may pass freely through the world.
The creature chooses the youngest Hawken maid, and traps her soul in its dying shell. It failed its last swap when Bianca was deflowered and threw the girl down the Tree in rage. This rage turned Bianca Revenant. To marshal her power for ritual the Lady changed the lads before Prata could be married.
The Lady is a corrupted form of dryad witch, and her Favor was the curse’s focus. Challenged, she enthralls, curses, and obfuscates. First she ruptures Lord Malmsey’s tank, causing a Medium-sized pudding to erupt from his cursed body once/round, which combine together 2:1 per size category. Once defeated and the gauntlets are broken the curse will be lifted, and Bianca dies avenged.
Lord Malmsey’s condition is not reverted. However, a book that can be found in ‘Prata’s’ diary contains an entry about a witch who came through Fiddler’s Crown disguised as a cook, and who dwells in the Quiet Forest.
Loose Ends: There are small plot pieces that may be found within the overall setting of the adventure. If the PCs look into them through Gathering of Information, the fate of the maiden sacrifices, a cure for Lord Malmsey, the summoner of the air elementals, and the corrupter of the Greencup may be found.
Side Quest: A Trip to Eberhardt.
The Village of Tinkers, Eberhardt is Lord Malmsey’s home. If the players wish to investigate the attack on the walkways the Village is filled with magicians who make magic trinkets and potions. Their runoff, Opal Pond, causes strange effects when imbibed or placed on the skin. The Lady’s accomplice, Malmsey’s apprentice Leopold, will stalk the party back. He will attempt to foolishly ambush the party via flight. If dispelled over the Pond he turns into a swarm of micro-Leopolds that fight to the death. The old Master of Fiddler’s Crown, Donton, lives in Eberhardt and has tales of strange happenings with the youngest daughters.
Side Quest: In the Canopy.
The bodies of the maidens still hang in the canopy in a place where few but the most adventurous go. Some of the wildmen who live within the canopy, if asked and bartered with, will lead the party there. The spirits of the maidens are kept in constant torment by the Lady’s dogs, spiritual hounds that bray and tear at their flesh only to leave them to heal again. If freed the maidens will assist in battle against the Lady’s minions, and destroy Fiddler’s Crown piece by piece.
Side Quest: Lord Malmsey’s Condition.
If the book is found in Prata’s room the Witch may be tracked down. She lives hidden by many enchantments, but the sounds of travelers will call her protectors to life. Powerful elementals, the stones that contain their animating spirit can be used to hone in on the witch’s location and a cure for the curse.
Side Quest: The Saboteur.
A bastard of the Greencup line was the one to sabotage the Lady’s Cup. This bastard, a half-brother to the Widows, was promised Fiddler’s Crown for his corruption of the Cup. The bastard is the Master of Mirth himself, and will battle tooth and nail. He will tell her secrets if put to the sword, but not before visiting Thistledown.
Ingredients:
Awakened Bear – Shardin Baixista, Lord of Thistledown.
Sinking Island – The Greencup Tourney’s venue.
Esoteric Scholar - The Casked Mage, hyperb(ear/ar)ic chambered sorcerer, infected by a mutagenic disease caused by exposure to heavy transmutation
Family Reunion - Bianca and Prata, though not under the best of terms.
Treehouse - Fiddler's Crown, the castle of the Greencup Widows.
Gauntlets of Ogre Power – The Lady’s Favor, the crux of the curse.
Cast:
- Widows Hawken: Three ladies (Prata – Silvery-blond, bichromatic eyes, terse, has a cat in tow, eats roast hare, lives in the Seaside Tower, Loira – Golden hair (short), brown eyes, firm, lives for the hunt, carries a falcon on shoulder, and Ruivo – Red long hair, green eyes, reserved, drinks heavily, eldest) of Fiddler’s Crown. One sister, Bianca, died of sorrow leaping from Widow’s Walk Peak.
- Lords Greencup: Four lads (Baixista - Eldest, stout and strong, brown hair, jovial, Passaro – Blond hair, blue eyes, quick-witted, Lebre – Black hair, green eyes, legitimized bastard, Peixe – Silver-haired, grey eyed, child) disappeared before the Wedding.
- Lord Emon Malmsey of Eberhardt – Skilled arcane scholar of esoteric knowledge, currently in a state of disrepair.
- Master of Mirth – Middle-aged, potbellied, salt/pepper brown eyes, happy, quick-witted, and master of the Greencup Tourney.
- Sir Filo – Love-besotted knight-retainer and hopeful for Prata’s widowed hand.
- The Greencup – An item of power capable of creating the wielder’s imagined terrain through blood and magic.
- The Saboteur – A wicked creature who holds the secrets of Thistledown and Fiddler’s Crown.
Background
Fiddler’s Crown and the Widows of Hawken are known throughout the land. Beautiful women who lost their betrothed on the eve of their weddings, the Ladies hold a tournament in honor of their beloved each year. Buttressed between Widow’s Walk Peak and the Quiet Forest, Fiddler’s Crown is the castle that guards the Tree of the Worlds, built high within its branches and overlooking sea and land. The Crown is applauded for its beautiful architecture, and the beautiful aquaculture contained within the room known as the Seaside Solarium. The Greencup Tourney is a place for the Masters of Mirth, a group of skilled court magicians, to show their skills. And when a knight of notable bearing comes to court, the players are caught up in a tale of a jugged mage, twisted love, and a mother’s betrayal.
Introduced By:
- Party spellcasters are invited by a fellow of some note to attend and compete for a grand prize in the Tourney of Creation at Fiddler’s Crown.
- Warriors far and wide tell of a prize worth its weight in jewels given by three widows of unsurpassed beauty.
- A herald of the Hawken Widows rides through town, spreading word of the Greencup tourney and challenging all of skill and courage to battle the Tourney’s powerful challenges.
Act 1: The Widows of Hawken and the Greencup:
The Tourney at Fiddler’s Crown begins anew. Mages of note travel to create traps and monsters for the Grand Hunt. The tourney is a day-long search for the Emerald Chalice, an given the Widows upon the elimination of the Greencup Bloodline. This year’s site is a mystic island environment built from the designs of the Master of Mirth and populated by the creations of the mage’s contest. The Master has created a grand multilayered desert island dungeon, populated by various beautiful natives, spiraling up with views of the interior provided by the Mages through elaborate illusions for spectactors.
Twelve men are allowed into the Dungeon, from the bottom to the top, and as soon as one man reaches the next layer the lowest layer descends into the sea, slowly drowning any below. Any individuals who are ‘drowned’ In such a manner immediately trigger a water-breathing effect and are brought to safety by spotters. When the Greencup is taken everything shifts; structures weaken and the terrain buckles. It is an escape scenario to get away before being sucked down without flight or teleportation.
Act 2: Accusations, The Jugged Mage, and a Trip Beneath the Canopy.
The instability of the Greencup is unexpected, and Mirth is furious. The players see the Master speaking into a large cone attached to a barrel. The barrel contains Lord Emon Malmsey, the Jugged Mage. A scholar of architectural spellcraft and transmutative illness, Malmsey’s poultice recipes are legendary. Living inside a hyperbaric cask to pressurize his body, afflicted with a expansive polymorphic curse. Malmsey examines the item and if asked discusses regarding polymorphic instability/psychosis, and other magic illnesses.
A strange new fault within the Greencup is spotted by the Malmsey and Mirth The mage’s discussion, leads to the Greencup family and the disappearance of the young knights. The ladies tell the tale; how they were promised to the Greencups, keepers of the Worldtree’s trunk. Thistledown, home of Greencup, lie below these fifteen years, along with answers.
The party is beset by invisible creatures in the night, winds that attempt to throw them off the criss-crossing walkways to death below. They find a scrap of fabric with the symbol of Eberhardt upon it. Malmsey, if still trusted, suggests a trip below.
The Worldtree’s deep trunk descends, protected by the Earth. Travel is made on a rickety spiral ramp (The Great Thread), with small buildings for rest. Sounds of wildlife chatter, and some buildings may contain beasts enthralled by the saboteur. Long branches as thick as a waist radiate away, allowing access to the Canopy. Several spots along the path have been broken by brute force, a broken Hawken ax visible. Creatures seem to stalk the players, and eyes can be seen shining from the canopy on the hours-long descent.
Act 3: Thistledown, Lady of the Ruins, and A Sister’s Shame.
Thistledown has been reclaimed by nature, but the land is still viable. Greencup banners hang above the gates of the estate. More spartan than Fiddler’s Crown, Thistledown’s walls are bare, and various beasts nest within.
In the throne room sits a bear wearing a crown made of gold, covered in thistle flowers, with a beautiful girl with alabaster skin sitting in its lap. The girl, when she opens her eyes, has clearly seen better days, as her eyes have been torn from her face and replaced with two silver coins. She seems to sense the party, coming out of the bear’s lap and straightening her skirts.
The bear ponders the newcomers, and then speaks in a deep bass voice. He asks how the PCs have come to his manor, and why he and his love are disturbed. If asked, the bear claims to be Lord Shardin Baixista, Lord of Thistledown and Protector of the Land Below. If angered the bear becomes enraged, charging the characters to “tear from root and branch”
When bloodied the bear cries off, and explains. His soul, along with the souls of his brothers, has been trapped within the forms of animals by foul magic just after he found Bianca’s body. Though it was claimed she jumped over the Widow’s Walk for love of a stablehand, the truth is that she was cast down to die in the Land Below by Prata when she was caught in bed with Baixista. He claims Fiddler’s Crown cursed them to live as the animals of their nature.
Baixista, hearty and stout, was changed to a bear. Passaro, the handsome ranger, became an eagle and flew afield. Lebre, lusty and quick, turned to a hare. None know the faith of Peixe, Bianca’s betrothed. Bianca wishes to return to the Land Above, and reclaim her birthright. The curse placed upon the brothers seems to be immutable, and Bianca has tried all of the skills she learned in her tutelage with Lord Malmsey before his disease. Skilled in shapechanging, Bianca can take the form of any natural creature.
Interlude: The Lady’s Favored and the Battle of Thistledown.
Outside Thistledown on the Thread a dozen large warriors bearing Hawken colors attack. Some of the men are recognizable from the house, with Sir Filo wearing The Lady’s Favor.
Sir Filo has been promised the hand of the Silver Lady Hawken if he can murder the group. The rest are under an enthrallment. When Filo is killed the enchantment is broken, and the guards will rally behind Lady Bianca.
Act 4: The Family Secret, Closing
The players leave Thistledown and learn Passaro has stayed beside his Lady as a hawk since his transformation. Prata is exposed as the Hawken Family Secret. When House Hawken built Fiddler’s Crown they sacrificed seven peasant maids to protect their household. From this corruptive influence a creature rose to stalk the Hawken line, slowly corrupting the world outside of its demense and reveling in destruction… Until the Greencup. Now she hopes to use the Greencup to buy her freedom, creating a new bond between herself and the Cup so she may pass freely through the world.
The creature chooses the youngest Hawken maid, and traps her soul in its dying shell. It failed its last swap when Bianca was deflowered and threw the girl down the Tree in rage. This rage turned Bianca Revenant. To marshal her power for ritual the Lady changed the lads before Prata could be married.
The Lady is a corrupted form of dryad witch, and her Favor was the curse’s focus. Challenged, she enthralls, curses, and obfuscates. First she ruptures Lord Malmsey’s tank, causing a Medium-sized pudding to erupt from his cursed body once/round, which combine together 2:1 per size category. Once defeated and the gauntlets are broken the curse will be lifted, and Bianca dies avenged.
Lord Malmsey’s condition is not reverted. However, a book that can be found in ‘Prata’s’ diary contains an entry about a witch who came through Fiddler’s Crown disguised as a cook, and who dwells in the Quiet Forest.
Loose Ends: There are small plot pieces that may be found within the overall setting of the adventure. If the PCs look into them through Gathering of Information, the fate of the maiden sacrifices, a cure for Lord Malmsey, the summoner of the air elementals, and the corrupter of the Greencup may be found.
Side Quest: A Trip to Eberhardt.
The Village of Tinkers, Eberhardt is Lord Malmsey’s home. If the players wish to investigate the attack on the walkways the Village is filled with magicians who make magic trinkets and potions. Their runoff, Opal Pond, causes strange effects when imbibed or placed on the skin. The Lady’s accomplice, Malmsey’s apprentice Leopold, will stalk the party back. He will attempt to foolishly ambush the party via flight. If dispelled over the Pond he turns into a swarm of micro-Leopolds that fight to the death. The old Master of Fiddler’s Crown, Donton, lives in Eberhardt and has tales of strange happenings with the youngest daughters.
Side Quest: In the Canopy.
The bodies of the maidens still hang in the canopy in a place where few but the most adventurous go. Some of the wildmen who live within the canopy, if asked and bartered with, will lead the party there. The spirits of the maidens are kept in constant torment by the Lady’s dogs, spiritual hounds that bray and tear at their flesh only to leave them to heal again. If freed the maidens will assist in battle against the Lady’s minions, and destroy Fiddler’s Crown piece by piece.
Side Quest: Lord Malmsey’s Condition.
If the book is found in Prata’s room the Witch may be tracked down. She lives hidden by many enchantments, but the sounds of travelers will call her protectors to life. Powerful elementals, the stones that contain their animating spirit can be used to hone in on the witch’s location and a cure for the curse.
Side Quest: The Saboteur.
A bastard of the Greencup line was the one to sabotage the Lady’s Cup. This bastard, a half-brother to the Widows, was promised Fiddler’s Crown for his corruption of the Cup. The bastard is the Master of Mirth himself, and will battle tooth and nail. He will tell her secrets if put to the sword, but not before visiting Thistledown.
Ingredients:
Awakened Bear – Shardin Baixista, Lord of Thistledown.
Sinking Island – The Greencup Tourney’s venue.
Esoteric Scholar - The Casked Mage, hyperb(ear/ar)ic chambered sorcerer, infected by a mutagenic disease caused by exposure to heavy transmutation
Family Reunion - Bianca and Prata, though not under the best of terms.
Treehouse - Fiddler's Crown, the castle of the Greencup Widows.
Gauntlets of Ogre Power – The Lady’s Favor, the crux of the curse.
Lwaxy
Cute but dangerous
Awakened Bear – Sharbo, former companion of a druid
Sinking Island – the Island of Dokar Muray Arthy
Esoteric Scholar – Lorcan the Elf
Family Reunion – Lorcan's sinister relatives pay a visit
Treehouse – Lorcan's replacement for a wizard's tower
Gauntlets of Ogre Power – the way to pull the lever
The Island of Dokar Muray Arthy
Designed for 4 – 6 PCs 3rd – 5th level. An arcane magic user recommended. With little changes, the scenario can also be used in a modern setting.
PCs arrive on an island after their ship is wrecked by an unexpected cliff. The wreck is uneventful – they use the lifeboats, but they later find their money has mostly been liberated by one of the sailors. A kraken attack or a swarm of sharks could be added. They land close to the small coastal town of Homedale. The people are hospitable, and if no one acts rude, they will be given food and shelter even if they have no money. They will be asked to do some tasks for the town instead of payment.
Homedale is no fishing town nor has much in the way of docks save space for 2 ships. The inhabitants will tell anyone the tale of how they were several miles inland, living off the hunt and the woods until several decades ago some mad wizard, Dokar Muray Arthy, did "something somewhere in the middle of the forest" that caused an earthquake. From that day, the island started sinking into the ocean, so they became a coastal town. A druid came by eventually and slowed the process. They could start fishing, but rather keep to their traditions. There is one fisher who settled here to have no competition.
The party should hear some news doing tasks:
- a bear has been sighted in the forest, but there are no bears in this part of the continent
- animals acting weird, wolves trying to swim off the island, rats storming ships and the birds seem to be gone
- the fisher talks nonsense about aggressive fish
- the local wizard and librarian, Lorcan the Elf (only elf and wizard in town), had his treehouse fixed. He even hired a maid, a butler and a cook. The maid says she had to prepare several additional bedrooms
If Detect Magic or alignment, Identify or similar spells are used, everything and everyone will detect as slightly magic. Identifying items has a 50% failure chance.
Talking to the fisher reveals the fish are not attacking, but try to leave the water, which is a sign of an impending catastrophe (knowledge nature).
If the party goes to the woods (arrange a minor delivery to a neighboring settlement if needed), they will be attacked by a pack of wolves behaving irrationally, including fighting among themselves. There are 1 d10 +4 wolves. Unlike sane wolves, they will not run even when they are about to be killed.
They meet the mentioned bear (which may come to their aid), with a coat pattern spelling "sacred" to any druid or woodsperson. If no one can speak with animals, the bear will lead them into his cave, where magical energy is leaking through the walls (Sharbo, Awakened Animal, INT 9, CHA 10, WIS 7, normal physical stats). Inside the cave, the party can understand the bear, although his manners of talking are confusing. His master ordered him to wait and guard the treehouse which, as he puts it, "is growing on the dark caves to seal them in." Now the event his master was worried about, a reawakening of the sinister energy, is here, and he does not know what to do. He only knows he will need a new cave as the energy leaking in is already tainted, which is how he knew what was going on. Already the animals are fleeing the island if they can, and the others become tainted. He asks for help and will make any promises to ensure whatever is going on will be stopped. A Detect Magic here will show the energy to be of the same type making such spells difficult.
If the party meets Lorcan, they find him a polite but usually mentally absent wizard (benevolent, 9th level, no specialization, spells up to GM) who spends his days reading and researching. He knows about the history of the island and can tell about the druid who rescued the island and then left to get additional help but never returned. He will also be able to tell them that the bear was with the druid, left behind to watch until the druid's return, but he will not volunteer information, and questions have to be specific or he'll drift off. If the PCs visit the treehouse, they will notice preparations for a reception underway, and Lorcan will mention a long awaited family reunion and that he had been sent to this island by his mother soon after the druid was around.
If they express interest in the treehouse, which looks naturally grown, he claims it was the druid's work. Asked about the wizard causing the earthquake, he knows Arthy was a sickly mediocre wizard not able to accept his limitations, kicked out by his adventuring party. From diaries found after his supposed death, he was working on a way to turn himself into a super mage. If the party looks at the diary kept in the library, they can't make out much but ramblings about revenge and the mentioning of gauntlets of ogre power he finally acquired to make things work.
Asked about dark caves, Lorcan knows that there is a corridor off his wine cellar. The workers adding to it broke through a few months back. It ended in sea water filling a lower part of the tunnel, so he closed the wall again. He will refuse to let them check it out, telling them to come back after the family reunion.
Asked about whatever, Lorcan will know about anything the GM wants him to. He rumbles on on the more esoteric aspects. If he does so, he may mention the special energy of the treehouse area but say no more of it.
Eventually, a ship arrives with two elves who look like they have, as the locals will put it, "escaped from a wizard academy." Shortly after, three more arrive overland from the only port town, one of them a blind woman. All ask for Lorcan's treehouse and aren't polite to those who give them directions. A successful detect finds chaos and evil on all of them.
That night, the bear comes into town desperate enough to try to talk to anyone if he has not been encountered before. Soon after, there is a moderate earthquake with damage to some buildings, including the library. Lorcan hurries to save his books and to erect a barrier around the island with the help of a cone-shaped shell kept in the library to keep a possible tsunami at bay.
The PCs can
- investigate the caves under the treehouse
- go in via the bear cave, where the earthquake has opened a tunnel
- wait until morning.
If the party waits until next morning, another quake happens, making half the houses collapse, and a column of purple energy erupts where the treehouse was. The island will be rapidly sinking, a tsunami will wash over the island doing some damage despite the protection. What happened of the elves, no one can say. All that is left is evacuation.
If they act and enter the treehouse, there is no sign of the visitors until they go into the wine cellar. The connection to the caves was reopened, and someone has cast ice over the sea water blocking the tunnel. The ice is slowly starting to meld, and a wizard in the party could guess that whoever cast has done so about an hour ago. Crossing the ice requires a balance check.
There are 1 d20 + 5 twisted creatures down here, their nature depending on the campaign setting. Several more tunnels are partially or fully submerged. It is easy for the party to know the way as they need to look out for the ice. In one submerged tunnel, they will find a tunnel of ice. This should hint at a high level caster.
If they enter from the bear cave, the bear will come with them, and can carry them over most of the partially submerged parts. There should be at least one fully submerged tunnel unless the PCs have no way of going through. The bear will not go under water or enter the cave out.
In both cases, they will eventually arrive in a large cave. The elves are there standing around an iron table, save what looks to have been the mother, who is burned to death on top of it. Wires connect her to a cage-like conception made of rare metals covered in arcane symbols. A huge lever has turned a gear exposing a room with crystals of different color to the energy. Next to the lever are the gauntlets of ogre power. The contraption does not look like it could be operated by someone of normal strength. A detect is not needed to feel the arcane power.
Two of the elves are arguing about where the mistake was, how they shouldn't have relied on "that oaf Lorcan" to know when to come here, shouldn't have killed the druid but come back with him and who's fault it is anyway. The only one mourning the death of their matriarch is the blind woman. The husband of the dead elf will make adjustments to the power output by using the gauntlets, closing off part of the crystal compartment. Then he will throw the body off the table and place himself there, putting on the wires. If the party allows him to proceed, he will be driven mad by the energy and attack everything and everyone. There will also be another earthquake, blocking the exit towards the bear cave. The elf has high level offensive spells but won't be able to use them in a sensible way. He will be out of spells save one or two before he connects to the contraption.
Two of the elves are wearing chain mail armor, a mace and two swords respectively. Treat their fighter level as 2 over the highest level in the party. The blind woman is a seer/oracle who has been using her nephew's presence in the treehouse to check on the progress of the energy build up. She has no spells but a few cantrips/orisons. Unlike the others, she might surrender.
If the party defeats the group, they can use the gauntlets of ogre power to close the room with the crystals. This will not stop the energy buildup, just the release of more power.
Getting out of the cave complex is not any harder than getting in, except that the ice has melted and small tremors shake the island. In the village, they will find that the water level has risen above what it used to be. The island is sinking faster now.
Once Lorcan learns of how he has been used and what is going on, he is more than willing to help. He will be able to device a method to break the energy buildup and stop the island from sinking, but might need the additional help of the party. Alternatively, the party can look for a druid to help Lorcan. The elf ship is at their disposal now that the former owners are gone.
Sinking Island – the Island of Dokar Muray Arthy
Esoteric Scholar – Lorcan the Elf
Family Reunion – Lorcan's sinister relatives pay a visit
Treehouse – Lorcan's replacement for a wizard's tower
Gauntlets of Ogre Power – the way to pull the lever
The Island of Dokar Muray Arthy
Designed for 4 – 6 PCs 3rd – 5th level. An arcane magic user recommended. With little changes, the scenario can also be used in a modern setting.
PCs arrive on an island after their ship is wrecked by an unexpected cliff. The wreck is uneventful – they use the lifeboats, but they later find their money has mostly been liberated by one of the sailors. A kraken attack or a swarm of sharks could be added. They land close to the small coastal town of Homedale. The people are hospitable, and if no one acts rude, they will be given food and shelter even if they have no money. They will be asked to do some tasks for the town instead of payment.
Homedale is no fishing town nor has much in the way of docks save space for 2 ships. The inhabitants will tell anyone the tale of how they were several miles inland, living off the hunt and the woods until several decades ago some mad wizard, Dokar Muray Arthy, did "something somewhere in the middle of the forest" that caused an earthquake. From that day, the island started sinking into the ocean, so they became a coastal town. A druid came by eventually and slowed the process. They could start fishing, but rather keep to their traditions. There is one fisher who settled here to have no competition.
The party should hear some news doing tasks:
- a bear has been sighted in the forest, but there are no bears in this part of the continent
- animals acting weird, wolves trying to swim off the island, rats storming ships and the birds seem to be gone
- the fisher talks nonsense about aggressive fish
- the local wizard and librarian, Lorcan the Elf (only elf and wizard in town), had his treehouse fixed. He even hired a maid, a butler and a cook. The maid says she had to prepare several additional bedrooms
If Detect Magic or alignment, Identify or similar spells are used, everything and everyone will detect as slightly magic. Identifying items has a 50% failure chance.
Talking to the fisher reveals the fish are not attacking, but try to leave the water, which is a sign of an impending catastrophe (knowledge nature).
If the party goes to the woods (arrange a minor delivery to a neighboring settlement if needed), they will be attacked by a pack of wolves behaving irrationally, including fighting among themselves. There are 1 d10 +4 wolves. Unlike sane wolves, they will not run even when they are about to be killed.
They meet the mentioned bear (which may come to their aid), with a coat pattern spelling "sacred" to any druid or woodsperson. If no one can speak with animals, the bear will lead them into his cave, where magical energy is leaking through the walls (Sharbo, Awakened Animal, INT 9, CHA 10, WIS 7, normal physical stats). Inside the cave, the party can understand the bear, although his manners of talking are confusing. His master ordered him to wait and guard the treehouse which, as he puts it, "is growing on the dark caves to seal them in." Now the event his master was worried about, a reawakening of the sinister energy, is here, and he does not know what to do. He only knows he will need a new cave as the energy leaking in is already tainted, which is how he knew what was going on. Already the animals are fleeing the island if they can, and the others become tainted. He asks for help and will make any promises to ensure whatever is going on will be stopped. A Detect Magic here will show the energy to be of the same type making such spells difficult.
If the party meets Lorcan, they find him a polite but usually mentally absent wizard (benevolent, 9th level, no specialization, spells up to GM) who spends his days reading and researching. He knows about the history of the island and can tell about the druid who rescued the island and then left to get additional help but never returned. He will also be able to tell them that the bear was with the druid, left behind to watch until the druid's return, but he will not volunteer information, and questions have to be specific or he'll drift off. If the PCs visit the treehouse, they will notice preparations for a reception underway, and Lorcan will mention a long awaited family reunion and that he had been sent to this island by his mother soon after the druid was around.
If they express interest in the treehouse, which looks naturally grown, he claims it was the druid's work. Asked about the wizard causing the earthquake, he knows Arthy was a sickly mediocre wizard not able to accept his limitations, kicked out by his adventuring party. From diaries found after his supposed death, he was working on a way to turn himself into a super mage. If the party looks at the diary kept in the library, they can't make out much but ramblings about revenge and the mentioning of gauntlets of ogre power he finally acquired to make things work.
Asked about dark caves, Lorcan knows that there is a corridor off his wine cellar. The workers adding to it broke through a few months back. It ended in sea water filling a lower part of the tunnel, so he closed the wall again. He will refuse to let them check it out, telling them to come back after the family reunion.
Asked about whatever, Lorcan will know about anything the GM wants him to. He rumbles on on the more esoteric aspects. If he does so, he may mention the special energy of the treehouse area but say no more of it.
Eventually, a ship arrives with two elves who look like they have, as the locals will put it, "escaped from a wizard academy." Shortly after, three more arrive overland from the only port town, one of them a blind woman. All ask for Lorcan's treehouse and aren't polite to those who give them directions. A successful detect finds chaos and evil on all of them.
That night, the bear comes into town desperate enough to try to talk to anyone if he has not been encountered before. Soon after, there is a moderate earthquake with damage to some buildings, including the library. Lorcan hurries to save his books and to erect a barrier around the island with the help of a cone-shaped shell kept in the library to keep a possible tsunami at bay.
The PCs can
- investigate the caves under the treehouse
- go in via the bear cave, where the earthquake has opened a tunnel
- wait until morning.
If the party waits until next morning, another quake happens, making half the houses collapse, and a column of purple energy erupts where the treehouse was. The island will be rapidly sinking, a tsunami will wash over the island doing some damage despite the protection. What happened of the elves, no one can say. All that is left is evacuation.
If they act and enter the treehouse, there is no sign of the visitors until they go into the wine cellar. The connection to the caves was reopened, and someone has cast ice over the sea water blocking the tunnel. The ice is slowly starting to meld, and a wizard in the party could guess that whoever cast has done so about an hour ago. Crossing the ice requires a balance check.
There are 1 d20 + 5 twisted creatures down here, their nature depending on the campaign setting. Several more tunnels are partially or fully submerged. It is easy for the party to know the way as they need to look out for the ice. In one submerged tunnel, they will find a tunnel of ice. This should hint at a high level caster.
If they enter from the bear cave, the bear will come with them, and can carry them over most of the partially submerged parts. There should be at least one fully submerged tunnel unless the PCs have no way of going through. The bear will not go under water or enter the cave out.
In both cases, they will eventually arrive in a large cave. The elves are there standing around an iron table, save what looks to have been the mother, who is burned to death on top of it. Wires connect her to a cage-like conception made of rare metals covered in arcane symbols. A huge lever has turned a gear exposing a room with crystals of different color to the energy. Next to the lever are the gauntlets of ogre power. The contraption does not look like it could be operated by someone of normal strength. A detect is not needed to feel the arcane power.
Two of the elves are arguing about where the mistake was, how they shouldn't have relied on "that oaf Lorcan" to know when to come here, shouldn't have killed the druid but come back with him and who's fault it is anyway. The only one mourning the death of their matriarch is the blind woman. The husband of the dead elf will make adjustments to the power output by using the gauntlets, closing off part of the crystal compartment. Then he will throw the body off the table and place himself there, putting on the wires. If the party allows him to proceed, he will be driven mad by the energy and attack everything and everyone. There will also be another earthquake, blocking the exit towards the bear cave. The elf has high level offensive spells but won't be able to use them in a sensible way. He will be out of spells save one or two before he connects to the contraption.
Two of the elves are wearing chain mail armor, a mace and two swords respectively. Treat their fighter level as 2 over the highest level in the party. The blind woman is a seer/oracle who has been using her nephew's presence in the treehouse to check on the progress of the energy build up. She has no spells but a few cantrips/orisons. Unlike the others, she might surrender.
If the party defeats the group, they can use the gauntlets of ogre power to close the room with the crystals. This will not stop the energy buildup, just the release of more power.
Getting out of the cave complex is not any harder than getting in, except that the ice has melted and small tremors shake the island. In the village, they will find that the water level has risen above what it used to be. The island is sinking faster now.
Once Lorcan learns of how he has been used and what is going on, he is more than willing to help. He will be able to device a method to break the energy buildup and stop the island from sinking, but might need the additional help of the party. Alternatively, the party can look for a druid to help Lorcan. The elf ship is at their disposal now that the former owners are gone.
Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
This is a match between Secrets of the Green (SotG) and the Island of Dokar Muray Arthy (IDMA)
I suspect this was a particularly difficult batch of ingredients. Of course, that doesn't really matter -- both contestants get the same ingredients, so easy or hard, the match is still fair. Actually, from a judging point of view, tough ingredients make for easier judging. Easy ingredients have obvious combinations that both contestants will take on, making the differences between the two entries harder to spot and evaluate.
In this case, we have a couple of very different adventures, and very different uses (or attempted uses) of the ingredients.
So, let's start there. Ingredients.
Awakened Bear - in SotG, we have Shardin Baixista, who has been turned into a bear -- while his brothers were also turned into beasts. It's a colorful, evocative story that this entry hints at, but in the final accounting a man shape shifted into a bear is not an awakened bear. It's close, certainly, but it's a point of weakness -- a better, more precise use of the ingredient might be enough to tip this ingredient towards IDMA.
So, what do we have in IDMA? An intelligent animal companion? Sharbo is an awakened animal, and so at least covers the letter of the ingredient. The stained fur spelling "sacred" to me felt a little too much like a Charlotte's Web moment ("That's Some Bear!"??). His role is to maybe help the players, but also point them in the direction of the problems on the island - herald or gatekeeper.
The image of the bear holding the pale blinded child is more evocative and visually interesting than the imagery around Sharbo, but once you're past the imagery, Baixista doesn't seem to do a whole lot in the story. He rages and fights with the Pcs, then blurts out what they need to know to move on to the next beat, and that's about it for him. His "bearness" doesn't seem to matter much in the story -- not that Sharbo's does much, either, for that matter, but at least he is what he's supposed to be. I'm going to give a slight advantage to IDMA, but it's close.
Sinking Island -- In IDMA, the whole adventure is set on an island that is sinking -- animals are fleeing and acting strange, weird energies are being released, and so on. It works.
In SotG, the sinking island is a confusing encounter -- a tournament involving twelve men that I am still not sure I understand after reading over it several times. It's a "grand multilayered desert island dungeon" that spirals up with "views of the interior" created by illusionists for spectators? I'm still confused. Where are the spectators? In a spiral, what marks the end of one layer and the beginning of another?
Then, "twelve men are allowed into the dungeon, from the bottom to the top" -- are these PCs? Why 12? Does each PC act independently? Who are the other contestants? Do all the PCs have to take part? The mechanics of the contest are also confusing -- when any man reaches the next level the water level rises one level? I mean, depending upon how long it takes to cross each level, if it takes about the same amount of time for each contestant, they should each reach the next level at about the same time, and the water level would rise to the top in a instant?
Once again, like the bear, the visual imagery is a lot stronger, but in this case I just don't quite understand what your intentions are. Advantage IDMA.
Esoteric Scholar - There's something really wonderful about SotG's Casked Mage. Again, very visual, very striking, very visually compelling. But, as cool as he is, he's not exactly esoteric (his studies seem to be pretty accessible to ordinary folks) and his role in the story could have been stronger. Still, once hits cask is broken and he's farting out puddings…. I mean, really. That's kinda awesome, even if it's not esoteric.
In IDMA, Lorcan the wizard, has some story information to pass along to the PCs, and he rumbles on about esoteric topics. He's nowhere near as interesting and cool as Malmsey the casked mage. His esoteric nature is there, but it doesn't really serve the story any, doesn't really do much for him. I'm going to give an edge to SotG.
Family Reunion - in IDMA, a perverse family of elves gather on the island, but to be honest i'm not clear what it was that the elves were trying to do. They've obviously got some apparatus there -- my best guess is that they're trying to create a "super-mage", and complete the ritual that Dokar Muray Arthy tried and failed to do -- but that wasn't totally clear to me after a couple of readings. Anyway, there's a group of them, they're family, but that doesn't really add much to the story -- there's on reason that they HAD to be family for the sake of the story, they could just as easily have been a coven or book club.
In SotG, the "family reunion" isn't quite there in any classic sense. Prata and Bianca are sisters. This is another area of the entry that really seems to suffer problems of clarity. I'll get to this later when I'm not talking about ingredients specially, but the rough outline here seems to be that bianca, who is somehow all of a revenant/dryad/witch and little girl with clawed-out eyes wants to be restored to life and reunited with her lover and get revenge on her sister -- which is what passes for the reunion.
I'm not happy with either application, so no one gets an advantage here.
Treehouse - In SotG, the treehouse is Fiddler's Crown, a castle that both guards and is high up in the Tree of the Worlds. In this case, I felt like the visual evocative power we see in so many of the scenes in SotG fails -- we don't see the tree very much, Fiddler's Crown is only described as having beautiful architecture, but we don't really have a sense for what makes it beautiful.
Take this passage: "Buttressed between Widow’s Walk Peak and the Quiet Forest, Fiddler’s Crown is the castle that guards the Tree of the Worlds, built high within its branches and overlooking sea and land." So, somehow, Fiddler's crown is all of these things: placed between mountain peak and a forest, and the guardian of a tree that it's also built high up within? So, is the tree of worlds between the mountain and the forest, and fiddler's crown is in the tree? Or do the branches of the tree hold the crown up in place somehow between a mountain peak (high) and a forest (on the ground)? It's both high above sea and land AND buttressed between the peak and the forest?
And what exactly is this "tree of worlds" anyway? I'm guessing, based on the setting for the tournament (the possibly extra-planar spiral 12-stage sinking island place) that the tree somehow is an extra planar gateway, but it's never described or explained.
At a certain point, I don't see the value that the tree brings to this entry. Fiddler's Crown could have been some cliffside keep, with the seaside solarium and the tournament -- the tree adds no value.
Meanwhile, in SotG, like so many other ingredients, covers the bases but doesn't do it with a whole lot of panache. It's there, it's the setting for some exploration and many of the scenes, but I felt like it could do a lot more.
Again, no real advantage to either entry here.
Gauntlets of Ogre Power - in SotG, we're told that the gauntlets were the Favor that Filo wears, but I have to imagine that this detail was the victim of editing or word count, because I just don't see it. Filo is there, when he's killed the curse is lifted, but.. how is that the gauntlet of ogre power? How was it important that it was that magic item and not some other magic item or mundane things that was the favor?
In IDMA, the gauntlets are there, so there will be an advantage IDMA, but it's pretty tenuous. You could completely remove the gauntlets and the story would be exactly the same -- a requirement of great strength to operate the arcane gewgaws has been tacked on to make the gauntlets necessary, but it's just an excuse. Still, they're really there, and they're really gauntlets of ogre power.
So, at the end of our examination of the ingredients, IDMA has a lead over SotG.
Creativity -
I think that it's pretty clear that SotG has a strong advantage here -- at least in terms of visual imagery. The Casked Mage alone is a little bit of awesome, and there are some other very cool moments and visuals.
There were places, though, where SotG's creative efforts made things confusing. The tournament was one example we've already covered, but there are others.
IDMA, on the other hand, didn't wow me with it's story or visuals or characters. Worse, it disappointed me in a very specific way.
A title like "The island of Dokar Muray Arthy" is a promise. I was expecting shades of Island of Dr. Moreau and Dr., Moriarty's criminal genius (the napoleon of crime?). But instead we get a chubby, lazy, failed mage who killed himself and broke the island -- and whose work is the doom of those who seek to follow in his footsteps. Nothing like Moreau, nothing like Moriarty. Remove those promises and I would have been a lot less frustrated and disappointed -- I would not have had an expect ion that fell so far short.
So, anyway, SotG has an edge here.
Playability
I think there are some moments like the Tournament in SotG where my confusion about what the adventure's intentions are make this sort of challenging.
IDMA wasn't confusing -- and I felt like it could be dropped into an ongoing campaign with little trouble.
So, IDMA has an edge there.
Overall.
In the end, I wasn't particularly happy with either of these entries. Maybe I'm just getting grouchy in my old age. There were some really wonderful moments, some good work in both, but I don't think either really quite did what it needed to do.
SotG felt like a adventure that was already written, that had the ingredients added to it. That may not be the case at all, but it really does not read like the story came from the ingredients, but more like the ingredients were shoehorned into it.
IDMA reads more like an adventure that did grow out of the pile of disparate ingredients, and it does a workmanlike job -- but it only just does that. I was not delighted or surprised by anything in the adventure, and the Title promise problem left me feeling more disappointed in the entry than I might have been without that baggage.
In the end, though, Island of DMA is a bit more playable in it's current state, and makes better use of the ingredients. so Lwaxy wins and advances to the next round.
Loonook, I'm totally stealing Malmsey the Jugged Mage, and a few other elements, but those colorful moments were not enough to tip the scales. Your vivid, poetic imagery cuts both ways -- often it hurts more than helps. In future contests, make sure that your creativity doesn't create confusion for your reader.
-rg
I suspect this was a particularly difficult batch of ingredients. Of course, that doesn't really matter -- both contestants get the same ingredients, so easy or hard, the match is still fair. Actually, from a judging point of view, tough ingredients make for easier judging. Easy ingredients have obvious combinations that both contestants will take on, making the differences between the two entries harder to spot and evaluate.
In this case, we have a couple of very different adventures, and very different uses (or attempted uses) of the ingredients.
So, let's start there. Ingredients.
Awakened Bear - in SotG, we have Shardin Baixista, who has been turned into a bear -- while his brothers were also turned into beasts. It's a colorful, evocative story that this entry hints at, but in the final accounting a man shape shifted into a bear is not an awakened bear. It's close, certainly, but it's a point of weakness -- a better, more precise use of the ingredient might be enough to tip this ingredient towards IDMA.
So, what do we have in IDMA? An intelligent animal companion? Sharbo is an awakened animal, and so at least covers the letter of the ingredient. The stained fur spelling "sacred" to me felt a little too much like a Charlotte's Web moment ("That's Some Bear!"??). His role is to maybe help the players, but also point them in the direction of the problems on the island - herald or gatekeeper.
The image of the bear holding the pale blinded child is more evocative and visually interesting than the imagery around Sharbo, but once you're past the imagery, Baixista doesn't seem to do a whole lot in the story. He rages and fights with the Pcs, then blurts out what they need to know to move on to the next beat, and that's about it for him. His "bearness" doesn't seem to matter much in the story -- not that Sharbo's does much, either, for that matter, but at least he is what he's supposed to be. I'm going to give a slight advantage to IDMA, but it's close.
Sinking Island -- In IDMA, the whole adventure is set on an island that is sinking -- animals are fleeing and acting strange, weird energies are being released, and so on. It works.
In SotG, the sinking island is a confusing encounter -- a tournament involving twelve men that I am still not sure I understand after reading over it several times. It's a "grand multilayered desert island dungeon" that spirals up with "views of the interior" created by illusionists for spectators? I'm still confused. Where are the spectators? In a spiral, what marks the end of one layer and the beginning of another?
Then, "twelve men are allowed into the dungeon, from the bottom to the top" -- are these PCs? Why 12? Does each PC act independently? Who are the other contestants? Do all the PCs have to take part? The mechanics of the contest are also confusing -- when any man reaches the next level the water level rises one level? I mean, depending upon how long it takes to cross each level, if it takes about the same amount of time for each contestant, they should each reach the next level at about the same time, and the water level would rise to the top in a instant?
Once again, like the bear, the visual imagery is a lot stronger, but in this case I just don't quite understand what your intentions are. Advantage IDMA.
Esoteric Scholar - There's something really wonderful about SotG's Casked Mage. Again, very visual, very striking, very visually compelling. But, as cool as he is, he's not exactly esoteric (his studies seem to be pretty accessible to ordinary folks) and his role in the story could have been stronger. Still, once hits cask is broken and he's farting out puddings…. I mean, really. That's kinda awesome, even if it's not esoteric.
In IDMA, Lorcan the wizard, has some story information to pass along to the PCs, and he rumbles on about esoteric topics. He's nowhere near as interesting and cool as Malmsey the casked mage. His esoteric nature is there, but it doesn't really serve the story any, doesn't really do much for him. I'm going to give an edge to SotG.
Family Reunion - in IDMA, a perverse family of elves gather on the island, but to be honest i'm not clear what it was that the elves were trying to do. They've obviously got some apparatus there -- my best guess is that they're trying to create a "super-mage", and complete the ritual that Dokar Muray Arthy tried and failed to do -- but that wasn't totally clear to me after a couple of readings. Anyway, there's a group of them, they're family, but that doesn't really add much to the story -- there's on reason that they HAD to be family for the sake of the story, they could just as easily have been a coven or book club.
In SotG, the "family reunion" isn't quite there in any classic sense. Prata and Bianca are sisters. This is another area of the entry that really seems to suffer problems of clarity. I'll get to this later when I'm not talking about ingredients specially, but the rough outline here seems to be that bianca, who is somehow all of a revenant/dryad/witch and little girl with clawed-out eyes wants to be restored to life and reunited with her lover and get revenge on her sister -- which is what passes for the reunion.
I'm not happy with either application, so no one gets an advantage here.
Treehouse - In SotG, the treehouse is Fiddler's Crown, a castle that both guards and is high up in the Tree of the Worlds. In this case, I felt like the visual evocative power we see in so many of the scenes in SotG fails -- we don't see the tree very much, Fiddler's Crown is only described as having beautiful architecture, but we don't really have a sense for what makes it beautiful.
Take this passage: "Buttressed between Widow’s Walk Peak and the Quiet Forest, Fiddler’s Crown is the castle that guards the Tree of the Worlds, built high within its branches and overlooking sea and land." So, somehow, Fiddler's crown is all of these things: placed between mountain peak and a forest, and the guardian of a tree that it's also built high up within? So, is the tree of worlds between the mountain and the forest, and fiddler's crown is in the tree? Or do the branches of the tree hold the crown up in place somehow between a mountain peak (high) and a forest (on the ground)? It's both high above sea and land AND buttressed between the peak and the forest?
And what exactly is this "tree of worlds" anyway? I'm guessing, based on the setting for the tournament (the possibly extra-planar spiral 12-stage sinking island place) that the tree somehow is an extra planar gateway, but it's never described or explained.
At a certain point, I don't see the value that the tree brings to this entry. Fiddler's Crown could have been some cliffside keep, with the seaside solarium and the tournament -- the tree adds no value.
Meanwhile, in SotG, like so many other ingredients, covers the bases but doesn't do it with a whole lot of panache. It's there, it's the setting for some exploration and many of the scenes, but I felt like it could do a lot more.
Again, no real advantage to either entry here.
Gauntlets of Ogre Power - in SotG, we're told that the gauntlets were the Favor that Filo wears, but I have to imagine that this detail was the victim of editing or word count, because I just don't see it. Filo is there, when he's killed the curse is lifted, but.. how is that the gauntlet of ogre power? How was it important that it was that magic item and not some other magic item or mundane things that was the favor?
In IDMA, the gauntlets are there, so there will be an advantage IDMA, but it's pretty tenuous. You could completely remove the gauntlets and the story would be exactly the same -- a requirement of great strength to operate the arcane gewgaws has been tacked on to make the gauntlets necessary, but it's just an excuse. Still, they're really there, and they're really gauntlets of ogre power.
So, at the end of our examination of the ingredients, IDMA has a lead over SotG.
Creativity -
I think that it's pretty clear that SotG has a strong advantage here -- at least in terms of visual imagery. The Casked Mage alone is a little bit of awesome, and there are some other very cool moments and visuals.
There were places, though, where SotG's creative efforts made things confusing. The tournament was one example we've already covered, but there are others.
IDMA, on the other hand, didn't wow me with it's story or visuals or characters. Worse, it disappointed me in a very specific way.
A title like "The island of Dokar Muray Arthy" is a promise. I was expecting shades of Island of Dr. Moreau and Dr., Moriarty's criminal genius (the napoleon of crime?). But instead we get a chubby, lazy, failed mage who killed himself and broke the island -- and whose work is the doom of those who seek to follow in his footsteps. Nothing like Moreau, nothing like Moriarty. Remove those promises and I would have been a lot less frustrated and disappointed -- I would not have had an expect ion that fell so far short.
So, anyway, SotG has an edge here.
Playability
I think there are some moments like the Tournament in SotG where my confusion about what the adventure's intentions are make this sort of challenging.
IDMA wasn't confusing -- and I felt like it could be dropped into an ongoing campaign with little trouble.
So, IDMA has an edge there.
Overall.
In the end, I wasn't particularly happy with either of these entries. Maybe I'm just getting grouchy in my old age. There were some really wonderful moments, some good work in both, but I don't think either really quite did what it needed to do.
SotG felt like a adventure that was already written, that had the ingredients added to it. That may not be the case at all, but it really does not read like the story came from the ingredients, but more like the ingredients were shoehorned into it.
IDMA reads more like an adventure that did grow out of the pile of disparate ingredients, and it does a workmanlike job -- but it only just does that. I was not delighted or surprised by anything in the adventure, and the Title promise problem left me feeling more disappointed in the entry than I might have been without that baggage.
In the end, though, Island of DMA is a bit more playable in it's current state, and makes better use of the ingredients. so Lwaxy wins and advances to the next round.
Loonook, I'm totally stealing Malmsey the Jugged Mage, and a few other elements, but those colorful moments were not enough to tip the scales. Your vivid, poetic imagery cuts both ways -- often it hurts more than helps. In future contests, make sure that your creativity doesn't create confusion for your reader.
-rg
Deuce Traveler
Adventurer
Congrats to Lwaxy on moving forward. Lonook, I hope you play again in the future. I really like how your mind works.
Meh, win some lose some. I have actually started taking this adventure seed and making it into its own adventure on my blog. I actually get to use all of the writeup I did... I had around 8000 words after I spent my 4 hours on the project, then had to truncate down to what I submitted .
You may want to check out the site: I think I may actually start doing this with specific IDM sets that I personally enjoy, just to keep my skills sharp and get myself back to work.
Slainte,
-Loonook.
.You may want to check out the site: I think I may actually start doing this with specific IDM sets that I personally enjoy, just to keep my skills sharp and get myself back to work.
Slainte,
-Loonook.
Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
Loonook -
I already subscribe to your site, and had actually just spotted the post in my reader (the tree photo jumped right out at me, after I'd started at it so long yesterday and today while working on my evaluation). I know you're not done fleshing it out, but it already looks very cool, and I'm excited to see the finished product.
Keep doing what you're doing.
-rg
