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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 6156115" data-attributes="member: 150">Ouch. You know it's Iron DM when even winning a round stings a little.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Thanks, Rune, and EP, excellent entry. Since Rune has been asking for a look at how we wrote our entries, I wrote this one up tuesday after I posed mine -- before I saw Rune's review. [sblock]The Introverted Aboleth seemed like the obvious big bad… I immediately paired him with the changeling as his servant, although the initial ideas I had there didn't look much like the final version. The sermon, as a writing exercise, resonated for me with the introversion of the aboleth, so those two went together. I imagined that obsessive writer who wants nothing to do with the world, only wants to work on his project. You know, what we wish George RR Martin were more like, so he'd write his books faster. Lonely city gave me the audience for the sermon, and ideas for the situation started to come together. The ingredients I had the hardest time with were the Fork in the Road and the Point of No Return.  In part, they frustrated me because they were conceptually so close to each other -- a fork in the road may well be the point of no return, at the same time. Since I didn't think I wanted to have one element that tried to cover two ingredients, I decided to separate them as much as possible in the adventure.  So, one comes at the beginning, the other at the end.  I'm not super happy with either of them, to be honest. The point of no return is a throwaway -- the adventure would be just fine without it.  The fork in the road, though, is a bit better.  It's not in a literal road, but it does present the party with a choice -- the path to the ritual, or the path less traveled.  My idea is that the players might take the hint from the backstory they've been given, and see that the untraveled path is probably the path to the introvert. In retrospect, I gave the party little way to suspect that they could split up and take both paths, and actually have some sort of advantage, but since this is NOT the point of no return, there's no reason they couldn't do a little scouting and figure that out for themselves. Early on, I had the idea of using "fork" as a trident -- and somehow putting a trident in the road in one scene as a way of smirking and covering that ingredient.  There just wasn't a good way to make that work in a good, organic manner, so I gave up on it -- but I retained the trident (as the symbol of the order of clerics serving Gremtilosse) for the fun of it. Part of me hopes that readers see that and groan to themselves Oh noes, he's going to stick a trident in the road and call it a fork in the road, how lame - and then be pleasantly surprised that I didn't go there. Writing it up, I was very mindful of the way I judge: I'm not a big fan of heavy backstory in these entries, especially if it's backstory that the players don't encounter. There are important pieces of information in the backstory for the players, so I made sure that I made my background for the adventure as limited as possible, and I also basically hand that information to the PCs in the handouts (in the hook), so they have access to most, if not all, of the information in the backstory. It's also a drag to write about Aboleths, who technically have both male and female parts and are "it" rather than "he" or "she". Word count isn't an issue for this round, but I like the practice. IMO good editing and judicious use of bullet points improves readability and can seriously cut down word count without having to give up meaning or story elements.In the end…. I'm not totally happy with it, as an entry. My use of the ingredients was not as good as I would like.  I expect to take a beating for Point of No Return, for sure, and perhaps for Fork and for Lonely City.  Some readers may not see the sermon as "inspirational" -- even though it's intent is to literally imbue the Aboleth with spiritual energy (the inspiration is actually for the aboleth, not the audience). I think it works, but it's dangling out there for interpretation, so we'll see how that goes. My changeling isn't as strong as it could be, either -- his changeling-ness could be pulled out of the story (it's actually more important that he's drunk than it is that he's a changeling). I like the story as a whole, I think it would be a fun adventure to run.  I like the idea of the city besieged by it's own ruler, the forced faith as a power source, the order of monks running the city. There are opportunities for all kinds of interaction (environmental encounters, social encounters, fun roleplaying for the DM with the drunk changeling, and plenty of combat encounters) and the potential for a complex final battle on two fronts. But, though inspired by the ingredients, it's possibly not the best use of many of them.  Gotta love Iron DM.[/sblock]-rg</blockquote>

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