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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wicht" data-source="post: 8379443" data-attributes="member: 221">My thanks to the judge for his work. And condolences to my opponent. I had real mixed feelings at the initial draw, pitting us together, as I hate to lose in the first round, but also hated to immediately knock off the reigning champ with a win. I wish [USER=5948]@humble minion[/USER] all the best in future contests!I will say, as a general critique of The Dying Tree, that while the adventure seems fun, as a player, if I was a player I would feel like the Ork spores were growing a bit too rapidly and behaving in a very unorky manner. I also, if I had a PC knowledgable of ork spores, would not worry about tipping over the tree. I would pull a strategic withdrawal and follow Imperium Protocol and nuke the entire alien-haunted planet from orbit. It is, after all, the only way to be sure. Ork infestation is understood to be generally uncontainable, and burning the whole planet is a small price to pay for peace, especially if the planet has no human settlements. Other than that though, the whole running battle with orks over aquatic forest terrain is a cool set-piece.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" />A couple of explanations/responses to some of the esteemed Judge's questions/observations regarding Incident with a Lucky Angel:1. The Ghost Mushrooms are called ghost mushrooms because that is their name; that is their name because they glow in the dark. These are a real-world mushroom which can be found on Eucalyptus trees. They only grow when the tree is dying, however, and are not to be found on healthy trees. These particular mushrooms have mutated obviously, but like everything else in the adventure, they are based on a real thing. One of the first things I did with Ghost Mushroom was google it to see if there was such a thing. As I had already settled on Koala bear humanoids for both the "Utopia," and the "bear necessities," I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ghost Mushrooms were a real thing, and that they were connected to Eucalyptus.2.The Armored Lizard was definitely my weak link ingredient wise, though it did provide the Dragon Riders, and in many ways, the ability of their mounts to cross both land and water was important. Which means that Lizard became integral, but not armor. But if I only have one weak ingredient out of 6, I am going to be pretty happy. The background states that the riders were just beginning to scout out the island, so I had not considered the possibility of prior raids. The Island is 5 miles from land, on the other side of a settlement I was picturing as being a major player in the region. The foray to the island was meant to suggest a daring scouting mission, behind enemy lines, as it were.3. The Utopia is a Utopia from the perspective of the humanoid koalas. They can lay around the island, picking food off the trees, enjoying the landscape and the weather, free from the worries plaguing the rest of the world.4. It is my general opinion that the more you can tie ingredients together, the more integral they become, being less easily replaced. These ingredients just all seemed to do that, especially once I hit upon the angel being the source of radiation causing the mutation of the fungus and rotting the trees, thus rotting the society, and denying the Koala their necessary leaves. It even explained the rootless tree, the decay of which was what broke the angel thus creating the whole of the cycle. Its not often ingredients seem to fit together so well, but in this case they did for me.5. I did realize, as I was editing and re-editing, that there was no actual conclusion provided for the scenario, and no suggested rewards beyond the possibility of saving a small slice of civilization from decay and pillaging. Word Count prevented much exploration there, but I also realized that the motivation of the PCs would determine their reward. Also, it struck me as something I had not much pondered before in relationship to the genre, but post-apocalyptic scenarios very seldom feature much in the way of reward beyond survival, saving a slice of civilization, or preventing the death of innocents. So genre-wise, the lack of clear reward was fitting for the setting.</blockquote>

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