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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 663193" data-attributes="member: 5137">Hey, I gave him three '!'s, didn't I? I thought I'd lost. I was preparing my "here's why I agree with the judgement" post, and I rewrote it slightly to accomodate the change in status.Incidentally, here's my exposition. This one was painful.The very first thing I did when I read these ingredients was thought "diamond heist". That's why I didn't use the artifact - it would have interefered with my heist idea.I envisioned dark london fog, dirty docks and dock workers, unsavory sorts... exactly the sort of things my players wish I would run less often <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=";)" />. Those dock workers, in fact, were so good, I immediately knew I had another ingredient, them, and come hell or high water, I was going to involve them.I started with Oxwater being a storm port on the way between coastal cities. Rupert had purchased the diamond, and was trying to hide it in an obscure place (Oxwater) while he found a seller. This version had a much more villainous Captain, who planned to out-and-out ruin Rupert... it also had a twist, which I was unfortunately only weakly able to work into this one, that Rupert was in fact a major member of the thieves' guild, and was setting the good Captain up for a major fall (the moaning diamond was a fake).I worked in the foggy windows, but very weakly, and the lock of hair (originally Rupert's dastardly plan)... and then I started trying to figure out how to shift it from a good story to an adventure that the PCs were actually involved in.Somewhere between then and writing up the actual scenario, I had several hours of very painful mental block. Then I hit upon the key - a volcano that would blow if the gem wasn't left in it. Suddenly, my diamond macguffin wasn't just a macguffin anymore! It had purpose! Reason! Value!I refocused the entire adventure around the diamond and the financial coup tied up in it. I made up a couple of factions interested in the diamond NOT being on the island, threw hooks at the PCs from each faction's angle (including some freebie twists). The gargoyles wrote themselves, as did Rupert <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.Then it was polish time. I put together The Vicious Tart to help with the scenery (and to provide a boat battle with the gargoyles, which appealed to me for some reason). Once I had the boat, I wanted the gargoyles to really be a threat to Rupert's life, so I came up with a way for them to spot his cabin, instead of having to go door-to-door... and which very nicely used my diamond again!Then I went back through the whole thing and editted where ever necessary to add windowed cabins, the frosting effect of the diamond, and Rupert's idiocy.A few more signature bits - twists, another hook, Uuhef, a few bits of detail for the tavern to help DMs that want to make it evil.Then I started cutting. Oh, it was painful. I took out a whole chunk of biography for Thrace & Lace, about 250 words. I chopped off The Vicious Tart's history, including why it was named that (its original one-eyed captain was in love with the woman who'd taken his eye), another 200 words. I decided that the evil aunt who wanted Rupert dead didn't need more than a Twist Mention, another 200 words. And other bits of history were chopped, including Oxport, the wizard that set the Moaning Diamond in place, and Rupert, all for about 150 words.Then I posted, went back, read Greybar's entry, and very nearly cried.</blockquote>

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