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To clarify, since the wording is a bit odd, everyone gets the offer to have their Spark added to the library, but only Gold winners will receive a $100 if they take up the offer?

Well, it is a year from now, who knows how I’ll feel about it by then! Happy to do either, really.

I certainly wouldn’t mind, though I would also still like to make entries too and I don’t know if being a judge disqualifies me from that!

Hi all! Apologies for being so slow in judging and not really active community-wise. During the submission process and even up to now I've been going through a rather sudden change in living circumstances and all the stress and bother that goes with that, so I wasn't even sure I'd get to participate in this Jam!

Having now read and worked through everyone's entry, I can safely say you all are a huge inspiration to me and I feel really great about this Jam! So many great and diverse Sparks, you all did amazingly!

Honestly I'm surprised there's not more pirate themed entries given how well coins and pirates go together! This is a well written little coastal adventure that captures the atmosphere and theme well, and I do like how you've included multiple points of interest and sources of information to arrive at the same point depending on player actions. Also enjoy the intrigue of the Stormcopper losing its power, but becoming a mysterious map if taken to land as a nice potential adventure hook for the future!

I kind of wanted a bit more about Harbourmaster Vaughn and the creature that Sturm Bloodsides serves, but I get that words are at a premium here and most DM/GMs can fill in the blanks.

I really enjoy how you've not only listed out the various factions at play, but clearly put their main motivation right next to their name for quick and easy reference for the DM/GM when they need it.

I know certain players in my group would be constantly pelting me with questions like "Yes but exactly HOW is the discovery of a single coin that's not even in use anymore destabilising an entire economy that has been totally digital for a while now?" no matter how well I explain it or refer to what you've written, which is a shame because I do really enjoy the concept!

I actually had been intending to do a similar sort of cosmic horror spark with the Cthulhu CoinSides involving the cipher part and the glow in the dark aspect, but your Spark seems much more thought out and better integrated with the functions of the coin as a whole! I also love the selection of the headings, really adds to the tone and atmosphere of the Spark.

I feel like the ritual goal and events around Yvain's death perhaps should be laid out at the beginning of the Spark for the benefit of the DM/GM, as it can potentially get a bit confusing as to the order of events and what is meant to happen when and how precisely the summoning and offering is supposed to work...or just detail that these are all elements the DM/GM can choose to include or not. I do love the open ended aspect of it!

Player compulsion is one of those tricky things that you have to really have a good and trusting group and DM/GM to handle and make super rewarding and compelling, and I'm glad this is both addressed and advised on in this Spark, more published material needs to touch on it without simply brushing past it or conversely try and avoid it as something that should never be done! The rival/doppelgänger party is also something that I really don't see come up as often as I think it should given a living world surely doesn't have just ONE active group of heroes in it, so I'm glad that's a large part of this too!

I would maybe suggest defining the Janustone towards the beginning of the Spark, as it crops up a number of times as if the DM/GM should know what it is before it is explained at the end of the Scenes section, which can definitely confuse and put off a less experienced DM/GM.

I, conversely, always love a good devil/demon plot and you absolutely nail all the familiar beats and atmosphere of such a scenario while still making it your own and tying it strongly to the coin. Or in this case, coins. It will definitely help out anyone trying to incorporate a bit more character and depth to whatever sort of infernal world they have beyond the simple 'devils want your soul, don't trust them, don't make deals'.

I personally would, however, perhaps like a bit more on the consequences of losing to Mashtru or otherwise engaging with the infernal, or anything else going wrong? I got the impression when reading through the whole thing that there is an assumption that Mashtru will be defeated in the end regardless?

I love the way you've written this so that it is incredibly open ended and easily able to be adapted to whatever sort of story the DM/GM or the players end up creating as a result of the sudden giants in the world. I could see a really heart wrenching scenario where the party tries desperately to save the giant they have bonded with as its coin winds down to the inevitable...maybe they find a way for it to exist in a smaller, more manageable and easy to maintain form?

I think the fact that it is just 'a moment' that starts suddenly with the giants' appearance and ends with their eventual but inevitable destruction, leaving all the larger questions and smaller details to whatever group happens to incorporate it is a hugely powerful device that makes it work beautifully as a Spark. The fact that the giants can be affected by the players, but will also autonomously just continue on their path and mutually assured destruction until none are left makes it feel like a real living event in a real living world.

I second the praise for the great balance you managed of painting the compelling image of a world and forces at play without going into too much detail and allowing the space for DM/GMs and the players to make it or incorporate it into their own. The fact that there are multiple portals and obols means this spark doesn't have to stop with just one incident, it can be reused over and over with tweaks to suit the game or table.

I quite like how simple, yet effective, this premise is. It makes it so much easier to use as a Spark in any number of settings or larger scenarios and gives the DM/GM and players scope to make it as large or as small a part of their story as they wish. I also personally love all the black and white illustrations you decided to include!

I quite love how much it focuses on the coin and its mechanics, personally, really feels like this Spark is meant to go with a CoinSides and that the coin is the whole scenario, the circumstances around it are almost incidental!

I would suggest maybe making it clearer in the scene itself that the Retrieval Specialists are from the Observatory, as I didn't quite get this until I read over the whole document, and the players would probably react very differently to two randoms asking for the coin as opposed to people that hired them arriving for it.

It does make me wonder why they didn't just send the Specialists in the first place, but then, that's always how these things go in media!

I'm not the biggest sci-fi fan, but I could clearly see the inspiration and love of Asimov in this Spark, and it felt very him! I'm also grateful for the way you put in the little parenthetical comments giving the DM/GM permission to do or change things differently, or explaining why certain aspects are important to include. That's something I feel many more scenarios and modules as well as Sparks need, as it doesn't matter how experienced I am, I'm always terrified to alter the work of someone else when I'm running it for fear of somehow ruining it by not doing it perfectly as laid out!

I really love the complicated but compelling story you've put at the heart of this spark where none of the parties are fully in the right or the wrong, which of course allows the players to truly choose and form their own opinions about it. I also love the mechanics of the obolos and how the players can learn to avoid death through dubious means and real consequences.

I did wonder about the 'if the Obolos is stolen, Iomaire’s authority remains, and no other being wants to infringe on the soul, leaving it in the control of the bearer of the Obolos' ... what happens if other beings do want the soul for whatever reason? Or is that just an absolute law of the Rites of Iomaire, and Iomaire will always have claim to it?

I love how I kept thinking this was about the bird until I actually opened it up and read it [the clearly referential graphic design for some reason didn't click, haha!] a very lovely shout out and side adventure for those who get the reference!

It might help in terms of formatting to put the maps next to the relevant scenes, I found myself getting a little jumbled up and confused trying to read and imagine it [I kept jumping between picturing playing a Mario game and picturing myself at an RPG table trying to explain it to my group lol] before I realised there was supplementary material to help out!

Also you should probably put the bit about the having three failure restarts before properly perishing towards the beginning of the side quest, as there's a real chance the DM/GM won't read/forget what the aftermath says when running it, and then will end up messing up that aspect while in the middle of play, not having gotten that far.

I agree with Beth and Angel Make Games on the formatting, I really need to learn how to do that properly one of these days, it makes reading so much easier and just feels more professional! I feel it's very clear and easy to run and incorporate for most levels of DM/GMs. It's also a very solid adventure, very clearly laid out, and very easy to see how the story/scenario is meant to play out and be run. Good job!

I had a few nitpicks that may or may not be helpful:

- I also wished to know more about the coin and what it did to make it so desirable. It was less about the coin and more just having the coin as a Macguffin that could've been any of the relics of Zarageth from a cosmetic perspective. Why is the coin the only thing the apparition wants? 

- I feel like there needs to be more of a conflict in wanting to keep the coin and suffer the consequences for its power/ability/value vs just returning it because it's the right thing to do and people will die. If there's some interesting mechanics to it, that adds a whole new fun dimension to the story and dilemma and interactivity/agency for the players, rather than it just being a story they just happen to be around for?

- I felt a little bit of a disconnect at the apparition going through all this trouble asking around for the coin back when the coin is clearly on display and available for public viewing at the local museum, would it not manifest more around the museum and to museum goers? That also could be a potentially interesting hook, perhaps the museum tries to downplay the hauntings as mere promotion?

- I get that this is an agnostic Spark and that we shouldn't be overly placing mechanics in, but I feel like having a whole heist scenario without going into the crunch about heist obstacles and what not will make it super daunting to a newer DM/GM who's never run anything like that before and has to come up with all the numbers on their own. Perhaps a line or two of suggestions on resources for determining such things?

Again, great job, very enjoyable!

Oh wow! Thank you so much, I'm shocked and humbled ^^

I was much in the same position, I backed the coin on Kickstarter and then didn't even see the bit about the Adventure Spark until about a week before the deadline while I had two other deadlines for some short stories and dithered over whether or not to add to my stress and workload [while also taking up loads of time with 'real' money earning job]. Thus I could only really brainstorm and plan out the idea during work on Monday, and then write it up on Tuesday.

I loved the idea of Adventure Sparks, as a very creative and overambitious GM and storyteller I tend to struggle with prewritten modules and adventures because they feel too limiting/not permissive enough towards the GM to alter according to the moment or group or campaign. However I'm also a very huge scope/overambitious creator, so a lot of the work that went into mine was very much curbing my impulse to add more details, more features, more world building and so on. I also struggled with the line of keeping it vague enough to be system agnostic, but detailed enough to actually be an identifiable story and have its own character.

I've never really done game jams before, my other submissions were purely to show off some narrative fiction in a job application, so I'm unaware of the etiquette or social aspects involved in this sort of thing. Happy to learn through this though!

-Ian