itch.io

Space constraints are definitely a challenge. The village definitely has the vibe of a trap, and the weather creates the urgency to make rash decisions. That's kind of brilliant in its own right.

I can't wait to see how your players deal with the Planar Ice Fields and the temptations of the Cold Star.

EPK is "Eat, Prey, Kill", although I wouldn't expect everyone to recognize it immediately.

Kallskalt Pass is a dangerous place, and you get that across very well. The Howler Bear encounter sounds chilling and horrifying as it should!

I think that this scenario would benefit from a map that provided more flexibility and made clearer the goal is to get through it. Ultimately, by the end this gets lost in the trying not to freeze to death.

The opening sounds like a great encounter with the Steppe Wolves, but it also feels like a railroad. Player agency takes a back seat, which can be fine at times, but here there are catastrophic consequences for an action the players have no part in choosing. Even a bad choice where both situations have consequences would alleviate this feel. Like you can go around the lake, but it will double the number of wolves chasing you or something. Getting across the lake, will lose the wolves, but it is dangerous in its own right.

A lot of this adventure is dedicated to the freezing mechanics, so I understand the desire to ensure that at least one player is facing imminent death from freezing. Perhaps an alternative way to gain the freezing condition could alleviate this like spending too much time without shelter, and going around the lake pushes you toward the required time. And maybe the wolves attacks damage winter clothing making the situation worse?

The firestarting rules are pretty concrete and I love the beckoning snow maiden. Good stuff there.

This is a really punishing adventure. To offset this, there should be ample rewards. Maybe someone the players can save to gain something? Or a treasure trove behind the Howler Bear made from all the people it has killed up to this point. The Heavy Armor is good, but even that is damaged.

I had a phase in my DM career where I had a tendency to focus on the negative consequences of everything, which can create really compelling stories and verisimilitude, but I had to learn you also have to focus on the positive consequences, which I don't think comes as naturally. If you give a carrot, then you can get away with much more devastating sticks.

Thanks! I think you touched on all of the themes I was trying to convey. 

MY pleasure, I definitely have to take some notes from your design.

Man, this resonates with my brain. I kind of love the literal Hobbesian Leviathan. Obviously this also has heavy wickerman vibes.

I have a hard time thinking of this as an adventure as much as I imagine it as a monster. There really isn't a hook, or story here. It kind of feels like a trap? If the players don't engage it, nothing happens. There's no stakes. The people are apparently happy to be of a hive mind and cramming themselves inside this thing. I can see players wanting to save them from themselves, but that certainly isn't a given.

I think this would be strengthen as an adventure by a hook, like a missing family member who went to this village and the goal is to save them, which will of course trigger the Lord of Warmth at some point.

It would also be nice if there was a mechanism for weakening this thing before it's triggered.

Also, because of the wickerman vibe, I feel like this has to end with being on fire...

I like the design of this adventure. Besides what others have already mentioned, I specifically like how one side of the room is used for description and the other is used for stat blocks.

It's simple and straight forward and I think a group would enjoy this one.

My only aching question is how the hell did that giant get down there in the first place?

I like the design of this adventure. Besides what others have already mentioned, I specifically how one side of the room is used for description and the other is used for stat blocks.

It's simple and straight forward and I think a group would enjoy this one.

My only aching question is how the hell did that giant get down there in the first place?

I hate this. Everything about it, which is exactly what it should inspire, so great job!

It feels a little weird to pull modern titles into the fantasy space of Mork Borg, but this really does succeed at plumbing the depths of depravity that we face in our real society, so even though reading it at first bothered me, I don't know if I can really say I would change it.

From a mechanical perspective, I think minimal stat blocks and some insight into the kinds of gadgets these guys are weilding would make it much easier to run.

Like a lot of the entries for this jam, I think the one page constraint probably is at the root of these missing details.

I noticed more grammatical problems in this entry. I think giving your work a more critical eye during the editorial stage would go a long way. This might mean running it through grammar software, or reading it out loud to yourself(seriously this technique feels awkward, but damn if it doesn't work), or if this is something you struggle with maybe having someone else you trust look at it.

I think what I love about this dungeon is how it tells it's story concisely and through the rooms, with very little descriptive text.

Short paragraph explaining the book, which is pretty good.

Some hazards in the mouth, with less than 10 words of description of each, but enough to run with. The illustrated map also provides plenty of inspiration for narrating the progression through the creature.

The suggestion that someone was controlling the thing, then a trip through the digestive tract to learn that it was felled by the fungi and rescue villagers. The chance to successfully rescue the missing people is important for the players to feel accomplished.

And then you find the wizard? who was controlling the beast with enough breath left to explain what the fuck happened. Then you have to crawl through a "tunnel" to escape.

Good stuff. More adventures should accomplish as much with as little.

I don't have a lot of cash instructive feedback beyond my praise. Explaining exactly what the "Toxic Spore" special ability does might be useful since it's a combat ability. The other vague references are fine by me as I can just assign a random infection and damage that seems reasonable, but combat abilities demand a little more explaination in my opinion.

This is a unique entry. It's kinda weird to find that word is descriptive of my thought since it is inspired by the Chthulu Mythos, and although I do love the mythos it usually isn't described as unique in it's modern world incarnation.

What makes this entry unique is its intent. The goal isn't to fight monsters, or really even solve puzzles. It feels like a piece of bigger whole that is made around the idea of embracing one evil over another to prevent and reverse the miseries.

And to embrace this, the players must make sacrafice of themselves and very likely others who will need to be coerced to participate in the rituals alongside the party by their will or against it.

Honestly, when I read this it feels like the plan of a villian in the game that has a kind of noble goal. Otherwise, I'm not really sure how to use this.

Maybe outside of this contest with additional supplementary materials this would be a more compelling dungeon/adventure?

I really love the cold rules presented here both for climbing the mountain and the actual rules for dealing with cold.

The dungeon is interesting and has some challenges that are pretty fun. From a mechanical perspective everything works really well, but from a narrative perspective I have a lot of questions.

What is the hook? Why would anyone scale this dangerous mountain to reach this church? Where is the infinite supply of frozen deathless coming from? What is the Mizer doing here? Why does it matter?

I know that a map was probably excluded to the page restriction, but it would have been really useful. It took me quite awhile to put together how the church encounter flows, which is silly in retrospect considered how few rooms there are. I mean there are just 2 right. But I think that illustrates how confusing it is until you put it all together. Aside from those minor complaints and a few grammatical and spelling errors that stuck out, this is pretty awesome stuff.

I really love the cold rules presented here both for climbing the mountain and the actual rules for dealing with cold.

The dungeon is interesting and has some challenges that are pretty fun. From a mechanical perspective everything works really well, but from a narrative perspective I have a lot of questions.

What is the hook? Why would anyone scale this dangerous mountain to reach this church? Where is the infinite supply of frozen deathless coming from? What is the Mizer doing here? Why does it matter?

I know that a map was probably excluded to the page restriction, but it would have been really useful. It took me quite awhile to put together how the church encounter flows, which is silly in retrospect considered how few rooms there are. I mean there are just 2 right. But I think that illustrates how confusing it is until you put it all together. Aside from those minor complaints and a few grammatical and spelling errors that stuck out, this is pretty awesome stuff.

I'm glad that I could be helpful. I'm legitimately surprised you are so new to this. I can't wait to see what you do next.

The strength of this adventure is its possibility for many, many outcomes. I get the sense that this would never play the same way twice.

Before, I get started please take what I am about to say with a grain of salt. I really don't like fetch quests, and a lot of this adventure feels very fetchy. Bring me this to do that. A good DM could definitely make this work and not feel like you're walking up to npcs with exclamation points above their heads, but I fear that this game could definitely end up feeling that way.

I understand that the reward for this adventure is escaping the forest, but I feel like it would go a long way for players if there were more salient rewards than simply altruism.

My favorite piece of imagery in this submission is the two chess masters with frozen beards. Its just so evocative.

The strength of this adventure is its possibility for many, many outcomes. I get the sense that this would never play the same way twice.

Before, I get started please take what I am about to say with a grain of salt. I really don't like fetch quests, and a lot of this adventure feels very fetchy. Bring me this to do that. A good DM could definitely make this work and not feel like you're walking up to npcs with exclamation points above their heads, but I fear that this game could definitely end up feeling that way.

I understand that the reward for this adventure is escaping the forest, but I feel like it would go a long way for players if there were more salient rewards than simply altruism.

My favorite piece of imagery in this submission is the two chess masters with frozen beards. Its just so evocative.

This is a nice series of loosely connected encounters. I really like that not all of the random encounters are combat encounters. I also really like how you align the minimal stat blocks to the margins right next to where they'll be used. Very convenient.

The number 4 encounter kind of bothers me, I don't like putting characters in situations that they have no control over, and especially then having dire repercussions like the loss of a limb, and although I do think the idea of a 33% chance of another character eating it is funny, that also robs that character of their agency.

The fishing hut encounter is pretty fun, but the repercussion for accepting the fish seems rather high, especially since there is a possible health benefit. It seems almost like an unnecessary amount of logistics.  I might just have it be discretely poison, and then have the fisherman try to put them down the fishing hole as bait or something.

I really like the hansel and gretel vibes from Morkshire, also a funny name. This probably won't come as a surprise, but I think having a player die just for walking into a house seems excessive. At the very least, I'd let them save, or take damage - and then I'd probably also make sure they have the possibility of knowing there might be something dangerous behind that door.

The Wendigo though, man, this thing is cool. Everybody else has said it, but I love the idea of having players roll to determine the things ultimate HP. There's so much good stuff happening in this battle. Children in need of rescuing. Skeletons rising as weak minions. The imagery of this thing plucking stars from the heavens is just fucking epic. 

The icy breeze seems kind of problematic though, I worry that having a player out of combat for 4 rounds would be really not fun. I know I would space out and likely stop paying attention to the game for awhile. It really depends on the DM how fast these combat rounds are going to go, so it might be fairly quick (but even minutes can feel like a long time), or excruciatingly long on the far end of the spectrum. I might limit this to d2 rounds, or make them choose between movement and attack or something for that time-frame, instead of being unable to do anything at all.
 

Overall, I think this would be a lot of fun to run, and that Wendigo battle is likely to be the stuff of legends.

That's fair, working within constraints definitely influences the work.

Thanks, I'm glad I was able to convey the tone I was going for in such a small space.

Thanks! I've done writing professionally and I've been DMing for close to 25 years. So yes, my first jam entry and some of my first explicitly rpg related writing, but I'm not going to pretend I'm some kind of prodigy or something :P

You're very welcome.  Yeah, the sword was actually the BBEG for the campaign.

This is my first jam entry, so I totally understand being miserly with the word count. I had to edit mine down significantly to get it to fit the way I wanted.

If you do expand this at some point I would love to see it!

This is a really great adventure to lay down between two other locations. I think the mechanics for hypothermia are excellent, but don't feel overly punishing, but they also provide a compelling reason to go into this strange obviously problematic inn.

A lot of the random encounters really make the bog feel like a living place. The peat moose, the grappling peat beneath the snow, even the ainking into the bog and grasping hoarfrost. I love it. I might need to plug this in somewhere in my game.

My constructive criticism is that it is indeed very hard to read. The font choice, although thematic and cool makes this problem worse. I had to take time just to parse where to start, and to identify the important points, or even which bits are different sections.

The placement of the Swamp Moose stat block right under a reference in blue and bold to the ice cellar was really confusing. I was like, is the swamp moose more than a random encounter?

I think the sections need more delineation, an easier to read font and maybe more liberal use of bold, italics, and colors to pull out the important information. I would usually suggest simplifying the language and parsing the words down to the most important elements, but in your case I find the language so evocative I'd hate for you to lose that.

On an entirety different point, I think the hag needs to have some kind of magic (maybe she's supposed to use her own herbal concoctions?), but her stat block really reads like a melee encounter and I feel like that isn't the feel you're going for with that adversary.

Overall, after parsing this one, I think it is one of my favorites, but my immediate reaction was to dislike it because it felt needlessly overwhelming.

This is a really great adventure to lay down between two other locations. I think the mechanics for hypothermia are excellent, but don't feel overly punishing, but they also provide a compelling reason to go into this strange obviously problematic inn.

A lot of the random encounters really make the bog feel like a living place. The peat moose, the grappling peat beneath the snow, even the ainking into the bog and grasping hoarfrost. I love it. I might need to plug this in somewhere in my game.

My constructive criticism is that it is indeed very hard to read. The font choice, although thematic and cool makes this problem worse. I had to take time just to parse where to start, and to identify the important points, or even which bits are different sections.

The placement of the Swamp Moose stat block right under a reference in blue and bold to the ice cellar was really confusing. I was like, is the swamp moose more than a random encounter?

I think the sections need more delineation, an easier to read font and maybe more liberal use of bold, italics, and colors to pull out the important information. I would usually suggest simplifying the language and parsing the words down to the most important elements, but in your case I find the language so evocative I'd hate for you to lose that.

On an entirety different point, I think the hag needs to have some kind of magic (maybe she's supposed to use her own herbal concoctions?), but her stat block really reads like a melee encounter and I feel like that isn't the feel you're going for with that adversary.

Overall, after parsing this one, I think it is one of my favorites, but my immediate reaction was to dislike it because it felt needlessly overwhelming.

I really like the hook, which can easily be delivered by any patron, although I imagine it coming from the basilisk's mouth. Like the hook, I bet ripping the heart from her chest would a satisfying conclusion.

The cannibalism and ghouls in a snowed in town though feels trope heavy. I think that fleshing out some interesting repurcussions to the town after being beset by winter for so long would be valuable and make it feel more unique. Or maybe a why about the Mayor's daughter having this burning heart?

Maybe the reason it's so cold and wintery is because she has somehow drawn the warmth out the landscape into herself or something. There's a lot of potential in the Burning Heart.

I really like the hook, which can easily be delivered by any patron, although I imagine it coming from the basilisk's mouth. Like the hook, I bet ripping the heart from her chest would a satisfying conclusion.

The cannibalism and ghouls in a snowed in town though feels trope heavy. I think that fleshing out some interesting repurcussions to the town after being beset by winter for so long would be valuable and make it feel more unique. Or maybe a why about the Mayor's daughter having this burning heart?

Maybe the reason it's so cold and wintery is because she has somehow drawn the warmth out the landscape into herself or something. There's a lot of potential in the Burning Heart.

This is a really unique adventure, and one of the few to really capture the "Northern theme". I also really like it for the coldest category, but I think it needs some cold mechanics to drive that home.

The coldist kicked up by these ships must be terrible. What happens if someone falls in these freezing water? Do they get stuck under an ice-shelf (fuck, I'm dead I hear the players saying)? I know the ships are equipped to sail these icy waters, but icebergs must still be really dangerous.

The very fact that my mind is racing with what ifs and ideas for mechanics and what not is a testament to how compelling this scenario is.

This is a really well realized adventure location. I love that the players can choose which of the villians they are going to face (or if it was my players they'd probably take one, and then take the other, returning the town to its citizens.) The three headed giant crow is legit an awesome monster.

That said, this entry is much less useful with the second supplementary page and goes over the one page limit (although you knew that and that's why you didn't share it until prompted to, which I'm glad you did because this awesome.) Thematically, I'm not sure how this related to the categories put forth, so I rated it pretty low even though I personally love it.

I'm definitely going to run this, in fact I think it will solve a problem I was having for making this town coming up in my campaign compelling, although I'll probably change the specifics.

This is a really well realized adventure location. I love that the players can choose which of the villians they are going to face (or if it was my players they'd probably take one, and then take the other, returning the town to its citizens.) The three headed giant crow is legit an awesome monster.

That said, this entry is much less useful with the second supplementary page and goes over the one page limit (although you knew that and that's why you didn't share it until prompted to, which I'm glad you did because this awesome.) Thematically, I'm not sure how this related to the categories put forth, so I rated it pretty low even though I personally love it.

I'm definitely going to run this, in fact I think it will solve a problem I was having for making this town coming up in my campaign compelling, although I'll probably change the specifics.

Man, I love a good villians who waits til the right moment to attack. One of my favorite examples is from when I ran the caves of carnage. Two waves of orcs, half the party is down and this remaining are low on HP, the. The cultists attack. One PC truly died, and the only reason it wasn't a TPK was one player's ingenuity. Motherfucker saved everyone, it was beautiful and his reward was a SUPER cursed sword. This scenario really reminds me of that.

I think the term turn is confusing here. I assume you mean dungeon turn (10 minutes), not necessarily everytime a player does something. Since dungeon turns aren't really used in Mork Borg I think if that is the one intent, then some additional clarification is warranted.

I'm not a fan of traps that are save or bad thing, unless they have been adequately suggested. The trap in the refuse around the sword is pretty easy. It makes sense that putting some emphasis on the refuse might create reasonable suspicion. The traps related to the stairs not so much. I'm not sure off the top of my head I might suggest them. Maybe telling the characters at the beginning that the Were-Moose is known for being cunning and crafty or something.

The imagery of the Were-Moose coming up the stairs dragging an armoured corpse (clank, clank, clank) behind it, then casting its shadow across a party that is fighting over scraps of food and strips of cloth to maintain warmth is scary as heck. The Thing vibes for sure.

Interesting, maybe I'll run this encounter at some point and see how it comes out.

I can't wait to see it, this teaser is enticing.

If you do, I'd love to hear how it goes!

That is part of the DM lot, to fill in the blanks.

This is an interesting scenario with a lot of potential. It feels like a framework for a bigger story.

I'm not sure how much distance is between towers and how much time is required to travel between them. Time seems like a valuable resource in this scenario.

I wonder how frequently characters will engage the creature before it can topple towers. It feels like a race stacked against them, especially in a situation of lacking information. I sure hope players spend their few questions wisely. Frankly, I'm not sure what depriving players of information accomplishes in this situation as it robs them of motivation to stop this creature, which will be hard to defeat, even if manage to weaken it.

There is so much damage flying around in this scenario that characters are certain to die, which isn't unfounded in Mork Borg, but I'm afraid it would start to feel hopeless very quickly. The apathy mechanic for instance increases the already high miss chance in Mork Borg which I would find more frustrating than fun as a player I think.

Is the time between towers meant to give characters a chance to heal before the next encounter due to the deadly nature of each one?

I'm not sure why you decided to use the Troll as a reference here since you removed its healing ability and the amount of text to accomplish the troll reference and the negation of the healing ability is ample room for including the HP, morale, attack, etc that would be more useful on the page than having to have the book open to flip to.

All my thoughts aside, using this for my players who have been playing the same characters for quite a while and have several Getting Betters behind them, might find the difficulty here a delightful challenge.

This is an excellent adventure. It's beautiful and it has interesting encounters baked into a very small space.

I am left with a couple of burning questions. The first is why am I going to this tower? To sooth my soul? The second is why is this forgotten god here impersonating an angel?

I really like the Heart of Greed, it's a great item. It's basically an encounter when it's used that has several layers of depth from its breif description.

The visual imagery of the iron grates frozen and having to push one's way through it is vivid and interesting. Also potentially useful to split the party for a little while.

Based on the description at the beginning of the adventure, I expected more treasure in the well. Is it because one is meant to lament their own greed drawing them down the well?

I like the variation in the flying skulls, but the encounter doesn't feel dangerous. I suppose that not all encounters need to be dangerous, but it seems warranted here. Even the Lich has been robbed of all of its abilities. If I ran this, I would still use a crippled Lich, but maybe give it some ability to threaten the PCs.

It isn't immediately apparent what the package is, although looking at the picture for the conclusion, I assume it is a baby. The adventure seems fun, but it is clearly very combat heavy without a lot of knowledge to prevent triggering the monsters or alternative means for defeating them, which with the exception of Draugr, I'm afraid would end up feeling samey without adding to each of the locations. I do like the mechanic for the survival of the Package, but mechanic for being destined to die in a place removes agency from the players and I would hate to die to something I had zero control over.

It isn't immediately apparent what the package is, although looking at the picture for the conclusion, I assume it is a baby. The adventure seems fun, but it is clearly very combat heavy without a lot of knowledge to prevent triggering the monsters or alternative means for defeating them, which with the exception of Draugr, I'm afraid would end up feeling samey without adding to each of the locations. I do like the mechanic for the survival of the Package, but mechanic for being destined to die in a place removes agency from the players and I would hate to die to something I had zero control over.