Fragments of the Floating City

By Will Jarvis
Inverted Castle Games
WWN
Levels 1-2

Lightning cleaves the sky. High above, a vast city emerges from the clouds. Is it the ancient temple-city of Mitosu? Has the Veiled Emperor returned? This starting adventure has players venturing into a ruined tower that fell from the mysterious city in the sky, crashing into the remote mountain valley of Glynmoor. Explore the charming town of Squabville, subdue the restless spirits awakened by the floating city, and discover the secrets of the fallen sky ruin.

This nineteen page adventure presents a small four level tower with about eighteen rooms in a fallen fragment of a floating sky city.. It captures the drama of small town life a bit, as well as supporting the village with a couple of sites. The phrasings, descriptions, and interactivity is almost enough to make me like it … a rare thing indeed!

Dude is doing some interesting things with this adventure. Right off the bat, we notice this is for Worlds Without Number … but can be used with any OSR system. What’s that mean, in practice? Truly? How do you take an adventure for a system you know nothing about and then convert it YOUR system of choice? Most OSR systems are some derivation of B/X, so it’s pretty chill. But, then, when we get to one of the more niche systems, how does one convert that? Are you an expert on Worlds Without Number? I’m not. But, also, the designer stuck in a note: “Hey, this is designed for 1sp=1xp.” Well Howdy Doody there! That’s actually something I need to know if I’m going to run this in B/X! Dude actually put some thought in to how HIS system differs from the more mainline systems and told us about that! 

Moving on, there’s a small town to support the adventure, and, for what it is, it’s interesting. The various businesses all have some local intrigue, a lot of small town stuff. Ostensibly, a dude on the town council wants you to take a look at a rumored sky tower that has fallen nearby. Secretly, he wants to control the whole valley and is hoping you’ll find something in it to help him. Also, he’s got the last kings regalia in his house, looted from the nearby burial mounds. Also, he’s blackmailing some local bandits to hit some trade caravans to better his own business position. Also, his daughter has probably swindled a local rancher out of his stock. He’s bitching in the local tavern. Also, one of the wandering events has three thugs drag the rancher out in to the street and give him a public beating. It’s not overdone. This isn’t a cartoon villain or Boss Hog. This is all great. The NPC summaries are terse, laid out in a small personality/goals/wants things. Easy to reference and you get exactly what you need to run them … and, more importantly, the situation they are involved in. One dudes wife is missing and the ocala are getting up their courage to go pitchfork mob out. The tavern dude has some shit to share, a quirk that he flies in to a rage if the food at the other place is mentioned. This all makes sense. You can run it. Situations, and just enough about them and the people in them to riff on them and make them your own. I’m pretty fucking happy here. Help the herder round up his cattle that got loose and get a rumor and friendly face out of it. That’s how you do rumors! Fix that fucking sidewalk in front of my house, councilman, if you want my vote!

Magic items are at least interesting, if not well described. “Horn of the Valley (carved from a gwibber skull, blowing it forces a moral check for 1 HD enemies, usable once per day” A very nice minor effect with some local color. Later on we get a suit of plate mail you can  wear … which is actually a kind of broken automaton … so you do feel compelled to kill al ot of vermin. Also, you could repair it and get a new buddy to help you out. That’s some interesting stuff. Magic item? Ally? Curse? It’s just a thing, with all of those aspects to it. 

Descriptions here are serviceable, for the most part. “Rubble has been cleared to open a passage inside. It is completely dark. Sounds of mechanical clanging can be heard coming from within.” It’s not going to win any awards, but it is also not so bad. I like it, but don’t love it. In another place “Piles of rusted tools and machinery parts. An inky black puddle of oil covers most of the floor.” Decent vibes. “The roof of the uppermost chamber has partially collapsed, and a heavy rain is falling through the opening, leaving the floor slick. A large amber crystal is built into a gleaming steel apparatus in the center of the room. It flickers intermittently” Broken dome, rain coming in, amber crystal, flickering. I don’t like the ‘large’ word, it’s boring, and I don’t think the overall vibe comes through that the designer was hoping for. I don’t get cavernous, or wondrous out of this. Certainly not a throw away meaningless/useless description, but it doesn’t really cement the scene either.

The dungeon does not quite that potential energy that the village does. You are, essentially, looting a mostly vacant structure, scrounging for a couple of treasure and dealing with some vermin. The final room has a weather control device, and a puzzle around its use that is the right kind of puzzle, with a few clues scattered throughout the complex. A trap or two is well telegraphed, with a burned body in the room and so on. These are all great, but, the situations that made the village good are just not present in the dungeon, and the environment, proper, feels static and dead. I suppose that’s true to life, but, also, this is a D&D adventure. We want to be doing things. It’s got that same vibe as Tower of the Stargazer, you know, the static environment thing?/ 

I’m a fan of the village and the (VERY small) regional encounters. The writing is serviceable and the formatting, with the word count, is fine. The dungeon proper is a bit of a let down from the highs I was looking forward to up to that point, but, also, I think I’m looking forward to the designers next effort.

This is free at DriveThru. Good job on making the first adventure free.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/518942/fragments-of-the-floating-city?1892600

So, I’m in Charlevoix yesterday, intending to stop by the Dairy Grill I drove past, but I need a few days worth of groceries so I stop in at some local grocery. Looking for local products, I see Michigan Cherry BBQ chips, skin on! I’s in the deli and a giant bag. 160 cal per serving and nine servings. I wander on, not wanting a bag that big. I eventually see the chip aisle and think maybe there’s a smaller bag. And there is, so I get it. I just looked. It’s about half the size of the big bag. And there are eight servings?!?!?!?!