![](https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/moon-200x300.jpeg)
By Hexagnome
Self Published
OSE
Levels 3-4
There is a witch in the wilds, a goddess unremembered, and a madman. There is a circle of stone – who knows what lies beneath? The villagers are distraught: their children! replaced by fae! The villagers are distraught: who heeded their plea? Ravenous inquisitors, that’s who. Oh, and adventurers…
THis 100 page adventure setting details the goings on in and around a small village. It’s a little busy in places, but it certainly knows how to layer on situations and make them available for the DM. All of those “takes place in a small region” LotFP adventure want to be this adventure when they grow up and get off the meth.
The party wander in to a village and get asked for help, just as the village did a couple of hundred years ago Back then a Paladin helped them, St Elm. I wonder if the party might help, just like he did? Also, there’s a couple of (small) adventuring sites nearby to plunder. So, whatever your motives, there’s a reason to stick around. Why are they asked for help? The villagers think their children are being replaced by fey. Oh, and the next day a group from the inquisition wanders in to town, ready to investigate and do some burning. Seems like The Old Ways may be a little too prevalent in this here village. Which isn’t true. Well, anymore. It seems it USED to be true, which is part of the problem. Old blood pacts and so forth. The new priest is very upfront and helpful. And also unwittingly part of the problem. And those inquisitors? Kind of bandits on board to do some inquisiting, led by their VERY devout cardinal leader. Also, they are werewolves. The wise woman in the woods hut IS an outcast fey. But, also, kind of doing the right thing and keeping curse in check. Oh, but also she might cause the end of the village if things go badly and a rogue spell thats chasing her goes off. Also there’s a weird hermit that lives in a boat in a tree in the woods. How about those standing stones and whats under them? I have not covered, AT ALL, those fey in the fey world you can get to, which is large itself. This thing just keeps going and going and going. There are some fucking complications here. While there’s not a lot that is outright going to stab a party, like a typical dungeon, thereis A LOT to maneuver through.
Amd I ain’t even got to the village prepper yet. Location descriptions take about a column each, and are FULL of good shit. Breif little NPC descriptions that give a DM something to work with in a game.For the two women who bake the village bread: “These two are always in a shouting match. Constable frowns a lot. Wystan’s in love with Aubrey Riesick (the only one with no clue about it).” That’s fucking great. For Mia Goth fans, some young chick married to an older farmer who has a bunch of kids: “Kerstina is a nervous wreck. She plans to poison Turner so his death looks like a drunkard’s misfortune, but lacks the herbalism skills. Unless she finds help, she’ll eventually snap and splinter his skull with a woodaxe” I’m in LUUUUUVVVV! THings that contribute to the plot at hand. Things to cause complications. Thigs to mix things up with the party. It’s all fucking magnificent! Oh, and it’s harvest time! So everyone is busy and worried.
This is EXACTLY how you write one of these little village/small regional investigations. There is shit GOING. ON. They care about their harvest and their kids, who gives a fuck about that orc invasion on the other side of the kingdom? They hate Mary cause shes was a cunt at the pie contest last year and is stuck up. Petty jealousies writ large. I fucking love this entire thing.
Well, ok, not the ENTIRE thing.
Things start to get a little shaky in the Fey realm. A little too handwavey maybe? I do tend to the darker/more realistic side of folklore for my Fey and this trends a bit Alice/Pan (explicitly noted as inspirations in tone but not substance.) Maybe that Strange & Norell vibe, if a bit darker and less refined. But, also, I acknowledge that my preferred tone is not everyones. It just feels less solid when we get to those portions.
The formatting can be a much in places. Hmmm, no, let me walk that back. I like the formatting and I think it does a good job. But there;s a little too much in places for things that I don’t think you always need. Color coding the map, for example. Putting the place names on the village map was a good idea but I’m not sure of the utility of the color coding. Nor, for example, the cause & effect chart … it just gets silly in its attempt to explain … which I think causes more confusion than it helps. I think the plot is straightforward, anyway. There’s also maybe a little too much extra in places, with mechanics. Almost mini-game like. Nor really procedurally general, but new procedures for doing things. Maybe pick one and go with it. Maybe two.
I’m not too bent out of shape about any of those. Slightly more serious is the opposition forces in this adventure. You’re going to have to push the party a bit to get some outright conflict. There are some wanderers to kind of bring some action, but, for the most part, there are lots of provocations but not a lot of “you’re attacked!” You’re going to have to, say, use the inquisitors to, say, visibly ransack a house under the pretense of searching for heresy. And Maye have them visibly steal something. Or physically abuse someone or some such. You need to provoke the players and their characters, I think. And I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. This really helps with the slow burn investigation of the adventure. And, at what point do you feel justified stepping in. You gonna sit around and watch them finally burn people at the stake? This is a gasoline factory, but the DM is going to have to give the party opportunities to bring their fireworks in. Again, not bad, but its going to take a different sort of DM play to run a sandboxy little thing like this, keeping things on the razor edge of tension until it spills over to outright conflict and then filling in the details of what happens next, using the characters (in the town) that are in play. I’m a big big fan of this, if you can walk that line. In particular, there are LOTS of opportunities for the DM to motivate the PLAYERS, rather than their characters, from the inquisitors to that Mia Goth. And motivating the players is a sure fire way to win as a DM.
I think this is what you’re looking for in a sandbox and investigation. Lots going on. Lots of chances for provocations. Maybe a little wonky in the presentation here or there, but, fuck, I’ll take this over those shitty ones any day. Yeah yeah, maybe it’s got some third act issues in the fey realm. But the rest of it is very strong … IF you really get in there as the DM and drop some provocations on the party. And what kind of DM would you be if you didn’t, ahem, present the party with opportunities?
This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is eight pages and does a great job of showing you what to expect. And page one is the Mia Goth chick!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/474868/the-house-under-the-moondial?1892600
I really wish it had been around the time of my 5e faux-Celtic/fey campaign (the party was already too hi-level when it came out).
It is very ambitious but there are two major issues I have with it:
1) ArtPunkish generally downbeat, sometimes grimdark, sometimes twee tone that I find off-putting;
2) Visual noise/format overkill. Trying too hard to be laconic and easily scannable and as a result achieving the exact opposite.
Agree with your comments, this is suffering from ‘layout sickness’.
This sounds interesting and worth a look. I prefer a POD option though.
Dyson has found a niche. He seems to be doing quite well. Good for him, but I wish designers would try to draw their dungeons. So many people are using Dyson for their maps. It leads to a sameness that’s getting a bit boring for me.
I agree with Artem above on the downbeat art.
On one hand, Dyson maps make adventure publishing much more accessible to the common man.
On the other hand, Dyson maps make adventure publishing much more accessible to the common man.
Just finished my first read through of this in digital form. The content is aimed at being useful at the table and hence is very terse. On one hand that is great. On the other hand it can be a bit hard to follow in places. Having a digital copy and being able to search and look up references to persons, places, things mentioned elsewhere (very little space is waisted repeating anything in this adventure) was a life saver. I would not go POD for this one.
Hey Bryce, thanks for the review!
Both your enthusiastically kind words and your caveats are much appreciated.
If anyone is interested, there is also a POD version available on Lulu: https://www.lulu.com/shop/hexagnome/the-house-under-the-moondial/paperback/product-gjv9gdv.html?page=1&pageSize=4
Thanks for your “50% Off” Sale on this, and rest assured I’m getting your PODs too *IF* you ever release an Amazon version (I buy Amazon PODs only, sorry… ).
Baldo everyone, answering the question, what happens after someone crawls up their own ass, and then crawls up even higher.
OK I rolled on the Wandering Monster Table and got a bailey, but I live half a world away, can’t feed/mail you anything, the post-Covid shipping charges (and oftentimes the customs tariffs too) are murder, I quitted most non-Amazon POD sellers for exactly this reason (and besides, it’s longtime I’ve sold my soul to Master Bezos for his Prime services), please go begging for bananas elsewhere bailey.
Sounds like Village on the Borderlands’ bizarro counterpart: a village where the detail actually matters? With characters who actually care about what’s going on and act sensibly in relation to surrounding events? As it should be.
Also seems to beg to be combined with the wonderful, wonderful one-page Temple of the Moon Priests
https://beholderpie.blogspot.com/2017/04/one-page-dungeon-2017-temple-of-moon.html
The most dodgy thing here is the interpretation of alignment and clerical spellcasting I think. The outcast fanatic priest burning everyone at the stake is still lawful and still receives spells? The werewolf bandit murderers following him are not chaotic?
An attempt to inject muh moral relativism and muh shades of grey in a deliberately clear-cut system.
Also also, “zealous followers of a masculine monotheistic religion oppressing villagers clinging to a matriarchal system of nature worship, and you should feel bad about it, CHUD” is such a worn-out trope.
Imagine simultaneously being offended on behalf of orcs and non-ironically calling other real people CHUDs
St. T can’t come back soon enough
It wouldn’t be a 10 ft Pole comment section if Mr. Nothing and friends weren’t screeching about right-wing politics… Go outside, have a lemonade, pet a dog.
I wasn’t screeching, this was about alignment, a function in the game.
I’d urge more precision when you throw your accusations, you wouldn’t want to get a reputation for lying, exaggeration and just making shit up.
I can drink lemondade and own Libs at the same time
Its a tough line to walk. Hexagnome is an obvious gay race communist, he participates in cancel culture, he associates with and actively courts criminals, thieves and perverts etc. Undermining traditional values so his inverted values can flourish is explicitly part of his creed. Trying to find ideological motivation behind something as petty as game design decisions is far-fetched but this is from the same school of thought that often considers orcs to be part of a culture-wide conspiracy to instill racist beliefs about afro-americans into the fertile young minds of the nation, and if even game-mechanics can be racist, well, then why not alter them? You would not want your game to promote patriarchy would you?
Why don’t all you Anon trolls take this garbage somewhere else?
Hey anon, please go outside. It’s not that scary out there I promise