{"id":10708,"date":"2026-11-09T07:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T12:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10708"},"modified":"2026-10-19T10:21:36","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T14:21:36","slug":"the-bell-of-blackthorn-hollow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10708","title":{"rendered":"The Bell of Blackthorn Hollow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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FEI Games
Self Published
B\/X
Levels 3-4<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Long ago a small village accepted a gift from a traveling group of clerics. The gift was a large bronze bell that was surprisingly light for it\u2019s size. A newly formed cult discovered the bell and it\u2019s history and have recently decided that bell was better off in their possession\u2026 so they took it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This seventeen page adventure uses seven pages to describe seven rooms in a graveyard. More FEI slop, with massive read-aloud to make it to seven pages, and enemies that are no match for a party. FEI Games is fascinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I find FEI Games absolutely fascinating. FEI and a couple of other publishers, that is. You know the ones. I don\u2019t review any of them any more because they just pump out garbage, one or two adventures a week. \u201cOh, it\u2019s AI!\u201d, except they started before the LLM\u2019s appeared in a common way. Are they using AI now? Well, FEI Games claims to not be using AI in their adventure disclosure page. I also don\u2019t really detect the obvious \u201crule of three\u201d dead give away that AI is present, or the \u201cIt is not X but Y\u201d AI phrasing. So, this could be actual real deal hand crafted garbage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why? I mean, what motivates someone to write like this? FEI and the others. Are they making money on these? I mean, that has to be the motivation of the AI slop people, right? They just flood the market with shit and they make $1 off of each one. That\u2019s obvious. And then there\u2019s the patreon\/kickstarter people who are inevitably marketing to people who don\u2019t play D&D and just buy and read shit. That\u2019s shitty, but I understand it. Then there are a whole slew of people who WANT to create and are just bad at it. (And, some small percentage who are good at it.) All driven by passion and a compulsion to create. Buy why hand craft slop? What\u2019s the pay off? The dopamine hit? I mean, it feels like I\u2019m in a old folks home and they tell you to paint one picture a day to help fend off the Alzheimer’s. There can\u2019t be any joy in this. Can there? Or sales? I have to be wrong about something. I just do not know what the fuck I am wrong about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Edqrd E Sutton, writer, just did not give a FUUUUUCCCCK about this adventure. In what is possibly the shortest read-aloud in the adventure \u201cThe door that you discovered opens without a sound. Treasures is revealed before your eyes.\u201d This is quite awkward. Who phrases something like that? I love using off kilter phrasing and it’s weird even for me. There\u2019s a decent number of zombies in this. Like, small numbers in several areas. Zombies are like an auto-turn at level three in Holmes, I think? That leaves a couple of 2HD darkmantles, a 3HD elder darkmantle, and a 3HD spirit. This is not exact;y the challenge of the century. It\u2019s clear he did not give a fuck when placing the enemies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the map, some of the zombies are noted, in the text, as appears in areas 1(a) through 1(d.) There is no area 1a-1d on the map, just a 1. And there\u2019s no room for a 1a-1d to be placed. This is all examples of human slop, not ai slop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read-aloud is huge. 1.5 pages to start, if I recall. There\u2019s read-aloud everywhere. Long sections of it. Except, is it? It\u2019s boxed. It\u2019s phrased like read-aloud. And then there\u2019s text like this mixed in to it \u201cThe trip to the abandoned chape is uneventful except for any random wildlife they may see off in the distance. The final few miles of their journey they will experience\u2026.\u201d Uh. Yes. The designer does not give a fuck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a couple of encounters with very low level creatures for the level range. They are uninteresting encounters. They are full of massively long and confusing read-aloud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I just don\u2019t get it. I understand the AI cash grab. I understand the kickstarter\/patreon cash grab. But hand crafted? It MUST be a cash grab, right? Why publish at such a rate, weekly or even more frequently, if it\u2019s not a cash grab? But you just CANT be making bank on these. Right? Just slop, pumped out week after week. There can\u2019t be any joy in it. There can\u2019t be any cash in it. So, it\u2019s like, just doing the work someone else has assigned? How do you pump this out and not give a shit about what you are pumping out? How do you pump it out weekly, or more, and not get AT ALL better week after week after week? What is the motivation for the hand crafted slop publishers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $1. It doesn\u2019t matter. Nothing matters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/588428\/the-bell-of-blackthorn-hollow?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FEI GamesSelf PublishedB\/XLevels 3-4 Long ago a small village accepted a gift from a traveling group of clerics. The gift was a large bronze bell that was surprisingly light for it\u2019s size. A newly formed cult discovered the bell and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/588428-1.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10740,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10708\/revisions\/10740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}