{"id":7911,"date":"2022-04-18T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7911"},"modified":"2022-04-07T09:49:04","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T13:49:04","slug":"wyverns-roost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7911","title":{"rendered":"Wyvern’s Roost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Richard Sharpe\nSelf Published\nB\/X\nLevel 1<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This is an entry in my Wavestone Keep adventure design contest. Which I held to combat the crushing ennui I feel when reviewing too many bad adventures in a row. The challenge was to write and short adventure, eight pages, inspired by the concept and marketing tagline of the Wavestone Keep adventure. Now, to combat my crushing boredom, and the perfectionism which prevents me from working on larger projects, I\u2019m going to review the entries!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This eighteen page DIGEST adventure contains about nine or so rooms\/encounters in it. A delightful romp in a simple lighthouse, its got some decent imagery and nice interactivity. A B\/X adventure, in the most laudable sense of the phrase. It could also use a bit of a rewrite with the way it formats its entries to put important things first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a retheme from another adventure, a bandit tower. But, instead of bandits we\u2019re rethemed to pirates and a lighthouse \u2026 and it works well! A dude in town says he\u2019s looking for wyvern eggs and there\u2019s a tower nearby. You get there, avoid getting eaten outside, negotiate a troll cave, cross a rope bridge, make it up the tower to the nest at the top. What\u2019s notable, here, is this being a Level 1 adventure with a Wyvern, a Troll, a and a Vampire \u2026 with only the Wyvern being an outright obstacle. And that leads to a wonderful tone, the kind most of us enjoy, where you\u2019re not just hacking shit down but, rather, scheming and talking to the people inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The people inside who wear obvious keys around their necks for that big fat treasure chest sitting in the room. And have big fat ruby rings and earrings on, obviously worth a lot of money. Everyone should know by now that my favorite game as a DM is \u201chow close can I get to luring the party in to attacking the actual Keep in B2?\u201d \u2026 and other related issues. I love a friendly NPC with \u201cnext level loot here!\u201d signs hanging around their necks! Especially when they are overpowered like the ones here are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The interactivity here is pretty good. We\u2019ve got the obvious NPC\u2019s to talk to, and the overall \u201cgrab the loot\/push your luck but the wyvern is probably not a fight\u201d thing going on. Nice traps, a rope bridge, and a decent secrets layout is all pretty good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing can be quite evocative in this. The troll\u2019s goblin buddy is \u201cHer erratic personality will rapidly shift back and forth from screaming rage at the troll for suggesting they eat their nice visitors to simpering, handsy doting on any adventurer who doesn\u2019t violently recoil from her reach, and she is persistent. She only sometimes licks her toothy chops when looking at tasty exposed people flesh.\u201d and \u201cChains the size of a person\u2019s arm encircle the riveted, black iron coffin and run through its four handles. There is a sliding shutter door at the corpse\u2019s eye level.\u201d Not bad at all! NPC\u2019s are well described and memorable without being over the top. Folk in the local tavern have rumors and are for hire. Rooms have decent, and short, descriptions to relate to players. A one-eyed troll with an acid-melted face is a win<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other things are great also. There\u2019s a small amount of cat & mouse with the wyvern, in a throw-away statement, as the party approach the tower. Good non-linear entry in to the tower. NPC\u2019s in town are good, as are the rumors. The various magic items are solid, including a hood that \u201cA thin layer of elven cadaver skin is stitched inside like a lining. It\u2019s peeling and flaking off the back of the mask. One time only, the wearer can transform into any person\u2019s form whose facial skin is stitched into it.\u201d Sweet! That\u2019s what I want! To wear someone else’s face, literally and figuratively! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, though, there\u2019s the formatting \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a couple of things going on here that kind of rub me the wrong way. First are the room summaries. I feel like these happen BEFORE The encounter, before the read-aloud. And they get a little long. They are NOT done consistently, which is not what I\u2019m bithcing about, but, also, they seem to be long and just appear. I\u2019m on board with a general overview of how things are supposed to work inthe tower, etc, but, also, you can do it shorter and\/or not include it at all in a short adventure and the let the adventure encounter keys speak for themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, also, some of the descriptions are a little cumbersome in how they are laid out. Like, that coffin description, with the chains. I think the subject, the coffin, probably needs to come first and then the chains. Unless the chains are just SO FUCKING HUGE as to the most obvious part of the room, then the coffin is. By getting all fancy with the description writing you\u2019ve put the coffin in the secondary place in the description. First things first in descriptions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, look, I get it that digest is a format near and dear to many of our hearts. I don\u2019t thin it works well for a lot of text. More reference? Sure. More text\/paragraph based? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, I\u2019m just fucking quibbling. What this is is a great example of a B\/X type adventure that is short. It feels like a good adventure, and like a good BX adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Richard, I declare you Not The Winner THusfar, thus making it irrelevant for me to judge if the page count, in digest form, qualifies.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Snag a copy here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/392795\/Wyverns-Roost?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Richard Sharpe Self Published B\/X Level 1 This is an entry in my Wavestone Keep adventure design contest. Which I held to combat the crushing ennui I feel when reviewing too many bad adventures in a row. The challenge … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-no-regerts","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Untitled.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7911","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=7911"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7914,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7911\/revisions\/7914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}