An Adventure Site: Ghostlight Mesa

​For a mystery system, Levels ?
By J. Coffery
Local ranchers find livestock brutally slain and consumed. They offer the party up to 200 gp worth of leather goods (including armor) and other mundane equipment to investigate and stop. One clue: tracks from a large humanoid point to the Ghostlight Mesa.
The local priest warns the party about Ghostlight Mesa. On full moon nights, the spectral lights dance along the mesa edge, believed to be spirits of . Rumors of a vast silver horde have attracted adventurers, but few have returned with riches. He offers blessings if they chose to explore..
   Hey. Hello everyone. We’re done with Adventure Site Contest reviews. Check back here soon for all judges’ finished rankings synthesized into the top-8. That being said, I do enjoy reviewing all adventures, big or small, and some noble soul sent in something to the Adventure Site Contest that broke the size restriction (3 pages) but otherwise has some really fascinating ideas, so worth looking at it.
   First off, I do want to note this is a very odd-looking design. Landscape not portrait, three or even four column, AI-generated village “map”, little Grok-made skinny sasquatch illustration. Strange stuff. Workable, just oddly arranged.
   Okay, so, story is Wyrd West. Ghost lights up on a mesa, ruined cliffside village, sasquatch-wendigo Old People hunting rancher livestock, it’s got a nice western coat of paint. Now the cliffside village is occupied by a goblin tribe who’ve lost half their members to a Shaggy Man, so there’s a lot a negotiation stuff there potentially too. It’s a western coat of paint, but you can also do it in D&D, no worries.
   Maps are a wonky little Grok-illustration isometric village and a linear little Shaggy Man Lair, neither particularly interesting but both perfectly serviceable for what’s needed with this scale. Villages getting broken out via key can be a little awkward for running but hey, I could fight a pitched battle against a tribe here. I like the rubble-cave in branch that later links to a buried treasure room. Not everything has to be hyper-exploratory, but no bonus points for interest here either.

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​   So in above you see one obvious hazard in a rickety rope-bridge, classic. Most of the rest of the threats are desert animals, hazardous predatory tumbleweeds, and said goblins plus the sasquatch-wendigo (pretty much just a skinny desert bigfoot aka the Mogollon Monster). The goblins are Chaotic Evil but willing to negotiate, with goals and purpose, while the sasquatch-wendigo is Chaotic Evil and just a fight-monster that eats victims mid-fight. Nice and scary fight mechanic, but missed opportunity to not have two houses alike in dignity here. I do like an order of battle with the goblins.
   Treasure is mostly obsidian weaponry, silver ingots, and turquoise jewelry, low value vs threat level if this is B/X or AD&D. The magic items are an obsidian (thus breakable) javelin of lightning or a turquoise bead Thunderbird Necklace that acts as either feather-fall or a tossed stunning item. It can be recharged by putting it out in a thunderstorm, which is very cool, good design.
   In the end, despite this being above the ASC text page limit, this is an adequate if rather small and insubstantial site. Love the flavor, western but it can go anywhere in a standard game world that has a mix of mesa and desert somewhere in its hinterland. 

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