​A fairytale adventure by Dylan Franks, levelless, because…
Written for Cairn
  The days are short, winter is near. Those of us so blessed to live in the United States are dining light in anticipation of the incoming gluttony of Thanksgiving in a few days. No better time to curl up by the fireplace and leaf through a meaty adventure of fine quality. So of course I’m going to instead be squinting at the PDF of a long Cairn adventure on my smartphone while weed-eating, I live in the South. Technically thirty-five pages, the Wands of the Whippoorwill Wood has generous margins, huge medieval public-domain art spreads, and vast tracts of whitespace to cover the ten-key hex…er, triangle crawl for a quest for the titular wands in the titular wood. It’s lush with art and formatted to within an inch of its life, but how’s the play, Mary Todd?
  It’s pretty much what you expect from that title, honestly. Whippoorwill Wood is an enchanted forest full of fairies, protected by a pair of magic wands (Rockwood and Tanglewood, and zero points for guessing what each does), the meanie humans outside the woods want to find the wands to be free to do Captain-Planet-villain-stuff, while fairy factions want to find the hidden wands to push the humans back. Oberon and Titania are also around. Also, there are fairy-bound knights and a fairy village and random little woodland encounters. Plus “dungeons” where the wands are held of sixish rooms. There are technically nine factions, each with its own relationship with the others and goals, and because of this decision to load up the faction number this high the motives and relationships are all about a thimble deep. Really working hard here to convey everything though:

​  So what I liked about this one, beyond obviously appreciating the hard work that went into it…there’s some thought put into conveying the complex factions, an understanding there’s an issue here that needs effort to convey. The enchanted wood map looks odd at first but it’s neat how it eventually makes sense as a magical confused wood where leaving on one side lands the PCs on the other side exhausted. There’s an occasional moment here and there where the old fairie tale feeling shines through, like how a human-sized creature shrinks if “both a toenail and a fingernail” are wet from the central brook. That’s nice. A few of the magic items make it to near that level as well.
  What could be improved would be embracing more of that. Occasional flashes aside, the majority of the flavor of module is depressingly postmodern, thoroughly 2023 despite the old art. Stuff like the Wand of Rockwood or the Wand of Tanglewood are much more standard. Despite the admirable attempt at making factional relationships clear, it’s unfortunately redundant. “Sir Joliet OTHERED by The Brigade” vs. “The Brigade CRITIQUES Sir Joliet”…is that clear to you? Able to run everything from that? The random encounters are extremely detailed as well, with a morning/afternoon/evening/nighttime division, but enough to cross the line into unwieldy and difficult to run. The traditional formatting exists for a reason, this whole thing creaks under the weight of all these pages and pages of redundant and confusing information. The dungeons are hidden by clues and there’s rival parties and it’s all the right idea but put into a muddle. The system is doing this one no favors, either, you’ll want a lot of diegetic advancements before tackling this properly.
  I’m going to leave the tanglewood and say our best use case is to raid this thing for fairy-flavored bits. There aren’t many and they aren’t as flavorful as you’d like, but you could do worse, might be so critters to borrow too. Running this as a direct adventure would be a lot of squeeze for not all that much juice, a group read-aloud of Lord Dunsany would be much more rewarding.
  Final Rating? */***** with a nod for the genuine hard work that went into this. Sadly, all the formatting departures ultimately make this a more difficult run than an easier one, and when boiled down to its essentials the story is all very bog standard.
  By all means this makes it a top-five Cairn adventure though.

​A dungeon by Franklin Hicks, levels 2-4.
Written for Shadowdark
  This is not going to be a regular feature. From time-to-time, I will touch base not with the grotty underground that is “free on itch” and look instead at the classy, upscale halls that are “free on DriveThruRPG”.  My criteria for grabbing adventures will be entirely “whatever the algorithm shows me while I’m conducting publisher business”, while the judgement criteria will remain the same. I have a vague sense of unease stepping out into these strange waters, but perhaps it won’t be all bad.
  I open the Temple of the Shadowed up and…at this point I’m almost settling into my comfort zone. Sixteen-page (A5) Shadowdark adventure for a thirteen-room dungeon? Lavish margins, classy black & white stock art, totemically looped Dyson map? Alright, Hicks, I used to groan about this sort of thing but in the world of Knave 2E and Cairn 2E and “system neutral”, you’ve got me paying attention. This might be okay.
  Buckle up, buttercup, because we’re going to start this one with backstory. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, there are four chaos gods…yeah, yeah, but it’s different. See in this world, Khorne, Smarter Nurgle, and some shadow goddess backstabbed the fourth guy and wiped him from existence and it’s all very convoluted. And the dungeon is a temple to all these gods that was found by a secret priest who then traded bodies with a summoned angel but got trapped and then the angel in his old body hid the gems(?) needed to break the trap and it’s unclear where all the gems are but now the angel/priest is summoning adventurers via dreams and boy howdy does this dungeon expect you guys to worship some of these chaos gods. Convolution aside the rest of the adventure is pretty standard in the “ancient evil temple” dungeoncrawl formula. Expect a lot of undead. It’s a good formula, I won’t diss it.
  What I liked here are said dungeon crawl basics. The map is a Dyson Logos, but a very solid one for all that, just about the ideal level of complexity for 13 areas, not just incorporating loops but also with secret doors well-located and elevation changes mattering in a couple places. I can see how the space is explored and it’s a good time. That’s review of the Dyson map, though, I’ll also say I like the random encounters and the chaos magic table that’s supposed to be used in lieu of the standard Shadowdark magic fumbles. Nice little sign that a designer has written his adventure to be played in the system, that’s always a good tell.
  I’m not even going to go into the convoluted backstory with what can be improved here. The idea for an evil priest in an angel’s body trapped by four gotta-catch-‘em-all McGuffin gems isn’t bad at all but eating into those lavish page margins to fit in a blurb about where on the map these McGuffins explicitly are would do us a world of good. Using the backstory of the chaos gods would be helpful in several of the statue-and-shrine rooms too, versus just making academic references. To me the biggest whiff, though, is not taking full advantage of the excellent map. That elevation change? Nothing matters about the library overlooking the other two rooms via balcony. Two of those secret doors are potentially ways to bypass danger but the text itself has no danger and no door, respectively. Hurts my heart to see such a nice dungeon map not fully exploited like this.
  Ergo our best use case is to have this as an adventure site in the author’s own extremely bespoke campaign world. It’s usable and modifiable to other campaign settings, but there’s a homework problem at that point. Up to you if it’s worth it.
  Final Rating? **/*****, at about the same level of quality you get with many itch.io Shadowdark adventures. While I do not share the author’s enthusiasm for his world-lore, I’m still glad to see it. You could do far worse, as I’m sure I will in reviews ahead.

  I talk about TTRPGs and adventures a lot on this blog, but this isn't the only creative endeavor I work on. My wife and I also write novels together; we've got six written so far, most fantasy, none published yet. Self-publishing in 2024 rewards long series and multiple releases available, so the plan is to have at least one trilogy and one quadrilogy complete before going our on our own, assuming no traditional publishers bite.  Formatting and cover design are their own hassle, I can definitely post more about the state of genre publishing more if it's something that sparks interest. In the meanwhile, we've just finished off the first draft of our latest novel, Shepherd, a fantasy set in a world more Classical Greek than traditional European medieval. Here's the prologue, excerpted for your reading pleasure: 

  Shepherd
By B. K. Gibson
  Prologue
   Don’t break. Don’t run. Don’t break. Don’t run.
   Sweat blurs Philon’s vision. Blink, shake head. Shoulders, arms, and back ache. Ignore it all, keep the shield up, keep the spear up, keep pushing.
   Don’t break. Don’t run. Don’t break. Don’t run.
   “Forward, Citizens! For your polis and your gods!” It seems impossible, but the citizen to the left and the citizen to the right grind forward into the wall of bronze spearpoints ahead, so Philon pushes forward as well. A stone from a sling clangs off his helmet. The bronze dents but does not break.
   Don’t break. Don’t stop. Don’t run. Don’t stop.
   The enemy Shepherd reacts to the press, running behind the enemy line with a shout of alarm. Answering screams from Philon’s fellow citizens ripple towards him, and a wave of alien terror turns his bowels to water and his legs to jelly. The man to his right falters, his shield droops, the enemies’ spears lash forward, seeking the fresh gap in the wall. A bronze spearpoint gouges Philon’s vambrace and he almost drops his spear.
   Don’t break. Don’t run. Oh please oh please don’t break.
   “We have them! Master your passions, Citizens, and PUSH!” Determination, pride, and rage wash over Philon’s heart, chasing out fear as his own Shepherd draws near. His comrade’s shield slams up as the man shouts in anger. Philon hears his own voice join into the inarticulate chorus. Shouting, they surge forward once more.
   Don’t stop. Don’t break. Don’t stop. Push. Push. PUSH.
   Now it is the enemy line that falters. Above their shields Philon can see the white flashes of their eyes as entirely natural fear takes hold. A gap opens in the shield wall before him. He thrusts. Finds cloth and flesh, a scream of anguish erupts, with echoes up and down the line as more of the strange attackers begin to quail and fellow citizens also find their marks.
   Don’t break. Keep the line. Don’t stop. PUSH.
   Cheers and shouts of triumph steady Philon’s heart with a rekindled courage all his own. His line moves forward, their line moves back, with all the stumbles and falls that implies. More than an hour in the hot sun has everyone weary beyond belief, but both sides know what victory looks like and the men of his city stand taller, white grins flashing beneath their helms.
   Embrace the Passion of War. Don’t stop. PUSH. PUSHPUSHPUSH…
   The break happens first right before Philon’s place in the line. Overborne by the Passion of Fear, one of the enemy casts down both shield and spear and turns to flee, stabbed in his unarmored back for his trouble, but not before his cowardice infects his fellows. Now by fives and tens men cast down arms and armor and turn with wails of despair. The lines shudder, spears flashing like lightning as the enemy who still stand firm fall from their shield-mates’ abandonment.
   Don’t break. Keep in line. Don’t stop. Stay in line.
   The time for spears is soon over. Philon feels the weight of the sword on his hip. Running down the broken and shattered remains of the enemy is sword-work. Ugly work. Needed work. Wherever these strange soldiers hail from, they cannot be allowed to live to threaten the polis again. Now shields without insignia and helms with no crests are thrown off and the whole of the enemy line splinters. Shatters. Flees.
   NOW. FORWARD.
   The line roars. Legs cramp in protest but Philon joins with his fellow citizens in a run, stabbing out with his spear at enemies who trip and fall. Screams of panic from the broken enemies mix with shouts of rage from fellow citizens as the retreat becomes a rout. Hooves thunder to the left as the small company of city cavalry gallop down on the flank of the invading army. All tiredness is forgotten in the rush of victory.
The river of humanity parts around a hulking figure in grey who crouches with one hand upon the earth. Philon slows, falters, as he beholds the massive man, a rock of calm in the midst of rout. The stranger is clad head-to-toe in unadorned armor of hammered iron, crude and heavy. In middle of all the chaos, the stranger has eyes closed, meditative.
   Another wash of triumph and rage sends Philon forward again, along with all his fellows. Every Shepherd of the polis is out today, pouring every ounce of passion they can muster into their fellow citizens’ hearts, ensuring neither Fear nor Mercy stays the spears of their people. Another wave of shouts resounds from victors, reveling the day of triumph.
   Suddenly, stillness.
   Philon staggers as all rage and courage leaves him. A thrill of fear begins to churn in his guts, but now that too is stolen away. Hushed gasps expand outward as the battle goes completely still, both the winners and the defeated going to their knees in the sudden shocking calm.
   Even the whimpering of the wounded ceases.
   The only movement is from the giant of a man in the iron armor, as he lifts his head and shrugs his mighty shoulders. Philon is near enough to see a wolf-smile flash on the stranger’s face as he sighs and opens his eyes.
  Eyes as green as grass.
   Now the ground quakes, the earth parts, opening beneath Philon’s comrades all over the battlefield. Clangs and grunts sound throughout but no screams of terror, no cries of pain, no shout of confusion. The best Philon can muster is a dull curiosity as the dirt rends before and behind him, consuming his fellows in the space of a breath.
Horror should overwhelm the survivors. Three quarters of the able-bodied Citizens of the polis, gone. The flower of their city’s finest, gone in an instant.
   Sluggish, stunned, Philon rises, turns to flee over the riven field. With almost equal apathy now the strange invaders turn again to pursue.
   Philon barely feels pain when a slingstone crashes into his knee, driving him into the ground.
   He barely feels his own sorrow despite the tears rolling down his cheeks as he turns his face towards his enemies, advancing unopposed.
   He can only barely feel his heart-deep shame as the stranger advances towards him coldly, reaching for manacles of iron.

​A one-page dungeon by Jamie Douglas, levelless
Written for Vault of Vaarn
  We wander to many familiar places in our Crapshoot Mondays, a billion ShadowDarks, a host of Morg Borgs, a fleet of Motherships. Most of these systems have modules all over the place, regularly topping the charts in DriveThru. Some, though, are itch.io-specific systems, weird and artistic and heartbreaking…most notable, the ugly little postapocalyptic system that couldn’t, Vaults of Vaarn. The grotty little one-pager I find here is a nine-key dungeon made for all (both) people who play Vaarn, complete with silly little illustrations and a classic unusable map. It’s like wearing an old pair of sweatpants, both comfortable and yet somehow debauched.
  Simple enough premise, the titular Water Hoard Honeypot is using the water-scarce setting to set up a location where bandits lure victims into an ancient machine that extracts water from biomass. There are between 3 and 14 bandits(!) thanks to the 1d6 and 2d4 key numbers called out, and an extremely avoidable adorable chained critter if the players feel like fighting, plus a couple one-way proto-traps, a one-way chute down and an antigravity tunnel that tosses the victims back outside the dungeon. Also there’s quicksand, approve. Your loot is water or “probably some equipment”.
  Clearly what I liked was the goofy little closet monster’s illustration. The trap with quicksand is nice along with there being bodies deep within in for loot if inspiration hits the players (it won’t, but nobody has played Vaarn anyway so that’s fine). I like the setting as caves under ancient water-extracting windtraps, nice for a Gamma World.
  That said, even with all that what can be improved touches this content. The quicksand “probably” has bodies…NO, BAD WRITER, TELL ME WHAT IT IS OR IT AIN’T. The cute monster is just sitting off by itself from the main bad guy cave, avoidable and frankly the least likely bit to get interaction in the entire little complex. The ancient machinery vibe is unevenly conveyed, with the whole “push big obvious lever” method of stopping the dangerous final fight with robots in the water kind of out of left field. I don’t have to tell you about the issues of “dX bad guys” in a delve this tiny. Finally, the distress beacon in the end makes sense if that’s the hook that drew the PCs in but there’s no way to interact with it beyond smashing. At least the loop in the map does make a little bit of tactical sense, but there’s nothing telling players which direction holds what for purposes of offering meaningful choices to them.
  The best use case for this thing is to steal the cute little monster and use it in a more compelling location. Using this as a one-shot would be okay, just a little, um, dry.
  Final Rating? */***** without being upset, just kind of sleepy about it.

  There's still time. You can still send your site in, for glory and for learning. Right now we're looking at about double the sites of last time and there's some pretty creative stuff, but I believe in you, gentle reader. You have what it takes. Map it (or swipe a map online). Write it. Send it on in.
  You'll regret it the rest of your life if you don't.

A dungeon by Mike Kuhns, levels 1-3
Written for Shadowdark
  If you write something I like, I’m going to follow up and check out more stuff. I was not generally impressed with Shots in the Dark, a Shadowdark adventure compendium, but the pirate lair from Mike Kuhns in the set was quite good, so I looked to see if he had anything else, and hey, Petra Serpentis fits the Crapshoot Monday criteria quite well and given it’s using a nine-key Dyson Logos map over nine pages I’m curious to see how usable it is. Writing is fine, the pirate adventure hadn’t impressed me due to poetic language, but just because it would produce good gaming. In this case the map’s verticality, always appreciated, is actually used so I’m a happy man on the outset.
  The plot is that there’s a goblin mine near “the village” were elemental fire-infused “flarestone” gets mined and refined, mine’s been taken over by a rock snake who’s eaten all the goblins and is now eating the local livestock. Please go kill the monster, thanks. Oh also a lot of the goblins died in an explosion because the shale serpent leaks natural gas and the dead goblins got infused with flarestone and that makes them nonstandard zombies. I’m fine with this.
  To start with what I liked was how the adventure was extremely-not-system agnostic. That setup seemed odd to me at first until I remembered that Shadowdark has goblins as one of the default four PC races, so “goblin” doesn’t equal “assumed at war with the village”. The stone snake leaking natural gas is extremely tied in to both the verticality of the location (gas is thicker the lower you go) and also the Shadowdark system’s obsession with torches (burn faster/brighter the lower you go, exploding on the lowest level). Not only is this lampshaded very nicely with the village’s lanterns burning brighter whenever the sheep get stolen and an incautious goblin obviously exploded, but there’s also a way around the problem provided with nonflammable flarestone rods as part of the loot to be found. Very solid thinking overall, clever and consistent, and that’s shown in other little side thoughts with loot hiding spots and monster positioning. There’s also stuff like Shadowdark danger tags (used for random encounter frequency) becoming more severe the lower you go.

  Can’t all be good though, what can be improved is two primary thinks. First of all, have the courage of your convictions and remove that “1” from the recommended levels, you’ve basically got a dragon down at the bottom of the well here, with the 4d6 natural gas explosion and the stony hide immune to nonmagical weapons…those are fine, those are fun, but more for level nine, and not for level one. Or at least level 3, although the pair of +1 weapons findable in the dungeon are a good attempt to ameliorate the issue. Some specificity in terms of the village and more of that creative thinking focused on random encounters would also help, six rats aren’t an interesting encounter result. Although thank you for giving a number and not “2d4 rats”. "More ambition" is a vague request, but I'll make it.
  I’m a bit torn here on best use case, because spoiler alert, I will be using this. Played straight as a oneshot or in a campaign map it’s good, but the thing is such a good dragon’s lair setup I’m almost tempted to rework it into a higher level lair. The thing is specific, which is good, but that does mean it’s not designed to be strip-mined for bits.
  I’m waffling a bit but I eventually land on a final rating? ****/***** Feels slightly generous because it moves my heart to admiration instead of love but shucks this thing has a lot to admire, so…well done. And I will be using this in games. 

A dungeon by Vance Atkins, “low-level”
Written for OSE
  I don’t encounter him a lot, but the indomitable Matt Jackson is another prolific mapmaker in the vein of Dyson Logos, fond of natural caves and cute little equipment illustrations. As with Logos, you can either complain about the simplicity of most of Jackson’s output, or you can be thankful that he pumps out a ton of usable maps for noncommercial community use absolutely free of charge. I’m clearly in the latter camp, as is Mr. Atkins, who uses a little fourteen-room sea cave map here over five pages to give us the endlessly useful gift of a pirate lair. I don’t know how good it’ll be, but I approve of the heart.  
  I don’t know what to tell you about the story of the pirate lair. It’s a pirate lair. So, anyway, there’s this lair, you see. And it’s got pirates in it. And you go to kill them and take their stuff because they’re pirates. I mean there’s some fun side stuff like how the winds always seem to favor them and the caves are a navigation hazard and there’s a nameless (take a drink) sea god shrine here but mostly it’s yo-ho-ho and a bottle of fun.
  Let the reader be clear, this is part of what I liked, it’s a good adventure site. It’s simple, but the lair does have some nice little details, like the pirates keeping a pet nerd for their magic needs, a statue that accepts offerings to fill a grotto below with feelings of euphoria, and a couple of the fun magic items…the Anemoi Basket is a woven basket that can be opened to release winds, and a couple Medusa’s Locks, each a single lock of medusa hair that can be used as a one-time paralysis effect. The fact that the pirates’ ships are low-key the most valuable bits of loot is nice too, although they have a fine pile of cash too. I like that the captain and mate have a little escape cave too, nice use of the map layout there.
  What can be improved first of all would be adding just a little bit of that magic item verve into having a bit more variety for traps/combat encounters, which are all just arrow traps and straight up pirate swordfights. This dryness also applies to the rumor table, which is full of some rather generic whispers by and large. It’s not like any of these are bad at all, just that when I look at an adventure site like this I’m looking for something that’s more valuable that I can come up with off the cuff when rolling on a DMG wilderness encounter.
  Don’t get me wrong though, the best use case here is definitely keeping this in your back pocket for whenever your campaign needs a pirate lair. Which, for me at least, is “any given session” so you better believe I’m adding this to my map.
  Final Rating? ***/***** for its fundamental decency and bang-for-buck value. It’s a very solid little lair and I appreciate it.
  
  P.S., in Actual Play:
  So as usual I write these things a ways in advance. I finished my review of Marwater Cavern and I added it to my rolodex as a potential adventure site. A month or two later, the domain activity roll I made for my current ongoing island-based West Marches campaign yielded an "increased pirate activity" result. The player with the largest active fleet was disturbed by reports of an active new brace of pirates (three sloops' worth, the other one ship I made the Vermin Wake from one of the better Shots in the Dark adventures), so he worked with some of his contacts to investigate and carefully located the two lairs. He opted for the bigger prize and went into Marwater here with a set of new characters (two newcomers to the game, one an old hand who was happy to play his backup character). The adventure went great; the environment was interactive and interesting, the flow of battle was great (thank you random encounter for yanking in multiple rooms), and the loot was lucrative. I generally leave stars where they are but don't let three seem "mid" to you, you should absolutely grab this when looking for a pirate lair.