Howdy all! This short message to let you know I have published an adventure free of charge!
It is a B/X module easily adaptable to any OSR sytem or AD&D: “The God Towers of the Elophant”. I leave any detail to the blurb and the preview available on DrivethruRPG!
You can grab a free copy on drivethru at this link: The God Towers of the Elophant
The module is PWYW so that if you wish to leave a tip, it will be more than welcome!
Unrelated, naming a game VI VIII X is pretty bold!
Hi, I take it as a compliment!
Thanks!
It is! I’ll take a closer look in a bit…
You’re more than welcome!
You can have a glance at them on my dedicated page:
These are the same rules of the book (for anyone with no bucks in their pockets!)… for the sake of completeness: this is the first (and only for the time being) edition, in the very next future i will withdraw it in favor of a new and streamlined edition!
I am eager to hear from you, needless to say!
Thanks and ciaoo
PS if you are curious enough, i can provide you with the unpublished draft of the new edition!
Four-pointed star eyes is pretty wild. Makes me think of goats. And like, certain berries. Baby blueberries?
So, a DM note: I’m really hoping that I roll a 1 on that d6 for ‘troll incursion’. In that way, I think adding probability that it will happen over time excites me. This might imply the trolls growing more desperate. You could weaken their armor, make them hungrier over time, to compensate for the increased chance?
Feel like I’d call this Trials of the Elophant. These trials are cool. Best part of the adventure thus far. Minus cavemen blueberryeyes’s d6 power table.
Metal doors and windows for a buncha dudes without blades feels anachronistic. These SEC types harvesting goods and repurposing dwellings, or are they more capable than their tech suggest.
Alright, tell me more about the vibrating finger on the rim of a cup aspect to these weird metal plates on SEC homes. They seem functionless?
/
Alright, overall review is as follows: basic premise is two cultures have been at relative peace for awhile and now one of them is out of resources and want to take land from the other.
For better or worse, that’s the fundamental tension right? So PCs have a … mmm, a bit of a pre-set need to fight for what’s right? What’s right then: well, one could argue that the trolls deserve to suck on stalagtites; it’s just limestone. But they only really want to take the space rather than share it or whatever else. This clearly won’t do because it’s holy and the cavement have kept it pretty safe for a long time and hey, why are you trying to take it now anyway?
So, a social adventure right? Broker peace? Kill trolls because, trolls? Get trolls their limestone? Not sure.
I will say: you have a cross-vectored approach. On one hand: we want to focus on this social tension because it’s the ticking time bomb rigged to troll incursions. However, we also want to ‘do the trials’ because, who doesn’t want to do the trials? The trials are there.
So in one sense, I think the adventure is split in two. To me, the most interesting approach would be to bring PCs in as intending to do the trials. Have them navigate someting difficult in the cavemen as a social engagement, and then frequent their arrival with the incursions by the trolls. Then they might get blamed (outsiders! you bring trolls! it’s your scent!) for the upset, even though its just the trolls want to suck on more limestone.
All told, well laid out. Great trials. Maps were cool to see. Feels like a bola, flipping end over end through the air.
Sorry I didn’t pay, but at least I read, eh?
HI hughbongo! Firstly thanks for reading the module!
Re the several points of your post: the plot is purposely open to any choice the PCs can have, they can ally with one of the factions and help that group to achieve its goals, they can stay “outside”, they can try to apply a very difficult diplomacy by trying to establish a new balance!
There is no right approach, whatever the PCs decide, they can follow their idea… In addition there are external events which can be used by the GM to hinder or accelerate the plot!
Thanks for your comments on the trials, I am happy you like them!
Re the vibrating tools, they act as an alarm tool: whenever it is necessary to alert the community of an incoming peril, these are sung so that everyone is aware of the alarm… the mechanism works like this https://youtu.be/QdoTdG_VNV4?feature=shared (needless to say, there is one tool with one note only!)
Don’t worry if you didn’t pay, that was in your options and you’d not feel wrong for a free of charge copy! …I only miss your last ref to the bola: I don’t get what you mean with that… sorry!
Mmm. Metaphor? Two balls at either end of a rope. Feels like the shape of the adventure, when my odd mind is applied liberally.
Yes, I was under the impression that PCs could choose whichever direction they wanted to aid in. This is good. I do wonder if both directions provide similar motivation for PCs. They’re presented with the option to help in either direction, sure, but does the adventure already lean one way or the other by accident?
Ahhh! Ok now i understand! Yes, spot on: you can act according to any position you want to have re the 2 factions!
For the time being I got one review of this module on drivethrurpg: it is by someone who is not happy and asks for ‘more plot’ as he/she finds the PCs with no constraints/input about the choices they can do… basically an implicit request of railroad… i don’t understand…
To me, their request for plot has to do with hooks. You’ve made an open expanse with existing tensions: what tools does a DM have to get some of that tension to go up? How can players get involved? What would make players who don’t seem interested in getting involved get interested?
What is the story of this place if the PCs never showed up? How would it play out without interaction?
Well these are quite difficult questions… some of them have an answer which is rather rethorical: the GM should manage the situation according to the interests of the players. If he doesn’t see a real interest, I don’t see anything but railroading …and we don’t want railroad, do we?
On the other hand the real questions should be moved on a different plane: if a group of characters is exploring a multilevel dungeon and has achieved a good depth, I’d assume an implict interest in any secret the dungeon has …
In a nutshell: do you believe that a kind of motivational section would really help PCs at an advneced stage of dungeon crawling? My opinion is that any good hint is already in the text, in addition I added an unforseen events table to have additional twists if needed… as a GM that would suffice for me (it’d be even be more than what is really necessary).