World of Xoth (unofficial adventures)

[Kerim Shah]

Hi guys,

I've recently submitted a couple of adventures to Morten/Thulsa over at Xoth.net publishing and he is hosting them on his site. While they are completely unofficial, Thulsa has been very complimentary about them. They were written using Legend and I would really appreciate some feedback.

They are called 'Shadow of the Ragged King' and 'Children of Nwanga Zhaal'. There are some poorly drawn maps and a whole bunch of NPCs with full descriptions of appearance and motivations, as well as suggestions for their tactics when the swords start swinging.

There is also a gazetteer of sorts for the City of Dipur, though the map hasn't made it onto Thulsa's yet.

If anyone likes them, I have two more in the pipeline. The first is nearing completion and is called 'Blood Queen of Adartu'. The second is in early stages yet an is set on the frontier between Lamu and Tharag Thule.

[Kerim Shah]

Sorry, the second one is tentatively called 'Hounds of Zardos".

[Mankcam]

Sounds excellent!

[soltakss]

To save anyone fumbling their Google-Fu, the scenarios are at http://xoth.net/publishing/freebies/the_ragged_king_adventure.pdf and http://xoth.net/publishing/freebies/the_children_of_nwanga_zhaal_adventure.pdf, together with http://xoth.net/publishing/freebies/the_city_of_dipur_gateway_to_the_east.pdf - which means that Kerim Shah must be Paul Kirk in an alternate world.

[Kerim Shah]

Thank you Soltakks. I tried to set up a link but came up short. Did you happen to take a lookat any of them? I've now submitted a very slightly update City of Dipur and the map.

[soltakss]

The Ragged King is a good little scenario. It took me a couple of readings to work out who was who and some things could have been a bit clearer. Having the Cast before the Scenario might be better, as it highlights a few things. I liked the idea of splitting out the locations from the main scenario, but am not sure that it worked, as I had to flick back and forth to make sense of who was where. It could have done with an "Adventure Overview", as in The Children of Nwanga Zhaal.

 

The Children of Nwanga Zhaal is a much clearer scenario. It would probably work best as a scenario to slot into a sea voyage. Some events are a bit stage-managed, but that is fine, as most GMs would cope with that. 

 

The City of Dipur, Gateway to the East is a good writeup of a city. I particularly liked "Making Dipur come to life" and "Animals in Dipur", which have scenario hooks at exactly the right level. The Temples were confusing, as the cults were only mentioned. I would have liked a short writeup of each cult, in Legend format (As the old RQ cults used to have). But, there is enough here to provide many weeks of gameplay.

 

The Stat Blocks were well laid-out, but contained some things that I didn't like. I'd lose the full stops at the end of every part, also Characteristics have a bracket that doesn't mean anything - Strength). 10. for example. It just looks horrible. I liked that each major NPC has a Special Ability, as it makes them stand out. I didn't like that many NPCs bled over a single page, but a couple of sentences, I'd have preferred them to be on one page rather than having a lot of white space after almost every one. Some of the weapons (Yataghan, Shamshir, Mancatcher) were not described, but they might be described in another supplement.

 

Overall, they are good. I would tidy up the Stat Blocks, as they were almost very good, except for the horrible bits. Where cults are not described, but are described in another supplement, I'd state that, so that people know. All three need maps, as it is difficult to visualise the layout without them.

 

As to whether people like them, yes, I do. I'd definitely persevere and write the follow up scenarios and continue to produce them. 

[Kerim Shah]

Soltakks,

Thanks very much for your kind words.

I will certainly try to take your advice on board, especially your points about the Stat Blocks bleeding over onto a second page. Originally, I had placed the maps and some artwork in the white areas, but had some difficulties around this and finally opted to remove the artwork and to PDF the maps separately.

I guess that I am maybe a bit guilty of not knowing when to stop writing. I wanted to build character into the NPCs and several paragraphs on appearance, personality, motivation and tactical nous soon takes up space.

Regarding the cults and the weapon descriptions. I had assumed that anyone who was interested would have a familiarity with the World of Xoth. All of those things are described in the Spider God's Bride (except for the weapon Yataghan) and I didn't want to be upsetting Morten or MGP by cut and pasting the cults from their intellectual property.

The Maps should also be on the site at Xoth.net publishing under separate PDFs. I'll check the site again, in case they have been removed. They are extremely amateurish, but should have enough to go on.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to peruse them and comment. I really appreciate it.