Another one that I made for my friends, prettied up. Feedback Still Welcome.
https://sirwilltheokay.itch.io/hunting-in-winter
Self-made Adventure I'd Like Thoughts On
Hi,
I have a bit of trouble with this adventure. First with the setting and the names. Stirsflal, Knott Smaart - they don't sound very Warhammery or Stirlandery to me. Also, Stirsflal is a tiny village of no importance, but still there live halflings and dwarfs there (or at least their children). Given that by far most people in the Empire are human, there should at least be some explanation of why this is so.
I think that the adventure improves if you give more information about the village. Give a few NPCs that the characters can interact with, give a few places that they can visit. Also, I'd like to see how tiny the tiny village is - if it has a mayor, and a number of dwarfs who are building a hall, just for the celebrations, it sounds like much larger than I had expected in the introduction.
And give some reasons why the PCs could have travelled to a village "in a marsh in a bog" that is "so far removed from the main river system that it's exempt from tax collection by being so utterly forgettable". Or even why they would have gone there.
Then, the scenario is set in a swamp area. That is not the natural habitat for stags, bears and boars (including razorgor). And wait, there is a *mountain* hawk? In the middle of a swamp area?
If the PCs have to travel through a frozen, snowy swamp, give some details as to how that is. What the PCs can expect in the way of terrain, some aids for the GM to describe what the PCs experience.
The adventure
Basically, the PCs are expected to go hunt animals because ... because if they don't, it is the end of the adventure, the players can pack their stuff and go home? That really is not a good motivator.
The bear, if the PCs don't kill it, acts really strange. In real life, a bear would never let get any potential danger to her cubs, let alone have humans (or dwarfs, elfs, halflings, what have you) play with them.
I don't get why Taal (I guess that the stag represents Taal) is opposed to people killing animals. He is the god of nature and wild places, but why should that extend to a ban on hunting? Generally, hunters venerate Taal. And if people shouldn't hunt and eat wild animals, why would Taal give some boars to the village?
I like the idea of the PCs having to go into the wilds and clear the area of the chaos infestations that are there - the razorgor and the cockatrice in your scenario - but not in the way it is presented here. Nature here is a bit too Disneyfied; if you don't kill bears, you can cuddle with their cubs and boars will willingly present themselves as food for you.
I could imagine a game where nature around a village is out of balance because of the presence of chaos entities in the area around the village, and to restore that balance those monsters have to be hunted and killed. But then I would want to see that - give signs of that imbalance and how it is affecting the village. And there should b some incentive for the PCs to go out and find the root of the problem, and solve it.
I have a bit of trouble with this adventure. First with the setting and the names. Stirsflal, Knott Smaart - they don't sound very Warhammery or Stirlandery to me. Also, Stirsflal is a tiny village of no importance, but still there live halflings and dwarfs there (or at least their children). Given that by far most people in the Empire are human, there should at least be some explanation of why this is so.
I think that the adventure improves if you give more information about the village. Give a few NPCs that the characters can interact with, give a few places that they can visit. Also, I'd like to see how tiny the tiny village is - if it has a mayor, and a number of dwarfs who are building a hall, just for the celebrations, it sounds like much larger than I had expected in the introduction.
And give some reasons why the PCs could have travelled to a village "in a marsh in a bog" that is "so far removed from the main river system that it's exempt from tax collection by being so utterly forgettable". Or even why they would have gone there.
Then, the scenario is set in a swamp area. That is not the natural habitat for stags, bears and boars (including razorgor). And wait, there is a *mountain* hawk? In the middle of a swamp area?
If the PCs have to travel through a frozen, snowy swamp, give some details as to how that is. What the PCs can expect in the way of terrain, some aids for the GM to describe what the PCs experience.
The adventure
Basically, the PCs are expected to go hunt animals because ... because if they don't, it is the end of the adventure, the players can pack their stuff and go home? That really is not a good motivator.
The bear, if the PCs don't kill it, acts really strange. In real life, a bear would never let get any potential danger to her cubs, let alone have humans (or dwarfs, elfs, halflings, what have you) play with them.
I don't get why Taal (I guess that the stag represents Taal) is opposed to people killing animals. He is the god of nature and wild places, but why should that extend to a ban on hunting? Generally, hunters venerate Taal. And if people shouldn't hunt and eat wild animals, why would Taal give some boars to the village?
I like the idea of the PCs having to go into the wilds and clear the area of the chaos infestations that are there - the razorgor and the cockatrice in your scenario - but not in the way it is presented here. Nature here is a bit too Disneyfied; if you don't kill bears, you can cuddle with their cubs and boars will willingly present themselves as food for you.
I could imagine a game where nature around a village is out of balance because of the presence of chaos entities in the area around the village, and to restore that balance those monsters have to be hunted and killed. But then I would want to see that - give signs of that imbalance and how it is affecting the village. And there should b some incentive for the PCs to go out and find the root of the problem, and solve it.