Thursday 23 April 2015

Jo Salvador's 'In the Moon Bog' - One Page Dungeon Entry

Author: Jo Salvador
Price: $0 (FREE here)
Format: PDF
Page count: 1
System: Raven God Games (OSR/OGL)

Year: 2015

The Good
For the record, this is my kind of adventure. It's straightforward, clear and concise. It's teeming with peculiarity and oddity, oh and it fits on one page. I believe the intention (and it certainly comes across in execution) was a mini wilderness crawl. There are plenty of adventure ideas packed into this diminutive one-pager. Basically a hairy, one-eyed spaceman's disabled spaceship is leaking radiation into the Moon Bog. The leakage has poisoned the area and created mutated 'man-frogs'. Also, the spaceman's name is Zark which is pretty perfect. I like the overall flavour - items such as 'marsh pearls' or a 'starmetal longsword' provide a nice deviation from normal treasure, and challenges the DM/Ref to define what these things are in their own campaign microcosm. There are plenty of good ideas herein, so much that you could run a mini campaign here with little effort. I can immediately imagine using this in my Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers campaign, alongside Yoon-Suin and Carcosa

Salvador has opted to omit any system-specific material, so the DM/Ref will need to do a bit of work to flesh out some of these encounters. I actually prefer it this way, it's very easy to grab a relevant monster manual and roll initiative. It also removes the necessities of 'ideal for levels 4-5' type of thing. 

The two maps present within the adventure are very decent. Unambiguous, they are greyscale and logical to follow and match with the adventure.

The Bad
I'm racking my brain here trying to flaw this, because really, for a one-page design this thing is perfect. I did notice one syntax error, but even mentioning that seems laughable and slightly petty.

Some DMs may wish the encounters and monsters had been given stats. If you are one of those DMs who would complain about this...please don't. Or find a system where you can readily adapt a systemless supplement to your game. Sorrynotsorry.

Final Thoughts
This thing is great. Download it immediately, and use it in your next gaming session. 

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