Last Thursday, I submitted an entry to the 2025 Appx. N Jam!
The Appx. N Jam was an itch.io contest requiring submissions to be a four-page RPG adventure based on a made-up book title that was randomly assigned. Those titles were of the vein of those old swords & sorcery novels found in the AD&D DMG's Appendix N- the influences for AD&D listed by Gygax.
For a great collection of Appendix N stories, I would like to recommend Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons and Dragons edited by Peter Bebergal from MIT Press.
I was hoping to get a title such as [The Location of the Noun + Noun], like "Crypt of the Red Wizard". This sort of title gives a clear idea about the dungeon and the random encounter table.
Instead, I got "Tabaldak's Geas", which, while it gives a potential antagonist, a "geas" is not a location nor something that could be easily used as a treasure. Furthermore, a geas in the D&D sense often forces the players to do X. For example, in OD&D, running across a wizard stronghold might result in a geas being applied to the party, forcing a task of some sort.
So I decided to combine ideas that had been kicking around for the Appx. N Jam:
- The idea of the Deck of Many Things has been used as a campaign starter since its often considered a campaign breaker
- A cult based around mistaking a beholder-kin (which has create food & water) as a bounty-delivering god
- Try to submit a fairly good-sized dungeon (I hit 23 rooms)
Here is the synopsis I created for the dungeon:
“Who has misfortune thrown into this trap’s jaws?"
Escaping danger, the PCs are trapped in the villa of an inscrutable, unscrupulous, and absent sorcerer, the Lord has gone mad, the Captain is hopeless, the Vizer is obsessed, & the Friar turned heretic...
The only way out rests under the baleful gaze of The Eye!
This 23-room dungeon villa tasks the PCs with finding a way to escape the powerful geas that holds them prisoner. They will have to navigate the dead that the geas won't let rest, hungry familiars angry at their abandonment, candle-wax doves that hate light, and a dream-mad lord stalking the halls. All the while, they will puzzle over the tria prima, bemoan a mask made of cheese, tame a desk with a nasty disposition, and ponder the black lacquor box below the alien monstrosity at the center of the villa.
An adventure for four characters levels 1-2 (or twice as many level 0)
I'll try to do a more specific post-mortem after the Jam is over, but overall, I am very pleased that I was able to create, key, and design an old book cover for the Jam. And look forward to maybe doing it next year or participating in other design contests. Below is the map and random encounter table.
