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In fantasy we use the phrase “came of age” to mean one of two things. Ready to marry, or hit puberty. Because this girl is 14 and being raised in a church, I have to assume that it means the latter. Sooooo, puberty=the call of the hag? Basically, her period turned her into a witch? No thanks.

So someone messaged me to let me know that this was not Crystals decision, but is actually a part of the way hags develop. My apologies. As I have stated in past posts, I am not much of a gamer (though I am working on it) and thought that was her concept. I am still really against that idea, but I am much more disposed towards this entry now that I know that. It definitely warms the story back up for me.

Well, beside the bizarre conflict that seems to have unfolded here, this entry looks pretty great to me. Some of the entries are creative and some are well written, but this one is both. As I have stated before, I am not a gamer per se, but more a lover of fiction so I was really drawn to this. It is unique and original without sacrificing logic and sense. It is also well written and engaging. I want to see how I could take this as a character and go with it. There is an agenda of stuff to get done but it is interesting stuff, with cool rewards, and it allows you the freedom to go where you choose and do things in the way you choose.

I also like the various different kinds of encounters in here. You need to fight a giant bird, water monsters, chat up villagers, put together siege weapons, and battle the hags. So you have a very wide variety of fights and also some social interactions that could be fun to role play. My only concern there is that the social interactions can be very flat if the people of the town are too eager then it is basically just the pcs saying hello and the towns folk saying shut up and take our money. So it is a bit of extra work on the GM to make that interesting.

I like your hook of a shipwreck, that has a nice flavor to it. And speaking of flavor, I like your big frickin bird. People seem up in arms about the name choice, but whatever, you did not invent the thunderbird, you just used it. It is pretty cool, because it adds and extra element of danger. You have to fight the hags, but they can call in the cavalry at any time. I personally would like to see people negotiate with the bird, but that is just me.

You did a great job incorporating the sodden lands which is good for you but makes the encounter less interesting to me. I just don't find this landscape engaging. All and all I feel like this is the entry that completed the task the best. It needs some

I like this story because it is simply a classic. It has the noble knight, the scorned woman, and the innocent maiden caught in between. It is compelling for just that reason. You have clear right and wrong, repentance, lost love, revenge and internal struggle. As a lover of fantasy, my biggest problem with this is that this poor kid grows up under her fathers care and he lets her believe that she is an orphan just like all the other kids. He knows about her messed up parentage and could have warned her and protected her but nope, she hits puberty and bam, she can no longer resist. And I have to say, that is another thing that is really bothering me. In fantasy we use the phrase “came of age” to mean one of two things. Ready to marry, or hit puberty. Because this girl is 14 and being raised in a church, I have to assume that it means the latter. Sooooo, puberty=the call of the hag? Basically, her period turned her into a witch? No thanks.

Astgur Lighthouse
Floating Bazaar
The House of the Serpents Hand
Cerulean Pyre Promenade

Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to mention one of my favourite bits! I love that there is the promise of more with this. This is supposed to be a single encounter and it is, but it promises so much more! Our baddie still has the kid, and may or may not have just trapped all the goodies on the island of the dead (which I bet smells great, by the way, thanks for the sea breeze), and may have just curried favour with the horseman of death. I mean, there is a whole adventure just rescuing Talbot, and even that can be quite full of surprises. Who know's what Skimir is planning with her or what Talbot is even like. I will say it again, would you rescue Honey Boo Boo? Could you stop from snuffing her on the way home? Then there is the bit with Charon. Yeah, horseman of death, isle of the dead, I would seriously consider moving house if I lived in the area.

Obviously, I am not really much of a gamer and a total novice to pathfinder, but maybe that is why this particular adventure, and the one about the Bazaar appeal to me so much. They are not just fighting monsters because in RPG's, you fight monsters, there is a compelling reason for the fight here. Not only that, but I want to fight so that I can further the story. I will be up tonight wondering what happened to Talbot, and like I said, I am not a gamer so I will NEVER FIND OUT.

I have to say, when I think fantasy role playing adventure, I don't usually think, let's go antiquing. That said, I would be much more likely to go antiquing if I could be promised a good monster brawl when I got there. I am coming at this from a story perspective, not really a gamer perspective, but I feel like there is going to be a high risk of damage to the goods since this is basically a four-bulls-in-a-china-shop set up. I think I would love to watch this scene play out in a movie, but it might be a headache to play out on the board.

Can we just stop to appreciate how well written this is? I love the set up, the descriptions, and the overall atmosphere going on in this. I mean, this is a hell of a creepy town. Does anybody want to date the kid who grew up on the coast next to the island of the dead? "What does your dad do?" "He ships dead people to their graves and prays they stay there." "Let's not go back to your place." That is great because it is scary but not overly gritty as in, urban-setting-rife-with-crime, which is what I see in a lot of the other entries.

My favourite part of the whole thing is the villain. Most of the other entries have a dastardly villain, out to get treasure, or fight people, or looking for trouble. Your guy Skimir is a cowardly little rat who uses poison and goes after children. I mean, as an upper level cleric, he could have protected himself from ghostly grandma and gone after the parents himself, but he prefers to take the cowardly route and not get his hands dirty. Instead, this petulant bully born of bullying decides to test his mettle against a five year old. I mean, Talbot could turn out to be fantasy version of Honey Boo Boo which would have Skimir on his knees by the time the PC's find them, but it is so compelling the way it is written!!! This weak tea ratbag wants to take out his painful childhood on a little girl.

Based on his cowardice, it totally makes sense why there are no traps in the building. He is doing things from his perspective, the perspective of a coward. The demons shrieks would be more than enough to keep him away, so he assumes that the townspeople, who he has known for a while, will act similarly. He does not know that the PC's are in town, so why would he plan for them?

As for the complaint of why are the PC's there, who cares? This is fantasy, is that really the line? We have orange haired, spell-casting gnomes who can talk to cats, but the PC's can't be in the right place at the right time? Let's reevaluate that thought here.

I really like the set up. The decadent aristocracy get their comeuppance at the hands of an angry mob, betrayed in their hour of need by their beloved deity. That is beautifully done and something that we all like to see happen in this kind of global economy. It is made even better by the fact that the mob folks are not good guys and neither are the folks they kill. I especially love it when the aristos have that dawning moment that they are pigs in the eyes of god, just before they die. My question is, why in heaven aren't THEY haunting the chapel?

The betrayed bride haunting the grave yard is a good story but it is a story that we all have heard before. It can be a really compelling story, but more often than not it just becomes a woman reduced to a sad wedding obsessed thing who can't get over her lack of happy ending. This usually has her appearing in her wedding dress, calling out for the husband she never had, etc. Just for good measure, I would ask, why is her groom not haunting along with her? Was he just not that into her? Why is it always the bride who can't move on?

I would much rather the PC's enter the dungeon to find that the decaying aristocracy has set up some profane version of their old lives that they will kill to keep or can't let go of and I do not end sentences with prepositions.

This is beautifully written and I love the concept. I can really see the bazaar, and the wording is lovely. You have an excellent story here and you tell it well.

Spaceships and Zombies and Androids, oh my! To be honest, I am having a lot of trouble following the story line here. To be fair, I had a lot of trouble following the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but really, who didn't? I am confused as to what kicked off events in this encounter. Did starfall cause the damaged ship or did the damaged ship cause starfall? What damaged the ship, what was the ship's original purpose, why did it head this way? I also cannot seem to puzzle out what the crew situation was on board the ship. You say that the crew both got to the rescue pods and died in their sleep, that there was one human on board and many androids, but then they all turned into evil versions of themselves? Did they fight the akatas in the escape pods? I am not clear on the chain of events and it takes me out of the story.

I was told to check out this contest because I love fantasy, not because I am a hardcore DnD player. So, coming at this from a purely literary perspective, a guy who builds his dream house out of magic (and presumably does a better job than the Weasely's) deserves a bloody brilliant dream house. And while you have given that to him, personally feel that it needs to be written in a way that has me dreaming of that house tonight. I think that a bit more craft in the writing would have gone along way on an entry that really piqued my interest. I would also would have liked to have seen the garden, instead of being told what it looked like. Instead of saying, there were bright flowers and green shrubs, says flowers exploded with colour out of the verdant shrubbery, ect. Don't just tell us what it looked like, show us. You clearly have a beautiful imagination and I would have liked to have seen what you saw.

But truly, the one thing that I cannot get past is the bathroom. Did our dastardly villains break in, kill the owner, and then decided to take a bubble bath? Have our PC's walked in on a Jackelwere with the kit off? Why is the bathtub not only full, but steaming, implying that he just filled it to, what? Soak out the stresses of murder and pillage? I mean this in all good humour, but I am curious about why a villain would do something like this.

I love the dream house idea, and I think that it would be a cool place to explore.