| Sky B |
Reading the judges’ notes directly after the entry is a real treat - it’s easy to get excited about the next iteration of these ideas as our minds fill in the suggested improvements. Jason can learn a great deal from these more seasoned developers, but I’d give him one recommendation: hold tight what brought you this far. Your voice as a designer can run a little pulpy, but there’s charm in that. Isn’t that why you’re here, in the final four? After all, we play role-playing games because they’re fun - so if your players sense an excitable nerd behind the scenes, I think they’ll see something of themselves. Asking whether this will sell is just a matter of knowing your audience. You might not gain a lot of traction among players who like things dry, but for those of us who like a little levity now and then, this is gold.
Some specific points of feedback.
Title: “Escape from” is perfect pulp. It looks like many of the judges are suggesting that designers name their module for the primary villain, or the key place in the story, and in some ways you’ve actually done both - the key character in this story just happens to be something other than a villain. You’re probably getting some pushback here because “Moonshell” sounds too cutesy. Give your turtle a name with a little more mystique and you’re set.
Setting: I don’t altogether understand the skepticism about a cave in a swamp. Would a cave form in a swamp? Probably not. But the defining trait of the Sodden Lands is that this is a previously normal landscape that flooded - making a pocket cavern in an otherwise marshy landscape entirely plausible. So long as the entrances to the cavern lie above the current water line, and the stone isn’t overly permeable, it works. Roughly equivalent to a volcano that’s mostly covered in water - the inside of the caldera could be dry yards below the waterline surrounding it, no? In any case, you really paint a picture with the description of the white turtle swimming through the cosmos, so I’m with you.
About that turtle: The goodly turtle is going to be the most challenging part for the DM running this. Moonshell figures prominently in this little drama, so you’ll need to provide some guidance on his motivations, what he is and isn’t willing to do, and how he relates to those around him. A powerful, benevolent ally is boring without some personality. Has his imprisonment made him depressed? Or a little mad? What’s his journey in this story?
Boggard dam: For characters wearing armor, there’s real stakes in this battle - falling in could mean drowning, plain and simple. This is a nice balance to the hilarity of the boggards using their tongues to pull in the raft. Players will grin, but they’ll sweat too.
Astronomy Laboratories: The magical mechanism by which the items are created is a touch hand-wavy - the whole cosmic-energy farfinder thing - but the Lode Motes are the real gems of this entry. I’m not too sensitive about the name. I can’t imagine the denizens of Golarion have a deep understanding of gravitational mechanics, so why wouldn’t they name this monster after the closest analogue they can imagine? Mass Motes might be more accurate, but it has a bad mouth feel. Anyway, I’m sure someone can come up with another name that works. Assembling the Lode Medallion sounds like a good time, and I like the way that the different pieces of the module start to come together. The laboratory notes suggest what can be built, and how. Once built, the medallion offers a means by which the turtle can escape. Some might criticize this as simplistic, but better a puzzle that your party can figure out on their own than a game that stalls when the players can draw no meaningful connection between the spoils of their early challenges and their endgame.
Wild Magri: Following your climax (the turtle’s escape) with a surprise river-battle on the back of two leviathans is a little unexpected - but wonderfully so! One last challenge, just when your players think they’re safe is a trope for a reason.