NOTE: The manuscripts have already been turned over to Erik Mona and staff. The finished official first drafts are slightly different in certain parts from the original proposal. As has been stated in other threads by the folks at Paizo, that is completely acceptable. So, if you actually get a green light on one of your ideas, don't hesitate to go slightly off course from the original concept if in between the proposal and the actually turning in of the manuscript you come up with some new ideas to improve on the original.
Congratulations, Steve. Great milieu. I can totally see why the Dungeon staff would want to see it expanded beyond an adventure.
Steve, do you mind if I archive this into the Wiki we've been putting together?
It's my understanding that the Paizo staff would rather we did NOT post proposals that are in the process of being published.
Timault, if you could cite an actual quote from one of the Paizo staff stating this, I'd happily request that my post be removed. And if this is the case, Technohippy, then I'd have to decline on having this included in your project.
Hey guys, while I think this thread is a terrific idea, and there has been some great feedback posted so far, I do have a request.
While its ok to post queries that have been rejected, or queries that have been accepted and the resulting adventure published, please do not post queries that are still pending, either because you have not heard back on the original query, or because you are currently writing the adventure, or for whatever reason.
For obvious reasons, we would like to keep any material we might potentially use off our public forums.
Thanks everyone, and keep up the great feedback!
You'll find it in the Critique My Query thread, near the bottom of page 2.
...the Wiki we've been putting together?
Interesting. Is that thing open, or is it intended as a private forum?
Interesting. Is that thing open, or is it intended as a private forum?...the Wiki we've been putting together?
Nevermind, I finally caught up to your post in the other thread. :)
Sorry to stifle the discussion, folks, but thanks for policing yourselves!
Heathansson - if you dig around a bit, you'll find a few queries around here that were successes. At the moment, I'm drawing a blank as to who posted them or even where - but I know I've seen at least one.
Some places to look (if you have time) would be the Black Hole thread, as well as the Tips For Contributors thread.
And certainly, somebody else might come along and post a query for an adventure that's been printed still. ;) I think it'd be interesting - first to see a successful query, and then to see how the final product differs from the query.
And certainly, somebody else might come along and post a query for an adventure that's been printed still. ;) I think it'd be interesting - first to see a successful query, and then to see how the final product differs from the query.
Thanks, Zherog - I totally forgot to post that part. Any of you published authors who want to throw up your query AFTER the adventure has hit the newsstands are heartily encouraged to do so!
-James S.
Perhaps this will help? This is the original submission I made for the Styes:
The Styes
"The Styes” is a D&D adventure suitable for four 7th level PC's but the adventure can be modified for parties of different levels as noted in the "scaling the adventure" sidebar. Characters completing the adventure are likely to advance to eighth level. The adventure takes place in ‘The Styes’ a small and distinct district that can fit any large town or city and one that can easily be incorporated into an existing campaign. The DM is advised to carefully read the section on Sahaugin in Monster Manual prior to running this adventure. As the story deals with a strongly evil theme it is ideally suited to paladins or good clerics. The adventure focuses on the exploits of a mutated half-sahaugin fiend of possession, although details of possession appear in Fiend Folio, they are reprinted here to enable you to run the adventure.
BACKGROUND
Once, The Styes was the ocean river gateway into the city, her magnificent buildings crowning a man-made island which fountained from the river itself, held aloft on leviathan forests of great oak piers and boardwalks. These huge beams proudly carried great facades of marble grandeur, crowned with a thousand dancing statues, impossible towers and dizzily sloping gables, testament to the quality of the greatest builders the world had to offer. Her streets thronged with richly coloured merchants, exotic courtesans and the passing palanquins of nobility. They called it the Island of Pleasures then, for there was none that could not be found there.
But The Styes grew old and earned her true name, as new distractions were built in other places of the city, and with them went the gloss and gleam of the island town. The rich no longer cheered and embraced in her pleasure piers, the boardwalks no longer sang to the redolence of nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, the towering warehouses fell silent, their great iron cranes rusting arthritically.
And with old age the once glorious buildings sagged and leant, exhausted, yielding to the wind and rain. Even the great oak beams of the piers that held aloft these once great halls and libraries, theatres and towers began to dislocate, giving back their burden to the slothful river deeps. And new people came to call the place home, crowding beneath fallen gables in mildew tattooed hovels, poor people, desperate people. And on their heels came those who’s trade would not be scorned here, the alchemists who fouled the air and the rivers, and the factory managers, whose mills belch poison into a yellow sky above a river that runs like tar; and others, always others.
For here, many things can find a place to hide…
For decades, the coastal waters of the city have been plagued by sahaugin, who have struck at settlements up and down the area. Taking goods, and even townsfolk for sacrifice or slavery the sahaugin bands have been a curse to local sailors and fishermen. Occasional escapees, foul half men-half sahaugin have found their way onto land spilling nightmares from the deeps of the ocean, telling tales of men and women treated as cattle, traded for the sport and amusement of the terrible sea-devils. The few became many a year ago when a group of brave adventurers, hired by a local lord, launched an attack on a palace deep in the waters of the ocean, and destroyed it. Many half-sahaugin escaped their prison, but they soon found that it replaced by another, as they settled in the shanty-towns under The Styes.
The locals call them devil-touched, others the god-fled, whatever their name, the half-sahaugin are now in the Styes to stay, dwelling in shanty towns above the arsenic inky waters of the river, beneath the piers and rusted ribs of the undercity. Dislocated elemental surgery of man and sea-devil, they now live largely unseen, too cunning to be destroyed, to few to be a menace.
Or so they thought.
But whispers came to the god-fled, sweet prayers of freedom and power, of an act of revenge on both the creatures of the deep, and of a day of reckoning with those who live above. They call this whisperer The Angler.
But The Angler is no hero, it is a destroyer, a cancer, a mutated fiendish half sahaugin which has become a fiend of possession. When the adventurers stormed the old sahaugin palace deep below the ocean, the Angler escaped, but when it fled it took something from the priests of Sekolah there, a thing the priests proclaimed was Sekolah itself reborn – a young fiendish kraken. The Angler has hidden its charge, and kept it prisoner, fed it so that it will grow and serve in the long years to come, but this charge becomes very hungry very often, and so The Angler had to take to enslaving another, using him as his hands to kill and so keep its identity and that of its charge secret from the men of the city.
Jarme Loveage was a cobbler in the Styes, but his great physical strength made him an ideal tool of The Angler, who frequently took possession of him to carry out murdering work, to bring victims to the old pleasure pier to be then taken on to the kraken. But Jarme, who’s murdering took place at night, carried a lantern on his grisly harvest, and the name Jack-o-the-lantern became his nickname. And the harvest went on, slowly but surely.
But last month Jarme was captured, a bloody knife in his hands.
He was hanged yesterday, despite pleas from his wife and her alchemist brother, along with Rafum, a local priest, who swore the innocence of the man accused. Jarme remembered nothing, yet in his dreams he saw things, things he did his best to draw on the walls of his cell in the asylum where he spent his last few days.
Mr Dory, a disfigured merchant who holds a position on the councilmen of The Styes, had an interest in assuring Jarme died, he was also one of The Anglers victims by possession, swayed by the Anglers secret whispers of power. He knows where the chosen is hidden, and has seen it, spoken to it, the chosen has said that it will serve him if he frees it, and he has been plotting also, for now it is not only The Angler who is adept at possession…
And tonight, Jack struck again…
SYNOPSIS
Whilst staying in The Styes, the heroes save Master Solphus, an inventor who lives nearby, from a band of thugs, he asks them to visit his alchemical workshop to collect a reward and ask their advice. There, amongst the stench and fire of his chemical experiments he tells the PCs about the terrible recent murders that have been attributed to Jack-o-the-Lantern, a powerful will-o-the-wisp who haunted the marshes hereabout long ago, the locals say that Jack has come back to wreak revenge on the people of the Styes for poisoning his fens. Master Solphus tells the PCs that today his wife’s husband, Jarme Loveage was hanged for the many murders. He goes on to swear that Loveage studied as a young man to become a priest, but rejected the cloth for the love of his wife, Angelica. Master Muckwood begs the Pcs to see Rafum, a local priest who will swear to Loveages good character and innocence, Jazed simply wants justice - the true murderer found and the family name cleared. He tells the heroes that Jack has struck again.
Visiting Rafum, an elderly priest who gives the heroes a very convincing story of Loveages good character, the heroes are taken by the old priest to Hopene’er, the local asylum. At the asylum the heroes see the room Loveage spent his last nights in, he has scratched pictures of some terrifying and colossal leviathan. Rafum explains that the Loveage was found at the scene of the crime by Constable Trant, of the local watch, a bloody blade in his hands. He knows that it seems impossible that anyone but Loveage committed the crime but the priest is convinced that some devilment is at work, he adds that he has learnt that Mr Dory, of the councilmen of The Styes, refused to allow any spells to be cast to determine for sure that Jarme had carried out the murders, claiming that he would use some devils trick to lie. The heroes can also visit the constable of the watch to find out about tonight’s murder, carried out by Mr Dory’s accomplice.
Dory owns a small lucrative business in Hemlock Pit, the brothel quarter of The Styes, within, the heroes find an odd clue - a curious collection of fish – caught that day – bloated, monstrous – something is causing disturbances in the deeps. A confrontation takes place, possibly with Dory attempting to ambush the heroes on their way home from his dwelling. Searching his office for clues they come upon more manic drawings of some grotesque and gargantuan squid-demon of the deep, together with clues, which lead them to a half-sahaugin shantytown called Choking-Trough, built under the burnt out remnants of the old pleasure pier.
In the squalid shanty the heroes attack the half-sahaugin, who are operating to ensure that the fiendish kraken is properly fed, by constant supplies of people, taken by ‘Jack-o-the-Lantern’. The Angler appears from the poisoned river and attacks the heroes, trying to drag them to an arsenic grave, and even when the fiend seems dead it animates a colossal river crane and destroys the pier whilst trying the kill the heroes.
The PCs learn that half-sahaugin priests, enslaved by The Angler, are tending the fiendish-kraken, which they also believe is Sekolah returned to them, and that it is being kept in a stronghold in the sinking remains beneath an old factory mill in fenland on the outskirts of the Styes. In the alchemical polluted blackened husk of the mill that houses the guardians and their dire shark watcher, the heroes face a battle with the fiendish kraken itself to prevent it from reaching the river as it tries to escape to the ocean deeps, the poisoned river giving them time to ensure that the creature does not escape to grow into a colossal abhorrence that will plague the oceans here for decades.
Let's try this again since I got booted the first time...
James (or most likely Vic Wertz), please have my Spinecastle proposal post removed now that I know it shouldn't be here, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. And oops. And sorry. :\
BTW, Richard's is probaby an even better model anyway. The old bloak's got a real talent for this.
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Let's try this again since I got booted the first time...
James (or most likely Vic Wertz), please have my Spinecastle proposal post removed now that I know it shouldn't be here, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. And oops. And sorry. :\BTW, Richard's is probaby an even better model anyway. The old bloak's got a real talent for this.
Mr. Greer, I want to formally apologize to you; I had no idea where any of this would lead. I feel like a real wanker.
Mr. Greer, I want to formally apologize to you; I had no idea where any of this would lead. I feel like a real wanker.Let's try this again since I got booted the first time...
James (or most likely Vic Wertz), please have my Spinecastle proposal post removed now that I know it shouldn't be here, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. And oops. And sorry. :\BTW, Richard's is probaby an even better model anyway. The old bloak's got a real talent for this.
No harm, my friend. Just trying to help out. Happy that others caught it in time.
Rich - thanks for sharing that! It's really neat to see the query for it, and compare the differences - something as simple as a name changing (Refrum) to the whole sauhagin thing being replaced.
One other thing that's really interesting - the length of the query! I count it at just over 1700 words! And the only way I get it to fit on two pages is to reduce the font size to 10 - a size that strains my eyes. *shrug* I guess when something is such top-notch quality, you can bend the rules, eh? ;)
Rich - thanks for sharing that! It's really neat to see the query for it, and compare the differences - something as simple as a name changing (Refrum) to the whole sauhagin thing being replaced.
One other thing that's really interesting - the length of the query! I count it at just over 1700 words! And the only way I get it to fit on two pages is to reduce the font size to 10 - a size that strains my eyes. *shrug* I guess when something is such top-notch quality, you can bend the rules, eh? ;)
Ah, well, I've been seriously trying to reduce my submission sizes, a fact Mr Sutter commented on very recently, so now I keep to the two page format without fail.
Rich
BTW, Richard's is probaby an even better model anyway. The old bloak's got a real talent for this.
You've been hob-nobbing with Vaughan and Logue haven't you young chap...
Steve - No worries, I deleted your post earlier this morning... your browser may just be taking a while to recognize it.
Zherog (and everybody else)- Rich's proposal is, indeed, long... and rules do, indeed, get bent for cerain ideas and authors. That said, remember that the word limit is there for your protection - we editors are only human, and the longer we have to read to figure out what your adventure is about, the less faith we'll have in your ability to get a given point across. (Perhaps more importantly - if you can't stay under a word count in a query, why should we believe you can do so in a manuscript?) Proceed with caution.
On the bright side: we're getting pretty close to caught up on submissions (at least the preliminary filtering), so if you were to submit a bunch now, the wait time might be measured in days rather than weeks....
Keeping within the set word count is one of the hardest tasks of writing adventures, especially when you have to take an axe to your work and have to decide which bit you like most, and which bit you must lose for another day.
Keeping within the set word count is one of the hardest tasks of writing adventures, especially when you have to take an axe to your work and have to decide which bit you like most, and which bit you must lose for another day.
It's not just a problem with just adventures. ;) I tend to be over my word count a lot more than under, so I've had to take an axe to my work on more than one instance. I can still hear the cries of pain and anguish for my work. :P
Go Heath! Go Heath!
Rise from the dead!!!
So you're a werewolf and an internet necromancer? Interesting...
. . . (I)f you were to submit a bunch (of submissions) now, the wait time might be measured in days rather than weeks....
Days? Days! I'm breathless!
Too bad that quote is from March 2006.
(Shhh! Maybe we can trick 'em!)
Rise from the dead!!!
What you are doing is unnatural, do not play god lest you wrack disaster upon all of us!