I read 41 of the submissions to the A Town, A Forest, A Dungeon game jam hosted by Yochai Gal. I encourage everyone to read broadly and form their own opinions, as there’s a great deal of talent and hard work on display. In this post, I discuss my personal favorites. (Contains spoilers).
Hounds of Hendenburgh
Pádraig Ó Cuilleanáin’s Hounds of Hendenburgh is an adventure brimming with potential energy, like a domino run—any prodding by the players is sure to set off a chain reaction, but where any individual piece will end up is anyone’s guess. This 24-page adventure consists of—you guessed it—a town with eight artfully-realized inhabitants, a 25-hex forest that harbors another nine points of interest, and a nine-room dungeon.
Hounds of Hendenburgh seems simple at first: it presents one clear threat and three explicit ways that threat can be dealt with. The secret of this adventure, however, is that it’s not really about the hounds; it’s about the people of Hendenburgh, their troubles, and how the party’s intervention will affect their lives. And if the party isn’t careful, they’re just as likely to wreak havoc as set things right.
Each of Ó Cuilleanáin’s characters presents a situation—and dynamic ones, at that. The town holy man is a heretical alcoholic. The coroner is stealing cadavers’ organs for use in a ritual. The blacksmith beseeched the crones for a love potion, only to be given a loathe potion instead. The miller believes his wife to be dead, but in reality she’s run off with a highwayman, only to discover that the outlaw life isn’t as romantic as she’d imagined. Oh, and the lord and lady of the town?
The current lord of Hendenburgh is over eighty years old and aggressively senile. He spends most of his conscious hours demanding to be taken sledding (regardless of weather or his own physical frailty). Real power in Hendenburgh Manor is exercised by his inappropriately young wide; a student of the new learning who regards reports of the ghostly hounds as mere peasant superstition.
Outside of town, Hounds of Hendenburgh features delightfully horrifying crones and a solid dungeon with a few very nice interactive elements. The random encounter table for the forest is the adventure’s weak link, which is a shame considering the size of the forest. The text is organized quite well, though the paragraphs are long enough that I’d read the adventure all the way through again and jot down some notes before running it.
For me, Hounds of Hendenburgh is a major highlight of A Town, A Forest, A Dungeon. I’m eager to bring it to the table, and I expect it’s the sort of adventure that will reward referees who run it multiple times.
Ingrown Hairs
With its roughly-scrawled map and its plain pale rose text on a forest green background, Ingrown Hairs by giantrobottackler may not be much to look at. But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t boast some of the most vivid and original writing of the lot. See, for example, this description of a corpse:
A human body with mouth stretched wide, skin cracked. Trees like small bonsais crowd the opening, and their canopies shudder with each fading breath. Distantly, rattling its throat: birdsong.
This eight-page adventure consists of an eleven-room dungeon with a strong hook: the villagers of St. John’s Ward may have discovered the secret to eternal life—or “at least a really long one.” And no one has heard from the denizens of St. John’s Ward in over a week. The presentation of the text is highly functional, though not aesthetic, and I expect most referees could run this adventure sight unseen.
Ingrown Hairs packs indelible imagery, shudder-inducing body horror, and a great deal of creativity into a small dungeon. This is one of the entries to A Town, A Forest, A Dungeon that I’d be most inclined to run.
Three Goblin Markets
I’m a sucker for fun goblins, and Ty Pitre’s Three Goblin Markets offers them up in spades. I’ll be brief here, as this is a work in progress, and Pitre has plans to expand the adventure with additional content, art, maps, editing, and improved layout. At the time of writing, Three Goblin Markets is comprised of fifteen pages detailing the town of Altarstone, the Murmuring Wood, and the titular three goblin markets.
And these markets really are the star of the show, packed with fun and creativity. Each features about a half-dozen goblin merchants, and each merchant offers a unique magical trinket for an unorthodox price. Tickity-Tockity sells a timepiece that can alter the timing of sunrise or sunset, but the buyer must relinquish their youth. Quiet Quiverlips offers a set of potions to the party if they agree to take on Eager Earworms as a hireling—but he eats precious metals. And then there’s Chomper, who “greets newcomers by crashing through the canopy overhead and landing at their feet.”
There’s more to the adventure than just the markets, though. The wandering encounter table is another highlight and features eleven situations designed to provoke player intervention: three goblins squabble, too enraged to identify the solution to their trade dispute; an ogre pursues goblins who have stolen his hat; a pack of wolves stalks a goblin birthday party.
I did find the dungeon portion of this adventure less compelling than its other elements, though Pitre employs nested hit dice to great effect, and the beast is sure to be a memorable foe. Overall, I’m excited to watch this project develop, and I hope to one day see it in print.
HOWL
Colin Le Sueur’s HOWL is one of the most professionally produced entries. This 48-page adventure opens with a shipwreck and a grim portent, proceeds to a small town with a few thoroughly detailed inhabitants, then culminates in a twelve-room dungeon following an overland hike.
HOWL makes highly effective use of the Classic Explorer template and features a wealth of referee support: an adventure outline, three clear maps, roleplaying notes for NPCs, summaries of NPCs’ knowledge and secrets, room connection diagrams on each dungeon page, and hyperlinks galore. I cannot emphasize HOWL‘s user-friendliness enough. HOWL also offers great support for the players, including well-telegraphed danger, secrets to discover, and clues to interpret. It’s also one of the most thoroughly proofread and edited submissions.
However, HOWL is a highly linear adventure designed to funnel the party toward a climactic confrontation. It includes quite a few generic D&D monsters, and the writing often lacks the specificity and originality that I look for in an adventure. The read-aloud text in particular often struck me as uninspired, though it may prove useful to novice referees. See this excerpt, for example:
The ground is vibrant green, with sprawling grass and a dozen types of wild vegetation. The air is filled with a sweet scent of flowers and musk. The stone ground gives way to soft dirt in the southern third of the cavern, obscured by tall grass but with beautiful blue flowers peeking out.
Many referees could achieve a similar degree of specificity by narrating extempore. And this lack of specificity pervades much of the text. However, this adventure does have moments of brilliance: a hilarious sight gag in room seven, an exciting cursed item, and a great encounter involving a stone lion all come to mind.
While HOWL may not offer the level of weirdness and open-endedness that I prefer, some referees will doubtless find that HOWL suits their needs perfectly. And it absolutely distinguishes itself through its organization, visual clarity, and overall user-friendliness.
The Rumbling Forest
The Rumbling Forest, by goobernuts, though still a work in progress, distinguishes itself as a promising sandbox adventure. 28 pages at the time of writing, it consists of a twenty-hex map complete with a fort, a village, and a handful of other locations, including several five-to-six-room dungeons.
The Rumbling Forest is “inspired by Philippine folklore and forests and Princess Mononoke.” The factions and characters presented in this adventure are its greatest strengths. Conquistadors, villagers, a boar horde, an undying crocodile, and various spirits all inhabit the forest and harbor different aspirations for its future. Goobernuts relays the appearance, affect, and motivations of each central character in succinct, expressive language that’s parceled into bulleted lists. Standout characters include a nuno who:
Deals in the lost. Senses of direction, misplaced one-halves of pairs, thoughts that stray off. If you want to find something, be prepared to lose something in return.
In its current state, The Rumbling Forest feels somewhat lacking in guidance. There’s no indication of how the party becomes involved in the adventure. Are they villagers? Have they been hired by the conquistadors? Or do they simply wander into this situation? There’s also currently no suggestion for how the party’s actions might affect the situation—or even to what extent the party can affect the situation. The Rumbling Forest deals with vast forces: death, extractivism, and nature itself. I can imagine some players faltering when thrust into this scenario, feeling ineffectual and feeble. Perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps more referee support is needed. I imagine it’s a bit of both. In any case, I eagerly anticipate reading The Rumbling Forest in its entirety.
Palace of the Silver Princess
I’ll keep this short, as Palace of the Silver Princess—originally written by Jean Wells and Tom Moldvay, adapted by David Blandy and Geekchef—is both a conversion and a work in progress. I haven’t read either of the original iterations of this adventure, and I’d be curious to do a comparison between them and this conversion.
Blandy and Geekchef’s version sports concise, digestible room descriptions and clean, easy-to-reference minimaps on each page. I expect most referees could run this adventure sight unseen. The document totals 43 pages at the time of writing and packs 76 rooms into 23 of those pages. I imagine this required a great deal of effort, as classic modules aren’t exactly known for their economy of language. Very cool project! Beware of Travis.
That’s All For Now
I’d love to hear other perspectives on this collection of adventures—particularly if your favorite isn’t mentioned here! Finally, I’d like to point out that nearly every adventure submitted to the jam is available for a low price point or on a pay-what-you-want basis. Please consider paying the authors of your favorite adventures if you’re in a position to do so! Thanks for reading
The Dododecahedron 
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