Sea Cave of the Selkie

I have a dungeon adventure for sale at itch.io, Sea Cave of the Selkie. I'm quite proud of it, and hope you check it out.

The module has ten keyed rooms, three NPC/monster descriptions, four magic items, and one riddle. It is ~4,500 words, though I have done my best to keep the writing terse, evocative, and in service of play at all times.

Suggested price is $3, with a minimum of $1 if you're strapped for cash (aren't we all).

If you review modules, particularly those of an OSR nature, hit me up on twitter for a free download key (it doesn't require an itch account). I don't care how small your blog/channel/podcast is -- obviously a big audience is great for exposure and hopefully sales, but I also want feedback to continue learning and growing as an RPG writer.

Cartography is by Pat Eyler -- @mountain_foot, patreon
Internal illustration is by Anna Aphelion -- portfolio

The wordcount is also a little deceptive -- to make the module accessible for referees who use a screenreader, all the room keys describe their interconnectivity in a way that that doesn't require reference to a map.

Examples

(note the hyperlinks don't go anywhere, they do in the actual dungeon!)

3. Lichen Garden

Stone-eating lichen in a variety of colours are growing in rectilinear plots. Some stones are freshly scraped clean.

• Short northern passage opens into 6. Painting Room, the bright light from beyond silhouettes that room's square form.
• Eastern passage leads to fork: east leads to 4. Salt Pans, south leads to 2. Empty Cavern.

Secrets: The witch uses most of the lichen as pigments and is unaware of their other effects, except the one she uses to keep her kidnapped townsfolk comatose. Characters identify one lichen on the table below for each of the following categories they fall under.

• Dwarves and other ground-dwellers
• Wilderness-oriented class or background
• Trained herbalist or alchemist

Any character identifying a lichen also misidentifies a lichen — for these, roll once for description and once for effect.

Though I have also put some thought into usability for sighted referees. Here is the dungeon map, hover the cursor over room keys to get cursory info on each dungeon room.

A referee-facing print version of this map is forthcoming. It needs more work to lay out information in a way that's readable.

S

S

1. Sea Cave
Entrance 2. Empty
Cavern 3. Lichen
Garden 4. Salt
Pans 5. Bat
Passages 6. Painting
Room 7. Glow-Worm
Farm 8. Witch's
Sanctum 9. Cassowary
Ossuary 10. Sinkhole
to Surface

Why Is This HTML and not PDF?

Mostly because my fumbling attempts at screenreader accessibility have been in HTML so far.

However, if you excuse me for tilting at windmills, I think PDF's monopoly as the format for digitally distributed rulesets and adventures is undeserved. I'm still a beginner at web design (as you can tell from earlier fumblings on this blog), and this adventure doesn't use any javascript.

But imagine:

• a map you can drag tokens around upon without needing to upload it to some (powerful, but slow) site like Roll20
• a random encounter table (particularly a complex or nested one) you can just click a button for.
• a dropdown ruleset selection, that converts all ability/skill check names & DCs, inline stats for monsters, the destination of all external links to spells & monsters to the correct online SRD, etc.

And all of this within the webpage, no talking to some external server needed. The OSR has been on fire with creating hyperfunctional print layouts, but not as much with screen layouts. I think it's time to change that.

Anyway, that's enough for now. If you run this adventure, tell me about it! Especially if a character eats 10 pounds of magic guano, or gets bestowed with the jumbo shrimp oxymoronic boon.