Delightful Dungeons

Commodore, who gave us the Opal Mine  in the First Delightful Dungeon Competition, runs a contest similar in scope and philosophy, now for the second time! If you had an idea that didn't fit the 2 page limit or wasn't put to paper in time for the First Delightful Dungeon Competition check this one out! The window to submit adventure sites runs from October to January 1st https://coldlightrpgpress.weebly.com/home/adventure-site-contest-ii-purpose-and-standards Reviews of the yield from the first iteration are found here .

 The winner is... The Chamber of Frost & Flame by J. Blasso-Gieseke This dungeon is stupid  and delightful . It hits the judgement criteria the hardest of all the entries. The whimsical puzzle-like setup isn't my usual taste in adventures, but I couldn't help being charmed by it. It is a distillation of fantasy adventure; explore, act, suffer the consequences. A $20 gift card has been sent to Mr. Blasso's e-mail.  This was not an easy choice given the overall high quality of the entries. I shifted the responsbility of further judgement onto the competitors themselves, this time asking them to choose only their favorite adventure. The responses I got showed many struggled with picking a single favorite, and the final tally was close.  The most popular dungeon as voted by the competitors is... Cloud-Giant's Cairn by Giant Goose A narrow but well deserved win! It was the only entry to get 2 votes, proof of the even field. This is a delightful and mature  dun...

I have picked the winner of the twenty bucks from among the qualified entries. The qualified competitors have now been asked to vote for their favorite (other than their own) for the winner of the ten bucks. My choice of winner gets the tie breaking vote for the popularity contest. Once the qualified competitors have cast their votes (or abstained, or not answered in a timely manner) the winners will be announced here and the entries made available as a compilation.  I am astounded by the quality of the entries. I had hoped this competition would generate a couple of useful adventures but the result has been 8 or 9! I am proud that my choice of format (and the short deadline) spurred creativity or drew forth worthy old efforts.  There is one final entry to be reviewed, it was disqualified for font size/page number and so might not fit the final compilation. It looks delightful though so expect it reviewed soon.

This is an open ended module that can be many things over the same campaign; a place of refuge, the taget of a heist, or the doom of the player characters! The theming is Hammer Horror; vampire, werewolves, ghouls, and the eponymous big titty(?) goth widow. The keep itself is a 24 room affair, it comes with a 7 hex region to slot into your sandbox. Place it in the way of the player characters and see how it goes, or pester them with rumors of the wealthy and beautiful widow and see if their greed or lust incite action! The author recommends it to 3rd to 5th level characters. Download it here! Does it qualify? Yes.  The PDF is 2 pages, easy to read and parse, there are sentinels, hidden treasure, and traitors, the heavy lifting is done by the author (though some treasure is generic "jewelry", made up for most of the monstrous servants of the lady being named and characterized). There is a threadbare treasure map offering 12,000gp(!) 2d6 days away. Why did I disqualify Study of...