CS3 Mysterious Island Contest

[Solomoriah]

And the winner is... The Prison of the Three Sisters by sean8223

ODT and PDF downloads at the bottom of this post.

Yes, it's time for another Basic Fantasy Adventure Contest! This time, we're going to build a basic mostly-non-random hexcrawl. The map below depicts the Mysterious Island where the adventure takes place. On this island are a ruin with a small dungeon, another above-ground ruin, and a cave lair, as shown on the following maps. Between these three areas there are 40 numbered locations to be stocked, making this our largest contest yet!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create an adventure using these parts. You must place the three encounter areas (by indicating the hex number) and key each of them (they're small, don't worry!) You may add additional placed encounters if you wish, but in the interest of fairness you may not add any maps beyond those provided here.

In addition, you should provide a fully-statted encounter table of at least 4 encounters and at most 10 for the island itself, as well as providing any encounters needed for the dungeon areas. (If you do not feel that a dungeon area would have random encounters due to the conditions or inhabitants thereof, just note that in your submission.) Finally, you must provide the "hook" or introduction that leads the adventurers to this island... how did they get here? Shipwreck? Following a treasure map? Listening to a drunken sea captain in a dive bar in some city?

Provided below is a document that will become the "skeleton" of your entry, with places to fill in all the things mentioned above. Just download the document and start stocking the island! Please rename the file before submitting it. Also note, the handful of monster entries in the skeleton are meant to be changed! I left them in place so that LibreOffice will keep the relevant styles on the style list. Do not sweat it if you have difficulty with formatting, we will fix irregularities after you submit your entry.

The island map is scaled at 1 hex = 3 miles (or at least, that's my intent). Please don't place encounter areas in open water.

Note that all entries must be fully Open Game Content, naturally. An OGL copy is provided in the entry skeleton where you should fill in your adventure's name.

This contest is open from now through February 28, 2023. After the entry period has closed, the forum members will have one week to vote for the winner. In the event of a tie, the site administrator will cast the deciding vote. A prize of $35.00 US will be awarded via Paypal; if you cannot receive a prize in this way, we'll do our best to provide an equal value to you, but in the event we cannot award the prize to the winner, the winner may designate as recipient someone we are allowed to give the award to.

No more than one entry is allowed per participant, and in the case of collaboration, no collaborator may have his or her name on more than one submission. If a collaborative entry wins, the prize will be divided as fairly as possible by the site administrator between all listed contributors to that entry.

In the event that fewer than three submissions are made by the deadline, the contest may be officially canceled and no award made, or the deadline may be extended if the site administrator believes that more time will result in more submissions. Announcements of the site administrator are final.

All entries will be reproduced in an upcoming Basic Fantasy Contest Series book, CS3 The Mysterious Island, with the winner shown first and the remaining adventures listed in descending vote order (with ties broken by who submitted first). To repeat, entries must be uploaded to this thread by midnight on February 28, 2023.

[gabeprime]

There have been a couple of make-an-adventure contests before and I’ve missed out on those. I might try to join this new one.

[Rutibex]

Glad to contribute to this project, I know you will love my hex crawl

Edit: You answered my question on facebook

[Solomoriah]

Updated the first post to add a line about additional placed encounter locations on the island map.

[Bumblepig]

Very cool setup & maps! I like the island size (number of+size) of keyed hexes for letting adventurers romp around in.
Couple questions:
1) In the cave map, what's the relationship between the two areas/clusters? It looks like there's a sloping corridor between 6 and 7, meaning there are two levels to the cave which are linked by that sloping corridor. Yes?
2) Would you consider adding a key to the hex types? They're mostly self-explanatory, with the possible exception of (what I think are) grassland vs marshland.

[Rutibex]

2) Would you consider adding a key to the hex types? They're mostly self-explanatory, with the possible exception of (what I think are) grassland vs marshland.

The symbols are kind of generic, I think its more fun if everyone makes their own hex key. Maybe those symbols are not trees but in fact tiny nuclear explosions

[Solomoriah]

Ah, in this case I think the hexes should be concrete types. I'll put something together and post it here soon.

In the cave lair, 7, 8, and 9 are below the rest of the areas; the sloping areas connect as a spiral going down from 6 to 7.

[Solomoriah]

Here's the key for the hex map.

Hex Map Key.png (37.61 KiB) Viewed 5409 times

[alexthehack]

One question: Are we expected to supply artwork along with our submissions? Or is that something that will be added in later when the official book is compiled?

Apologies if this has been covered already, and thanks for this very cool opportunity!

[Solomoriah]

Adventure authors should never be concerned about artwork. I have to work directly with the artists to ensure we have reproduction rights; therefore, even if you go get it, I have to verify it and make an agreement with the artist. And we prefer to use our own artists vs. outsiders.

The ONLY exception is if a piece of art is required to run your adventure. Always contact me directly before using such art, unless you yourself are the artist. We need different rights for such art, to support our license.