The Appendix N Jam completed recently, if you're unfamiliar, folks were challenges to take a randomly assigned title and create a adventure in 4-pages or less. I only looked at about 20-30 of the currently most popular submissions to the Appendix N Jam. But I thought that I'd give a little blurb about a few of the pieces that I found the most intriguing! These are definitely worth a look, and can each supply a solid night of gaming! In no particular order, here are my favorites. By and large, they also have really excellent layout for creating tiny adventures.

The Five Fates of Estra Zo by Jason Christopher Burrows

A excellent Cairn joint, this adventure focused on a cursed queen whose fate has been split into five distinct futures. Bust out your d5 to roll which curse is currently active as you explore her castle, which includes both the inner and outer bailey! This place is fully populated with townsfolk, guards, servants, noble relatives, and clergy. An awesome encounter table, the curse table, and a escalation tracker means that this adventure offers very dynamic gameplay. Even if not running this one, it's worth looking at because of how these elements interact. Could give you great ideas for how to structure your own adventures!

Plunderers of the Jeweled Coast by mucilage

If you're into Pirate Borg, then you've got to check out this adventure (side note: this is actually made for Shadowdark). It's a point crawl across the titular coast in which the PCs eventually find a small dungeon. There's some solid build up via a drunken sailor in a tavern who rambles about a wish-granting gemstone. The random encounters help the overland point crawl work, and the dungeon is adequately Jaquay’d for a 6 room dungeon, with solid random encounters and loot to discover.

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Curs of the Humpback Coast by Ryan Lynch

This is a 8-room dungeon via caves within a coastal cliffside. The cavern is only open at low-tide and locals warn that it is haunted. Two magically mutated and cursed sailors live on, and some of their companions live in death. It has great random encounter (aka, a great way to succinctly create encounters) and unique areas. Each area feels unique and memorable. For example, an un-dead skeleton (now just a jawless skull attached to a torso) pints to a pile of bones. If you get him a jaw, he'll happily converse with you. That's the best skeleton that I've ever seen in an adventure.

The Sleeping King Wakes by Karly Andersen & Kayleigh Conroy

This one has a gorgeous map! The PCs must enter the dreams of the sleeping king, who has slumbered for the past century in order to protect his kingdom from waking nightmares. Now the Dream Eater threatens that peace. Nightmares lurk within the dream garden. This is one that could be run as a very whimsical adventure, or a very spooky one.

Pawns of the Mind Master by Christen Sorrel of MeatCastleGames

This is admittedly the one that I'm the least likely to run, but I love some of the ideas and imagery within it. Its for Cairn2e, but feels like it would also fit in within some Mork Borg games. A small village will soon enact a ritual to open the Psychogate and unleash the Mind Master. The villagers are all creepy and brainwashed. I think this micro-adventure might best be paired with a dungeon adventure. That way the PCs will be heading out into the wilderness/dungeon then coming back to the village to rest. This would allow a GM to more subtly and slowing show how the village is weird. If you made just this the focus of a game session then a murder-hoboy solution might appear a little too quickly.

The Eternal Empress by Amanda Prank

This Cairn adventure gave me the creeps! The titular empress is eternal because of kidnapping young women and siphoning their youth. Nevertheless, she looks ragged from the years of life. But the creeps came from the fact that a huge amount of the decor is made of human skin. Gave me all the best kind of yucks that you want when prepping an adventure! Great encounter and great traps! Amanda is charging for this one (it's worth the two bucks), but she's currently got a number of community copies available.

Invaders of Atlantis by Clayton Notestine

A pulpy and beautiful Cairn adventure from Clayton Notestine! The PCs explore an Atlantean submarine (stylized after a Greek trireme), but so do raiders. Explore and escape before the rising tide drowns you! It's got a new Atlantean spell and magic ship sails for PCs to find, plus a mummy! What's not to love?

What was your favorite entry from the Appendix N Jam? If you entered, link your submission in the comments!

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