A few weeks back I mentioned that Matt and I had entered the One Page Dungeon Contest, an annual competition that challenges amateur designers to create the ultimate single page role-playing adventure. After a month-long judging process, the results are finally in! Matt and I managed to sneak into the 3rd place category with our entry, Vesna’s Refuge.
In celebration of this win, I am releasing a new supplement for the adventure: a random encounter table. We had to cut it from the original release due to length issues (you only get one page, after all), but it can now be used to spice up your gaming session. Just roll a d10 when players enter a new area, and see what crazy things happen!
Vesna's Refuge Random Encounter Table
| 1 | The party encounters a foraging, shambling mound named Pendleton. Although powerful, Pendleton will not attack unless provoked. |
| 2 | The ground gives way underneath the party, dropping them into the subterranean tunnels (see #). Once they regain their bearings, the PCs are free to explore the tunnels or climb back up to the surface. |
| 3 | An owlbear attacks the group, hoping for an easy meal. If this encounter occurs in the Root Barrows, Mother Vor swoops down and captures the owlbear shortly after combat begins. |
| 4 | A pair of ankhegs burst forth from the ground, spitting acid at the party. If one of the ankhegs is defeated, the other flees in terror. |
| 5 | A large bush full of purple berries is found growing from the earth. The berries are actually goodberries, and will heal the party’s wounds. |
| 6 | A large bush full of orange berries is found growing from the earth. The berries are mildly poisonous, causing nausea to any who consume them. |
| 7 | The party is stalked by a starving pack of wolves. Weakened by hunger, the wolves are skittish and easily frightened by loud noises or displays of force. |
| 8 | A ghost appears in the distance, but dissipates before the party can approach. It is the spirit of one of the druids, trying to reach out to the PCs for help. |
| 9 | A bright light (actually a will-o-wisp) appears in the distance and attempts to lead the party forward. If followed, it will guide them to patch of poisonous fungus before attacking the PCs. |
| 10 | Old Kaban, an ancient and powerful boar, attacks the party. Various arrows (some magical) are lodged in the boar, and can be recovered if the beast is slain. |
As I mentioned in my previous post, Vesna’s Refuge is 100% free to use and copy for non-commercial purposes, and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. If you do decide to run it, let me know how it goes. I’d love to get feedback on the adventure!
Hi guys! I am one of the three judges. Looking over your entry again reminds me of how awesome the adventure submissions were. This is a fantastic entry. I really loved the locations, the history, and the concept.
The elements of this adventure are SO cool! It begs for a deeper treatment, like a 20-page adventure where the locations are given more depth and woven into the narrative. And that might be what led me (I can’t speak for the other judges) to narrowly place this a step below the top tier. In play I’m not sure how easily PCs would navigate from one location to the other, and the locations are so cool you want to visit most or all of them. If the lore had been cut down a bit and that space used to tie the locations together with a series of clues… that might have been a bit stronger as a one-page dungeon entry. But, it is always hard to tell and our judging is subjective and influenced by everything else we are reading (and how much coffee we had). This was a memorable entry and you guys should absolutely keep crafting adventures!
Thanks for the feedback! Matt and I were both interested in getting a little bit of constructive criticism on this year’s submission.
This did start out as a much longer adventure (probably 3-4 pages), and one of the main struggles we had was paring down content. Oftentimes, we get really pumped about our projects and throw oodles of ideas into the mix! As we continue to design adventures, I hope that we can better discern what elements are absolutely vital, and what sort of scale is appropriate for a one pager.
Thank you again for the feedback, and for judging the competition. We’ll be sure to be back next year!