We are proud to release The Coming of Winter to the masses. A huge thanks to all our Kickstarter backers to get this behemoth off the ground! It is packed with 3 main adventures for levels 2-5 with a winter theme. Explore snow covered mountains, crypts, glaciers and even inside huge waterfall icicles! There are a bunch of other scenarios and mini-dungeons for the party to get in trouble with while they explore the wintry Dragonback Mountains. Now on DrivethruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473203/the-coming-of-winter

Past Patreon Musings

A long time ago, I had a Patreon called Malrex’s Modules. I would put together an adventure within 30 days for my backers. Some of these adventures were on the shorter side, but most were mid (28+ pages) to longer! Putting adventures together was a bunch of fun despite the deadline, but I don’t think it’s sustainable for a main reason: The quality can go downhill quickly. There wasn’t enough time to edit, read throughs and play throughs to make sure the content made sense, and the art was stock art–which some is quite good, but stock art doesn’t always capture the scene correctly.

It was my intention to spend more time on them, clean them up, play test them and maybe even get a few pieces of original art….but then the whole OGL fiasco happened, and I panicked. I wanted to make sure the adventures could see the light, so I published them quickly and only in PDF form.

There is only a few that I will spend more time on—Ice Needles of the Cryoptera and Winter’s Blight (formerly Ice Troll Cave), which are both in our Coming of Winter release. I also held on to the Cellar, which we actually just finished playtesting. Ill be editing and fixing it up for when we release Coppercore. You can follow along and even watch us go through the playtest on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMercilessMerchants-yx8pd

Or watch us live on Wednesday nights: https://www.twitch.tv/mercilessmerchants

I keep dying…I think I’m on my 5th character? oh well…anyways….

The result of my Patreon adventures, actually worked out pretty good. I learned a lot about layout on my own as well as practicing to put together an adventure in very little time and trying to make it good and worth the money of my backers. Over at the 10′ pole lair of Bryce Lynch, he has been busy reviewing some of my past Patreon adventures. He gave two of them The Best:

Scorchfire! https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=9097

Standoff at Sandfell Sea Fort https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=9120

And Tar Pits of the Bone Toilers got a No Regerts: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=9124

Also, awhile back, another one, Winter’s Feast received a No Regerts as well: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=8479

And The Caper of Lanjin Kettlespin received a little wrath: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=8591

Overall though, not bad for putting together adventures within a month. But I dont think I will reopen my Patreon as I do care more about the quality of an adventure and don’t want to risk it with a 30 day deadline.

But I have received some questions, mainly about Tar Pits of the Bone Toilers. One question asked if I planned to rework it and do another editing pass, etc. The second question is if I was going to do a Part 2.

I’m still mulling over if I would do another editing pass for Tar Pits. I think with this hobby it comes down to that there is no incentive except pride. If I spend more time on the adventure, which quality is important to me….I just don’t think anything would happen to it…I mean, would people actually re-read it or replay it? Is it something that customers want to see? Would it get a second review so I can learn more? Would more people buy it even though its been in ‘The Void” now (shelf life is usually about 3 months, then everything slows to a crawl). Editing and reworking an old module usually leads to new layout as well and it can be a boring, long task, although adding to the adventure can bring in some fun…but is it really worth taking away creative time on working on something new? I’m still mulling it over because…..

Of the second question–will there be a Part 2? In my off time, which, isn’t a lot of time, I’ve been trying to brainstorm Part 2 for the Tar Pits of the Bone Toilers. I’m debating on the title but it may be The Marrow Ravine. And, with the success of the Coming of Winter Kickstarter, I was even able to get some original art that I was thinking may be the cover (the Maw of Ghormaug).

I have some ideas…this adventure will be a challenge because it will be in a different dimension which opens up a whole bag of chaos on how things work and whatnot. It also would give me a reason to re-edit Tar Pits–mainly because I would set the adventure in Uzuduum, which is a jungled continent near Vermilion. We got the world a bit fleshed out so I’d want to explore that a bit more for Tar Pits and give it a place in our world. I could also re-look at the review and see if I can clean things up….reviews are like gold because you can really learn from them.

I’ve rambled, and this has actually generated another idea for a blog post that I wouldn’t mind discussing. But that is for another day.

-Malrex