Note Failure & Review - Sleeping Heart of the Garden
This article contains affiliate links, meaning that if you decide to purchase a product through my link, I get a Commission at no additional cost to youI used the system agnostic Sleeping Heart of the Garden module you can find on itch.io for an adventure. I had bought it initially on Kickstarter because I loved how cozy the art was. While he isn’t posting too often right now, Map Crow has gorgeous art that begs to use a different consideration when it comes to a typical adventure. He mentioned his work and I knew that a nice system agnostic module would help with prep. Sleeping Heart is a Puzzle Dungeon of great quality, I would recommend purchasing the module through the link listed above. Onto why we’re here, with Note Failure, I will note the failure in my notes so you may avoid such a fate.
Previously, On Note Failure
The lessons learned were:
Dramatis Persone on Page 1 for Social Dungeons
Forget the dark map’s mood, use bright maps to see
List the escape route key
Cloud Curio’s Sleeping Heart adventure only has two people involved, one of which is a key to a solution of the puzzle. That was easy. The map is clean and bright, as you can see, so that is a definite solution to the second problem. I listed the third; however, it felt unnecessary because a lot of the progress was linear. You needed to collect the keys to progress, which is just good adventure design. Still, I wrote it down because I wouldn’t know if I would remember by the time the players got to this adventure. The wonders and frustrations of a Sandbox game is that you are not in control, you’re the Director so you can influence the scene and setting, but you are more of a Stewart than any Dungeon or Game related Master.
My Page-to-Prep brought the 18 page adventure down to three pages. I did have to make Stat Blocks for “Chubbees” - chubby bees the size, colouration and predisposition of golden retriever puppies. When it came to other Stat Blocks, I grabbed from Advanced 5th Edition SRD, Dungeon Dad, MCDM and Mr. Tarrasque. I don’t know if it is because my players are geniuses, but the whole adventure took about 90 minutes. For how little prep I needed to do, the Adventure felt light and whimsical.
Slotting Monsters In
Not listed in the adventure, but my immediate thought was that of a Spanner with all of the bridges in the art. Dungeon Dad covered it in his Monster of the Week, a Construct that looks like a bridge that exacts a heavy toll: juicy gossip. I changed it into a Fey creature, a courtless one, as they tend to be bridges in odd locales. The desire to receive gossip makes it far more ‘Fey Coded’ than a Construct, I can see gossip as its source of sustenance. When a player asked why they’re called a Spanner due to rolling a really high Nature Check, I improvised “They can span any amount of distance.” I proceeded to learn how much my players knew of the game world, which was more than I expected, but I did learn that some players didn’t know how to spill tea. He had to go to his third story before the Spanner was satisfied.
Mr. Tarrasque has released The Quintessential Guide to Monster Encounters, which has a bitey rose on the cover. When the adventure mentioned a bitey rose, I immediately knew which monster to add to the roster. The party accidentally killed it through a roleplay which was hilarious for me.
Oleander Dragon in MCDM's Strongholds & Followers
Lastly, the players have to deal with the guardian of this little Fey realm. Looking at the cover art, it reminded me of MCDM’s Oleander Dragon in Strongholds & Followers. I find the book to be a nifty little boutique item. The biggest attraction of Strongholds & Followers is Followers; in a strange twist of events, I prefer the Bastions that Wizards released regarding Strongholds. MCDM has only honed the Followers in the preceding products which I am appreciative of. The other great part of Strongholds & Followers is the release of so many NPCs that can easily be slotted in your games regarding Nobles with Fey and Aberrations.
Triple Bypass
The puzzles seemed pretty easy, even if I was very nervous with the adventure having a ‘Save or Die’ effect in it. One of the ways the adventure tries to tax player resources are brambles; however, one of my players has a Giant Crab Monstrous Companion I created from MCDM’s Beastheart’s pages. I had the Crab, “Pinch”, be abe to loaded up with the rest of the Adventurers as they pushed through the underbrush.
I bypassed a Social Encounter, the other Personae Dramatis, due to a time constraint. One of my players wanted to finish at 10 pm and we were zeroing in on that. I do not feel bad about this one because I had already introduced Mushroomfolk into my game that were vastly different than the ones listed in the adventure. These hyphan-styled Mushrooms I see being more from the Underdark or from another world, as I am running a pseudo-Spelljammer setting. Just to have an excuse to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the players.
Those two were conscientous bypasses, one for letting my players enjoy being able to solve a problem simply and the other due to time. The last portion of the module I bypassed was due to my notes failing me.
I did have a Key as I mentioned before for the overarching puzzle, but each portion of the adventure had a smattering of small puzzles. I forgot and skipped one which would’ve have been a ‘Quick Time Event’ which I would have resolved with a Skill Challenge. I forgot to include it because the section is the Omens and Manifestation part of the module. The part where Artax is engulfed by the Swamps of Sadness in The NeverEnding Story (1984) in the case of an Adventure. I needed to put more emphasis on the discovery as it was the set piece for the Adventure.
The Omen and Manifestation have been burrowed into my mind ever since I read the Sci-Fi Horror RPG Mothership, they use a system called TOMBS to remind you how to run a good horror scenario. While this adventure isn’t scary, I think the chronology can be borrowed. The T is for Trespass, which is a common trope for horror, there must be a reason for why the protagonists are about to suffer. The O is for Omens, which are the signs that something horrible will happen; this is the part of the horror movie when you scream at them to ‘just get out of there’. The M is for Manifestation, simply put their comeuppance comes to fruitition, probably in the form of some horrific monster. Next is B which is Banishment, where the survivors get rid of the bad thing or die trying. Lastly, S is Slumber because you always want a Sequel; or more appropriately, to have the theme that evil cannot be exterminated but instead evil must be resisted.
I did also skim on Skill Challenges, just requiring a Majority Pass instead of ‘Hit X Passes Before Y Failures’. That was intentional due to the crunch time of completing this adventure before people started turning into pumpkins. The rest of the module was smooth sailing, the only other hiccup involves poor decisions outside of the purview of analyzing the module.
In Summary
Add emphasis to the turning point; perhaps instead of merely Room 3, I should have used Room 3A and Room 3B. I should not stack all of my notes into one ‘Room’ when there is enough going on.
Review
Sleeping Heart of the Garden is system agnostic and it is a nice cozy adventure. I really liked that the PDF copy has parts where you can write in each page.
I didn’t find that the pages were that tightly done; the reason why I sing the praises for directsun’s Aberrant Reflections is because each page covers one room. This module has single rooms spread over multiple pages. Now, it was nice to have somewhere to write notes in a PDF copy, but I would have vastly preferred one page per room and perhaps kept the re-writable PDF notes to the end of the room. I don’t need them for every page; unless it is because the room is spread along multiple pages like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I added to one of the puzzles because it seemed too simple; there were a group of objects in various colours. One of the colours is White but I decided to change it to Yellow. The goal was to throw a curve ball at the players or require a player to run an Investigate Check. If the Investigate passed, the character would discover that the original colour was White but the object was sunbleached for spending who knows how long in the reflection of an eternal summer window.
In fact, a lot of the puzzles have a variety of difficulty settings, which I highly appreciate. I selected the hardest options for all of them, and as I said, perhaps my players are geniuses but they tore through the adventure in 90-odd minutes. There is even an in-game “Navi” who can give out hints, if need be. This leaves me to believe that this adventure is designed for children but then there’s the juxtapose of one of the puzzles being trying to solve how someone died. A tad too dark, in my opinion, for a kid’s adventure.
Still, Sleeping Heart of the Garden has the golden rule for puzzles: “As long as the players arrive to an answer logically, allow them to pass.”
Additions
To meet my APL Spread from APL 2 to 13, I had to borrow the Dancing Lady from MCDM’s Flee, Mortals! for the level 13 Encounter. Otherwise, I used my “Chubbees” and two other unique creations I’ve made for my Summer Court. So you’ll be getting these two Stat Blocks in addition to a regular conversion to 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.
The first, the humble Honeybuzz, is a honeycomb with four fuzzy rounded legs that end in dapper dancing shoes. The Fey uses Major Illusion to make everything look like a dancing cartoon to which they’ll sway to. They have the ability to conjure Swarms of Bees and otherwise lock your players down with Irresistable Dance.
The second, is the Bachae, named after the Roman version of Dionysus. They’re walking, talking frat parties. They look for a good time, all the time. If you’re not a good time, they’ll slap you into a drunken stupor so you can appreciate the decadent life. Purple skinned, green haired with grapes forming in their beards, these Summer Court Fey will dispel the notion that all of the Summer Court is prim and proper.
With both Stat Blocks, I’ve included Harvesting mechanics. I am a much bigger fan of the Grim Hollow way than the Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting where I am giving you useful objects you can use now. If you’re looking for art, the Honeybuzz and Bachae appear on the right side of a piece of art I comissioned for a project that is now on pause.
Final Word
I backed the Kickstarter initially because of Map Crow. When I read the bundle, I knew that if there ever was a crisis in a Fey realm and I wanted it to be whimsical, this would deliver. My guess was entirely correct. I do find it funny that you could orient this as adventure tech support, as you go in to turn it off and on again to jump start whatever Fey business.
In the end, I would say that unless you really want to see more of the art, the module should only be picked up if you’re looking for some Fey adventure you can convert to restarting something.
On my Patreon, I have my notes to convert this system agnostic adventure into 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. For $5 a month, you’ll get my personal notes on conversions and adventures I did to suit my range band of APL 3 to 10 for West Marches.
