ST Forge Spotlight: How We Would Run ‘Surviving Strangehollow’
The Striped Bravogg - has this guy stolen the Fighter’s coin pouch or is he whispering strange prophecies to the Sorcerer?
Good evening gamers! Adam Ray has returned with more news about the finest and shiniest things in the world of TTRPGs. Our friends at Accidental Cyclops Games have given us a deep insight into their upcoming Kickstarter, Surviving Strangehollow. This supplement for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons brings us a new and strange world, full of bizarre creatures put to gorgeous artwork and given life by some of the finest fantasy writers going today. Put on your Steve Irwin khakis and let's get monstrous!
Surviving Strangehollow is a new 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons supplemental release by Accidental Cyclops. This book seeks to give players and Storytellers everything they need to explore the world of Strangehollow. This well-named realm is a small pocket in the material plane that can easily be added to any world! The party can be striding into a lagoon, knowing not that they've entered the glistening pools of a chilling water spirit. More on that a little later...
The team’s ethos was to create a book that's great for D&D Storytellers and players alike, with the hope to always spur creativity. After a fascinating conversation with the creative team, we know this world book was created with the stories in mind. The developers, Jason Ward and Michael Hawryluk, were deeply inspired by Emily Hare’s watercolor artwork, a collection of bizarre and beautiful fantasy creatures. When they reached out to her, they planned to create stories and games around them for a new and unique TTRPG. After the insight of Shawn Merwin, they shifted, making it a 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons supplement!
Strange Gubbins
The focus of this book is the creatures and the experience of the story itself. As they came up with the loosest concepts of the Hollow itself, Jason and Michael told the team of story writers, including Ed Greenwood, Shawn Merwin, James Haeck, Elisa Teague, and more, to look through all of Emily Hare’s artwork and their concepts for the Strangehollow, and that they could tell whatever story they wanted! Aside from this being a dream gig for myself, or any fantasy writer, this was their biggest draw for what these creatures and this setting are like.
This kind of top-down design gave the creators inspiration that filled the game with a plethora of stories and adventures, and even influenced the many, many new player character subclass options. The adventurers traipsing through Strangehollow feel the magic of the location in whichever subclass they play, and it adds only to the wonderment of the realm itself! The book is designed with this fable story look in mind and the watercolour style is included in the monster blocks.
The team rightly calls each creature “an adventure unto itself.” They're spread across every Challenge Rating and can be the ticket to spice up any game. Imagine being hundreds of miles from the Strangehollow, but some uppity psychic capybara is being sold at auction and the party Druid decides she wants to help it get home.
Some familiar figures of fantasy live in Strangehollow. What secrets will be whispered from the water?
The developers are sure that their module's section on how to create characters that are genuinely fun to play is an enjoyable process. It's important to use the character building techniques to surprise established players with possibilities, as well as guiding newer players. If this section is as detailed as the rest of the book, I am certain that it’ll be a feature I’ll use in my future of TTRPG goodness. This team assures us that this section of their book seeks to help players build characters “that they want to play.” This bold claim has me very excited as a Storyteller outside of TTRPGs. A flow chart to follow for making compelling characters is useful for anyone who wants to tell a story, and we’re lucky to be using it in Surviving Strangehollow.
Strange Stories
So how would I Storytell an adventure in the Strangehollow? Well, dear reader, like the creators of the module itself, I like to focus on the story itself. “The play’s the thing,” said the shaky spear guy. A seasoned Storyteller could open one of the monster entries at random, point to the strange creature on the page, and be satisfied coming up with something. Still wearing your Steve Irwin khakis? Good, then let's get a little closer.
There’s a very detailed map of the Hollow for Storytellers to chart a course over for their players to see grand swathes of it. By mapping out their possible path, a Storyteller can fill it with the unique sights and plethora of creatures to possibly meet.
A setting like this needs you to be descriptive. I want to fill my take of the Strangehollow with impossible flora and the creatures making whatever strange chirps and whirs that I can possibly muster. I often play with music, so anything that seems lightly enchanted and creepy would be welcome. The ambient sound effects of buzzing insects, distant otherworldly birds, and the babblings of brooks teeming with pink, sour water is a great way I’d bring my players in.
The creatures are unlike anything else in most other kinds of Dungeons and Dragons books. The team has done wonders trying to make the setting feel like a real ecosystem, and making it feel lived in is the key. I’d want to describe the tough earth underfoot and the murky squelch of muddy swamp water to bring the players into the moment and the scene!
Strange Adventures
The beauty of a setting like the Strangehollow is that it’s incredibly tone-neutral and open. A seasoned Storyteller can do anything in this realm.
For the world of grimdark fantasy, this place can be a den of primal savagery. The cycle of life can be whirring at high speed in the Strangehollow, and we see a tiny beast hopping across the waters only to be eaten by a pouncing predator, which is then eaten by a strange buzzing flying creature, which is then pulled in by the retractive tongue of a carnivorous plant. The party of adventurers can enter and immediately be hunted by the savage and unknowable fauna of this realm. What would drive adventurers to a place like this? The mad could have left a great cache of treasure in one of the few uncharted structures among the twisted, talking trees.
Perhaps the strange sites of wild magic in unusual swamps could make this the site of a Black Dragon lair, whose influence is slowly corrupting the land with its presence?
Sample Spread - the Craggle looks like a delightful mushroom caterpillar friend!
For games with a significantly lighter tone, playing with the whimsy of the setting and the striking looks of the creatures could very easily be a theme unto itself. Plucky, nature-driven parties of Nature Domain Clerics, Druids, and Rangers could have been tasked with mapping out the Strangehollow after it suddenly appeared at the borders of the realm. An eccentric biologist type could have hired this band of heroes to find something truly unknown deep in the heart of the Hollow.
I enjoy presenting moral dilemmas to my players at the heart of the story. A campaign arc could lead the party to the heart of the Strangehollow to find the ingredients to a very specific potion needed to save the aging king’s life. But this key ingredient is in the body of an endangered beast of this realm, revered as sacred by the local populace. Leaving the party to make such crucial decisions while the uppity psychic capybara is trying to eat their dreams makes for moments that always leave me excited.
You can find some further details about Surviving Strangehollow on their website, and keep a close eye on when their Kickstarter begins right here.
Now we want to hear from you! Will you be backing Surviving Stangehollow when the Kickstarter drops in March? How would you bring their strange realm into your home games? Let us know in the comments below, and check back to Storyteller’s Forge for even more news in the world of our favorite TTRPGs.
