The small hamlet of Arenthorp has fallen under a curse. Elementals are causing havoc, storms and fires are destroying buildings, and a mysterious hedge maze seems to be the center of the problem. Can you find the source of the curse and break it?

I’ve just released a new adventure, The Curse of Arenthorp, on DM’s Guild. This is a first level adventure for fifth edition D&D, which might bring characters up to third level in two or three sessions. It’s full of details about a small village. There’s an unexpected invasion of minor elementals. It has a maze, with traps and puzzles. There’s also a fun monster or two that I brought over from the ancient days of the game.

The Curse of Arenthorp is available for $4.95 on Dungeon Masters Guild.

I’ve also refreshed my other adventure on DMS Guild, The Smugglers of Grogmock Mound. The exact same content, but a flashier cover, and improved layout and design, with illustrations this time.

The Smugglers of Grogmock Mound, with a refreshed design, is also available for $4.95 on Dungeon Masters Guild.

The Beginning

These projects have been a long time in production. I originally started work on this almost two years ago.

The real impetus was deciding to revisit my design process. I was never happy with the final look of Grogmock, the cover was “flat”. The interior was boring: I knew that I at least needed illustrations. The open-source LaTeX templates I was using weren’t suitable to my purposes. I also found a certain tedium in the process of building stat blocks. Every tweak to an ability score required me to spend time carefully checking the stat block to make sure things like armor class, hit bonuses, damage, and ultimately challenge rating were all up to date.

So, I worked on two tools. First was a new latex back-end that was more flexible for my needs. It lets me use the same content with different formats, and possibly different themes. Second was a tool that lets me write state blocks in just a few statements, and then calculate the rest of it and template it out into a text format.

And, of course, I needed something to test these tools with. I wanted to make a simple, first-level adventure, which I feel there is a dearth of in the marketplace. I spun a few ideas out, and ended up with an influx of low-CR elementals in a small rural village. It’s a simple adventure, but that doesn’t mean it’s low content. The elementals are there for a reason, and the process of getting them out needs to be complex enough that the townsfolk can’t do it themselves.

I also hate when an adventure is set in a small town, but doesn’t bother populating that town with a community. Every resident in Arenthorp has a name, even if most are only mentioned once in a description. And every resident has a connection to the other residents.

Delays and Conundrums

The Curse of Arenthorp was finished in 2022, about a year and a month before today.

In December of 2022, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro angered the community when it proposed revisions to the open gaming license that allowed third-party to publish content without threat of lawsuit. I won’t get into details on that, I’ve mentioned it in my blog, but it has been thoroughly explained and investigated elsewhere on the internet.

The problem was that, even though they backpedalled on that, the chilling effect still chilled me. I began to question whether I wanted to be writing adventures for them, and whether I wanted to be using DM’s Guild.

Well before this had happened, that creature tool I mentioned above had been released as open-source on GitHub. The new license terms from WOTC weren’t clear on their coverage of software, and implied that they were reserving all software for themselves. Because of those terms, I decided to make that repository private and take it out of release. The latex code will also not be released.

I didn’t push any harder to find play-testers and editors. I put the adventure aside and began to work on other projects. Those projects became bigger than I expected. My wife and I made a major purchase decision which led to a number of other projects. I didn’t get back to Arenthorp until a month ago, and I made my decision.

The biggest problem is, I spent a lot of work on it, and I want people to see it. I’m so proud of the final design. The layout and overall look of the adventure, and its maps, are a vast improvement from Smugglers of Grogmock Mound. I spent a little money on illustrations which makes the interior much more interesting. I couldn’t let this adventure languish on my hard drive. It needed to be out there for people to look at.

A Decision

So, I made a decision in three parts.

First, I would publish The Curse of Arenthorp. As it contains content that the powers-that-be wouldn’t allow me to publish on my own, I would publish it on DM’s Guild. I would also charge money for it, especially since I paid for a few of the illustrations. I worked hard on this, and PWYW wasn’t making me much for Grogmock¹.

Second, I would update The Smugglers of Grogmock Mound to the new template, and add illustrations. This would also be switched back from PYWY to a full charge.

Third, I will take a break from further game content, besides Inannak.

Yes, It’s time to pause. It’s not just that I feel worried about the future of D&D, although recent news of the layoffs at Hasbro leaves me concerned. But the real issue is that I’m finding the development less rewarding than I had hoped.

I haven’t played an RPG in about a year and a half. As the kids’ schedules are so busy, I’m no longer running a D&D game. I have yet to find a new group to play with, despite a number of attempts. It’s impossible to make RPG connections on social media if you’re not already in the cliques. I haven’t received any feedback on the Grogmock since I’ve published it. Without these connections, and without that feedback, I’m sure you can understand how hard it is to remain inspired to create.

I do hope I can get back into this, if all of that changes. I had a whole campaign in mind when I started working on Grogmock, and I did enjoy writing these adventures. It would be nice if they were released someday, even if it’s a different game system than D&D.