Autumn Harvest
A Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition module made to help Dungeon Masters run their own spooky campaign in the strange village of Corbridge.
Autumn Harvest was born out of a game jam in the Fall of 2021. It was a small event and I was inspired to create a module for Dungeons & Dragons that captured the spooky feeling of New England around that time of year.
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(The art used is placeholder and not of my own making!)
Inspirations
A Mix of Horror, Intrigue, and Mothman
Autumn Harvest was heavily inspired by the D&D Module, Curse of Strahd. I was amazed at how well a tabletop game could elicited such horror and excitement from players. I wanted to follow in its footsteps in a way.
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During its development I wanted to include aspects of horror for the Dungeon Master to throw at players but I didn't want that to be all there would be. I thought of many of the strange monsters that some believe to exist in our world like Mothman or Bigfoot. Those aspects of folk stories worked perfectly in the setting and I began a draft.
Development
My Intentions.
The development of the module was slow and steady. I pulled some information from other modules and progress was made slowly over the course of a few weeks.
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I worked on my own but received some feedback from other players about certain aspects of the game.
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I wanted to focus my attention on a few key systems
Combat
Narrative
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I included tips and ideas for beginner and veteran Dungeon Masters about how to improve combat encounters, so they are much more interesting and engaging to players. I suggested to include secondary objectives so players not only have to deal with enemies but have the added pressure of protecting an NPC or retrieving a specific item.
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I also wanted the players narrative to come first, this module asks as more of a guide then of a set of rules to follow. It also gives suggestions on particular story beats that could be interesting for their own campaign, as none are the same. Changes like what NPCs are helpful or the background and backstory of bosses is left up to the Dungeon Master to decide ultimately.
Post Mortem
What did I learn?
Making games is challenging and time consuming but worth it in the end. Autumn Harvest gave me a small glimpse into what truly goes into building a game in the tabletop space and I am very proud of the work I have done.
I certainly hit creative roadblocks and each step of development was a learning process. If I could go back to the start there would be many things I'd like to change and so much more I'd like to add. I would flesh out the small setting even more if I could, I felt as though there were lot of great ideas and interesting things to explore but what is there in its current state feels bare in hindsight. It is easy to get lost in your own imagination and forget that even though you have such a clear vision of your final product, it may not reflect the final outcome.
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Overall I am very happy with what I had made in such a short amount of time and you can look at it HERE or clicking the image below.
