When we released QuestCrawl, we all knew that while it was super fun to play, there would be limits to the depth of storytelling you could achieve with it out of the box. I love the idea that a game can be extended with additional content, not unlike a DLC that makes it the game you want when you want it. And so QuestionCrawl was born. Written by me, Gabriel Hernandez, it is mostly just a table of interesting questions to ask about any of the locations defined in the QuestCrawl game.

We tested it over a few days (this game takes a while in stand-alone mode) and had a lot of fun imagining new lands and monsters, factions, and treasures. It all went surprisingly well. I’ll post the playtest notes down below for anyone who wants to give them a read. After finding the game took about 6 hours for two people to play through a whole deck of cards, I decided to try a version that plays as an additional step to the QuestCrawl base game. We are testing that tonight, and I will try and publish the results of that playtest as well.

QuestionCrawl v0.1 Playtest 1

Alyssa + Gabriel

1. K♥️ Thickholm Dwarves. Bimbo Thickbeard is their leader after his father passed. Thickbeards are the monarchal lineage of the dwarves.
2. 5♦️ Flying McMurderface. Terrible beastie. Hunts its prey from the air, divebombing and striking them in the neck. It eats its means in the high crags of the desert cliffsides. The Thickbeards survived an exodus through the desert where they fended off the Flying McMurderfaces.
3. 6♦️ Succulent Oasis. Succulent Squish leaves are easy to pick and provide a delicious good. An arid valley was changed by the flooding of a distant river. Flying McMurderfaces will sometimes fly overhead in search of a drinking meal.
4. 10♦️ Drinky Shrinky. During the flooding of the valley, the water caused it to swell and grow large. It is a giant reptile that was dried out and desiccated in the desert until the waters came. Its secret desire is to drink the ocean. The dung of the Drinky Shrinky fertilizes the succulents of the Oasis and spreads their seed.
5. 3♥️ Wicklewills. It protects its young in burrows within the hillside. The young are born live in litter from a mother and multiple fathers. Furry creatures with puffy fur of vibrant cool colors, browns with blue and green patches. They carry venom in their anal gland that is deadly to the Drinky Shrinky.
6. J♥️ Swollen Members. Evil creatures steer clear of this place because of the narcotic pollen that falls from the fruit trees. The fruit trees swell and begin to sing when the sun goes down, causing a haunting melody to carry on the wind for miles. Wicklewills used to burrow beneath the swollen members but were kicked out for eating their own young after a population boom left them no room for expansion.
7. 4♥️ Killitty. It eats the large insects that live in these hills. nocturnal hunters take advantage of the dark to sneak up on their prey. They sleep during the day perched in the dense foliage of the trees above. Killities are immune to the narcotic pollen of the Swollen Members trees and so able to stay within them through their entire lives.
8. A♠️ Caprine Peak. Rock slides never happen in these mountains as the material they are made of is unbreakable. The cliffs and ridges of this range are guarded by giant goats with 6 legs and 4 horns, a third eye in the middle of their foreheads. Killity used to prowl the mountainside but found the goats too difficult to hunt successfully and moved on to easier climes.
9. 8♣️ Weeping Woods. Fallen trees blocking paths are covered in slippery moss. Dense thickets of thorny bushes make travel difficult. The forest seems dark even during midday. Adventurers disappear into the woods, never to be seen again. People say that you can hear their cries in the wind. The weeping woods skirt the Caprine mountains but the forest finds not purchase in it’s impregnable rock.
10. K♣️ Woodword. Melnis Brightwood is the leader of the Elves. A middle-aged elven woman with black curly hair and dark skin. She has emerald eyes with flecks of turquoise. Her voice sounds like wind chimes, and she moves gracefully but halting, like a doe. 1440 years ago, the elves gave humans the written language, which they have used ever since to advance their civilization. The elves of the Woodword are the only creatures who can traverse the Weeping Woods unabated.
11. 2♣️ Fluffer Forest. These woods are populated with small rodent-like creatures called flufferbutters. The woods are protected by a clan of fairies who lay traps and play pranks on trespassers. These woods are abundant all year round. This wood is protected by the fairies because of an agreement they forged with the Woodword before the age of men.
12. 6♠️ Fen Valor. The battle of Fen Rose between the human clan of Kilcrest and their neighbors, clan Devinshire. 123 humans lost their lives in the battle, lasting for 4 days. It is memorialized in a regional song that is usually sung by drunks at the tavern. The fen was a rocky highland before an earthquake changed the landscape, pushing an underground reservoir up to the surface. After the battle of Fen Rose, survivors from clan Devinshire took up refuge in the Fluffer Forest and were allowed to reside there by the fairies safely.
13. 3♣️ Westwood Wolf. This beast can be found sleeping in rotted-out logs at night. During the day it will seek food throughout the forest. It survives on a diet of spotted grumblebumps. The Westwood Wolves are hunted for their luscious charcoal grey pelts by the hunters of clan Devonshire when they venture out from their home in the Fen.
14. 3♠️ Lillidile. Cloaked in black leathery skin, the scales gleam a bright pale green mimicking the fallen petals of the swamp’s trees. After sneaking up on its unsuspecting prey, it will snap its long toothy jaws over its target’s body and drag it below the water, rolling it in the mud until it stops moving. The beast only hunts during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk. It becomes sluggish at night from the cold and lazy during the day as it basks in the sun. The Westwood Wolf has been known to lead hunters into the swamp to be taken by the Lillidile.
15. 4♠️ Silver Fish. Its shiny, scaly silver skin is marked with metallic blue flecks. This beastie scavenges the carcasses left by the lillidile. It will draw the attention of predator animals into the lillidiles domain to feast on it after the lillidile has dispatched it. It lays eggs, males fertilize during spawning season.
16. 7♠️ Suffocating Swamp. Thereas Devonshire was the first human to successfully navigate the northern swamp lands, though in so doing, they lost their eyesight and their right arm. This place is deadly during the early morning because of an acidic fog that hangs over the swamp but evaporates with the noon heat. The caustic fog has also provided food for many silverfish when the lillidiles are busy mating.
17. Q♠️ Mirror Barrow. The quest manifests itself to someone on a slip of paper. The quest is to find a place that is believed not to exist. It is said that the water of the suffocating swamp contains a portal to the Mirror Barrow, but just as many say that only fools would look there, they will become food for the Silver Fish, the only mirror in the swamp.
18. Q♥️ Heart of the Mountain. It must be destroyed at any cost. Everyone knows that to behold it is to suffer madness. Some fucking Yoda in the Mirror Barrow knows where the heart of the mountain is, but he demands tributes and strange favors.
19. 2♥️ Golden Hills. the flutterwinkles feed off the beautiful plants and flowers in these hills. They resemble butterflies with fuzzy bodies and wings. They are about the size of a gerbil. The plants grow around waters that flow down from the glaciers in the mountains above. The story of the creation of the Heart of the Mountain has been transformed into a children’s tail by the local hill dwarves. They use it to scare their children into good behavior.
20. 5♥️ Slippery Fred. It vomits up phlegmy stones that dissolve into larva. It eats its meals where they are killed. The beastie is a glistening mass of mucus about the size of a man but laid flat. It has a central lump of branches and twigs that cause the mass to writhe and move. Slippery Fred’s come down from the mountain glaciers where they are formed. In their larval state, they evaporate with water and get snowed up into the mountains.
21. 9♦️ The Dusk Devils. This crisis appears to be supernatural. At dusk, the sands dance in the air in the form of devils and demons. It is punishment for laziness and poor hygiene. The dusk devils are a highly effective means of drying out a Slippery Fred for study or preservation.
22. 6♥️ Soggy Cake Hills. The Thickholm Dwarves come here to hunt. The animals here hibernate during the fall and rise in late winter. This place used to be at the bottom of a lake that drained with then the earthquake that created Fen Valor happened. It’s water draining into the fen. Anyone who’s witnessed a Dusk Devil will want to take a fat nap in Soggy Cake Hills.
23. 6♣️ Tartberry Woods. It used to be a lumbered forest cut to trunks that had been flooded as a reservoir. When the dam was destroyed, life returned to the forest. This wood is now known for its firm, tart purple berries that ripen in early summer. When this was a reservoir, its waters were shared with the lake that used to be Soggy Cake Hills.
24. J♣️ Crystal Truth. The Oracle of the Henge. They treat adventurers seeking their wisdom with suspicion, speaking in riddles and prose to discover the worthy. The oracle casts bones and reads tea leaves to divine common folk futures but has been known to peer into crystals during eldritch times for more important matters. They drink tea made from the leaves of the Tartberry harvest from Tartberry woods every fall.
25. Q♣️ The Best Thing. The quest is to make the perfect piece of toast. The baker’s guild is keenly interested in this new toasting technology and stands to profit handsomely should toast fever sweep the land. The Crystal Truth is awaiting her most joyous treat and ultimate demise as she knows she will die from choking on a piece of toast, but she must have it with her tea.
26. 10♣️ Psychokinetic Vapor. This creature is born every morning and dies every night. This creature could cause enslavement of the whole human population if it were to escape its home in the woods. This creature is a hivemind of mushroom-like spores that fill the air during the day. They have telepathy and can control the bodies of those who breathe them in. The person who seeks to make the perfect piece of toast got the idea after being exposed to the Psychokinetic vapors.
27. 4♣️ Tamer Booby. It survives by hunting worms and small insects. It has feathers of dull purple, green, and turquoise with grey legs and beaks. It eats on the forest floor, where it finds its prey. Flocks of the Tamer Booby have been seen doing bizarre things; this was later determined to be the result of interactions with the Psychokinetic Vapor.
28. A♣️ Stash Pass. Above this mountain, a ruby-red Dragon flies, seeking treasure in the world below. There are several trails through the passes of the mountain through which humans conduct trade, but there are also the Dwarven roads that go deep beneath the mountain. The feathers of the Tamer Booby are often found in the trade caravans that pass through these mountains.
29. A♦️ The Moment Mountains. Deep beneath this mountain, a giant wormlike creature burrows and makes its home. Constant rock slides and earthquakes cause this mountain to be an ever-changing landscape. Considered an insane alternative to travel over the Stash Pass, some unscrupulous merchants use the routes in this mountain anyway because of the absence of any kingsmen.
30. 8♦️ Shifting Sands. Constant rock slides and earthquakes make this desert an ever-changing landscape. There are no reliable landmarks as the earth is moved about by the Worms burrowing below. During the monsoon seasons, when the otherwise scorched desert becomes a flash flood, the worms burrow deeper, leaving the surface untouched for weeks at a time. During these bouts of peacefulness, the desert’s beauty is quite striking. Inexperienced travelers leaving the Moment Mountains often find themselves wandering the Shifting Sands until their death.
31. K♦️ Milas the Desert Jewel. The City of Thieves is held together by a network of interconnected families. These families maintain a tense peace through the threat of violence but are often pranking each other by stealing the same objects back and forth. Most notably, in the last 100 years, the Milas jewels have been stolen and stolen back 1000s of times. All other theft from a family is considered a capital offense. They are planning an attack on (City) during midsummer taking advantage of the heat waves. One of the cruelest ways that the family will deal with traitors is to abandon them in the Shifting Sands with a single skin of water and a shovel.
32. Q♦️ Ultimate Jewels. This quest is to retrieve the Milas Jewels from Milas. The jewels are fakes. The original jewels were stolen 300 years ago and destroyed in a magical accident. But this fact has been lost to time as the person responsible for their destruction was able to fabricate fakes that pass layman’s sniff. If an outsider were to acquire the Milas Jewels, they would become the de facto rulers of Milas, a reason for the families to band together and wage war.
33. 4♦️ Sand Monitor. this beastie is a reptile. Its scales are bone colored. It survives on the eggs and larvae of the Sand Worms that dominate the Shifting Sands. Those who possess the Ultimate Jewels will soon find that it has been coated in a pheromone that attracts the Sand Monitor. Anyone leaving Milas with the jewels has few hours left to live.
34. 3♦️ Gritty Bigmouth. It sleeps deep beneath desert sands. The beastie is active and hunting at all times of day, only sleeping for 10-minute intervals between hour-long hunting bouts. It swallows the sand in this its prey is traveling and digests them over months, passing the sand out through its skin. The fields of eggs lain during their spawning season are covered in Sand Monitors, which will eventually become meals for the Gritty Bigmouth.
35. 8♥️ Mimic Hills. There are no distinct landmarks in the hills for miles around. Some of the hills are actually gigantic mimics that eat travelers who do not detect them until too late. The Gritty Bigmouth and the Hill Mimics are the two largest predatory animals in the world.
36. 9♥️ The Smothering Muds. The mudslides occur like clockwork every spring and again in the 3rd week of summer. There used to be a Dwarven settlement in the mimic hills that was washed away during its 10th year.
37. 9♣️ Flutter Fires. The forest fires here are made by the fairies of the woods as a controller burn, but the humans of the realm consider them quite devastating. 2 years ago, a group of hunters was burned alive in the fires, much to the glee of the watching fairies. The fires, while magical, can be extinguished by dirt from the smothering mud with little effort. All other attempts to smother this fire fail.
38. 10♠️ Blinky. This beast has one giant eye in the middle of its forehead, but its shell pattern resembles many eyes. It has a fantastic sense of hearing that allows it to distinguish footfalls from the sounds of the swamp. Creatures displaced by the Flutter Fires will often find themselves in the jaws of Blinky.
39. 2♠️ Elden Swamp. The swamp sloths here are delicious. They are considered the veal of the swamp. This swampland is protected by an ancient magic spell that preserves its biodiversity and ecological health. This Goodland borders the domain of Blinky quite closely. He likes the sound of the sloths swinging lazily in the trees.
40. 5♠️ Sneaky Snare. This terrible beastie hunts by laying traps, giant webs that can sprawl for dozens of meters across the surface of the swamp. It waits underwater, using a trapped air bubble to breathe. It hunts the egrets and herons that fish these waters. Once they are ensnared in its web, it paralyzes them with its venom and drinks their fluids. The magical protection of the Elden Swamp prevents these from hunting in that area. So they do not know the delicious meats of the sloth.
41. 8♠️ Verdant Marsh. A young mother fleeing violent pursuers smothered her only child in these swamps, and now the cries of that child can be heard ringing through the swamps. The giant tiger blossoms in these swamps bloom once every 17 years, a wonder to behold. The pursuers and ultimately the mother became food to a sneaky snare after the curse had been placed.
42. 5♣️ Jingly Wrangler. This beastie’s leathery skin is denim blue, its eyes are brass colored, and its teeth and claws resemble burnished steel. It sleeps among the roots of the trees, where it digs out hollows for protection and privacy. Some Jingly Wranglers are lured into the Verdant swamp by the ghostly cries of that cursed place, never to leave again.
43. 9♠️ The Florida Drain. The sinkholes appear during all odd-numbered years. Vacation rentals have fallen into the swamps. Those Jingly Wranglers in the swamp not killed by Sneaky Snares will find themselves occasionally swallowed up by the earth itself.
44. J♦️ **Starstruck Vault.**The vault is trapped to sink into the ground when it is improperly opened. The vault is the possession of Alesan, king of the stars. Alesan got the idea for the sinking trap mechanism after watching his vacation rental sink into the verdant swamp.
45. J♠️ Cursed Pyramid of the Shifting Lands. The walls of the pyramid are engraved with a library of hexes and curses, intoned to enhance its power. It was activated yesterday by a child adventurer. This caused the child’s friend, who had moved away, to be his neighbor again. The two friends have an elaborate to rob the Starstruck Vault in the future.
46. 7♦️ Wandering Dunes. The Thickholm Dwarves were lost in this desert for 50 years before finding their way out and establishing Thickholm in the hills. The desert is most deadly during the afternoon when the sun beats relentlessly. Traveling at night, while less dangerous, is just as hard to navigate because of the high-altitude dust storms that obscure the sky and stars. The dust storms come with the activation of the Twisting Pyramid, though that connection is not known to men.
47. 7♣️ Twistwood. The Kilcrest clan, known for their lumbering practices, found themselves in woods too thick and wandered the forest for 30 years. It is most dangerous to travel at night, when the nighttime hunters are active and hungry. Like the Wandering Dunes, the sky and stars in this place are oft obscured, making navigation by starlight difficult and deadly.
48. 7♥️ Gutter Run. Vinthere Kilcrest famously navigated and mapped the trenches of these hills many decades ago. Sadly his cartography is crap, and so his maps now serve only to confuse their buyers and line the pockets of their printers. This place is very difficult to navigate because of the strange nature of its hilltops, covered in a slimy viscous fluid that comes out of the grass. Travel only happens in trenches that network across the hills, so you cannot see the horizon almost any time that you are traveling. Between that the maps, yer fucked. The trenches here were formed by the industry-scale lumbering practices of the Kilcrest clan, and their magics to aid in that effort are ultimately what made the hills slick.
49. 10♥️ Soggy Cake. This creature defends its horde with its deadly fiery venom. Within the last 50 years, it has grown to become a gigantic menace. It isn’t Reptile or Mammal. It’s like a giant soggy cotton ball. This creature is the source of the slime that causes the Gutter Run to be so slippery.
50. 2♦️ False Beard Hollow. False Beard Cactus here is easy to harvest as it has no thorns that can harm you, but its juice and meat are intoxicating. Those without a stomach find it quite sickening. The larvae of the Gritty Bigmouth will burrow into the heart of the False Beard Cactus in its early years to both avoid detection from the Sand Monitors and enjoy the delicious juices of the Cactus. Consuming the cactus meat and juices can be used as a treatment for the venom of the Soggy Cake.
51. A♥️ Lavalynx Peak. This mountain’s ridges and cliffs are stalked by the giant lynx. The peak of the mountain reveals a caldera that, while hot, is not violent. The Lynx can be found napping by the warmth of the lava. The False Beard Cactus is a hallucinogen to the mountain lynx. They do all kinds of dumbshit when they smell the cactus.
52. K♠️ Breath of Darkness. Unearthed Evil. Alesan king of stars sealed this evil 800 years ago. It was freed when the twisting pyramid was activated by the adventuring child yesterday so that he could see his friend. This evil manifests in the lands around it as a hissing humid and warm wind, vapors that resemble deranged spirits, and shadows that flicker and move with no discernable light source. The darkness was born of the toxic fumes of Lavalynx peak.