Something New

What might ye learn by drowning?

All previous land claims to this area have recently expired, and nothing has been heard from the previous claimants, H. Jellison & Sons, for a decade. Laird Lonninger Belvis has acquired the rights to the land surrounding The Pit, including Mud Camp and the encompassing valley. He is planning to invest heavily in the area, but first it must be surveyed and secured. Any possibility of extracting resources or artifacts from the mysterious Pit must be explored. For whatever reason, you are the advance party…

Hey folks. I got busy, and now I’m on Substack (oops, not anymore.) I haven’t been blogging, but I have been working on my #Dungeon23 project! I’ve fallen a bit behind, but am catching up and have made it through the halfway point. So, in order to try to get things back on track, I’m gonna keep this short and just post some maps for you. I hope to write more in depth on things once I get a little more caught up, so enjoy this for now. Previous Blogger posts have been moved over here too. Please share and subscribe or whatever you do here!

Oh, and I ran a playtest! It went well. More on that later. Maps!

Week 7: All the way back to February! I barely remember some of this and it’s difficult to read my handwriting. Top down for most of this level, more organic shapes on this side. At least one new monster on this level that I’m excited about, and some tricky little dungeon areas. If you make it through here, you’ll be able to access a couple of new levels. You can see I’ve switched from a blue brush pen to a pencil here. In this case, it indicates the whole area is underwater. Many of my notes for things to elaborate on are ideas for various types of flora. Some of them will eventually get watercolor illustrations.

Week 8: Back to the more deliberately constructed part of the level. Here players will find evidence of intelligent inquiry and experimentation. Wondrous devices and a variety of bizarre horrors. Many of my specific ideas here feel like placeholders and will require some serious revision, but I’m reminding myself this is a rough draft and an exercise. This level is intended to present itself as an abandoned sprawling complex that provides more questions than answers. Successful parties will improve their abilities to travel and survive underwater.

Week 9: These partial weeks are a nice little challenge. What’s so important about these two extra rooms? Why are they even there? Well, survive the big mean fish and the “pool” of swirling metal, and you may be rewarded. But probably not.

On to March! Back above water for a little while. More natural caverns and some airbreathing monsters. My favorite part of these sections is the underwater passages and secret tunnels. Things that will be fun to explore for those with the aforementioned underwater abilities. Also, obligatory mushroom farm.

Week 10: Most of Level 3 is one gigantic cavern, and a community of strange people live here. Many of them were human once, but all are Lost. The western end of the cavern is above water, and those who live here may maintain some connection with the surface. Unless players are openly antagonistic and violent, they will likely be treated peacefully here. If they themselves become Lost, they will be home. For RPG purposes, this is a village. Stay tuned to see the rest of it.

This post has been converted from a previous Substack post and dated accordingly. Please let me know if it seems like something got lost or if you find any major formatting issues.

Thanks for reading!

Andy