Descent Into Madness

Making the worst of a bad situation

After these long days and weeks, I’ve begun to feel comfortable in this new skin. Muscles and joints have started to adapt and move differently, and travelling through the water with such ease is truly a joy. Breathing fluid is still uncomfortable and shocking, but I think it will become natural over time. However, nothing can last. As soon as Algite opened the seal, everything changed…again.

Whether by a flaw of engineering or a devious trick of design, there was nothing below us but open air. As the sea fell out from under me, I thrashed about blindly, desperate for purchase. The appalling dryness of it all was the biggest shock. And the sound, overwhelming and painfully harsh. A rush, crack and a scream from below was the last I heard of Algite alive. As I gathered my senses and reconciled my surroundings with my bewildered equilibrium, I found myself clutching a small spongey tree growing from a rocky ledge. Water poured down the slope around me, and far below I could see more rocks, illuminated by an unearthly light. But the depths were gone. I was left hanging in open air, my new gills flapping helplessly while my nose and lungs struggled to remember how to do that which was once effortless instinct.

- D’Bittel Bramms, Undersea Dungeoneering for Newbs and Landlubbers, vol. 1

Harry Clarke - From Edgar Allan Poe ([1919]), “A Descent into the Maelström”,

Perhaps it’s a coincidence, perhaps these are things that just bounce around in my head at all times, but I’ve recently been contemplating some unrelated Poe stories for a completely different project. I hope to share more of that someday, but this Harry Clarke illustration felt timely and appropriate. I love a nested narrative and they always seem so fitting for tales of the sea. Poe, Coleridge, and William Hope Hodgson all do it well. A character narrator who has clearly seen some shit. A grizzled old seaman who doesn’t really have any advice except “Don’t do what I did, it won’t end well.” Usually the Sole Survivor, cursed with second sight plagued with guilt and nightmares, and desperately in need of some therapy. Or just lots of rum. People better educated than I have surely written books on the subject, so I’ll move on.

As I’ve been busy with deadlines and projects the last month, I thought I could save time by skipping the little narrative bits I’d been putting at the top of these posts. This week I was feeling inspired, and I actually drafted that snippet prior to my scheduled every other Sunday blog day! Reflecting on these types of preambles and little story introductions has me wondering if this is just a good inspirational starting point for the author, a warmup exercise? That’s kind of how I’m feeling about these right now. It sets the tone, introduces some flavor and world-building to the story. I’ve missed writing them. It’s a lot easier for me to make up a short bit of fiction about previous adventurers and their delving than it is to talk design process or RPG theory (of which my knowledge is thin and my interest fleeting.) Even better, I love making up fictional books!

Now I’m sitting here writing a blog about writing a blog about writing a dungeon. If you’re new here, it’s amazing you made it this far, but I’ve said from the beginning that this whole #Dungeon23 experience is an exercise. This is an attempt for me to sit in a chair and try to write…anything. I have stacks of ideas but little free time or motivation to work on any of them. Daily stress and the extreme amount of attention it takes just to do my day job has made it hard for me to enjoy being a creative person for many years. Check out my first post if you’d like to know more. The goal of this dungeon and the accompanying blog are an attempt to develop a writing practice and a way to hold myself accountable for it. The bonus side of this is I can share it with a couple of fellow nerds who might be interested. I’m still not a writer. I’m barely an illustrator. But I’m working on it!

Just two weeks to share with you today, to keep up with my posting routine. I have settled into my previous spring schedule of being about two weeks behind on the dungeon. We’ll see if I can maintain that. One piece of art has been delivered and more are underway. (I did sign that contract, if you were wondering. I also received an advance!) Guitars are being built and repaired, and I’ve made breakthroughs on a couple of inlay design projects. The dungeon doesn’t care. The dungeon is waiting.

Week 25: Sometimes this really feels like I’m just trying to fuck with the players, but I guess that’s my job as a GM and dungeon designer. I can’t wait to playtest this and find out. Looking at the map more closely (it’s been a minute,) there is a ladder, but it is well hidden. Descending further is indeed madness, but what other choice does a party have? Continuing the theme of endless downward progress, but to what end? A pink hazy forest is visible several hundred feet below, with white “clouds” drifting above it. The dungeon will speak to you here, and it may even be helpful. A lonely spirit is searching for a companion and we see something wondrous that will be a shock to soggy underwater adventurers: BIRDS! They are perhaps less genial than the spirit. This brings up an interesting thought. Replacement PCs at this level of the dungeon may have been born here and may never have visited the surface. Note: make sure there are mechanisms for adapting or re-adapting to air-breathing!

Week 26: Ok, this one just looks like a Metroid level. An ancient sacred space, a gigantic calcified corpse, deadly traps, and something that might almost be a Boss Monster. If you can gain the favor of the Ambassador, you will be granted a great boon. If you can survive the deadly fangs of the Protector and tear your eyes away from its treasure hoard, you may gaze upon the Tree and the Mountain and the world between. The people here are peaceful and well cared for, if not entirely real. Seems like a nice place to visit. The first two entries for July feature the Sphere and Stair, a mechanism for transitioning from the underwater areas of the dungeon (specifically The Floating Gardens) to the deeper, drier areas where the mystery deepens. This page has a lot of Capitalized Things. Must have been a serious week.

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 as always for hanging out! I appreciate any subscriptions and share. Comments and questions are always welcome!

Andy

Now What?

The best way out is (not) always through

I was thinking a lot this week about what I’m going to do with this megadungeon when the year is over, which brings up a dreaded and so far thoroughly avoided topic: How Does It End? Short answer, I don’t know. I had hoped to have a better idea by now, but I simply haven’t had the time to sit down and think about it. Heck, I don’t even have a complete outline and at this point it’s a little late. It’s all kind of discouraging, because I have some good ideas here but it feels highly disorganized and I can’t help but wonder if I took a wrong turn somewhere. I take some solace in the fact that it’s merely the rough draft, but as with many things I start, I have a difficult time following through. I am committed though, and looking forward to eventually going back over all of this and trying to make sense of it. Will it become a Finished Thing, worth sharing or publishing? Will anyone ever explore it for more than a session or two? These grander existential questions are not an ongoing concern, at the moment it all seems like some sort of fever dream. I do know with absolute certainty that it will end and that I will then take an extended break from this particular project.

As I write this, I should instead be working on my paid illustration work. Hey, I forgot that I never returned that contract, so I guess I don’t really need to. I could instead be trying to catch up on Day Job work, or I could be trying to write one of half a dozen other RPG ideas that I’m more interested in or that seem more tangible…maybe even completable! I don’t even really have anything coherent to write a newsletter about this week. I could write about the ridiculous Haunted Space House I’m working on for the Mothership RPG (a thing I’m actually excited about but don’t have time to work on.) I could write about blue pencils, sketchbooks, or how much I hate the Bristol board I’m using for the illustration I’m currently working on, but I’m exhausted. As expected, with illustration work due, I have fallen more than a week behind on the dungeon. I’m not stressing that, I’ve caught up before, and I’m much further behind on more important work. I still have several months of maps to share though, and I wanted to write something. Putting something out into the world every other week feels important, for accountability and to help me establish a writing practice.

With that, I’m gonna keep this short and get into the maps. Only two this week as I really am crunched for time and creative energy. I’ll try to keep at least that much going for the time being. Thanks for hanging in here with me. Please continue to read and share if you would, it helps keep me writing. I’d love to know what questions you have about this dungeon, games in general, art supplies (I have OPINIONS), guitar building, whatever!

Week 23: It seems like I still had coherent ideas and visions of a larger picture when I was working on these June entries. Most importantly, I had the good judgement to realize that nobody wants to play through an entire megadungeon anyway, and trying to keep it interesting and weird while being entirely underwater is just a bit too much. In fact, it’s even weirder if it starts to dry out farther down. Most of level 6 is a vertical descent through a tropical forest, clinging to the steep sides of the shaft. There are magical forces at play here, and discovering what shapes them is part of the puzzle. If they make it this far, PCs will have “unlocked” some powerful abilities to survive and move about underwater. Time to throw that out the window (for now) and see if they know how to climb! Plenty of potential for falling damage. I am making a note to myself to think about streamlining climbing procedures and rulings. (I could write several blog posts about how much time my gaming group spends fucking around with ropes in games.) Visually, it feels great to get back to the side view of the dungeon. It's all about the descent. Get Deep.

Week 24: I’ve hinted earlier that it feels important to me for there to be a point of no return in this dungeon. Not that it will be impossible to leave, but certainly not practical, and maybe not even desirable. One of the themes that keeps bouncing around in my head is the idea of the character becoming part of the dungeon. Not only is the dungeon changing as players interact with it, but there is a fundamental connection being made that will alter the way players play the game. Why return to a life of poverty and oppression if you can build a future here? If you make it this far, there will be ways to leave, but probably not the way you came. I want you to stand on one of these ledges and look up into the verdant dankness overhead, through which you’ve now travelled downward hundreds and hundreds of feet. I want that return to the “safe” parts of the dungeon to feel impossible, or at least not worth the effort. Or am I just a lazy dungeon writer and haven’t bothered to think of anything fully worth pursuing at the bottom of this pit? Stick around and find out. (I could write several blog posts about how bored I am of treasure and gold as XP, or how I think all endings suck, but that’s how this started and I am way too tired.)

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.

This was supposed to be a short one. Thanks for reading and sharing!

Andy

On Assignment

 This will all end in tears

Hey folks! I’m telling myself to keep it short this week. I’m diving in to a new illustration gig, which will consume my evenings and weekends for a few weeks. My day job is consistently pretty stressful and I’m way behind schedule, so blogging may take a bit of a backseat for now. I do intend to keep sharing maps and hopefully stay only about a week behind on the daily dungeon entries, so please stick around!

For fun, here are some little figure studies I’ve done recently to work on motion and fluidity. I like to think of them as dancing skeletons. I haven’t done any live figure drawing in many years and my grasp on anatomy has always been tenuous, but it seems to be good enough for old school RPG work. These little gestural sketches help me start loose, even if I tend to overwork things to exhaustion. The new assignment is to create three character illustrations for an upcoming but unannounced project. More about that later…for now, I’ve started hashing out proportions and movement in blue for the first character and I’m feeling OK about my progress.

Let’s talk about the dungeon! If you were here last week, you know I love a hexagon. You also know that for some reason, level 5 is not as much a dungeon floor as it is a fairly expansive underwater hexcrawl, surrounding the central shaft of the dungeon up to this point. I’m not even going to get into how much that increases the whole scope of this project. I had intended to create a hexcrawl for the surface of the world as well, so why not another? Fortunately, May has 31 days, which allows me to organize the Gardens in an interesting way. Four sections of seven hexes each and the extra three days become the “bridge” across. The central dungeon descends through the middle, but only grants access to two other hexes. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to reach the Gardens, and you could always just…swim.

The timing of my post didn’t really line up, so you’ll have to check out the previous one to see the first chunk of the Floating Gardens.

Week 19: So, due to the constraints of my planner notebook format, some of these hex chunks are sideways. Makes sense to me. I have yet to stick them all together to see what that looks like. Rough draft…just gotta keep moving. The increased scope of the Gardens means I’ve created a lot of very different ecosystems and faction relationships in rapid succession, so there is a LOT going on here and it’s fun to reread some of this a couple months later. I’ve also decided that beyond the general description, each hex should have a Secret. This chunk of the Gardens contains a Silt Desert, a village of tiny people, an ancient beast trapped in a labyrinth, and a shitload of seaweed.

Week 20: That’s a lot of weeks! This one is visually my favorite of the hex chunks. The dark hexes represent an expanse of empty sea that is magically dark and difficult to breath even for sea dwellers. The entries for those hexes are mostly a table of things that might ambush you in the dark. Good times. Of course, if you gain the respect or friendship of the Mountain, you may be granted safe passage. Yes, it’s an actual mountain…kinda. On its slopes live a community of water sprites who herd giant water fleas and ride waves of massive drifting leaves to move throughout the Gardens.

Week 21: Something has poisoned and killed much of the north side of the Floating Gardens. Think it might have something to do with the Giant Haunted Palace? No way to know for sure. Lots of fun things to think about around here, like lamprey skeletons and a minor sleeping god. Some big answers may be found, and PC indiscretion (or ingenuity) could set some major things in motion. But there are also helpful beings here, and a nice place spend the night. Stay for a while! Stay forever! This chunk features some of the things I’m most excited to illustrate when the time comes.

Week 22: The last three days of May create the bridge between the north and south chunks of the Floating Gardens. In the center is the rest of the dungeon, or at least a small access point. This is guarded by some serious opposition, as a lot of things lie in the balance between the Upper and Lower sections of the dungeon. That transition will be covered a bit better at the beginning of Level 7. I know, it’s complicated. I really need to work on that map of connections…

This page also features the first four entries from June. This is actually the area directly below a specific room on Level 2, but it would exceedingly difficult to access early in the party’s exploration of the dungeon. Nothing is impossible, and I look forward to seeing what happens here during an eventual playtest. The difference between a Metroidvania video game and a TTRPG Megadungeon is that one of them is breakable, and I like to encourage that.

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.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got tonight! I’d love to have time to write extensively about hexcrawls, but I probably don’t have anything new to add on the game design front. I just like to draw them and write random tables. I’ll see you soon, but don’t forget to subscribe and share! Tell me why you think hexagons are cool!

Andy

Work in Process

 How Do Art?

They came out of the darkness above. Our only warning was a soft thrum of bristly wings. Sickly blue skin shone in the wormjar light as one alighted on Tobby’s chest, driving its thorny legs into his armor. A yellow mist burst from the thing’s underside, splattering his face. He stumbled back, shrieking and flailing. Before I could get to him, the Cleaner’s fluttering mouthbrushes had scrubbed the melting flesh from his face. Our only hope was to run. There was nothing to be done for Tobby.

-unknown-

Hey folks, thanks for stopping by! I am still catching up here, but I am pleased to tell you that I have completed Week 32 of the #dungeon23 challenge, and am less than a week behind overall. Other things in life and work have been taking up a lot of my energy lately and I don’t have any deep thoughts about RPG design today. I do want to start sharing more art. Most of these sketches I’ve been sharing are just little doodles and colored pencil studies. Sketches are easy and loose. I don’t care if they are good. I have a much different relationship with completed work, especially for publication, and that can be a real struggle at times. Here’s a bit more about my current process for creating FINISHED ART.

In this instance, I was tasked to create a dungeon entrance in a hexagon for The Demon Lord Expansion for Twelve Years by Max Moon Games. I’ve done a few of these hex illustrations now and I enjoy the freedom and space they give me to work.

The first step is always composition and design. Thumbnails. Dozens of thumbnails. These are a few of the ideas I sent along to Max.

Hellmouth Hex Thumbnails

The two of us we will then identify design elements that make sense and, most importantly, look cool. This hex is meant to be a stone demon head at the back of a forgotten garden. A slightly more polished thumbnail, maybe larger, will be done to solidify the composition a little more. I always enjoy breaking the hexagon border with fiddly bits and I was having fun with silly plants and the broken path.

Once we've agreed on a good direction for the final piece, I will start a full-size drawing. I’m new enough to this that I’m still playing around with the relationship between drawing size and final print size, especially for zines. I think I’m figuring out that bigger is better. In this case, I think I started at about 160%, or whatever made sense for laying out a regular hexagon by hand. I also did something a little different with this batch of drawings…I did a huge amount of the pencil work in blue. Here’s what that looks like in process. Things are still pretty rough at this point, I’m still working out details and solving the puzzle of this space.

I might write more about blue pencils later. I did quite a deep dive to find the right ones for me, and I have a drawer full of all different types at this point. After the blues are done, I can just do one “finishing” pass with graphite to really tighten things up and get all the values right. This is that, scanned. A bonus of this process is that I get a lot less graphite all over the place, as I am a sloppy draftsman. You can see the amount of erased blue and overall smudging that it takes for me to get this far.

You’d think that would be enough, but no, still gotta ink. The pencils are scanned, blue is removed, and the remaining lines are printed full size…in blue, of course. I’ve been inking printed blue lines for a while now, and it makes a huge difference. By the time I’m done with pencils, my paper is torn to bits. Inking on a fresh sheet of Bristol is a dream. Still, this is the part that I have the hardest time with. This is the final version for all to see, and it must be perfect in all ways! It isn’t, and I’m growing increasingly ok with that. I’ve got some different techniques to work on, and I need to practice drawing plants. Overall, I’m pleased with this one. Most importantly, I learned a lot. That’s what this whole thing is for, right? Getting paid is also nice.

Ok, that got long. How about some dungeon maps?

Week 15: Players further exploring Sanctuary will find this level a little drier…for now. The strange people that lurk here are very protective of their home and their worship. Few among them can explain the actual theology of these creatures, and they seem to practice out of instinct and ancestral fear. Whatever they believe, it does seem to give them power.

Week 16: I was struggling a little bit with a way to keep this level interesting from a cartographic angle, beyond the usual weird dungeon/weird creature tropes. This goes back to my previous blog post about dungeon connections. So, what if different parts of this level are connected by a swift underwater river? It would provide sustenance for these people, and may be viewed as a divine gift in itself. But, what if it is also a deadly proving ground? Young warriors must pass this test to earn The Gift, and adventurers passing through this area may be challenged to a grueling race for survival.

Week 17: This spread format works a little better here than on the previous level. This bit in particular ties the rest of the level together by looping the river back on itself. Where does it start? Does it end? There are some fun and useful treasures to be found here if the PCs can navigate the river race safely. Previous dungeon levels may hold the means to do this. Satisfyingly, April 30th was a Sunday, so the month wraps itself up nicely on this page.

Week 18: And now for something completely different. What can you do to break up the monotony of a punishing, dark, wet megadungeon? Turn level 5 into a hexcrawl through a vast sprawling garden floating deep below the surface of the ocean. The Floating Gardens were always part of the plan, but never like this. The gardens surround the central shaft of the dungeon and mark a major transition to the lower half. I quickly realized this area will require a lot of extra work and some new procedures to think about, but I love how much it changes the feel of everything that has come before. It should make for a fun surprise when discovered.

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.

As always, thanks for reading! Please share and comment if you’d like. I’d love to hear your thoughts on art, process, and megadungeons.

Andy

Making Connections

Your network is your net worth

The water surrounding Farlo was always uncomfortably hot and acrid. If you got too close, your skin would start to boil. So, he cast his stone lessons down from that strange home atop his broken pillar and gazed benevolently on visitors. His life’s work was devoted to ceaselessly chiseling these cryptic tablets. Like most of The Lost, Farlo was once human, or something near enough to it. Possessed of lungs and gills, he could still survive Above, but he rarely ventured to the surface. His legs no longer functioned, though his twin tails worked just as well on land as at sea. Always willing to entertain the young with magic tricks and tall tales, he was beloved by the community, and was an old friend of Hungo’s.

- Tales of the Lost -

Look at that, two posts in a month! I am slowly getting caught up on this dungeon and that feels good. At this point though, I’m past the initial six month outline/superstructure I had envisioned. As expected, this will need to be redrawn, and I need to decide how the bottom half of the dungeon will be organized. I knew this would happen, of course. I’m reminding myself constantly that this is a rough draft and a writing and design exercise. I’ve just started to go back to Level 1 and trace all the room connections on a flowchart to help me keep track of this as I revise and annotate earlier sections. Seven rooms per page in my notebook is a good format for writing, but it makes keeping track of megadungeon connections tricky. I find it’s important to have multiple paths through each level and multiple ways to get to and from specific locations. This is especially true in a dungeon that is constantly shifting and changing. Some areas will only be accessible to PCs with special gear or abilities, shared knowledge, or permission from some faction or NPC. However, there should always be some way forward (or sideways or down, as is most often the case.) I won’t guarantee you can always go backwards. Here you can see my initial layout plan…loosely devised in the days before the daily challenge began, as well as all the connections on Level 1 and just a bit of Level 2. I like this flowchart/mindmap tool, and I think I need to do something similar for NPC and faction connections. Make sure to put a bold arrow between Hot Farlo and the wily bandit chief.

Okay, on to the weekly maps. Hopefully, the blogging will get caught up with the dungeon design in a few months. For now, you get four weeks!

Week 11: Back in March, I got bored with the planner format. As I think about all the RPG maps and books I love the most, I like things that are different. I like text in the margins, I like non-linear layouts and secret notes. I always like to throw tiny hidden details in my illustrations and maps. Embracing the roughness of this draft, I took a few weeks to experiment. The first one was not as effective as I’d like, but it’s definitely an idea I’d like to explore. Here we can see one portion of the underwater village of The Lost. Everything here should feel familiar in the way that an “RPG Village” operates, but also be visually and culturally alien.

 

Week 12: A better implementation of this format. I like the freedom it gives me to map. It still doesn’t really make sense with this notebook. One thing I’ve learned is how much I still just love a dotted grid the most. This section of the village is where one will find Hot Farlo and his dubious wisdoms. The image at the top of this post is just a sketch to keep me drawing, but it’s also one of the first times I’ve put much thought into one of the dungeon’s NPCs. It’s a good start, I don’t like his face, but it’s got me thinking a lot more about what exactly his deal is. This section also features a couple of strange dungeon phenomena and a giant fish skeleton

Week 13: The last bit of this level extends out into open ocean. (Note: I guess this is the first time that becomes possible, and will be a major revelation to the PCs.) Although it is protected by a physical barrier, it is not uncommon for hungry predators to get into the village and cause trouble. An ancient lifeform of strange origin tends a garden of worlds, and a strong current will carry you on a one way journey to Level 5: The Floating Gardens. There’s so much to describe here in such limited words. I have a long list of illustrations and handouts to help visualize the space when I revisit this. The beginning of April brings a new, more traditional dungeon layout, with plenty of secrets and traps, and a new type of enemy, deadly and devout.

Week 14: Digging into April for real. Tangled waterways give way to an intriguing series of rooms above the water level. A swiftly flowing underground river loops through the whole area, and surprises may appear suddenly if care is not taken. Plenty of hazards, both natural and handmade. More hints of advanced technology and superior intelligence are apparent here. Looking back, I find this section less appealing visually. For the sake of the writing process and keeping things moving, I still haven’t settled on a distinct dungeon “style.” Even when doing paid map work, I change it up from project to project, and that keeps things interesting. This project may be too large to give the level of detail I like to put into a map normally, so I’m not sure yet how the final version will look.

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

That’s all for now, I hope to have more for you in a couple weeks. As always, please share and subscribe if you’re into that! Questions and comments are welcome.

Andy

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

What's The Point?

I was a terrible farmer, even before I broke both my legs.  After that I spent the summer learning to swim and spearfish in Caraway Pond.  Dani would sling me over her shoulder like a bag of manure every morning, hike over the ridge, and leave me there. Jeno Slimps and some other kids found a tunnel in the mud behind some rocks at low tide.  I was the scrawniest and could swim alright, and we all knew there was treasure under the Pit in Mud Camp, so I crawled on my belly with a candle and a knife.  Mud and rotting weeds clogged the passage as it angled down, and it was a tight squeeze, even for my skinny ass. I'll never forget the smell. I was covered in snot and fish shit and Crael knows what else, but I thought I saw a glint of bright colors ahead. Couldn't get much further and wasn't sure if I could get out. I blacked out when the tunnel collapsed and woke up in the dark with mud up to my chest.  I shouted and heard an echo like some kind of well, and felt cold rough stone.  Tried to scramble upright but couldn't grip the slimy walls.  Up above I saw the shimmer of those bright colors, green and blue and peach and golden white. Light washed over me and I felt new strength in my weak legs.  Then the damn mud stood up and grabbed me...

- Vaus Hungo - 

Please Note: All of my written ideas about TTRPGs are very specific opinions and based on less research and experience than yours.

So, what is the point?  This is what I keep asking myself as I pursue this project. For single sessions or short adventures, maybe all you need to keep everyone engaged is player buy-in.  This is a concept I can appreciate and am generally on board with.  I'm just happy to be there with my friends.  I'm less convinced that all the characters need to be enthusiastic about the party goal or even outwardly cooperative. Try not to be a dick about it in real life.

For longer campaigns and MEGADUNGEONS, what is it that keeps players coming back?  The promise of imaginary treasure?  Probably not.  Some players are motivated by character development and narrative, playing out the story of some grand intrigue or apocalyptic conspiracy.  These are tricky things in an old school game.  Personally I'm happy to fully inhabit whatever rando Mörk Borg weirdo I just rolled up and jam until he dies.  On to the next bad accent.  Where's the middle ground?  As a GM (my preferred role), I try to never know what's going to happen next. The dungeon/setting shouldn't dictate the narrative of play, but it can tell its own story and it can be a mystery to solve.  It's entirely up to the players to decide if they want to pursue that, but it's up to the GM to keep them coming back. If the setting and the dungeon are good, it should make the GM's job easy. You might not need to kill the Boss Monster to retire a hero, but it might help.  Or at least you died stupid.

As of writing, I am currently caught up on my Dungeon23 entries.  Each new page brings more questions than answers, but pieces of the first few weeks are falling into place as later maps develop and evolve.  I have many notes in the margins of things to revisit or flesh out and random tables to create.  So the story of the dungeon develops.  Why is it here and what is it? I am constantly thinking about ways to tell that story to the players through play and discovery.  I don't want anyone (especially me) to read boxed text and it makes no sense to have long-winded expository NPCs explain things.  It also shouldn't be imperative that the party find any or all clues.  Lore should be open to interpretation, but what's the point of writing it if it doesn't affect the way players play? The journey of the party and their interactions with the world should be the only plot that matters. 

I will write more in the future about the joys of a persistent dynamic world as I work on the overall setting in which this dungeon resides.  I intend to use some hexcrawl playtesting as a way to create the larger world map.  Please get in touch if you're interested in playtesting either this dungeon or the overworld.

To the maps!

Week 5: Interesting choice to be made here. If each month is a level, do I break up the week to fit that schedule? Sure. I enjoy this page visually.  Last bit of sidescrolling for a little while.  I've made some decisions about the theme and style of Level 2: The Flood.  More on that later. Most of my reference material is in my head, but I hope to do some sketching of important landmarks for handouts or just to help tie things together.

Week 6: Now we're switching it up. Back to top down mapping, but the scale has changed to 10' per square.  This level is meant to feel vast and huge. It is for the most part unlit, and without careful exploration, players may not experience most of it.  That's ok. Mystery is good and there are fun secrets and goodies to be had.  There is also the possibility of breaking the dungeon, or at least changing it fundamentally here.  Did this place actually have a purpose?

That's all for now...I am hoping to post more frequently and in shorter bursts. It's quite easy to ramble on in this informal setting!  Thanks for reading.