Bugspittle's Hive

Bryce over at tenfootpole.org reviewed The Heart of St. Althus and gave it a "The Best" ranking. Pretty pleased about that, as this adventure was a lot of fun to design and run. He had a lot of nice things to say about it, so be sure to check out his review.

I'm hard at work on the latest adventure I intend to publish, titled Bugspittle's Hive. The basic premise is that a malevolent faerie wanders the earth, occasionally settling in one place to torment and murder local humans, before moving on again. He lives in a magical mound that he can transport with him on his travels, a lair that combines the comforts of a country manor with the winding tunnels and caves of a subterranean insect hive. Dwelling with him are a slew of magical, fey-infused insects that do his bidding, for Bugspittle created them and can control them. The evil creature has recently settled in a spot near to the party's current location, and his actions have attracted the attention of the characters somehow (various hooks are provided).

This adventure is around 15–16 years old, and was part of my 20-year King's Realm campaign , a pastiche of Arthurian legend, Northern European/Scandinavian folklore, and Church of England-style monotheism. The party in that campaign became embroiled in a religious mystery that would ultimately reveal the ancient pagan roots of the king's throne, and its connection to the faerie realm. The party's investigations led them to confront Bugspittle in his lair, though he was only a middling piece of the larger plot, which involved much greater powers.

Below is the original map for the adventure, just a quick isometric sketch for my personal use at the table. I always intended to draw a proper map, but we arrived at the adventure before I had time to do another version, and then the party made short work of the place, so I never bothered doing it. Years later, I expanded the basic idea for my 5e tabletop campaign, placing Bugspittle's lair as a site deep within the Gloomy Forest hexcrawl map. In this campaign, Bugspittle had a relationship with Etta Capp, the spider-matron of Etta Capp's Cottage, but the party never discovered his mound.

The premise for the original adventure came from reading about the Filipino fairy spirit called the Nuno sa Punso – the "Ancestor of the Mound." He is a temperamental spirit that lives in anthills and termite mounds, and inflicts terrible punishment on anyone who disturbs his mound. Superstitious Filipino farmers know never to plow through an anthill, for fear of angering the Nuno. 

The Nuno curses his clumsy victims by spitting on them. The enchanted sputum causes the afflicted area to swell painfully (like a fire ant bite, I reckon). The curse then expands to other areas of the body, causing a variety of horrible symptoms like high fever, aches and swelling of the extremities, bloody vomit, and black urine. 

I thought the idea of an evil/angry fairy who lived in a hive and manipulated insects was a neat idea, so I borrowed it for my campaign. I converted him to more of a traditional, European-style fairy, and named him Nunyo Bugspittle to honor his origin (and mode of punishment).

When I decided to start publishing some of my old adventures, this one immediately made the list as it's very different from a lot of my other work. In reviewing the original materials and the expansion notes, I decided that the expansion was too much. Realizing the original was just about the perfect size, I decided to revert to that version with just a few extra ideas thrown in (the best few bits of the expansion material).

I don't yet have a firm release date in mind, though sometime by the end of July/early August would be good. The adventure's conversion to OSRIC is complete and a first draft of the write-up is about 90% done. I've finished the first round of new maps as well, though I have more to add and touch up. I'm also working on some original art for the adventure: A cover piece depicting Bugspittle's mound, and several interior illustrations of Bugspittle and his fey-bugs. My timeline may be a bit ambitious as real-life work projects are chewing up a lot of my time (and writing output), but I think it's possible.

Here's a preview of the new maps...

Below Gwarnath – Map Generation Walk-through (Part 1)

As I'm finishing up the final sections of Level 1 of the Gwarnath mega-dungeon, I thought it might be fun and possibly useful to record the series of rolls I made to generate the dungeon from the tables in OSRIC. This is what I have generated so far...

I have zones O and P to complete on the Level 1 map, so this walk-through will be for zone O. As you can tell from the image below, most of the zones surrounding it are completed, so most of the routes into this zone are already set (lettered A-G in the order that I progressed to generate the dungeon). 

Zooming in to zone O, I decided to start in the north-west corner (the 10-ft. wide open passage from zone K marked 'A'). I'm using cardinal directions when referring to the extant map, but while generating the dungeon, directional descriptions become a little more complicated. The dungeon generation tables were built to facilitate solo play, so everything is oriented to how the solo player perceives the dungeon unfolding before them as they explore. Thus, the tables use the terms "left" and "right" to describe the dungeon from the solo player's direction of travel. In this case, the "player" would be traveling south down corridor A. From their perspective, "left" is west, "right" is east, "ahead" is south, and "behind" is north.

As corridor A is a continuing passage, we will roll on Table 18: General (in OSRIC) or on TABLE I.: PERIODIC CHECK (in the DMG). Both versions use a d20 to determine results, with some variations in % and outcome, but roughly the same format. 

We're using OSRIC v2 for these rolls with a few personal modifications, which I'll discuss as we go. The result of the d20 roll is a '15' = "Stairs." The table indicates that there is an immediate follow-up roll on Table 13: Stairs. A quick d20 roll on that table results in a '7' = "Stairs down 3 levels."

Since the first roll indicates "what's next" after the end of the continuing passage ('A'), I simply add 20 ft. to the passage length so as to accommodate the stairs, and then close off the end. I drop in the lines (which are 11 pixels wide, centered on the 1 pixel grid line – so 5 pixels to either side of the grid line). To draw the dungeon walls, I create an 11x11-pixel square using the rectangular marquee tool, filled with black, then I stretch the square to the desired length using the transform tool. This gives me a nice, consistent solid line that lets me line up and connect various wall segments, quickly and easily. For caves, I use an 11-pixel brush and free-hand the contours using Ctrl+mouse clicks.

Once the walls are set, I add a mask and insert the stairs icons, along with a key note to myself that these stairs go down 3 levels to level 4 (the 'v' is a directional indicator, not a letter). These results end this particular route into zone O, so we move on to the next access route 90 ft. to the east (labeled 'B'). 

Below Gwarnath: Bestiary – Converting "All the World's Monsters" to OSRIC (Part 1)

In developing my own stocking tables for the megadungeon, I want to incorporate not only AD&D/OSRIC monsters (including Monsters of Myth), but also thematic creatures from other sources like the Fiend Factory/Folio, Monster Manual II, Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha, Dragon Magazine, etc. I also want to use the classic, 3-volume "All the World's Monsters" from 70s-era Chaosium.

ATWM Vol. I

For those not familiar with that series, ATWM was a collection of monsters from various homebrew sources. Many of the authors are rando contributors, but quite a few are luminaries of the early scene. In addition to being edited by RuneQuest designer Steve Perrin and Jeff Pimper, contributors included Dave Hargrave, Lee Gold, Paul Jaquays, Steve Marsh, Glenn Blacow, Steve Henderson, and Clint Bigglestone.

I was introduced to the ATWM books via my high-school DM's megadungeon, Darconea—a 20-level stack of Dungeon Geomorphs. The DM used lots of ATWM monsters throughout the dungeon, and they provided many harrowing battles and persistent nuisances. Several of the monsters (Doomguards, Gnomes of the Yippurai, Scrubbing Bubbles) became frequently-encountered elements of the dungeon's ecosystem. 

The books were landscape-oriented, written in all-caps, dot matrix letters, and featured crude ink drawings of some (but not many) of the crazy creatures. The stat blocks (example at right) were atypical of D&D, most notably featuring dice ranges for Intelligence and Dexterity, and frequent use of non-d8 Hit Dice that sometimes scaled to make the monster tougher. The stat blocks include details on encountering the creature (lair, wandering, treasure type, etc.) Armor Class is sometimes also a range, or has unexplained modifiers.

The mechanical ranges for the various stats often lack game-logic and seem up to the designer's whim. Some of the numbers get absurdly high. No real explanation is given in this book as to the mechanics of the system the monsters are designed for (maybe OD&D?). Volume II describes the "Perrin Conventions," which was an alternative system of OD&D used by West Coast players (similar in many ways to Dave Hargrave's Arduin system) and, I presume, the native system for these books as Jeff Perrin is the series' editor. Later ATWM volumes also give instructions for converting the stat blocks to RuneQuest and Tunnels & Trolls. I'll discuss the example monster above a little later, as it is on my Level 1 list. I'm sure all the vagueness is related to copyright law and early TSR's eagerness to squash any unlicensed third-party products.

Once I started DMing and learned more about how the AD&D system actually worked, I realized that most of the monsters are horribly designed and mechanically broken. The system is only OD&D-adjacent and seems to bear little resemblance to the mechanical underpinnings of that game. It also bears little relation to Chaosium's alternative-D&D game: RuneQuest. The stat blocks are wildly inconsistent and the dungeon levels assigned to some of the monsters are totally out of whack. You have to adapt all these monsters to D&D standards to use them properly.

Despite the books' many flaws, and though many of the monsters are complete garbage, there are still quite a few unpolished gems sprinkled throughout all three volumes. I want to take these diamonds-in-the-rough and convert them to OSRIC in a way that retains the core creative idea but fixes their broken or half-baked mechanics.

Each ATWM book contains tables of its monsters by creature type, terrain, and dungeon level, so I made lists of the monsters by levels 1–3 (for starters), and then I read them carefully to figure out which ones I wanted to convert for use. I'll discuss each one, but I'm not going to bother converting all of them because many aren't worth it. Not necessarily because they're bad, but because they're pointless or redundant with existing monsters. But make no mistake, a lot of them are just terrible.

This post will deal with the listed "Level 1" monsters from All the World's Monsters, Volume I (according to the index):

• Demon, Serpent (Lesser)
• Goblin, Glass
• Kill-Kill
• Maggot, Mind
• Plink Plant
• Weakling
• Worm, Mind

Several of these monsters are quite deadly for 2nd and 3rd-level characters, much less 1st (if we take the given that "dungeon level" equates roughly to "character level"). When I choose the monsters I want to use and then convert them, I will definitely realign their xp value and level designation. Let's dive on in...

Below Gwarnath – Level 1 Map Progress

I've finished mapping zones L, M, and N, and am finishing up zone O. I've been documenting the actual process of generating the random dungeon, recording my rolls and accounting for my creative decisions. I thought I would write a step-by-step tutorial for using the system, and I'm taking plenty of screenshots to show how the dungeon map evolves with the rolls.

I'm really impressed at how much interesting architecture you can create with just 24 short tables, and I'm sorry I didn't figure out how to use them earlier in my DMing career. The tutorial is already pretty long, so I'll probably break it into several smaller entries, which I'll start posting soon. As with my earlier progress posts, the map is too big for blogger, so this is a lower-res image. A full-size (7200 x 7200 px) image can be found here.

The basic concept I'm developing for this campaign is that the dungeon levels beneath the ruined city are not built to be a deliberate maze, but are simply the basements and sub-basements of Gwarnath which have been compressed under eons of construction layers, and broken by tremors and shifting earth, forming a disjointed, labyrinthine complex.

There have ended up being lots of circular rooms and chambers on this level, which I imagine are the bases of the city's once-soaring towers. For this level, all the stairs and shafts that "go up one level" on the table emerge into the ruins. Once this level map is complete, I'll use those routes and some of the other interesting features to anchor a map of the city ruins above, which I'll draw next. 

My immediate goal is to have the city level and at least 2 dungeon levels completed by Fall, when I will likely be ready to start the campaign. I still haven't decided if this will be for my Roll20 guys or my tabletop girls (or maybe both on different nights...it might be fun to have competing parties).

The Heart of St. Althus for OSRIC Is Now Available at DriveThruRPG

My latest adventure is now live on Drive-Thru RPG. I discussed the background and development of this one in an earlier post, so here's the cover and a few sample pages to check out.

 

Below Gwarnath – Level 1 Latest Progress

The Heart of St. Althus has been uploaded to Drive-Thru RPG, so while I'm waiting for it to be approved for sale, I turned attention back to developing my next campaign's mega-dungeon. Since my last post, I've filled in zones C, D, H, and I (including some creep back into neighboring zones that still had room to squeeze in some more dungeon).

Other than the four initial zones, I haven't rolled out any of the contents of the keyed areas yet, as I'm still developing customized tables for this campaign. I intend to stock each zone individually and post about the results when I get to that point. Below is a look at the map thus far, and here's a link to a higher-res (7500 x 7500 px) version.

To this point, I've been using the OSRIC tables to generate everything, but the more comfortable I get with these tables and the ones in the DMG, I'm liking the DMG version more. One of my main complaints about OSRIC's tables over the DMG's is one little result on one table. When following the course of a dungeon passage, you make a roll at the end of each corridor length to determine what's next. It's called "Table 18: General" in OSRIC, while in the DMG it's called "Table I.: Periodic Check."

They largely mirror each other, with the main differences being the placement and percentages for the same line items (for example, OSRIC provides for a 25% chance to come across a door, compared to the DMG's 15% chance). I'm dissatisfied with the OSRIC table due to the absence of the "Trick/Trap" result from the DMG. I've read that many of the little math differences in OSRIC come down to not wanting to emulate AD&D too closely, so perhaps that's the reason it wasn't included in this table, but I'm missing the presence of the occasional hallway trap.

I don't like the Wandering Monster result in both tables, either. I think it's there to facilitate solo play, but that's a different procedure than generating a dungeon, one that's already accounted for elsewhere in the rules. Is a solo player ALSO rolling an encounter check every proscribed period? In any case, I don't get it. So, as a compromise, I've decided to continue using the OSRIC tables, but treating all "Wandering Monster" results as a "Trick/Trap" instead. Same percentage chance as in the DMG, too.

I'm well into mapping zone L, and now that I've completed my latest publishing project, I may start properly keying the map soon as a test run for my new encounter tables. 

In addition to working on this, I've begun work on my next adventure for publication, an update to/adaptation of an older adventure entitled "Bugspittle's Hive." I'll have more to say on it in the near future, but it's a magical fairy mound full of insect ickyness. I've often referred to it as a "spiritual sequel" to "Etta Capp's Cottage."

The Heart of St. Althus – Finished Cover

Cover illustration is done, and the manuscript is complete and formatted. I'm giving it one final review and then I'll upload the file to Drive-Thru this weekend. Should be available sometime next week.