Project Updates

I have several things ongoing that I hope to wrap up by the end of this month. Firstly, I was  looking over my Hurricane Dungeon level write-ups. It's hard to believe it's been almost two years since the hurricane hit. I really like the end-results of the maps and the random stocking rolls, so I decided to put them up on Drive-Thru RPG for others to hopefully enjoy. Since I was sharing them for free here, I put them up as Pay What You Want. I'm happy to give it away for free, but if someone wants to throw me a few bucks for a 10-level mega-dungeon, that would be okay, too.

So far, the first 4 levels have been up for a couple weeks, with over 600 downloads. That's pretty exciting. I'm sure a lot of those are 1e/OSRIC DMs, but I hope some 5e folks discover it and it stirs some interest in exploring 1e.

I'm also putting a group together to play-test OGRERAHK, my entry for the Adventure Site Contest 4 (or IV, I can't remember which numeral system we're using). I think it will take a few sessions to get through it, just because I will have some players returning to 1e after a long spell away, but an experienced party should be able to get her done in one long session or two shorter ones. It's just an ogre lair, but then again, it's a lair FULL OF ogres, which is certain to be a punishing time for everyone involved. I can't wait to run it!

Finally, my next adventure for publication, Bugspittle's Hive, is nearly completed. I just have to finish up the artwork. This one will feature several interior illustrations in addition to the cover art. It's my biggest adventure so far, probably 30 pages once I get all the maps and art dropped in. There are 38 encounter areas over 5 levels, with lots of verticality and multiple routes of access. There are also 9 new monsters, 7 varieties of fantasy fungi, and 7 new magic items. The chap at right is the adventure's antagonist, Nunyo Bugspittle. This is only the blueline sketch; I still have some detail work to do, but I'll be creating a finished version for the manuscript. 

Below is my blueline sketch for the cover illustration. The foreground stuff is pretty far along, but the trees in the background are just rough sketches for placeholders. I think it's coming along nicely, though. It features 3 of the characters from my cover to Aethelberd's Tomb. The pointing priest was an homage to the best illustration in the MM, so I reused him here. The fighter has also picked up a shield and the magic-user a staff.

Bergummo's Tower Is a Silver Best Seller!

My first published OSRIC adventure, Bergummo's Tower, is now certified Silver on DriveThru RPG after 8 months. Aethelberd's Tomb and The Heart of St. Althus are both closing in on Copper status as well. (UPDATE: A day later and Aethelberd's Tomb has made Copper!) When I started this, I had hoped to sell a few here and there, but all the three adventures I put up so far have seen good reviews and steady sales. I owe Bryce over at tenfootpole.org a few beers because every time he reviews one I get a big uptick in sales.

To be sure, I'm not lighting the gaming world on fire and I certainly can't retire on the income, but it's nice to know my creative output has found some interest among other DMs. I wish I could hear how they played out for different parties.

I've been playing D&D in some form since I was 13, and I'll be 60 next year. There are few things that have been as big a constant in my life as this hobby. I had dreams of making a living doing this when I was a kid, so being able to contribute something to the game, even if its leaving just a teeny-tiny mark, feels pretty good.

I have a fourth adventure that I'm almost ready to put out, but real-life projects are soaking up much of my writing time. Adventures 5 and 6 are waiting in the wings as well. My goal was to put out six this year, but I think I'll be hard-pressed to meet that at this point. I *should* be able to get adventure #5 out by year's end, though.

I've also got my entry for Ben Gibson's Adventure Site Contest IV completed, even though the submissions don't start until November. It's called, "OGRERAHK", and it is, indeed, a lair full of ogres in a big rock. It's a wholly new adventure that I hope to playtest in coming weeks, then I can fine-tune it and be contest-ready by the fall. Here's a sneak preview of level 1.

I'm on the short-list (or, rather, the short-bus) again for judging this year's contest. I had a great time judging ASCII, but I think I'll take a different approach to the written reviews this go-around. Previously, I took a super-deep dive into each one but I'm not sure how useful the results were. It's not that I minded going that in-depth, it just took a long time to do each review and I don't have a lot of that to spare these days. Especially given that we could have upwards of 40 to 50 entries this year (if the growth trend holds up). I'm excited to get my hands on a bunch of freshly-minted adventures, though.

Below Gwarnath – Level 1 Map Complete

The Level 1 map is fully generated. I actually completed it back in July, but I wanted to get my dungeon generation walkthrough posts completed before I showed the finished piece. I still haven't decided on doing a walkthrough post of the mapping rolls for Zone P. Those posts are quite a bit of labor and I'm not sure it would add anything to what I've already written. My real-life project is taking up a ton of my time and I still have a lot of work to do if I'm going to launch this campaign in the fall.

Anyhoo, here's the finished map. As with my earlier progress posts, the actual map image is too big for blogger, so this is a lower-res (1500 x 1500 px) image. A full-size (7200 x 7200 px) image can be found here.

I still need a surface map and a map for Level 2, plus I need to stock everything, but I'm not done with my monster and treasure tables. I mean, I could start right now if I needed to and just wing it, but I like to be more prepared than this, especially when I'm introducing sci-fi elements to a non-traditional fantasy setting. I want to set all this up properly so my players understand what's going on and can quickly grasp how to get started.

Very happy with how this map turned out and I'm really impressed by how well the tables work. I used to dismiss those random tables as kind of pointless, but it sure was fun watching the dungeon unfold before me. I can't wait to stock it and then throw my players into the fray.

Below Gwarnath: Bestiary – Converting "All the Worlds' Monsters" to OSRIC (Part 3)

 

Continuing my series of posts about the conversion of entries from Chaosiums' All the Worlds' Monsters, a 3-volume set of creatures published in the late 70s.

Part 1 | Part 2

This post will deal with the level 1* creatures from ATWM Volume III (*according to the internal logic of whatever game ATWM is playing... so far, I've found little correlation between AD&D's standards and ATWM's outcomes). The creatures on that list are as follows:

• Cuddle
• Death Seed 
• Demon, Succubus (Simplistic)
• Demon, Basic (0th Level)
• Demon, Basic (1st Level)
• Dingo
• Four-Eyed Hig
• Golem, Mud
• Hell Sprite
• Hush Puppy
• Khirra
• Possessor
• Titterer

There's a few interesting ones here on quick read-through, so hopes are high that I can pull some decent monsters out of this batch. I have encountered hush puppies and hell sprites in my capacity as a player back in the 80s, whilst adventuring in the depths of the mega-dungeon, Darconea. Let's get to it...

Below Gwarnath – Map Generation Walk-through (Part 2)

Okay, so this is where we left things in Part 1 of mapping Zone O.

I decided to move to the northeast door to start resolving that route into this zone (from Zone K). No particular reason other than to take a fresh direction. Doors also have a different dynamic than passages, so let's see what happens.

The roll to determine what's behind the door on Table 20 results in a '3' = "Parallel Passage." Checking the passage width on Table 22 is a '12' = "10' wide." Rolling a d4+2 roll to determine length came up a '2+2' = "40' long." Since it's a 40' long passage, we roll 1d4 to determine which 10' segment the door is located in, resulting in a '3' = the 30' section. This series of rolls means the passage runs east 20' from the door, and 10' to the west. We'll roll at either end to see what's next (although we're running out of room to the W due to the big circular room).

Rolling on Table 18 for the west branch comes up a '12' = "Side Passage." A follow-up roll on Table 21 is a '2' = "Left 90 degrees" (perfect!) A d3 roll for length results in a '1' = "10' long." Rolling on Table 18 for the east branch comes up a '15' = "Stairs." A follow-up roll on Table 13 is a '9' = "Up 1 level." This route will take the party back topside into the city ruins.

Below Gwarnath: Bestiary – Converting "All the Worlds' Monsters" to OSRIC (Part 2)

Continuing my series of posts about the conversion of entries from the old-school collection of creatures known as All the Worlds' Monsters, a 3-volume set published by Chaosium back in the late 70s. They're full of gonzo, often-overpowered monsters designed by some of the celebrities of the golden age of gaming. Part 1 goes into more of the history of these books.

They were such a huge part of my gaming past, so when building my stocking tables for the Gwarnath mega-dungeon, I decided to parse through each volume, pick out the best monsters, and convert them to OSRIC. Part 1 handled the Level 1 monsters from Volume I, so this post will discuss the Level 1 monsters from Volume II.

There are substantially more Level 1 monsters in Volume II than there were in Volume I, but the quality and usefulness is of the same degree (low-to-medium). From the index, the Level 1 monsters are:

• Beetle, Fire
• Gangbat
• Glitch
• Gremlin
• Helltide
• Imp
• Lert
• Locust
• Pseudowoman
• Raw'yas
• Slesszoyd
• Tate

Obviously, some of these monsters share the same names as those that appear in the AD&D Monster Manual. ATWM Vol. I and the Monster Manual were both published in 1977, with ATWM Vol. II being published in 1979. Many of the monsters in all three ATWM volumes originated in other, pre-1977 sources, or were from homebrew campaigns that existed between OD&D and AD&D, so it's not surprising that some of them share the same name. Let's have a look... 

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 Worlds' 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 Worlds' 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.

Adventure Sites III Now Available on DriveThru RPG

Coldlight Press has put the Adventure Site Contest III compilation up on Drive-Thru RPG, featuring the top-rated 8 submissions (out of 30 total). My submission, Ophidian Temple, is one of them. The price is FREE, so check it out if you want some good creative sites to drop in your campaign for your players to visit.

Also, my adventure, Aethelberd's Tomb, received a "No Regerts" ranking on tenfootpole.org. Woot!

The Heart of St. Althus – Cover Progress

My upcoming adventure was formerly known by its casual campaign name, The Haunted Chapel. I didn't really need to call it anything else, as I knew what the name referred to. I wanted a more interesting title for publication, however, so I renamed it after the holy relic enshrined inside the temple: The Heart of St. Althus.

Recovering the relic may or may not be the explicit goal of the adventure, depending on how the DM running it wants to involve the party in investigating the site. They may not even be aware the relic exists at the start of the adventure, but its presence in this site will be felt almost immediately by any Good clerics who enter the area. The item is based on a real-life holy relic: The Preserved Heart of St. Camillus.

I considered several ideas for the cover. One was an image of the chapel ruins, to give players a visual reference of the site, similar to what I did for the cover of Bergummo's Tower. Another idea was an action scene of some of the monsters encountered in the undercroft, like the Aethelberd's Tomb cover.

I ultimately went with an image of the relic as it seemed like an easier (and quicker) thing to illustrate, so I drew a quick sketch:

After scanning the sketch and drawing some blue lines for perspective, I converted the sketch into the basic shapes of the illustration. I still have lots of details to incorporate, and then need to color the whole thing, but its taking shape nicely, I think.

Below Gwarnath – Level 1 Map Progress

The manuscript and maps for my next published adventure are complete, and I'm in the process of drawing the cover illustration. I don't quite know if I'll make my self-imposed, end-of-April deadline, but I'm happy with where I am. I'm confident I'll have it up on Drive-thru in the next two weeks.

In the meantime, I needed a creative palate cleanser, so I resumed work on my Below Gwarnath megadungeon map. I'm drawing this using the random dungeon generation tables in OSRIC, and I'm developing some custom stocking tables to incorporate specific monsters and magic items (and tech items from Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha), plus a ton of homebrew material from old, unused campaign ideas. I still haven't decided if I'm unleashing this on my tabletop group or my Roll20 guys.

As I said in my introductory post, I started this map to give me a little test-bed dungeon to show one of my 5e guys what AD&D/OSRIC is like. We have yet to play that session, but I enjoyed the dungeon generation process so much that I kept going. Before long, I had four interconnected maps, each on a 24x24 grid, with branches leading off-map in all directions. I placed those four maps at the center of a larger canvas of sixteen, 24x24 grid "zones" (the whole image is 24" x 24", or 7200 x 7200 px). The following maps are all lo-res, as I had to shrink them quite a bit to upload to the blog, but I'll post a link to the full-size map at the bottom.

I've posted this version previously but want to show the progression, so this is the map I had after the initial burst of generation. The original zone I drew for the playtest was F, followed by G, J, and K (I'd already strayed into zones A and B by this point, as well).

My intention for the next bit of mapping was to finish filling out zones A and B, then move methodically to C, D, E, etc. But the randomness of the dice carried me down into zones E and I, before bringing me back up to A. This is roughly 2 or 3 sessions of casual mapping from the tables (a few hours' work, tops) at the beginning of April..

I shelved the map for a bit while I worked on my new adventure, but we had some relief over the weekend from the drought in our area with a nice steady rain, so I spent the day indoors and got some more mapping done by finishing out zone B. I decided to make the outside borders of this map the outer limit of the dungeon area, so any results that carried me off the larger map were either ignored or diverted. I had to tweak a few results to get certain areas to fit what had already been drawn, but I remain amazed at how the tables just WORK to create these spaces. Quite ingenious.

 

The only zone I've actually stocked and keyed so far is the original one, zone F, that I did for the OSRIC playtest. It was also rolled out using purely the OSRIC tables, but it wasn't written with the full blown concept I've since designed for this future campaign in mind. It's more similar to the approach I took with the Hurricane Dungeon, which was to populate the level with little, independent vignettes connected only by the shared environment. There's no big theme running, here, just day-to-day survival for the dungeon inhabitants. I may revisit the key once I get my stocking tables where I want them, but this is my interpretation of the results as rolled from the OSRIC tables.

>> Download Level 1/Zone F key.

>>Download the full-size map (so far).

Winners Announced for the Adventure Site Contest III

Ben Gibson over at Coldlight Press announced the winners of this year's Adventure Site Contest, and while my submission, Ophidian Temple, wasn't the top-prize winner, it did make it into the winners' bracket for inclusion in the anthology publication of the same name (due out sometime later this year).

I'm happy to have made the cut. OT was one of my first adventures written solely for a 1e/OSRIC campaign, rather than an adaptation of one of my earlier adventures for either D&D 5e or my homebrew version of Arcanum.

The winner of this year's contest is John Nash, who entered a cat-themed adventure, the Temple of Bast for BECMI/RC. He wrote one of my favorite adventures for last year's contest, Sausages of the Devil Swine, which made it into my top 5 picks during judges' scoring. John's a highly creative author, so I look forward to reading his submission.

While I'm obviously disappointed I didn't nab the top nod, I'm pretty proud of this one. It's deadly and has a fairly brutal time clock running that ramps the finale up to '11' if the party dicks around too long. Here's a link to download the adventure for yourself. Ben ran the temple recently for his table and said they had a fun time with it. Let me know how it runs for you.

Aethelberd's Tomb for OSRIC Is Now Available at DriveThruRPG

My latest adventure is now live on DriveThru RPG. This started out as an adventure for my first 5e campaign, but the players failed to bite down on the hook. They rescued the goodwife being held captive by the brigands, but noped out when she told them about the "whispers from down in the well." (Cowards.)

I ended up using the dungeon in another 5e campaign, but re-imagined for a Viking-themed setting. Several of the same players were in this party, and this time they bit. It played pretty well and they recovered the magic hammer, Angbolt, but never encountered the otyugh.

This is my second adventure for publication, and I have several more in development. It's gratifying to put my work out there, and hopefully others will enjoy running (and playing) it.

 

Aethelberd's Tomb – Final Cover

I've completed the illustration for the cover of my next adventure. I'm happy with it, though I could keep tweaking it forever. Better to call it "done" and move on to the next project. I'm giving the adventure a final review and edit, and hope to launch it on DriveThru this weekend.

Below Gwarnath

It's funny how inspiration works. A few years ago, I was running two different 5e campaigns. One campaign, for my tabletop group of noob players, was a forest hexcrawl in a pretty classic, vanilla-fantasy setting. The other, for my online group of long-time players (35 years or so), was another hexcrawl, a re-imagining of B2 through the prism of the American Southwest. Both campaigns occurred in the same world, at the same time, but in different regions.

The former campaign ended successfully, and we moved on to playing Labyrinth Lord, then transitioned into AD&D/OSRIC where we are now. The latter campaign ended poorly, and I dissolved it with a bad taste in my mouth that sort of soured me on that campaign world. 

When I shifted my tabletop group to LL, I developed a kilodungeon based on a mashup of U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and the Sample Dungeon from Holmes Basic. We used the Advanced LL rules, which was a good bridge from 5e. When they got to 3rd level or so, I began using OSRIC and they didn't really notice most of the rule changes. Technically, this kilodungeon exists in my 5e campaign world, and the girls are still gaming in it. I haven't returned to online play (as a DM).

Since rediscovering the simpler joys of the legacy rules, however, I've been considering a new campaign setting that better embodies classic adventure gaming. I want something less vanilla with more pulp elements. I want to inject some sci-fi and weirdness (but not gonzo-weird). And I want the players' activity to be mostly centered around a single megadungeon.

I've flirted with this concept over the years, and have accumulated multiple folders filled with various notes and ideas about what I could do. From my old King's Realm campaign from the 90s and 00s, I had the Lost City of Cwm Cannadr, a never-visited megadungeon within an ancient city that was swallowed by the mountains. From my 5e world, I had the Catacombs of Remedios, a magical, ever-changing labyrinth beneath the capital city, and Cragmoor, the multilevel, mountainside lair of an ancient red dragon. I have my abandoned Dungeon23 attempt: Tunnels Beneath the Earth, and its spiritual cousin in the unfinished Deep Vaults material. Most recently, I completed the 10-level Hurricane Dungeon, which I'll return to below. This is a lot of solid design work just sitting there, unused.

Though these dungeons are all different in background and scope, they share the same author (obviously), and certain stylistic and creative threads are all there as connective tissue. I just haven't hit on the right idea to tie everything together. The things I've come up with just haven't inspired or energized me to dive in to the work and start sewing the pieces into shape. I certainly don't mind tropes (in fact, I love them), but I just want the unifying creative idea to be a solid one.

So, last week, one of my long-time players from my 5e Badlands campaign expressed interest in learning about 1e. I agreed to walk him through the character creation process, and then run him through a little scenario (sometime in the near future; this hasn't happened yet). I'm finalizing two adventures to publish in the next few weeks or so, and I am at the stage of editing and layout that is boring and convenient to procrastinate on.

Needing a creative palate cleanser, I decided to work on the scenario for the playtest session. I had a blast developing the Hurricane Dungeon using the stocking tables, but I never used the random dungeon generation part for the map layout. This seemed like a fun excuse to try out those tools. Using the OSRIC tables, I drew the map in Roll20 as I rolled it out, with the default R20 grid size of 25x25 squares. At a 10' scale, this amounts to 62,500 sq. ft. of dungeon... a nice, contained little area to bang around in that wouldn't require a ton of work on my part. This is how the map ended up in Roll20...

Its a pretty low-res screenshot, but the basics are all there. I drew Room 1 and the stairs up as the entrance, then everything else was rolled out straight on the tables, including the stairs down. Unfortunately, there were no "Trick/Trap" results (bummer). I had to modify a few of the room dimensions and passage directions to fit the space, but that's to be expected. I also did the initial stocking rolls to determine the room contents, which you can see in small print (e.g., 'E' = Empty, "M+T" = Monster and Treasure, etc.) 

I rolled contents as soon as I completed drawing each room, which is different from how I handled the Hurricane Dungeon stocking. For that, I rolled a list of contents and then decided which rooms to place each piece of content in on the pre-existing maps. Here, once I knew the base contents of each room, I went back and rolled out the individual monsters and treasures. One thing I kept forgetting to do was roll passage width, which is why most hallways are only 10' wide, but in a limited space like this, I was fine with it.

I then took my monster and treasure lists and began outlining the dungeon key. That's when inspiration struck. At the top of my outline, I wrote the following stream-of-consciousness elevator pitch for the dungeon:

"The ancient city of Gwarnath lies in ruins atop the Plateau of Jjin. Hidden among the wreckage, numerous darkened portals, shafts, and broken stairs descend into its subterranean vaults. Tales of great riches and fabulous treasures abound, but the ruins are infested with monsters from the old world."

Not particularly original or groundbreaking, but something in those dashed-off lines sparked my imagination. Suddenly, I had a campaign concept that ties together all of my unused material in an unusual yet still-familiar setting. This "throw-away" adventure for a one-shot playtest will now form the cornerstone of the development of a megadungeon campaign that uses the previously-created material, stitched together by dungeon sections generated using the random tables and some of the custom methodology I used for the Hurricane Dungeon (a process which I've come to really enjoy... making creative sense out of random die rolling is a fun challenge).

I took the Roll20 map and applied my house style to come up with a new map, now with some branches leading off this 25x25 section into adjoining sections, to create a bigger level (eventually).

New ideas are flying, thoughts are being collected, and plans are developing, but this is the energy and motivation I've been missing for my home game. And its a setting I can use for both my tabletop group and online. I'll discuss the development of the outline and key in a near-future post.