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.

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... 

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).

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."

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).

Works in Progress

I'm currently working on a couple of projects. I'm in the final review/fine-tuning phase of my next adventure for publication. It's an adventure I wrote probably 20 years ago. It was before I returned to D&D with the 5e playtest because the original manuscript was designed for my homebrew ruleset (built upon Bard Games' super-fun Arcanum series).

The adventure is set in the burnt-out ruins of a holy chapel in which the past fire hid a terrible secret about the goings-on there. The location was in my long-running King's Realm campaign, which was a Northern European/Arthurian setting, so the site's layout is very much based on a Christian chapel. This campaign wasn't explicitly "real-world" so the religion wasn't a Christian one, but it was monotheistic and similar to the CoE's organization, the king asserted Divine Right, etc. The "modern" religion of the Realm was also predated by a pagan religion that worshiped nature (and regarded the fey and elvenkind as holy). I poured two decades of creative energy into this world, so it had a lot of flavor and internal logic.

That was the first difficulty of converting this adventure into a publishable form. The events surrounding the chapel adventure were part of an ongoing thread that made total sense in the context of the whole campaign, but was meaningless padding without the context. I want my published adventures to be as modular as possible to give the DM maximum flexibility in inserting it into their campaign, so I had to strip out a lot of the adventure's background material and boil the "story" down to its core elements (the latter part wasn't actually that difficult). With the details toned down, I think many of the semi-Christian analogues to the adventure's flavor can be adapted easily to the DM's world.

In adapting the adventure to OSRIC, I've had to convert some of the mechanical elements to fit the system, but also expanded the material slightly. It's now a tight little adventure site with a pretty simple "plot" and a tidy resolution. It's a perfect side-quest or "on-the-road" adventure for cleric and paladins, but I did have to create some new hooks to make it palatable for more mercenary-type parties.

The manuscript is done but being edited, I'm finishing the fine details of the updated maps, and I still need to do a cover illustration, but my goal is to have the adventure done and published by the end of April. It's currently titled "The Haunted Chapel" which was all I needed for my own campaign purposes, but I'm thinking it might need a more evocative title to draw some attention. Then again, the simplicity lends itself to the modular design and I don't want to step on the DM's ability to adapt the adventure. It is after all, in fact, a haunted chapel.

My second project is partly for fun, partly for a future potential campaign. I discussed a bit of inspiration in a previous post, surrounding an idea to consolidate lots of my old kilo- and mega-dungeon material into a single creative concept. I'm calling it "Below Gwarnath" and its shaping up to be fun project.

Initially intended as an OSRIC demo for one of my legacy 5e players, I used the random dungeon generation tables in OSRIC to develop a sample dungeon map for my friend to bang around in and test drive the system. I first drew the map in Roll20 and was surprisingly pleased with the results so I then converted it into my house style in Photoshop (and added a few routes off the map, with the intention of expanding it). And expand it I have.

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.

The Hurricane Dungeon – The Curséd Caverns (Level 9)

With this map, the eighth of nine, we come to the finale of the Hurricane Dungeon. Out of all the levels, I fiddled with the content on this one the most as I wanted to both wrap up the threads that developed while writing, and come to some sort of conclusion at the bottom. This doesn't preclude expanding the levels and restocking the plundered areas, and there's a whole 'nother, even-higher level adventure to be designed for the Ivory Tower in the palace ruins, but the party can also call it a day if they conquer this level.

The original penultimate map is a more well-defined "location." I mean to say, it has a presence and implied function just by looking at it. It screams "evil temple" and seemed perfect for a conclusion-type area.

I like underground rivers, but even more than that, I love underground lakes. Gary really captured my imagination for natural underground spaces with the D-series of modules (and Tsojcanth, to a lesser extent). "The Sunless Sea" is just such an evocative name, and if the drow hadn't been co-opted by Forgotten Realms' "Underdreck" and turned into lame edgelords, I could have easily seen myself adapting Gary's source material into a full-on underground campaign.  I also relished accounts of the Black Reservoir level in Castle Greyhawk, so this level map is kind of my homage to all that.

A big lake in a cavern projects fear, creates a sense of vulnerability, implies unseen threats and alien danger... and, more importantly, suggests hidden treasure. Who knows what might be trapped in this cave beneath the black water? That scene in The Two Towers (the film) in which Gandalf fights the Balrog as they plummet down a chasm, then emerge into a vast space with their fires glimmering across the black water as they fall... I think it's my favorite scene in the entire trilogy. 

My first thought was to make this a drow temple-outpost, but as I said, I kind of hate the modern drow and wasn't sure I had a decent spin on the classic version, so in the course of writing the upper levels, I decided to make the inhabitants of the lowest level a mere cult of demon-worshipers. I made the decision earlier in the writing process, though I don't remember at which point (maybe as I was figuring out who the NPCs were for the Level 5 stocking roll), but the idea developed into a lot more than that by the time I got to writing the key for Level 9. Certainly, the decision gave me a generic creative goal to work toward that I (hopefully) make pay off at the end.

This level had a few more rooms than the previous two cave levels, and I added a few more just to provide extra living space for the cultists. I also added the new access from Level 8, plus some doors and other details like ledges and columns, and cleaned up a few incongruities and flaws in the map that were bugging me. After adding the title, scale, and shading, along with level key numbers, the map turned out like this:

I made my content stocking rolls for the original 26-room dungeon level and came up with the following initial results:

–Empty: 9 (34.5% / 35%)
–Monster:  8 (31% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 6 (23% / 25%)
–Stairs: 0 (0% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 0 (0% / 5%)
–Treasure: 3 (11.5% / 5%)

The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines). After adding 5 more keyed areas to the map, bringing the total to 31, I counted them all as "Empties," knowing I would have to fudge the final number in order to house the extra cultist encounters I intended to add to the temple. So, out of the now-31 rooms, the numbers looked like this:

 –Empty: 14 (45% / 35%)
–Monster:  8 (26% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 6 (19% / 25%)
–Stairs: 0 (0% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 0 (0% / 5%)
–Treasure: 3 (10% / 5%)

As I filled out the key, added new enemies (and removed some), these percentages changed again, but I'll get into that further below.

The Hurricane Dungeon – The Curséd Caverns (Level 8)

Continuing down into the depths of the Hurricane Dungeon, Level 8's map was drawn on the fifth night without power. Like the previous cavern map for Level 7, there are only 21 encounter areas here, so about half the number as the "finished" levels.

I like underground rivers, so this map has a big one winding right through, with many side caves and tunnels filling out the level. A pair of waterfalls, various ledges, and a series of rapids provide some nice natural obstacles as well. There are no ways off the level other than the river channel, so I needed to add a few; specifically, the three tunnel connections from Level 8.

As for connecting this level down to Level 9, one major thing complicated the situation: Level 9 is not directly below Level 8. Rather, it is down one level but shifted completely to the right. On that map, the river channel enters the level in the top-left corner, directly connecting to the river outlet on this map. This means that the likeliest routes down to Level 9 would be in the upper-right portion of the Level 8 map.

I also rolled one "Stairs" results on the dungeon stocking rolls, so I added a single tunnel down to Level 9. This provides for only two routes off the level (including the river channel) which results in a bit of a bottleneck to further progress. The party will have to either master the river channel somehow, or locate the cave with the statue where the new tunnel leads down. Usually, you don't want bottlenecks like this in your dungeon, but it's not so bad in this case.

That's because the layout of this level makes it clear that the dungeon "rooms" lie along the river's descending path, so it should seem logical to the players to investigate the downstream area where the river leaves the map. If they do, they will find that the river dumps via waterfall into a huge cavernous reservoir overlooked by a ziggurat temple carved into the wall. At the top of the falls, another cave entrance leads into other areas of Level 9. How they reach this area is up to the players and their resources, but it will at least be obvious that more dungeon lies in this direction. Even if they can't manage to get further downstream here, the knowledge of this area should motivate them to search the E side of the level for another route in this direction, in which case they will quickly find the new tunnel in the cave with the statue.

For some reason, I labeled many of the natural features by writing on the original map, which I didn't do on the others. I took the opportunity to remove the extra words and clean up a few things while adding river fords in two obvious spots. One of the "Trick/Traps" I rolled was a collapsing bridge, so I drew a span over the river. I also drew a connecting tunnel between two previously-isolated caves to give the level a little more flow. After adding a key and shading, the map turned out like this:

My content stocking rolls (for a 21-room dungeon level) came up with the following results:

–Empty: 9 (43% / 35%)
–Monster: 6 (29% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 3 (14% / 25%)
–Stairs: 1 (5% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 2 (10% / 5%)
–Treasure: 0 (0% / 5%)

The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines). Another high-empty, low-treasure level unfortunately, but I'll have to make due.

The Hurricane Dungeon – The Curséd Caverns (Level 7)

With this level, we move into the lower third of the Hurricane Dungeon, a series of natural caves and tunnels I titled "The Curséd Caverns." (Yes, it's not a very original name, but that's sort of the point with this throwback adventure.) This was actually the map I drew on our fourth night without power, but I moved some of the maps out of creation order to put similar-looking maps together. I enjoy drawing natural cave networks and I was happy with how all three cavernous maps turned out.

This one is interesting because three tunnels lead off the map , enabling it to link it up with additional levels. It has plenty of loopy-doopiness which is essential for a good cave level, although the southern-most portion of the map is bottlenecked by a single passage.

A major negative issue with this level is the fact that it only has ~20 distinct "rooms," which is slightly less than half the average number of the other levels. I could have increased this number by treating some of the larger caverns as multiple spaces, but I didn't want to get into issues of dungeon logic. Having too many creatures and things crammed into directly adjacent spaces starts to strain believability (despite the fact that the format has pretty low thresholds already).

I seriously considered this option up until the time of writing, but once I started keying the level, I felt it ended up with the right density of encounters. I didn't design these maps with any purpose or even end-use in mind. Were I to create maps specifically for a megadungeon (rather than the reverse happening here), I would make sure that each level had a proper number of rooms (minimum of 30) and enough accessways between the levels.

Speaking of which, I had three staircases and three chutes from the upper levels to connect to this level. I also rolled one result of "Stairs Down 1 Level" in the stocking rolls, and I already had the three existing accessways leading off the map. In addition, one of the stairs from Level 6 continues down to Level 8. I built the various stairs from pieces of the other maps, and added a few extra details from the key like ledges, a bricked-up wall, a set of double doors, a pile of guano, and a pool of magic water. I also created a new tunnel to connect areas 14 and 19, just so that end of the dungeon didn't feel so isolated and linear. When completed, the map came out like this: 

My content stocking rolls (for a 20-room dungeon level) came up with the following results:

–Empty: 9 (45% / 35%)
–Monster: 4 (20% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 4 (20% / 25%)
–Stairs: 1 (5% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 2 (10% / 5%)
–Treasure: 0 (0% / 5%)

The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines). I was disappointed in the high number of empty spaces and low amounts of treasure on this level, but kept the results as rolled. 

The Hurricane Dungeon – The Chambers of Woe (Level 6)

The Level 6 map is actually the last of the series, the ninth map I drew post-hurricane (and, mercifully, our final night without power, which came on the next afternoon). This is also the last of the "finished" levels in which there is stonework, excavated rooms and corridors, and features like doors and such. The remaining three levels are caves and caverns (with the exception of a finished temple area on Level 9).

I recall designing this map specifically as a maze with chambers, rather than a functional "place." With a few exceptions, the rooms are 30x30 with doors at one or more cardinal points, and most corridors are 50' or less in length. It's a tight, circuitous space without obvious purpose. It reminds me of an architectural circuit board, which perhaps has some sacred geometric significance for the empress's arcane machinations.

 

Compared to other levels, there are fewer secret doors, but all the larger rooms are hidden behind them. I don't recall making that deliberate creative choice, but it's an interesting one from a design point of view. It will also create these tantalizing blank spaces on the party's map, obvious secret locations with difficult to locate entrances far removed from the actual area. I see this level as a place where the empress hid important things inside a baffling maze. (She's insane, so who knows what she's thinking?)

There are also four staircases to other levels, one ascending and three descending. I was able to incorporate the ascending stair into the map for Level 5, and I had two additional staircases down from Level 5 that I needed to add to this map. Finally, I rolled four access routes on the stocking rolls for this level: A chute down one level, a stair down 2 levels, a stair down 3 levels,  and a chimney down 2 levels. Finally-finally, the original map has two teleporting hallways which could be interconnected, or they could lead to other areas/levels.

In the end, trying to add more multi-level stairs into the cavern levels below proved too tricky to resolve in a way that was satisfying, so I kept the chute and the chimney routes, and counted the two teleporting hallways as the stocked stairs, one of which goes to Level 8 and the other to Level 9 (as a backdoor into the evil temple). Doing so also provided me with a rationale for the fire giant who lives on this level. With shading, titles, and all the incidental features added, the map ended up like this:

 My content stocking rolls (for a 44-room dungeon level) came up with the following results:

–Empty: 16 (36% / 35%)
–Monster: 8 (18% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 10 (23% / 25%)
–Stairs: 4 (9% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 3 (7% / 5%)
–Treasure: 3 (7% / 5%)

The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines).

The Hurricane Dungeon – The Chambers of Woe (Level 5)

Continuing my series on creating this megadungeon, this is the seventh map I drew during the power outage, which became Level 5. Again, this is because I wanted to keep the "finished" levels and the cavern levels together (with the caves being the lowest levels). The original map feels a little uninspired compared to the others, though it is probably a more "classic" dungeon layout.

There are a few interesting features on closer look. Large rooms and long corridors, lots of loopey-doopiness, many secret doors and passageways, false doors marked with a 'T' for "traps," and hey, look at that...stairs to the levels above and below! It's not too bad, actually. The central, cross-shaped feature, includes directional arrows and four movement options. That's cool. (I was certain I cribbed this idea from somewhere, and sure enough, a similar feature is in the OD&D Sample Dungeon.) So, I felt pretty good about what I had to work with as I started fleshing out this level, even if it's a little Plain Jane.

I had already connected the staircase up to Level 4, and I lined up the stairs down to an area on the map I was using for Level 6. That map for Level 6 also contained a staircase up in a different location, so I had to figure out that connection as well. The stocking rolls for Level 4 had also indicated two stairs, a pit shaft, and a trap door and ladder leading to this level, but I had already placed those by the time I began work on Level 5. Finally, my stocking rolls for Level 5 included an additional two staircases and a chimney exiting down from here. Once I added those access routes, along with the room key numbers, a title, and shading, the level looks like this:

 My content stocking rolls (for a 35-room dungeon level) came up with the following results:

–Empty: 11 (31% / 35%)
–Monster: 4 (11.5% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 11 (31% / 25%)
–Stairs: 3 (9% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 5 (14% / 5%)
–Treasure: 1 (3% / 5%)

The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines).

The Hurricane Dungeon – The Chambers of Woe (Level 4)

The fourth level uses the sixth map I drew, this one on October 2, 2024. Maps 4 and 5 were both cave networks, but I wanted to keep all six "finished" dungeon levels together, with the three cavern levels being at the bottom so I moved the order around. This particular level had some interesting features: Large rooms, a chamber with a huge pool of some sort, and a massive central chamber with an altar and four columned wings projecting out from it. A few secret areas, lots of statues, and a second pool of water provided additional inspiration but, like the previous level map, this one included no access points, neither stairs nor passages leading off-map.

I knew from keying Level 3 that I had added three stair locations down to this level, and there was a fourth stair down from Level 2 as well. I also knew that the next map I was going to use for Level 5 had an access stair drawn on the original, so I would have to place that stairway down on this map. Finally, my stocking rolls came up with five (!) access points, more than twice the average statistical percentage for a level this size. I didn't end up using all of the stocking access points as rolled, which I'll get into further below. After adding all the access points, title, and location numbers, the map looks like this:

My content stocking rolls (for a 41-room dungeon level) came up with the following results:

–Empty: 11 (32% / 35%)
–Monster: 7 (14.5% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 13 (29% / 25%)
–Stairs: 5 (12% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 2 (5% / 5%)
–Treasure: 3 (7% / 5%)

The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines). Pretty close, statistically, with the "Stairs" result being the only real deviation.

The Hurricane Dungeon – The Upper Works (Level 3)

Level 3 was the third map I drew during the power outage. The direct correlation between creation date and level number ends with this one, however. The level has a few unique features to the other maps I'd drawn so far. For one: It has an entrance portico and an exterior area (bottom); two: It contains no routes (stairs, etc.) to other levels; and three: It has a teleporting passage similar to Level 1, but its destination is "off-screen."

Again, these maps were just unrelated doodles at the time I drew them so I wasn't concerned with logical structure or access points. This particular map's weird features (at least the first two) created some design challenges as I developed these maps into the mega-dungeon.

The problem posed by the front entrance/exterior comes when lining up the maps. I didn't want to "shift" any of the maps if I didn't have to. In this case, if you lay the first three maps on top of each other, the exterior cliff wall drawn on level 3 intersects with a few areas on levels 1 and 2 above it. It's a discrepancy that's fairly easy to hand-wave if you're not nitpickey. But I am, so I accounted for the exterior space in the key, describing it as a recessed area carved into the cliffside. This kinda deal: >>>

Not the greatest solution, but it works. Especially because shifting the dungeon would have complicated some of the level connections that I still needed to add to the map. There were already two stairs and an elevator to be added from Level 2, and my stocking rolls added another two stairs down to Level 4. Counting the main entrance and teleporting passage as additional routes, Level 3 has seven points of access – not bad at all. (I added an eighth access point in the stirges' room, and the dungeon's ventilation system adds even more, unquantified access points, but both require miniaturization of some sort so I'm not counting them in the total.)

After placing all the new stairs and marking the destination point of the elevator, and then adding a title and key, wall shading, and some incidental details (such as blockages and a pit trap), the map came out like this:

 My content stocking rolls (for a 37-room dungeon level) came up with the following results:

–Empty: 16 (43% / 35%)
–Monster: 3 (8% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 14 (38% / 25%)
–Stairs: 2 (5% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 0 (0% / 5%)
–Treasure: 2 (5% / 5%)

The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines).

The Hurricane Dungeon – The Upper Works (Level 2)

With the Level 1 key under my belt, writing the key for Level 2 was simply a matter of refining the format using the map I drew on our second night without power. Note that I did connect this map with the first map, via the stairway in the center-west portion of the map. I included only one other exit from the level to the east-southeast, hidden behind a secret door. 

There was also the nearby circular room with two levers and a floor circle, which I recall thinking of as some sort of elevator platform/shaft while drawing; but it, too, was concealed behind secret doors. Getting off this level would be a challenge, as providing those inter-level connections wasn't an objective at the time I was just doodling a map. I also wish I had drawn passages leading off the map, to expand the level horizontally. I mean, I still can with some Photoshop trickery, but I wish I'd thought to.

In designing Level 1 for this megadungeon, I added two stairs down to level 2, so I knew I had to add those connections to this map as well. My stocking rolls came up with two additional "Stair" results: one "Stair down 1 level" and one "Stair down 2 levels." The descending stair on the original map (near the "elevator" room) was proving difficult to sync up with the map for level 3, so I made that stair the one that went down two levels (to Level 4) and made both newly-rolled stairs a single-level drop to Level 3. The elevator platform ended up also descending one level to Level 3. 

After adding the new points of egress, keyed room numbers, a title, and shading, the map looked like this:

 My content stocking rolls (for a 40-room dungeon level) came up with the following results:

–Empty: 11 (27.5% / 35%)
–Monster: 10 (25% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 13 (32.5% / 25%)
–Stairs: 2 (5% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 2 (5% / 5%)
–Treasure: 2 (5% / 5%)

The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines).