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mellonbread posted:I decided that each floor of the dungeon would have enough treasure that a party of four could hypothetically level before getting down to the next floor. I used the Fighter XP progression as a baseline because they're about the middle of the pack (2000 for level 2, 4000 for level 3, etc). After totaling up what I had, I was a little understocked on the floor I started with (Level 3, the Ancient City), but I had enough excess on the floor above (Level 2, The Holy Mountain Ossuary and the Cult Stronghold) that it worked out. I think I still might be lowballing it though because some of that wealth is in secret areas or in the hands of tough/friendly NPCs not everyone will want to fight. On the other hand, I usually get two or three players when I run dungeon crawls, so the money that's there will stretch further. The conventional wisdom I've most often heard on this topic is that you should assume your players will find 50% of the treasure you place, and the other half will be lost to unvisited rooms, unchecked hiding spots, NPCs the players don't fight, and XP drain from character death. That's usually how I try to assess these things
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Feb 10, 2023 04:45
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SlimGoodbody posted:I'm gonna scan my (lagging behind 😞) dungeon soon OtspIII posted:The conventional wisdom I've most often heard on this topic is that you should assume your players will find 50% of the treasure you place, and the other half will be lost to unvisited rooms, unchecked hiding spots, NPCs the players don't fight, and XP drain from character death. That's usually how I try to assess these things But that's great, because now that I think about it I might have multiple player groups running through the same thing. And if the first expedition finds everything anyone else who's late to the table could just get softlocked by the harder stuff.
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Feb 10, 2023 07:43
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Okay, so here is what I have so far. I'm like two weeks behind at this point though and kind of stuck for inspiration and could use some help on concocting a puzzle. I'll get into that more once we're past the images.         So over in 1/13, you can see that I placed 8 stone sarcophagi. Each one contains some manner of remains, except for sarcophagus C, which contains an ooze (the ooze ate the remains that were once there, and only a few gems remain as evidence that there was possibly ever anything else in there. Each of the remains has some characterization and uniqueness to them. I want to incorporate this into a puzzle in the adjoining section (the section that will begin with 1/22) but I just can't seem to think of how. It could have something to do with the number of skulls in each sarcophagus, it could have something to do with the characterization of the remains (the twins, the lovers, the mother, the pauper, etc), it could be both. Two sets of remains are lacking a head (the skeleton which attacks from F and the one that was eaten by the ooze in C). The remains in the ooze coffin belonged to a worshipper of the Primordial Dream, and a smart player may infer this based on there being two matching gems and one odd gem out, as Primordial Dream's motif is its two closed eyes and one open third eye... and I now realize I forgot to note that the adherents up in the 1/1 area have medallions of a dreaming face with those gems anywhere except my brain, and right here in this post. But yeah, I figured the puzzle would maybe require choosing or ordering some skulls or something, and the players would have to use deductive reasoning to figure out which one represented the headless skeleton and which represented the completely absent one. If anyone has any cool puzzle ideas, please let me know. Otherwise, I would just really like any feedback or critique on all this. I'm not very experienced making my own dungeons, and while I really wanna try OSR stuff, I've only experienced it academically, via reading about it, collecting some game books, and watching YouTube videos. Is this dungeon too hard? Too easy? Too inscrutable? Too treasure poor or rich? Are the magic items cool or way too much or what? Can you think of anything I should think about as I move forward? Thanks for even taking the time to look at my stuff, goons! Edit: I was toying with the idea of the players being people who enter with basically no equipment, for the following possible reasons: - it's a requirement of a pilgrimage they're on - they're exiled nobles and it's their only way to reclaim their honor - they're criminals and it was either this or (insert terribly punitive thing) - they're just wretchedly poor and hope that this legendary journey will reward them with great destiny Maybe do it as a character funnel? But I don't know if it's deadly enough to be one. I'm also trying to figure out how I wanna deal with the "getting riches out of the dungeon is how you level" when you can't go back and the only way out is through. I was considering making the ferryman who takes you to the next month's section into a sort of merchant who will sell you "dream resin" in exchange for your treasure, which you can smoke or consume before resting to absorb an equivalent amount of experience. SlimGoodbody fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Feb 10, 2023 |
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Feb 10, 2023 08:07
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Looking good so far. The visual style is very appealing. The dungeon entrance reminds me of the Beherit, or the folio edition of the New Sun books. The water with the pile of sarcophagi is good. The potentially-recurring undead cleric is good as well. I don't recognize most of the creatures or the book they're from, so I can't tell how reasonable the monster battles are. If you're worried about difficulty then your best bet is alternate routes or areas to explore, so that the players don't just get stuck behind an obstacle they're underpowered for. I think it's fine for this tutorial area to be straightforward, but it's something to think about for future floors, especially if you continue with the one way boat rides between realms. I wish I could be more help with puzzles but I'm not very good at inventing them and I don't use them very often when I write adventures. There's one in my dungeon23 project and it's only a puzzle in the adventure game sense that it takes a small amount of brainpower to figure out that item A can be combined with environmental object B. When you say the puzzle should be based on some personal trait of the skeletons, my first instinct is that the grey ooze should be some necromancer or alzabo jelly that takes on the characteristics of the corpses it eats. So the actual solution is to induce it to eat the other bodies, so that it can speak in their voices or do something that they did in life, and therefore transmit that information to the players. What exactly that information is, I couldn't tell you. SlimGoodbody posted:Edit: I was toying with the idea of the players being people who enter with basically no equipment, for the following possible reasons:
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Feb 10, 2023 18:10
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mellonbread posted:Looking good so far. The visual style is very appealing. The dungeon entrance reminds me of the Beherit, or the folio edition of the New Sun books. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments! The monsters have mostly been from Basic Fantasy RPG, a generic recompile of your basic early D&D stuff. Some of it is from the Basic Fantasy RPG Bestiary, but I think most of the monsters are floating around in other books and editions (I know I remember seeing the allip and the grick in a Monster Manual for 3E and/or 5E at least). The cadaver I'd never heard of, but it is pretty much just a level 8 undead cleric that gave me an idea for a trapped priest lady that could help the party. I will keep in mind the alternate routing tip for the future. Also, I love your idea for feeding remains to the jelly to give it different qualities. I don't know if/how I wanna incorporate it into this section, but I am definitely going to use it at some point in this dungeon, it's too cool an idea not to. Thanks for the link to the Goblin Punch adventure as well, this is a useful read.
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Feb 11, 2023 08:24
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Archipelago23 week 6 report Returned to writing new islands instead of revisiting old ones, and I think I'm pretty much done with developing the exploration rules, so the last thing to do with the game's trying out a card oracle (next week I'll be using a list of short prompts, one per card in a poker deck, one prompt per island).    Cradle Island, Service Island, and Fort Pompeii from this week
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Feb 11, 2023 14:47
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Week 6 of The Walking Kingdom brings us to a precarious precipice with floating platforms far above the ground. Also a cool sword. I've established a fire/sun sect as a contrasting force to the electric/moon stuff from previous weeks. A religious schism seems like fertile storytelling ground.
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Feb 11, 2023 18:51
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Got session one of my playtest knocked out. The adventurers made it through the mostly-empty top floor of the dungeon and cleared out the Library of the Vivisectionists on Floor 1. They rescued a couple mutants and conscripted the one researcher they could get their hands on. No word on where the bandit they're chasing a bounty on has gone.
The Dwarf sisters Thelema and Endura.  The Bugbear Ranger Benedict and his Gecko Laozi 
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Feb 12, 2023 10:43
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   Bell Island, Mourning Island, and Percival Island from my latest (and last) Archipelago23 update, which has the full exploration details for them plus 4 others. I say "last" cause for now I'm mostly done working on the game I've been playing to make the islands, so next week I'm moving on to a different game—about mapping journeys and terrain—that won't be about making islands and won't be set in an archipelago.
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Feb 18, 2023 13:00
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 Definitely relied on the Tome of Adventure Design for ideas this week. I've also now set up a LOT of connections to area B-D, so I'm curious what the heck that area will look like.
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Feb 19, 2023 00:59
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I'm woefully behind due to getting majorly ill for weeks in the back half of January, so I'm using the donjon web app to build February as a catch up mechanism, and to see what I can learn or tweak from what it gives me.
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Feb 19, 2023 01:50
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Another playtest game in the bag. This time we only had two players, which meant the group was more cautious but the game moved a whole lot faster nonetheless.
mellonbread fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 21:13
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Continuing my personal Dungeon23 challenge, Module23, to just generate stuff for up to 12 modules in 6 different systems throughout the year, here’s a bit about February’s. MODULE #2 A Dark, Graceful Churning System: Old-School Essentials (though I might switch to system-neutral OSR)  The Eye-Marked Keep stands alone in the Void Valley, a largely forgotten ancient monastery on a barren scrape of stone best ignored. Occasional superstitions about the inhabitants have been passed down from those who have caught glimpses of them over the centuries: They’re human enough, but pale as the moon, hairless, milk-eyed, and bearing an acrid odor. But now they’re blamed for new threats to both the expertly crafted crystalware of the mountain commune Kaivela and the delicious foodstuffs of the prosperous lagoon community Sekahm. Many want the cult in that detestable keep to pay for a recent string of earthquakes and a wizard said to have cursed crops to wither with his ashen blood. The Gradient Forest shields the rest of the world from the Void Valley, however, and no one dares risk angering the nature spirits therein. The original idea was for a roleplay-heavy religious commune where the PCs would be tempted by a shunned but seemingly reasonable cult of undying philosophers. But I realized that wasn’t very feasible for me in the time I had, so instead it became a three-story keep to explore with five different factions barely not killing each other as they’re occupying the keep:
The Gradient Forest is basically just a travel encounter table to roll on as the party goes between the towns and Void Valley, but it’s populated with five spirits that a furious nature has manifested to spite the poisonous existence of the Followers and remind lumbering mortals of the limits and failures their brief lifespans are intended to afford them:
Game Courts A large campfire has been built on one of two disused courts painted on the stone ground for playing long forgotten games. A Black Flask is using it to burn some poorly made paintings. The Quietus 6 small, independent rooms -Interior of each one is magically silenced. -Doors to the W and SW rooms are spiked shut -Walls of the 3 W rooms have been knocked down, and the expanded space has been used as an execution chamber --The bodies of three hobbes and a black flask member lie cold. Conversation Pits Large extension of the bar with a few tables and 4 large conversation pits built into the ground. Black Flask Leader and 1d4 + 2 Black Flasks are relaxing in the pits. -Old, decayed cushions and fabrics, but still warm and inviting -NW conversation pit has been covered with a large, heavy plate made of scrap metal --Beneath it, the floor of the pit has given way to a hole, a horrible, ammonia-like smell rising out of it. The dark below extends 40 feet down to the Pool of Grace. Figuring out the keep map:  And some simple stat blocks:   The messy note pics:       As with all my RPG stuff, if I ever publish it in some form, I'll send a free version out to anyone on my mailing list. I also made a basic cover mockup for my Mothership module I summarized last month as well: 
JMBosch fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Feb 21, 2023 |
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Feb 21, 2023 21:17
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Week 8 of The Walking Kingdom asked me "how many animals do you want to make out of coral?"
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Feb 26, 2023 04:45
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This week for Archipelago23 I'm switching from the game I was using to make islands (final rules here) to a new game for mapping travel across rough and beautiful terrain (starting rules here). I'm gonna do the same thing as I did for the first 7 weeks of the year, making maps in a single setting (an alien world), tweaking the game each week, and hopefully getting somewhere better with it in a few months' time.
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Feb 26, 2023 17:30
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Playtest session three knocked out.
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Feb 28, 2023 21:51
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Level 2 is finished, on to Level 3!  I've set Level 3 up with a videogamey "find the two keys to progress" structure. Now I just need to not forget about the keys.
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Mar 4, 2023 23:47
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My Module23 challenge, to generate material for a bunch of adventures, continues. Here’s an overview of March’s work. MODULE #3 Three Temples Defiled by the Truth System: Mörk Borg  Why visit the old, abandoned sites of followers of dead gods and hollow tenets? Trips like this are futile in the face of unerring prophecy. Their glory days died out when glory itself did! The false paths to the Shimmering Fields these once-grand temples laid out for the weak of the past aren’t even there anymore for the weak of today. You must hold a deranged hope that you can find some forgotten, pithy bit of insight at Cathede Crystana to keep the end at bay, huh? Some grand, cleansing boon from the sweltering St. Valo's Chapel? A nugget of steadfast wisdom hidden amongst the ancient stone Columns of Alj? Get it in your head: Faiths that die are faiths that putrefy. You may know the way of this ancient pilgrimage, but do you know the path you tread? A sniveling priest looking to rise in rank closer to Verhu has chosen to release the players from their bleak, unending imprisonment, for some minor infraction or another, under the condition that they collect three relics testifying to the deaths of false faiths: the world-piercing hooks of a malformed god’s chrysalis, the venom boiled out from slumbering fears, and the sky-fallen blood of a failed martyr. To do so, they must intrude upon profaned sacred places and survive the various curses that the true prophecies of Verhu have inflicted upon them in retaliation for their dangerous futility. I’ve published one batch of Mörk Borg monsters before, but this is my first time trying to write an adventure for it. Since one of the few bits of lore the game actually establishes is that its prophecies are definitely true and the world’s ending, I wanted to string together a few dungeons with the theme of an old religious pilgrimage that no one does anymore, to temples that once demonstrated steadfast faiths. Only now, the truth of prophecy has challenged their faiths and perverted their places of worship, leading to their abandonment and spoiling. It still needs a good bit of work to make the temples enticing places for the PCs to want to explore and to communicate the lore and history of the temples to the players through the environment. But I like the themes I came up with as the party travels to sites of increasingly older religions. It’s also gonna take more revisions later to massage what I have into a properly Mörk Borg-ian tone, though, because I’m not very experienced at writing like that. ~~~ CATHEDE CRYSTANA: No, Again False Faith: “Peace and possibility require introspection and growth.” Defiling Truth: “The still, inward eye sees only its shriveling past.” The once-renowned Cathede Crystana was the impressive grand sanctuary of a cold and all-encompassing faith. For most of its history, this elegant cathedral was continually updated to the latest and finest architectural trends; however, it has since decayed and become overgrown. But none seem to have visited since it also became unstuck from time, with disparate and fragmented parts of the ornate architecture flickering between different eras of its life, none but the ravenous priestlings that is, baying at its gates. Inside, a congregation of ghosts are bound to endlessly repeat some mundane ritual consumption. A harried priest wants desperately to free their souls, but they need leavened blood to do so, requiring someone to venture into fragments of the collective past of the faithful to acquire the blessed grain of the Besetans, an ancient tribe the Seat of the Cathede colonized long ago. Then they must mix the grain with the blood of who sowed it to bake the leavened blood. As they do so, they’ll encounter the Idol of the Besetans, as it waged a counter offensive against the Cathede’s invasion of its people’s land, and the Pain of the Cathede, a single-minded force striking out at the building itself. Creatures
~~~ ST. VALO’S CHAPEL: Dream’s Reach False Faith: “Bleeding nature’s curse from its bounty steels one against rot.” Defiling Truth: “Tinder makes a sacrifice of itself.” A historic church of pine, heretical St. Valo’s of the Everflame was both a holy sauna and a tradition of blessed carpentry. The un-ignitable chapel was burned with its own holy fire by followers of Verhu. Now it is mostly ash and charred timber inside and out, though the Everflame still burns at its steeple, pouring churning smoke skyward. What once lit the path to salvation for so many now burns atop a charred husk, merely a cruel mockery of the faithful’s tenet to find purity through a transformative blaze. Sifting through the remains of the area is the Ash Merchant, looking to collect the Failings of a Sacred Place for her collection, angered by any interlopers looking to steal her find. A curse placed upon the ruins permeates the crypt below, however. It transforms those brought there unwillingly, turning them into living, bleeding trees and ensures that which the faithful sought to purify themselves of seeps back into the dreams of those foolish enough, or so deceived, to slumber beneath an inferno. The fears, failures, and grave sins of those past fill the slumbering mind, and the purple smoke that rises off of burning bloodwood pulls these nightmares from the ether, depositing them on the crypt walls. The dreamscrapers and have found a lethal use for this substance born of sopor. Creatures
~~~ THE COLUMNS OF ALJ: Among the Discordant False Faith: “Fasten your stone to solid earth and be immovable.” Defiling Truth: “Monuments embody the inevitability of erosion.” Atop seven sturdy pillars rests a gargantuan cube of stone, larger than a castle: an ancient symbol for the strength and resoluteness of Alj the Steadfast, the Doubtless Martyr. The central column is hollow with two entrances, each covered in an unbreaking sheet of falling water miraculously coming from somewhere within the solid stone cube above, used historically to baptize converts into the faith. But now the Columns are patrolled by the grim spectacle of Still-Lights, trying to capture passersby in their flickering, transformative lights, and the inside of the central column can be scaled to reach an unknown land carved out of the monument’s interior. Within the cube, a reincarnation of Alj the Steadfast takes up a journey across a strange, shifting world to complete a ritual to purify the faith, to eliminate factionalism from its future adherents. Passing through the baptizing waters at one of the two entrances to get there, however, inscribes on one’s heart one of two conflicting life-or-death missions to help the Doubtless Martyr’s reincarnation succeed at the ritual, a mission they must complete under pain of a horrible, violent end. When a PC goes through the water, at whichever entrance, they are randomly handed one of 12 TRUE FAITH STRIPS by the GM, 6 of which tell them that Alj must survive in order to complete the ritual, and 6 of which tell them that Alj must be killed by another’s hand in order to complete the ritual. If they fail in the mission, mention their TRUE FAITH to anyone, or let anyone see the TRUE FAITH STRIP, they will suffer a TRUE FAITH BETRAYAL written on their strip. The idea is to raise tension among the party with conflicting goals, which will end up being pointless because the final step of the ritual is for Alj to sacrifice herself, freeing the players of their TRUE FAITH missions and restarting her futile cycle of reincarnation and sacrifice. TRUE FAITH BETRAYALS
~~~ The obligatory gross notes pics:       As with all my RPG stuff, if I ever publish it in some form, I'll send a free version out to anyone on my mailing list. (February: A Dark, Graceful Churning) (January: The Stone-Flesh Gift) JMBosch fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Mar 24, 2023 |
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Mar 24, 2023 18:37
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Pursuing a bounty on a legendary bandit, a party of adventurers on the edge of civilization descends into the ruined estate of a mad Marquis, and the unknown depths below. After eight sessions of playtesting, I've finished the first public draft of the Mountain of the Mad Marquis. Keying hundreds of rooms in the first four months is not really in the spirit of Dungeon23, but I knew I'd lose interest if I tried to hold it in for an entire year.  I wrote this using the OSE Advanced Fantasy books for monsters and treasure. I ran it using my own heartbreaker but it should be playable with any backwards compatible d20 retrofantasy game.
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Apr 10, 2023 22:51
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Your productivity is putting me to shame, but I'm glad I didn't kill the thread! I fell behind pretty drat hard through March, for various reasons. Slowly trying to catch up. Went back to work on laying out a map for the organic spaceship from January's module: The Stone-Flesh Gift. 
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Apr 14, 2023 02:03
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I caught RSV and then almost immediately after I caught COVID and that basically pulled the handbrake on my progress and bulldozed the car off the cliff 😞 Glad to see the progress you're still making!
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Apr 18, 2023 22:05
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Well, a family trip, car repairs, and COVID completely knocked out my head start on my Module23 challenge to generate material for a bunch of adventures. So now I’m just ever so slightly behind. But I finished enough of the brainstorming work for April’s module to give a basic overview. (I’m also working to finish the first draft of my Mothership module, The Stone-Flesh Gift, for playtesting. Hopefully I can wrap that up in a month or two.) As always, if I ever end up publishing something from the work below, anyone subscribed to my mailing list will get a free copy. MODULE #4 The Light of a Stranger Sun System: Trophy Gold  The Veikt Clan of the northern mountains, once known for their strangely peaceful annexation of the peoples they violently conquered, has been falling apart for generations, ever since the Veikt Heart, an impressively sized ruby, was cut out from the chest of their leader by an unseen assassin. Not long after, Landsteader Etenna was overtaken by paranoia, convinced she needed to hide her massive wealth in a remote location to protect it from the serfs living on her land. Failing to keep the operation secret, she faced a revolt when they found her troops emptying all of her treasures from the castle. Etenna fled, and she was seen clutching a large scarlet gemstone that shined with a faint crimson light before she disappeared. After a hefty donation to the Church of the Page, you’ve been able to review historical notes about Etenna’s lands and the people of the Veikt Clan, and you’re convinced not only that these two precious stones are actually the same ruby, but also that you have an idea of where it is: the town of Riverhaven, the cursed realm of the stranger sun. You haven’t heard of anyone traversing the Painted Woods to approach the town in decades; the colorful markings on the trees were meant to keep out anyone who might be intrigued by the constant red glow piercing through the high branches. Somewhere beyond there, however, lies a jewel of untold glory, and perhaps the rest of a landsteader’s great hoard! Theme: Reverence I really liked my first idea for this adventure, or “incursion” as Trophy Gold calls them: a land with a second, localized, and unsetting sun. I thought that an object of worship that actually has the power to coerce others to accept its rule was perfect fodder for a young god struggling to ascend to full godhood by amassing followers. A mostly deserted land that both worships and fears an ominous, alien presence that’s just always there is a solid foundation for horror, so I went from there. Trying to sprinkle in some details that I haven’t seen before, like a cargo cult offering a rotating batch of treasures trying to discern what pleases GLORY, feeding the alleged failures to a creature that devours curses, and an essential river being plugged by the body of a rampaging giant, drowned by villagers with a millstone around its neck. Trophy Gold’s incursions are structured around individual “sets,” each with a goal, moments, and a few props, as well as traps and/or treasures. I’m planning six sets, covering the approach to the town and its surroundings.  I’ll lay out the contents of the first two sets and a couple other tidbits. THE PAINTED WOODS This forest marks the boundary of the Stranger Sun’s territory, outside of which, its light fails to shine. The trees along the outer edge have been painted bright red by the locals as a warning. Once within the treeline, a crimson glow can be seen across nearly everything, and the air feels thick and humid. You don’t hear many animals, but branches creak and twist with unsettling regularity, regardless of the wind. Goal: Find a path to Riverhaven. Moments
Large swaths of younger poplar trees growing with a strong, uniform bend. They would be 40 ft. tall, or more, if they didn’t lean hard in the direction of Riverhaven and the crimson glow, dipping low enough to even minimize their shadows. Occasional crackling sounds. Traps: A bowing poplar tree snaps and falls. Treasures: Small piles of silver coins lie beneath some of the leaning poplar trees, like offerings dropped from their branches (1 Gold). Prop 2: Pyre Birch trees, walking on their roots, group together to try to rip the oldest pine trees of the woods out of the ground. When they’re successful they toss the pine tree onto a large pyre that burns with roaring flames. Traps: The wandering birches will attack anyone interfering with them and anyone who stands relatively still for too long in their presence. Treasures: Most of the pine trees have some simple but elegant jewelry on their branches and trunks (1 Gold’s worth per tree). Prop 3: Pink Grass Sound of a choir using an unknown language. Clearing covered in dozens and dozens of dark pink plants, tongue-like, growing a foot out of the soil and on rotting pine logs. They glisten with mucus as they writhe to sing the praises of GLORY above. Traps: Continued exposure to the plant’s song can cause confusion and memory problems, and its mucus can burn skin and eat away at armor. It is vulnerable to fire, and louder singing or music causes it to shrink considerably and go silent. Treasures: A charred body at the far end of the choir plants grips an elaborately decorated iron hatchet (1 Gold). Wandering Birch Weaknesses: Fire; speed Endurance: 8 A wiry white tree that creeps atop its roots, bending and twisting its limbs to bind, dig, and pierce. Has no sense of self-preservation, breaking its own limbs to use the jagged stumps to stab and scrape. Habits:
THE OBEDIENT FIELDS Rolling golden fields, densely packed with abundant grains bearing scarlet tips. A red hazy glow bathes the open sky, and each crop grows tall, pointing to where the Stranger Sun lies above the remnants of Riverhaven, beyond a small mountain. A building made of woven wheat blocks the path to the town. Wild game animals thrive here without care, darting through the farms and exploring the paths between them. Goal: Get past the Chapel of Feasts to continue to Riverhaven. Moments
A people seemingly made of wheat have convened here, encircling a pile of matured, dry grain plants and threshing them with wooden clubs. The beaten crops struggle against the strikes to lean up and stand tall toward the Second Sun, until their scarlet-colored bloodhusks are knocked out of them, causing them to fall lifeless. Traps: The whipwheats don’t take kindly to humans. Treasures: The matured bloodhusks are peculiar, crystalized grains resembling rubies (1 Gold per handful). Can be ground into a sweet flour. (When consumed, can cause the Condition Seed of GLORY.) Prop 2: Sermon Mound A small barren hill among the crops seems brighter and more visible than its surroundings. It’s topped with a winding, ornate sigil resembling a wavy rib cage scorched into the dirt itself. The air around here seems to hum, and whispers start to be heard the closer one is to the mound’s center. Traps: The rays of GLORY are amplified within the sigil, and anyone standing in it hears a piercing sonic boom in their inner ear, causing the Condition Deafened for 1 hour. Treasures: Buried in the dirt beneath the sigil is the decayed body of a local tax collector, their eyes burned out and the sockets stuffed with bloodhusks (1 Gold). Around their neck is a jasper necklace (1 Gold) and the official tax seal of a neighboring land (2 Gold). Prop 3: Chapel of Feasts A 40-foot-tall holy chapel to GLORY made of living wheat, still rooted and growing, woven together. It’s mostly one long dining hall, with a few dozen places set at the table and many fresh loaves of sweet, pinkish bread. The crops forming the ceiling also glow a soft pink from the sun’s red rays. The deep, soft voice of GLORY resonates throughout, welcoming the treasure-hunters to their handcrafted land of endless bounty and warmth with the comforting tone of an old friend. They are free to sample any of the food if they are humble and thankful. GLORY will also openly mock the cowardice of anyone trying to circumnavigate the chapel entirely to all in the area. Traps: Anyone denying GLORY’s superiority, directly disrespecting them, or ignoring them completely causes them to whisper directly into the mind of the treasure-hunter about how pathetic, powerless, and doomed they are, causing the Condition Seared. Anyone consuming a few bites of the bread gains the Condition Seed of GLORY. If the chapel is set on fire, the smoke is pulled into the Stranger Sun, causing it to grow. (Increase GLORY’s Endurance by 1.) Chaos and commotion may draw out more wheatwhips. Treasures: Wild animals wander through the hall. If anyone makes eye contact with one and earnestly thanks them for their sacrifices, its meat falls out of its body, fully cooked, before the animal wanders off unharmed. GLORY may also give a gift or grant a small wish to someone loudly singing their praises. Whipwheat Weaknesses: Fire; dismemberment Endurance: 7 Humanoids made from twisted and tied wheat. A persistent type of mute worker drone. Adept with clubs and mallets. Habits:
Condition: Seed of GLORY. A parasite of GLORY lives inside you, sapping your will to resist them. When you face a servant of GLORY in combat, they have a +1 Endurance bonus. ~~~ I'll spare you the obligatory gross notes pics this time, since even those aren't quite full yet. As with all my RPG stuff, if I ever publish it in some form, I'll send a free version out to anyone on my mailing list. (March: Three Temples Defiled by the Truth) (February: A Dark, Graceful Churning) (January: The Stone-Flesh Gift) JMBosch fucked around with this message at 23:20 on May 1, 2023 |
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May 1, 2023 00:14
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This month’s work was mostly focused on world-building. This one is so far more of a setting than an adventure, but hopefully it can be as rich or as deep of a setting as I can take the time to make it, with a good handful of adventures contained within. As a result, this overview is mostly a lore dump, but hopefully you’ll find this isolated fantasy region within a dying amalgam of megamalls to be as intriguing as I do. MODULE #5 Live. Mall. Die. System: VERSE (or System Neutral)  Many who live in the abandoned storefronts of Th’Mol have known a hard life. Necessities are often bare, and the constant threat of Tarmak crawlers just beyond the walls keeps caravans rare and dangerous. They make do, they keep their head down, and they get by. However, in a mere fortnight since the annual Day of Night festival, a century’s worth of history rippled throughout the land, starting with those dark twenty-four hours. The gods must be angry, or desperate, or… distracted? Even Galewynd of Ancient En Fahbuth is uncertain, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to pretend daily life remains unaffected by these rapid changes. The Laser Keep unleashed its new weapon technology to pressure the Grand Halls to accept its rule. The Grist cult’s long-term plans to secure power and sacrifices for the Mills starts to bear fruit. The people of Rüf made their first broadcast to the world at large, and no one knows what it said. The first autonomous carousel horses enter production, promising to help tame the wilds of Tarmak. The Layered King ignored the doddering old Oaken Emperor and brought the force of Furnishing Empire to bear upon the alleged decadence of Eet Streat. The seal of the Planner’s covenant at Local™ Bank has cracked. And the Rumbling Crypts of Th’Undermol have summoned a great ally with which to terrorize the surface. REALITY OF TH'MOL Resembling a multitude of old shopping malls fused together, Th’Mol is a massive, isolated megastructure containing a collection of small kingdoms, living on plastic plants grown in dyed mulch with fluorescent lighting and water from the sprinkler system. Sunlight peeking through the smudged skylights is a rare gift, used to grow real fresh food for the wealthy, when the downtrodden Rüfolk above allow it. The building is organized into four Grand Halls, four regions numbered from 1st to 4th, the order in which it’s theorized that they were built by the gods. Realms unto their own, the Halls are each nominally run by one ruler or another, though some of the scales of power are poised to tip. The majority of each Hall is made up of the Commons, where most people live and toil in clusters of homes, workshops, and farms that take up the spaces where storefronts would be. The storefront structure often makes way for larger, free-standing buildings, however, such as important centers of power that can tower multiple stories over the center of the Commons. Between each Hall is a stretch of “wilderness” known as a Walk. Settled storefronts become far more rare in the Walks, where most of them are sealed up or empty, but others may hold animal dens, dark caverns, or forgotten secrets. The Dawn Walk, the Path of Curiosity, connects the 1st and 2nd Halls. The Midday Walk, the Path of Caution, joins the 2nd and 3rd Halls, and the Dusk Walk, the Path of Contemplation, links the 3rd and 4th Halls. RELIGIONS OF TH'MOL There are four main deities recognized by the people of Th’Mol, each with their own attendant cults and creeds. While in the past, adherents to different faiths may have mostly annoyed or argued with each other, growing instability and ongoing conflicts have made religious differences far more pronounced as of late, and the faithful have more reason than ever to cling to their faith, trying to save themselves and cast down others. This can make for a particularly volatile social mix, fuses looking for sparks to light them. There are also some particularly ghastly heretics that claim the gods may simply be alternate aspects of the same being, but such blasphemous talk is not made in polite company, whether out of shame or fear of retaliation. -Followers of Simon Dedicate their lives to imitating and pleasing the most powerful god, Simon, whose name has been found on more historical documents throughout Th’Mol than any other. Such is His greatness that He raised the funds to build Th’Mol Himself and constructed it single-handedly, bit by bit, as a monument to self-reliance, hard work, and perseverance. He is the Light Provider, and in His shadow the Simonists strive to replicate His incredible success. Themes: Independence, entrepreneurial spirit, property rights, self-reliance -The Millions The expression of collective will and benevolence, the Millions provided for us, pooling their resources to construct Th’Mol, together, as a home for those who had none. From here, the Millions freely gave what they had to others, providers in a harsh wasteland. We cannot work to become the Millions, the Water Provider, for they are emergent from us, from our selfless acts and caring choices. We can only try to contribute to them and have faith that the greater good benefits all, despite our sacrifices to make it so. Themes: Mutual aid, selflessness, community, gifts and reciprocity -Grist for the Mills While some may carve out comfortable lives here, Th’Mol is primarily a place of immense arcane energies, forged by ancient, otherworldly entities known as the Mills, solely dedicated to generating more power for themselves. As the Wind Provider, they built this place as a beacon for outsiders, to attract them like moths to a flame with sweet whispers on the breeze, in order to rip their will from their bodies and transform their husks into the grim and deadly beasts of Tarmak. The greatest heights we can aspire to is to aid them in this sacrificial quest, to gain their blessings as Miller priests, delivering them souls to use as divine grist. Themes: Sacrifice, authority, power, cosmic insignificance -Commercial Real Estate Executive Partners (CREEPs) Th’Mol is an ark, a steadfast ship built by a forward-thinking cabal to sail the ages as the world struggles through its wretchedness. The Planners, the Soil Provider, never cared for the present nor the outside, and neither should we. They entrusted us as caretakers of their investment. It is not our place to ask for more, but simply to raise shareholder value, to protect and improve its assets until such time as the Planners return to reap their reward in the Final Sale and, perhaps, bless us then for our undying loyalty. Themes: Financial investment, delayed reward, property value, future planning REALMS OF TH'MOL Grene-Vuprom Inahd: The 1st Hall, ruled by Furnishing Empire
Brukmon at Junk-Shunnites: The 2nd Hall, ruled by the Black-Flag Improvement Association (the BIA)
Or’zen gal Aria: The 3rd Hall, ruled by the Friends of Michelle
Maketset Aivywod: The 4th Hall, ruled by Jaycub the Untagged
Tarmak: The Lethal Lot surrounding Th’Mol, ruled by Tarmak Crawlers
Th’Undermol: The Rumbling Crypts beneath Th’Mol, ruled by Kof the Lungless
Rüf: Precarious Precipice atop Th’Mol, ruled by Cidran of the Sky
As with all my RPG stuff, if I ever publish it in some form, I'll send a free version out to anyone on my mailing list. (April: The Light of a Stranger Sun) (March: Three Temples Defiled by the Truth) (February: A Dark, Graceful Churning) (January: The Stone-Flesh Gift)
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May 30, 2023 14:26
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That's cool. Reminds me of the Night Mall from the old Fairfield site.
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May 30, 2023 16:36
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Haven't heard of that wiki before, but I'll definitely peruse the Night Mall for some ideas, thanks!
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May 30, 2023 21:52
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Late to the party, however I have been project managing a slimmed down Dungeon 23 project for the Kobold Press blog. The article talks about my take on a slightly more achievable Dungeon 23 (at least for that format): https://koboldpress.com/dungeon-23-a-small-but-fierce-approach/ We're just about halfway through the dungeon at this point. https://koboldpress.com/category/dungeon-23/ The PCs are about to find hellish murder dwarves in the third level.
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Jun 26, 2023 06:10
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Eastmabl posted:Late to the party, however I have been project managing a slimmed down Dungeon 23 project for the Kobold Press blog. Well, my June entry was supposed to be the send-off to end my shortened project of six adventure foundations for six systems in six months. But early in the month, I started getting unexplained pains and weird symptoms and ended up weeks later with a new chronic disease diagnosis, so most of the month was spent figuring that out and learning how to handle it. Needless to say, I didn't work on my last adventure idea for CY_BORG very much, To Infinite Ends: a doomed flying pleasure yacht excursion full of members of a growth mindset/money grindset cult of "self-made" entrepreneurs flying into the sun because they think they'll transcend into economic gods due to their divinely infallible business sense. I had the thought that I wanted it to be more of a social sandbox type of adventure, but found that I am not very good at writing those! Also I think it might push against CY_BORG's design sensibilities a bit. So all I have is a fairly generic ship layout and tons of little character and relationship details mashed together into paper-thin NPCs without solid motivations. Not much else. Here's the very quick cover mockup I was planning to redo at the end of the month.  I'll see what I can make of it in time, but this'll probably be the end of the monthly adventure ideas for now. I've got a lot to work on for the time being. The completed version of my first month's Dungeon23 project, The Stone-Flesh Gift, will show up on my itch.io eventually.
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Jul 2, 2023 16:44
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JMBosch posted:Needless to say, I didn't work on my last adventure idea for CY_BORG very much, To Infinite Ends: a doomed flying pleasure yacht excursion full of members of a growth mindset/money grindset cult of "self-made" entrepreneurs flying into the sun because they think they'll transcend into economic gods due to their divinely infallible business sense. I had the thought that I wanted it to be more of a social sandbox type of adventure, but found that I am not very good at writing those! Also I think it might push against CY_BORG's design sensibilities a bit. I was able to squeeze in a second playtest of my Unknown Armies Dungeon Crawl. I'll have a playable draft up soon, though I don't know if I'll end up doing a full layouted PDF. I have put off doing layout on anything for several years and if I start anywhere it'll probably be something smaller than a full dungeon adventure.
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Jul 2, 2023 20:24
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I hadn't thought about Dungeon23 in a few months, so I was worried that I might be behind. But between the Mountain of the Mad Marquis, A Dungeon Too Many, No Country For Old Kings and some other stuff I haven't run yet, I'm sitting at about 310 rooms, which is where I'm supposed to be for the beginning of November.
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Nov 7, 2023 22:56
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For the record, I’m still on track. I just got tired of scanning and posting every week. I’ll scan the whole thing at the end of the process. Over the course of the year, I started preparing for my next campaign, so Dungeon23 has become something of a brainstorm project for that campaign. Come up with a room each day, spend some time away, then come back to grab and consolidate my favorite ideas.
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Nov 7, 2023 23:41
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Anyone who has managed to stick with it has my enduring respect. I had one month I was really proud of, then got very ill and fell behind and tried to catch up with some super generic auto-generated stuff and it was so uninteresting that I dropped it altogether. Definitely taught me some things about what I value and enjoy in the creative process for game stuff, though. If I attempt Dungeon 24, I'll probably split my focus and time up between making/keying dungeon rooms, designing items, designing puzzles, designing characters, and designing monsters, with each one counting as the creative output for the day.
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Nov 7, 2023 23:49
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I fell way behind, but I'm trying to catch up. The whole open game license thing kinda killed my motivation when it hit, since I'd been using 5e as my reference point for monsters and trap damage and such. I enjoy reading about the OSR recreationally, but I haven't been given too many opportunities to actually run a game and see how the numbers pan out.
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Nov 8, 2023 09:53
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mellonbread posted:I hadn't thought about Dungeon23 in a few months, so I was worried that I might be behind. But between the Mountain of the Mad Marquis, A Dungeon Too Many, No Country For Old Kings and some other stuff I haven't run yet, I'm sitting at about 310 rooms, which is where I'm supposed to be for the beginning of November. Nice job sticking with it, even if you didn't mean to! New health problems canned my Dungeon 23 about halfway through. But my efforts are starting to bear fruit. My first month's work, The Stone-Flesh Gift, is now a sci-fi body horror module about an alien living ship/bioengineering factory, officially licensed for Mothership, and I'll be releasing it soon-ish. There's a free playtest version available now. Maybe I'll wait to do a Zine Month 2024 campaign for it in February to do a small print run. In the first 5 months, it definitely helped me make a lot of useful material that is now backlogged as various projects to get to.
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Nov 8, 2023 17:38
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I ended up losing my notes and then interest. I might have a head start on Dungeon24 though!
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Nov 8, 2023 17:50
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JMBosch posted:Nice job sticking with it, even if you didn't mean to! You should be proud of Stone-Flesh Gift, a friend of mine ran it for our group and it was a blast. I think we did something wrong though, we made it through with no fatalities and our characters have been talking about how it's the safest (if grossest) place they've ever been to in the galaxy.
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Nov 8, 2023 19:10
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bbcisdabomb posted:You should be proud of Stone-Flesh Gift, a friend of mine ran it for our group and it was a blast. I think we did something wrong though, we made it through with no fatalities and our characters have been talking about how it's the safest (if grossest) place they've ever been to in the galaxy. Thanks, that's good to hear! I was a tad concerned that it was a little light on hostiles, so I might pump that up a bit. Though there's a weird balance I want to strike because if I make it too hostile, players might not be interested in sticking around long enough to figure out how to make the ship their own. Did you end up fighting Father? JMBosch fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Nov 9, 2023 |
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Nov 9, 2023 01:41
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JMBosch posted:Thanks, that's good to hear! I was a tad concerned that it was a little light on hostiles, so I might pump that up a bit. Though there's a weird balance I want to strike because if I make it too hostile, players might not be interested in sticking around long enough to figure out how to make the ship their own. Did you end up fighting Father? We did not end up fighting Father. We were there as lost package retrieval for the Intergalactic Postal Service, and Father really didn't give a poo poo as long as we stayed out of his way. He murdered 3/4 of the rival salvagers who entered the Gift and just told us to get the hell off his ship, so we grabbed the package and left. From what I heard we didn't really stand a chance against Father, even with my smartgun and advanced battle dress. We tend to be extremely shy about fighting, so we weren't going to start shooting until he attacked us, you know? If you want the place to feel hostile, you need way more hostiles IMO. We only really found one creature who attacked our android and got immediately pasted by my smartgun. A few grubs tried to hit me but couldn't get through my armor, and then Father didn't care enough to attack us if we just left immediately. The vibe I got was more that the Gift isn't actively hostile, it's just a place built for things with completely different cultural mores and taboos. It didn't read to me as being hostile, so if you want that you'll need a whole bunch more stuff trying to harm the players. FWIW I loved the whole concept of the Gift and the module itself. It's one of the grossest modules I've ever played in any system and that's a compliment. The cleansing saliva waterfall was truly inspired.
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Nov 18, 2023 06:08
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Thanks for the session report! Always appreciate feedback. I definitely want the Gift to be less hostile than most "weird places with monsters" in Mothership modules. It's built to be a kind of factory-temple, and all the threats are internal or the result of haywire biological processes. But I also don't want it to feel toothless either. I've already dropped a few more creatures in and am looking at boosting some of their damage. I'd add another hazard type or two, but I don't have space to add any more pages! And yeah, if you don't care about trying to control the ship or make use of its capabilities, then Father will probably leave you alone. Maybe I should add a bit where he's always eager to grow his influence so he'll still pursue the players a little, trying to get his blood in them to pull off his psychic antics. I might PM you another question or two about it later, but feel free to ignore. I'm also brainstorming how to turn my other Mothership module idea for D23, that I barely got to start on, into a one-shot pamphlet to maybe add to the crowdfunding campaign for The Stone-Flesh Gift, but not sure if I'll have the time. It starts with the players having been been jettisoned into space in their vaccsuits as part of a scam to get people to pay for travel then just kick them out to their deaths. But the players are saved by being gradually drawn in to a research station that seems to have a secondary gravitational force that only acts on the flesh of living creatures. The attractive force is actually coming from (gross spoiler) a Kirby-like creature created as a failed science experiment that sucks people in and swallows them whole, only to, shall we say, aerosolize their remains through its pores, creating an organic film on the station's walls that grows... something, still figuring it out, hehe. I want to call it So You've Been Chump-Dumped.
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Nov 18, 2023 16:30
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So, how did people do? I faded out quite quickly, because I didn't start at the right time, then had to play catchup, then lost confidence in what I was doing. This year there's a suggestion for Hexcrawl #24 - which is supposed to be a Westmarches style thing with each real day representing one game day - which honestly I'm more likely to keep with because it's actively gamified - maybe that's what I should have done with my Dungeon 23 attempt - play each day as I created it. I've already got an idea for Hexplore #24 - more a science fantasy vibe than the borderlands style thing - a flying city has just crashed into the long forgotten earth below. The survivors are venturing out to explore the land they've found themselves in, because I feel a bit uncomfortable about the colonial overtones in the traditional exploring from the 'last point of civillisation' style games. There's a link here - https://monstersmazes.blogspot.com/?m=1 Angrymog fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Dec 18, 2023 |
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Dec 18, 2023 08:04
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Still on track. It's thematically incoherent and the level connections probably don't work, but I've been able to experiment with different dungeon design processes along the way. If I go for it, Hexplore24 might be a similar learning opportunity for me (and maybe some of the garbage I come up with will be salvageable). I'll want to read more about it and consider, but I still have a lot of paper left in the journal I bought...
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Dec 18, 2023 09:03
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