B25.
This is part of the #Dungeon23 challenge in which you make one room to a dungeon every day for a year. In an effort to link my memories to the creation, I am also writing a personal journal entry with each room that may or may not be related.
You don’t have to read that part.
B25.
As the heroes come upon this room roll a d6. One a 1, there are two Ashfoot goblins banging on the door to this room, harassing it’s occupant.
The door to this room is closed and hard to open. Doesn’t seem like it’s locked, but rather that there is something in the way.
There is a wayward adventurer in this room. They have an old cabinet barricading the door.
Zeela
Has a shortsword.
A talisman hangs from her neck - it was given to her by her mother, who fancied herself a shaman. Meant to keep bad dreams away.
Has a map to another adventure of your choosing.
Very nimble and great at staying quiet.
She and her friends were on their way on their adventure, but they discovered a cave entrance that lead them to A28. They got down to this level via the hole in A31 that leads to B14. Unfortunately, they were caught and are currently the meat sacks in B17.
She is dehydrated and in need of water.
She can’t find a way out and only knows that there are lot of flies north of here. The buzzing sound makes her ill.
2/25/23
I realized I hadn’t explained the A31 entrance, so this post kind of helped me clean all that up. I edited the affected blog posts to reflect the new information.
…
My current idea is to divide the whole mega dungeon into 4 separate arcs, each arc consisting of 3 levels. So for this “arc” we get Necromancer vs. Goblins who are also fleeing what’s on Level 3.
I still want to create connections to deeper levels so that you can skip certain areas and find yourself much further in the dungeon. Like going from Level 3 to Level 7, for example. This way the dungeon feels one way when you play it “linearly” 1-12, and a different way when you jump around.
Of course I may find the neatness of this idea completely reprehensible at any moment and throw it out the window in a moment’s notice.
…
We also introduce another NPC, Zeela. Most of the human NPCs can be replaced by new player characters, whether it’s because they died or you’re welcoming a new player to the character. I thought it was important to have spaces where it’s like “You can spawn new characters here.”
Additionally Zeela brings with her a map to go anywhere else. In case players are like “I’m over this place and don’t want to come back.” If I was running this adventure for my friends I’d probably have a bit of buy-in where they are playing to explore the whole mega-dungeon.
But if they stumbled onto this adventure I feel like I should give them the chance to opt out or take a break.
Anyway those are my “designer” thoughts.
See you tomorrow.
-jae
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