#adventure creation

[stonegearstudios]

Creating a MegaDungeon part 6

Oh shit I'm starting to map things

So while loose ideas have obviously been bouncing around in my head for ages, I hadn't actually started mapping out areas, rooms, and encounters.

But now I have

I certainly hope you didn't expect any picture I made to actually look good.

So yes, this is a basic blob map, but that's actually an improvement for me. I have so many dead projects behind me because I immediately tried to jump to 'the cool part'.

I'd try to make fully detailed dungeon maps in art programs, or start dreaming about comming art, and those were terrible ideas. I'd quickly run into walls, loose inspiration, and give up. So, this time I'm forcing myself to take it slow, actually lay the groundwork for this project.

And that means we start with blob maps.

So, what is this thing? Well, as it says right at the bottom this is Layer 1 (or floor one if you want to put it that way) of the dungeon. The entry, the starting ground.

Expedition Point

Now, looking at this, you might thing it's more than a bit basic for what's supposed to be a megadungeon, those are usually sprawling maze-like maps.

For example here is a (small) section of one of the maps from Stonehell, a very good MegaDungeon, I recommend it.

This is what a archetypal dungeon looks like. Narrow corridors with rooms branching off all over, each one detailed in the text for what treasure and monsters inhabit it.

But, unless you are a specific kind of person, jumping straight to drawing out rooms and corridors is a bad idea. Sure, I could grab some graph paper and do it, but I'd have no idea what I was making.

That's where the blob map comes in.

These aren't rooms, not yet, they're 'regions' inside this floor of the dungeon.

My current progression is: Scan other rpgs, mythology, the internet for monsters I either want to us or rework -> subdivide those down into ones I think should be on an individual floor -> Think about the kinds of environment those monsters/enemies/NPCs would be in -> Use those ideas to make a few 'keystone' encounters for each areas.

After that then it would be time to actually map out the area in detail... but I'm probably gonna put that off for a while. I may blob map the entire dungeon before I go into detail, we'll see.

[stonegearstudios]

Creating a MegaDungeon pt 2 Islands

René Magritte The Castle of the Pyrenees

While in terms of volume, most of the Eye is taken up by the titanic storm walls that surround it and (try) to keep people out, in terms of adventure, it's all about the floating islands.

Now, in a fantasy RPG, you really don't need a reason to have wildly different enviroments next to each other. IT'S MAGIC, just suspend your disbelief and fight some orcs, but I did think of the bare minimum for why this might work in the internal logic of The Eye.

The Eye is created and maintained by magical winds, and all sorts of winds rush through the spaces between the islands (which is also why you can't easily fly between them, it's very dangerous).

These winds can be hot, cold, wet, dry, and even stranger still, which creates the myriad environments of the floating islands, and endless possibilities for adventure.

Here are just some of the idea's I've had so far

Karstic Plateaus

When water cuts through limestone in a very specific way you get formations like the above, in Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park, Madagascar. The spires aren't just beautiful but deadly as well, they are often razor sharp and the name of the park itself roughly translates to "where one cannot walk barefoot". Great inspiration for an island, I think.

Lake of Thunder

There is a lake in Venezuela, Lake Maracaibo, where for a large portion of the year, for up to 10 hours a day, lightning continuously strikes it. This is, in my opinion, perhaps the most fantasy thing ever. You put something like this in your game you have so many fun questions you get to answer. Why is the lake continuously bombarded by the heavens? How has life changed and adapted to live in this environment? What might be hidden here? Has the constant lightning affected the geography? So many possibilities.

Underwater Caves

Underwater caves are terrifying, underwater cave diving is one of the most horrifying ways to die I can imagine and some people do that for fun. Now, you might be wondering, how would you have underwater caves in a land of floating islands? Simple, you come to one island that seems to have a small lake or even a cave entrance on it's surface, and as you go down you realize this thing is mostly hollow. Hell, could even have some sneaky portals to other planes if you wanna make a proper huge maze

Anyway, this is just a few of the ideas I've had so far

Now I just need to actually figure out the best way to write and depict them, and also figure out a system to use, and finish the overarching story, and...

[stonegearstudios]

Creating a MegaDungeon

So, for a few weeks now, thanks to RPPR, I've been thinking about MegaDungeons as interesting conceptual spaces. It started with Stonehell, but I've been looking at other ones like Highfell, Tomb of 1000 Doors, I backed a Kickstarter called Ave Nox... And unsurprisingly (for me) I started thinking about how I would make one. The guiding thought was "What if you made a MegaDungeon, a constrained and connected space, both above ground and without walls?" From that idea has come 'The Eye of the Storm'

The basic concept is this

Off the coast of a certain area is a storm, a massive, violent hurricane that reaches up through the atmosphere, out of sight.

The storm has been there for as long as anyone can remember, as long as history records, never moving, never shrinking.

The Storm is eternal.

Likewise, it is unknown who exactly first breached the Stormwalls by using powerful magic to briefly calm the winds, but what they found within has become common local knowledge.

Floating islands, suspended on thin air, cocooned in the eye of the storm, rising up. On those islands were ruins of an unknown make, but also strange plants and dangerous creatures. The most dangerous of all being the Elementals that seemed to infest the place.

Over the years many groups have been drawn to the storm. Adventures have breached it in search of treasure and strange mystical reagents, Harpies and other flying creatures considered monstrous have flocked here to roost, and wielders of powerful magic came to study the forces that maintain the vortex.

But none have ever reached Summit, eternally out of reach.

Will you?

So yeah, that's the basic premise of the dungeon. Floating islands inside a eternal storm, progression through the dungeon is like the ascent of a dangerous mountain in some aspects.

The main thought was, most dungeons and MegaDungeons are underground, so could you do the opposite, one where you are under the light of day, exposed to all manner of weather, and where you could physically see in the distance the other levels you were yet to get to?

That also raised the question of how to map out the placement of the floating islands? Eventually I came up with a potential model in Blender

Yes, it looks nonsensical at first, but it's really just a reference for me. The Outline Boxes represent a potential space where a island could be on the 9 layers of the dungeon, while a Green Sphere represents the presence of an island in that space. That way I can remember the positioning of them all in relation to each other and figure out the connections between them.

So far I've got a loose idea of the one at the top and am working on the one at the very bottom, likely the first island any PCs would land on (and the only one that's not floating).

Lot of work to go and I've still got to figure out things like how i'm going to map the islands (I can't draw) and what system I should build the encounters around.

[stonegearstudios]

Creating A MegaDungeon Part 8

Small thing today because I've only been working on small stuff (in between procrastinating) One day, a thought came across me, as thoughts often do. It said "You should start thinking up some special magic items for the dungeon" and then "wouldn't it be cool if there was a artifact that was relevant and important through the entire dungeon?" So I started thinking

Something relevant through a wide variety of environments, could be something like a sword or armour, but that didn't seem very interesting to me.

Eventually, I settled on a key, a key you could manipulate.

The Peculiar Prism (better name pending) is roughly 6 inchs tall and 6 inches wide. It is made up of a core, and 9 rotating layers, each made of a kind of semi-precious stone. You can rotate each layer clockwise or counter-clockwise, settling into 8 notches each way.

It radiates a faint aura of magic but otherwise gives few clues, other than the fact that there are niches that would seem to fit.

It's a key, but you can't just turn it in a lock, you need to know it's codes. I've already been thinking of ways to encode information in reasonable puzzles for the players. Not sure if the Prism would be required to proceed past certain parts, or just make it easier by opening up more direct paths and locked rooms.

I want to make the players excited whenever they see a place they can use it, once they uncover the puzzle code.

Now I need to keep working on level layouts so I can find places to put it.

[stonegearstudios]

Creating a MegaDungeon Master Post

Figured I'd collect them all, since they've been getting some more attention lately. Oh, and if anyone is actually interested, The Eye isn't dead, it's just that I'm one easily distracted person, short on skill

Art by Roger Dean, used only as inspiration

Creating a MegaDungeon Part 1

Creating a MegaDungeon Part 2 Islands

Creating a MegaDungeon Part 3 Monsters

Creating a MegaDungeon Part 4 Levels

Creating a MegaDungeon Part 5 Connections

Creating a MegaDungeon Part 6 Mapping

Creating a MegaDungeon Part 7 Backstory

Creating a MegaDungeon Part 8 Magic Item

Hopefully got more to come

[stonegearstudios]

Creating a MegaDungeon pt 4

Well, New Year, Same MegaDungeon. 2023 was... not a great year, but we can always hope for a better one. Anyway, I'll save those thoughts for the end. For now...

Levels

Part of the joy of a MegaDungeon is the levels. You climb down a set of stairs and can emerge into a totally different ecosystem, the variety really help combat dungeon fatigue. Now since The Eye is made up of floating islands I have even more leeway to change up the environment than most. Just think of something like One Piece, and how crazy Oda can get designing his islands.

Still, even with that freedom I want every level to have a unifying theme so that you always remember where you are. With eight levels to design (the first has only a single island) that's a lot of work to do.

Elevation 1: Expedition Point

Roger Dean

The dungeon starts at Expedition Point, the lowest part of the storm where the winds are the calmest. In fact, Expedition Point is the only non-flying island in The Eye. An impossibly tall and slender spire of rock juts from the sea floor far below, finally terminating at a grass and clover covered island home to some particularly ancient ruins.

Clearly once covered in carvings and frescoes of all kinds, today the most vibrant colours on the island are the flags.

Over the centuries innumerable groups and forces have challenged The Eye and almost all of them started their journey here. it's become something of an informal tradition to leave your mark, flag, or standard around the ruins, as a prayer for good luck and a promise to return for it some day.

The sheer number of pieces of tattered, flapping cloth tell a story all their own.

While there will be dangers on Expedition Point, as well as some still hidden secrets, it mostly serves as a staging point for the PCs. It's a reasonably safe and stable place they can embark from or retreat to without leaving the dungeon. There may even be non-hostile NPCs here occasionally that they can talk to, trade with, or barter for services.

[stonegearstudios]

Creating A MegaDungon Part 7

Backstory

The Mutilation of Uranus by Saturn, Giorgio Vasari, 1555

What is the most important narrative in a adventure module? Well, it's not the backstory, not by a long shot. It's whatever narrative the players spin up as they go.

But backstory isn't unimportant, because it justifies the world they adventure through.

The Fall of Phaeton, Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1604-1605 © National Gallery of Art

Now, I've already said before that The Eye has a Greek theme. in its landscape, it's architecture, it's ecology, but that left me a question. Do I bring the Greek Gods into this?

The Primordial Elementals had to war with someone, and I had been loosely referring to the other side as the Nascent Divinities. The Olympic Pantheon makes the most sense.

So I'm not going with them.

Instead, we have the Titans.

Cronos and Rhea by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 19th Century

I remember thinking before "Ok, the Titans were the predecessors of the Olympians in myth, but did anyone actually worship them, were they a prior religion, or were the created whole cloth to be predecessors?"

I don't know the answer, my degree didn't focus on that, but I'll tell you what, in the history of The Eye, they were real.

These divinities, apart from the primal elements, came from elsewhere to try and claim a newly formed world. The conflict they had writ large across the islands of The Eye.

The fact that there seems to be very little to the stories of the Titans (in easily accessible English at least) is fine. After all, their war with the Elementals was truly ancient and essentially completely forgotten by the surrounding world. Even divinity looses its lustre after a while.

Given that, I've been going through resources, picking out Titans that might be interesting to have in the dungeons story, with the players able to discover fragments of their past.

Prometheus is an obvious choice, as is Kronos, Atlus, but some of the lesser known ones gave me ideas.

Hekate - Often not thought of as being a titan but you can have a lot of fun in an rpg setting with the leftovers from the ruler of witchcraft.

Mnêmosynê - The titan of memory and language, someone had to create the records of this divine conflict, and perhaps some fragments still remain, etched in stone.

Ophiôn - In some tellings apparently a king of the Titans before Kronos, be interesting to try and make that work with the common story but could reinforce that even divinities fade with time.

There are others two, but now I have a new project. The Elementals, they need characters too, but I intend for them to be even more alien than the Titans (despite being the originators of this world), so standard names wouldn't make sense, and I don't have a quick corpus of mythology to draw on.

How should I name the Primordial Elementals then?