#dungeoncraft

[welcometoexandria]

[justavulcan]

Seedworld Robotics Facility Compilation Post

Specialized power systems are uncommon throughout human space- typically, being able to interface without adapters is the way most prefer to build, to capitalize on familiarity across markets.  It’s this exact feature that makes the Seedworlds so bizarre.  The untapped raw energy they burst with is too much for conventional power systems to handle and requires specialized equipment to collect, transfer, and use.  As a result they’re something of an energy desert for outside or poorly-adapted hardware.

The Seedworlds are littered with the remnants of prefabbed structures that weren’t built to spec, part of the earliest and most ill-conceived waves of colonization.  The Dungeon is one such structure, a civic robotics factory where the internal circuitry burnt out en masse the first time the production lines were activated.  Still gorgeous and pristine as the day it landed, the Dungeon now plays home to an unorthodox group of locals and colonists alike.

The Master of the Dungeon is the first and only attempt from the Dungeon’s previous life as a prefabbed robotics facility to adjust the machinery to the Seedworld’s native power field.  Visually, it’s monstrous, a chimeric centipede-like construct built using the torsos and limbs of humanoid chassis as raw materials.  Running some kind of security protocols and later equipped with an array of military-grade weaponry, the Master denies access to the structure to most who try, although the odd passerby occasionally meets some hidden criteria for passage and is allowed entry.

The most populous of the Master’s ‘followers’ are cyborgs, mostly explorers and other wilderness types familiar with roaming alien landscapes.  They’ve adopted the role of the emissary since being permitted by the Master to make their home inside the Dungeon, and have adapted themselves admirably to the Seedworld’s power oddities.  Armed with engraving tools and industrial welding equipment, they’ve taken to scribing warnings and messages about the Master’s domain far and wide, inviting supplicants to test themselves and see if the Master finds them worthy.

Perhaps the only one who truly means the best for the Master is a unique robot with a caretaker and repair toolset.  Nearly self-aware due to a complicated interconnected set of systems, it looks after the Master’s repair and upgrade cycles like a concerned teacher would a challenging student.  Its programming has extended to upgrading and repairing the vehicles and equipment the Dungeon’s other occupants bring, nursemaiding their inorganic components and their gear alike.

Newcomers to the Dungeon find that the Master is more than its biggest and most fearsome defender- it is the keystone to the facility’s defense network, a channel through which the other occupants feed each other information and, critically, a free access point for the local power source.  As a result, the Dungeon’s defenders can draw on this network to fuel enhanced shielding or overcharged weaponry as long as the Master is still functional.

Since the Dungeon was dropped, colonization on the Seedworlds has proceeded quickly- and the demand for the facility’s services has increased exponentially.  Since the cost to retrofit the factory is less than the cost of prefabbing and dropping another, or even that of manufacturing another on-planet, there have been interests in reclaiming the Dungeon for its intended use.  Removing the Master and its followers is all that remains, and the facility can be claimed by the most eager of its would-be new owners.

[jodiesdicefarm]

[swegener]

Making walls with scrap insulation and a ballpoint pen. #D&D #dungeonsanddragons #dungeoncraft (at Richmond, Virginia) https://www.instagram.com/scott_wegna/p/BxM5ZKtBbIo/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=13v9g3m00ysjy

[welcometoexandria]

[justavulcan]

Spire of the Centipede Compilation Post

The Maze is dotted with a number of trial dungeons, the final test of a warrior society now lost to the mists of time.  They took the defense of their greatest magical arts and weapons very seriously, and considered each of the sites within the maze to be a separate high-security vault to test the wit and might of those who would follow in their footsteps.  Where they all went, none know; rumor has it some unnamed crime brought the judgement of their god or gods down upon them.  The Spire is simply one such facility

The Crypt For the Living is one of the two original defensive mechanisms built to facilitate keeping the Dungeon and its prize safe, an immense vault of exotic beasts kept in eternal slumber until the Spire is intruded upon.  This means that they’re only released when their specific floor is intruded upon- and that if the intruders are quick, they can catch the territorial beasts still groggy from their stasis.

The Growing Rite is an ongoing ritual perpetuated by a group of near-immortal mushroom people deep in the depths under the Spire.  As the treasures are hidden at the spire’s pinnacle, going to resolve this matter takes would-be explorers out of their way, but it’s worth it- until they’re stopped, the mushroom people’s magic causes the interior of the Spire to grow vegetation riotously to interfere in combat and make exploration difficult.

The jungle delvers, on the other hand, are survivalists that live in the maze around the spire, venerating it as holy ground and only tapping its seemingly-bottomless vault of dinosaurs as a last resort or on special ceremonial occasions.  They’re intolerant of trespassers, as they consider the maze and Spire worthy of veneration, and while they don’t jump straight to violence, they will get there eventually against persistent intruders.

The dungeon’s Master, the Primordial Gnawer, is the spire builders’ final test, a sentient rune-engraved arthropod of immense size and hostility.  It takes its duties very seriously, as intruders are the only entertainment (and food) it ever gets; while it doesn’t experience hunger in the Spire, it does savor the taste of meat, and considers eating intruders something akin to a sacred duty.

The lesser reward for persisting through the dungeon’s trials is a gift of wealth and power: a treasure horde with a potent magical weapon at its heart as a reward for persistance and courage.  The wealth is in raw golden jewelry and art made from jade, turquoise, and coral; the weapon is a polearm or other thrusting or hafted weapon, planted victoriously in a dinosaur skull for display.

The greater reward is the Waterknot, a band of flowing liquid water that grants its wielder a number of abilities related to timelessness or stasis- water is ageless, and the builders considered it a symbol of eternity.  The wielder of the Waterknot can, by tapping its power, hold creatures, objects, and even time itself in stasis, once they’ve mastered the ancient artifact sufficiently.

[swegener]

Getting dungeon crafty up in here. #D&D #dungeonsanddragons #dungeoncraft (at Richmond, Virginia) https://www.instagram.com/scott_wegna/p/BxEAMqYhOAX/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=15t8awyvvxke7

[swegener]

Paint, dry brush, wash (twice), final dry brush. Skelington. I’ll coat it will clear Elmer’s tonight and matte spray varnish tomorrow. And then we can play on it! (Too bad the next 3 encounters that might need a map are in a forest or on a farm!!!) #D&D #dungeonsanddragons #dungeoncraft (at Richmond, Virginia) https://www.instagram.com/scott_wegna/p/BxHsYLvhPas/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=11ef6sy1errno