1 Dungeon per Day

Okay, back to actually trying to make maps. I wanna make a simple one for this new campaign and have been messing around in a couple different softwares to see what looks best. These are both "sample" maps, not final versions, so if they look incomplete... well, they are lmao

Map 1, made with Wonderdraft. I always have a hard time with Wonderdraft because of wanting to blend the different terrain colors but not knowing how, so it just ends up with these really hard, awkward lines between biomes. Big black line is the Gap, as mentioned in previous posts.

I also tried making one in worldographer... I put less effort into this one, imma be real lmao. I do love worldographer, don't get me wrong, I just wasn't vibing with it...

Alrighty, after writing all of that stuff yesterday I have a better idea of what I want. So, there will be a secret to the founding tale of Barthel: the portal was never closed. He defeated their forces and forced a retreat, but the portal remained open, and could not be sealed. So the mausoleum built around it was actually intended as a way to seal the portal.

Once it was done, Barthenor would give his first revelation as a saint, saying that if ever the forces came again from the portal, someone of the bloodline of the king (his 3rd in command) would simply need to call for him to awaken from his mausoleum, and he would live again and come to their aid.

So, while writing the lore for my campaign that I mentioned yesterday, I decided I needed at least a few custom saints. So I started making one that'd be the patron of the fallen theocracy of Barthel. Wrote this, and I'm pretty pleased with it, so I thought I'd share as today's entry. Wrote it in one go. Not perfect, and fairly cliché, but overall I'm pretty pleased with it. After all, nothing inherently wrong with a good ol' fashion cliché.

"Barthenor of the Eternal Vigil

Ages ago, demons of the World Below attempted to pour into our world. Our forces attempted to hold them back, but to no avail. Just as hope seemed lost and the forces broke through our ranks, Barthenor charged in, commanding his men to retreat and defeat any that make it past his blade. Believing that their commander was making one final sacrifice for his men, they obeyed his last command, and stood their ground, waiting for them to break their great leader. Minutes passed. Hours passed. Days passed. Not a single demon was seen on their long vigil. On the dawn of the sixth day, his noble squire Norrahn, who had to be detained to prevent him disobeying the orders, ran past the line, determined to join his lord even if it meant his own death. What Norrahn saw was a mountain of demonic corpses, slaughtered and cleaved. And his great lord, standing atop it, blade in hand, looking off at the sunrise. The portal had closed. Norrahn ran to his lord, and attempted to call out to him. But he did not respond. He called again, approaching closer. He did not respond. One final time, hand on his lord's shoulder, he called for him, pleading his lord to turn and declare the day won. Yet he did not respond. Norrahn rounded, and saw that his lord had died, blade in hand, standing still. One day after Norrahn disappeared, the remainder of his men finally could no longer wait, and charged in to see their leader. And there they met them both, Norrahn weeping at his lord's feet.

After the shock had passed, his men decided all that was left to do was give their glorious leader a hero's burial. And yet, no matter what they tried, his body would not move from the spot it stood. It were as if his spirit remained, ever watchful for more threats to his people. And so instead, they built a great mausoleum around him and the mountain he stood atop, and declared that this would be the cornerstone of the kingdom that would be raised in his name. Barthel. Squire Norrahn refused to leave his lord's side again, and demanded to be entombed with him. And so the two of them still remain to this day.

I'm gonna be starting to run a campaign in Draw Steel soon! Very excited, though I only have a few vague ideas for what I'm gonna do. Primary concept of the world they'll be on is a colossal rift cracked effectively the entire manifold in half (not gonna explain DS's lore here because it's a LOT, but manifolds basically just mean planes of existence), separating two of the dominant nations and obliterating the third, as it was directly on top of where the rift emerged. Forty-something years later, crossing the Gap is considered basically impossible. Teleportation leaves the user in pieces on the other side, flying stops midway, plummeting them to their deaths, and structures built over it rapidly decay. One way across is through. The bottom is a maze of mist and stone, inhabited by all the creeping crawling things from the lower manifolds (evil stuff) and those mad enough from this one to decide to make it their home.

Plot's gonna kick off with them not knowing each other, but each with their own reason to really want to cross the Gap. Then, a noble sends a letter to each of them, seemingly knowing their determination, offering a LOT of money to cross the Gap on his behalf. Naturally they accept, and head over.

From here, I have no idea what this noble's motivations are... Draw Steel's whole MO is that you are HEROES, so nothing nefarious... Also, need to ponder how I'm gonna structure the Gap. They'll start off I think with a guide the noble discovered, a Goblin from a tribe that lives down there and wants to make a business out of helping the "stupid biguns" cross, but obviously there will be complications. I think 2 rival factions of goblins, one that wants to do business, and the other that wants to conquer the Gap and keep it entirely for themselves. They think once they help the biguns, we'll figure it out for ourselves, won't need them anymore and promptly force them out.

I think the plot is gonna end up resolving in them discovering a terrible truth about the Gap, and needing to, maybe not close it, but at least neutralize it.

So, questions I need to answer: why does the noble initially want to cross the Gap? What caused the Gap initially? What is the problem with the Gap that makes it a serious problem for everyone, that the people above don't realize yet? And how can a party 3 misfits solve it, or at least help solve it?

Hmmm.... I will ponder all of this...

Turns out, I likely have Covid. Luckily I work from home, so isolating is easy. Decided to take it easy, fiddle with the cave shapes of Goblin Hovel, and import the whole thing into Foundry to light it up.

Another casual one today, just jotting down an idea. I don't wanna necessarily force myself to make a dungeon if I don't want to, but I also want to do SOMETHING every day, so this will have to do.

Idea today was a tower that seems totally abandoned, with the last few floors seemingly missing. No sign of it falling over, it just looks like it was torn off and carried away. The bottom floors have been made into nests for roaming beasts, no sign of sentient presence.

Pretty sick today, so gonna take it easy. Instead of the usual, I'll just try to put together 5 ideas for future dungeons. I come up with these ideas by using a random table I made of nouns and verbs. Shuffles them up and spite 1 of each out, and I try to translate them to something tangible.

Hanging Advice - ...I'm stumped what to do with this one

Domineering Art - An art piece at a museum gains sentience and claims the entire museum as its domain. Fight through works of art.

Slimy Mall - A marketplace is overrun my a massive, mutated slime that was being sold on the black market, its body absorbing buildings, streets, and people, forming a maze of goop, and corrupting and changing anything it doesn't kill. Search for its core and destroy it.

Hanging Refrigerator - dungeon hanging from chains in a massive cavern atop a mountain. Freezing cold, and swings in the wind, shaking the dungeon violently from time to time. Explore and find the treasure within.

Gruesome Finding - ...stumped on this one too. Just too generic. Could be anything, monster lair, some murder scene... idk

Not exactly a dungeon, but I spent eons on it so I decided it damn well should count. First time doing something like this so I'm pretty happy with the outcome. Used to just be randomly generated map from Watabou, then traced it in Wonderdraft to make this. Each building, road and tree was placed one at a time. Took AGES. Especially the buildings, I thought my eyes were gonna start bleeding. This is the main city from the D&D campaign I'm currently running for some folks.

So, I was busy this weekend... I started working on an actual design for the Blood dungeon. Decided it would make sense as an ancient church, with a secret area underneath. I was wondering how to make it more complex and add threat outside just the dungeon, and decided to have something burrow into the area from a nearby underground river, flooding the lower levels and introducing more complicated paths. So some of these tunnels are natural, and some are made by this burrowing thing. Idk exactly what it'll be yet, but I'm happy with the idea.

The maps are actually way bigger than this, but too big for Tumblr so had to crop them down. I also learned how to use layers in DungeonDraft, hence how I've got the transparent layers in each image. The dungeon isn't done yet, but I'm happy with the progress so far.

Also learned it has a Universal VTT export option, which automatically lights and walls the entire map for you!!! Super slick, makes my like a million times easier.

Day 8: Goblin Hovel Map

Had to split this one in half since she's a bit on the huge side. Might tweak the cave shapes, especially for the throne room. Just looks a bit wonky. But other than that I'm fairly pleased with it. Once again, made this with Dungeondraft.

I think I'll be taking weekends off from this challenge from now on so I don't fry my brain. I'm enjoying this, and I want to continue doing so.

Okay, thought it over, and I think I got it. So, yesterday I said the boss would be blood fueled, but what if literally the entire dungeon was. So it's some kind of ancient long dead machine that was made by crazy cultists, that ran on human sacrifice. To get in they need to smear blood on the door, and that slowly starts the process of the dungeon waking up. So at first, there's really nothing dangerous. But then as they get hurt I as the GM will accumulate "blood points" that I can spend to turn on traps, summon enemies, etc. So the longer they stay inside, the more dangerous it's gonna become, snowballing into a nearly impossible dungeon. So the main mission of it can't be to clear it out, it has to be either to destroy the core of the dungeon to stop the power creep, or to retrieve something and get tf outta there as fast as possible.

I reeeeeally dig this idea, but I have no clue how to actually go about implementing it... I guess I need to make a rule for how blood points work. Probably just 1:1 with how much HP is lost... Then I need a chart with BP costs of different hazards. There also need to be risks outside of these things to cause damage even while the dungeons asleep, so we can speed up the process. Falls, collapsing structures, unintended creatures living inside it.

On another note, the Day 1 dungeon was a hit last night! They got about 75% of the way through, and they're having a good time. I think they dig the mystery. I really like environmental storytelling and it seems they're interested in piecing it together as well. Way more fun than just having the story laid out for you.

Didn't have time today to actually map this one out, but came up with an idea for a cool dungeon I'll try to write up tomorrow. It's gonna look pretty standard at first, but each time a PC takes damage they're gonna notice their blood hit the floor and wizz away in a certain direction, towards where they will eventually learn the boss is. The more blood they shed, the more powerful the boss is gonna become. I'll have to make it very possible to avoid most fights so that players that notice can try avoiding danger. Idk exactly where I'm going with it yet, but it seems pretty neat. Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Day 5: Crypt of the Weeping Lady - Finalized

Gonna count this since I gotta prep for session tomorrow. Made it using Dungeondraft, great piece of software.

Day 4: Goblin Hovel

At first was gonna post this with no encounters, but wasn't super happy with it and got a burst of motivation, so added them in. Once again, roughly balance for a party of 6 level 4s, using monsters from the book "Flee, Mortals!", which I would very highly recommend.

I've become a big fan of putting in options to skip entire portions of the map. Adds cool variety.

Also, as a bonus, I decided to actually scrape together a real map for day 1's dungeon, since I think I'll be using that soon. I wasn't going to make one as I prefer theater of the mind, but my usually in person session is going to be online this week, and I decided to mess around with Foundry since it's been a minute since I did anything with that.

Much simpler than some of my other work, but I'm still happy with how it all turned out. Using a module that allows teleportation to make players able to zoop between areas connected by stairs.

Used DungeonScrawl to make the actual map. Not my favorite mapping software to use, but it's quick and easy.

Update: Last night I suddenly remembered I owned actual good dungeon design software, so I redid the Weeping Lady in that. Much happier with it.

Day 3: Burning Building

Back again. Feeling like garbage today, I think I caught something. Today's is an idea I had last night at 3 am when I was having trouble sleeping, a building that's slowly catching on fire and collapsing. I left most of the map blank because I thought this is a pretty good template to apply to anything. Could be a fire elemental fight, maybe sabotage and the party's trapped inside, or maybe some idiot knocked over a candle and it's just a classic firefighting mission. This template assumes the fire's been ongoing for a while before the party begins the encounter, or that is started and spread VERY quickly.

Idk if I've mentioned previously, but I'm making all of these with Drawio in Google Drive. Great software for simple stuff like this. I do a lot of theater of the mind in my campaigns so I'm less interested in physical maps and more in vague conceptual ones like these. And that way I can theoretically redesign it a million ways, describe it however I fancy. Doesn't commit me to any particular way of doing things.

Day 2: The Trial of the Blademaster

Not 100% thrilled with this one, but there she is.

When I'm 100% out of ideas I use a handy dandy chart I made to help me whip something up. It's 2 tables, 1d6 by 1d4, one table of adjectives, one table of nouns. Turns out this table can solve pretty much any creative blockage, I use it for everything. Today I just rolled for what I'd make, and that's that "Motionless Trainer" blurb at the top.

Day 1: Crypt of the Weeping Lady

Decided to try and get better at general dungeon design. This blog is gonna be pretty hectic, with varying methods of design and varying levels of clarity. I may not clarify certain points of the dungeon because I assume I'm the only one reading this, so if anyone is curious about details I left out feel free to ask and I'll try to respond.

Mostly for myself, but check it out if you're interested. Or don't, I'm not your dad.