Been trying to use room shapes that aren't just squares. The Dragoon Oracle is supposed to tell the party about the legendary Dragoon, which 100% is stolen from Kirby Air Ride (I've been playing the sequel a ton). Rather than have the Dragoon be a vehicle I might try to have it be like a sword or something. Then again, figuring out the combat rules for riding on the Dragoon sounds cool (and best part of Crawl Classics is it doesn't have to be balanced). Either way, it's for the Future Remora to decide. I also wanna try a little harder with the art, but this level is just a castle so later floors will be cooler. I definitely want a "Darkroot Garden" type of area since that's my favorite area in Dark Souls. I have a bit of an idea on how to do it, with having a vampire who runs around trying to kill the party but is bound to the floor. I also want it to have Yddgrl, which is a giant root (the World Root, to be exact) that connects all worlds in Dungeon Crawl Classics.
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Entering from the western peak, through heavy-set oaken doors, you find a long corridor with well worn cobblestone flooring. It's walls are carved with reliefs of religious scenes, depicting travelers saved on the road by a benevolent stranger. At the end of the room stands a statue of the same cloaked figure, faceless, and carrying a copper bowl of water about 3 feet wide, filled with coins.
For my first week of Dungeon26, I've started with an entrance. I deliberated a bit over if I should start with Section B (The western peak enterence) or C (The eastern peak enterence) but for reasons I'll get into, I went with option B.
I was kinda lacking for immediate inspiration: I know what I want to /get to/ with this dungeon, but how do you start? what's at the enterance? so I rolled on a room theme generator from Knave 2E. My result: Prophecy.
This excited me - a lot went wrong with this place, as in most fantasy post-apocolyptic dungeons. what if someone predicted it?
The idea I've come to is that the followers of Ilus, the god of Prophecy, were the first inhabitants of The Chaos Peaks. They built their temple to seal some great danger from bellow. It's an idea I want to carry on throughout this week of design.
So, what does the Statue actually do?
The idea is, travelers passing by would throw their gold into it's bowl to get a blessing for good fortune on the road ahead. At the time, the magic was weaker, but since it's coalesced for centuries without use, it now has a few prophecies to give directly to the players, if they're generous enough to leave a coin.
So far, I have "Beware the deep running, mercurial elixer", in reference to the Chaos Oil deeper in this dungeon - but I haven't filled out the rest of the 1d6 table. The idea is I can fill it in as the dungeon goes along with relevant advice for more complex or dangerous rooms, assuming they remember getting it.
Since I'm starting out posting this challenge, I think it's worth going over what the challenge actually is!
Back in 2023, Sean McCoy, creator of Mothership, proposed a challenge - draw 1 room a day of a megadungeon, optionally with a theme for each week, and each month a floor.
It blew up like crazy. I've seen at least like 4 published zines from it. Really Impressive stuff.
I only found out about it in late 23' though. And in 24' and then 25', I completely forgot about it around new years. So late November this year, I decided to hard commit. I got myself a nice journal, nice stationary, grid paper and a calender insert. Hoping to invest enough in that I actually pull through and keep going for the whole year.
So, here's what I have so far:
The Chaos Peaks - an ancient dwarven hold, built into a frigid mountaintop. Beside it, the ruins of an academy of alchemy, where they study the stars.
An idea I've wanted to explore in a dungeon for a while is messed up, chaotic effects of transmutation. Creatures with horrible, shifting elemental ailments. But I didn't think I could commit a whole month to it. I'd considered making just a small dungeon to publish on itch, but never got round to it. But making it one of a number of overarching themes for a megadungeon, that excites me.
Some other ideas I want to explore with this dungeon are the classic 'dug too deep' dwarf tropes. My setting for OSR styled games has the forces of 'chaos', in a raw, elemental sense, coming from the depths of the world. That's why dungeons are often found going downwards, and get more dangerous the lower you are. In particular, in the lowest parts of the world, you can find Chaotic Oil - a fluid of shifting colour and state, which on contact transforms it's environment. That's something I'd really like to include in this adventure.
Anyway, to explain what this map is, I've written out the major connections between each of the 12 monthly areas. I kinda thought of it like a metroidvania map, since I recently finished Silksong. The goal is for the areas to connect in interesting ways such that each entrance and each route provides a different experience. As with anything, this is subject to change, but I think I like the current layout, particularly in how there's so many rooms between each enterence, so leaving and trying both is a very valid strategy for careful adventurers.
Currently, I've not written anything mechanical into this project yet, but I intend to stat it and it's treasure out for Shadowdark. Whilst I have some qualms with how it handles Treasure as XP, I do like the simplicity of the minimal XP points, and the base system in general has really appealed to me so far.
So, happy new year everyone! I'm wishing everyone with new years resolutions luck on the year ahead - may your projects be successful, but most of all, take care of yourself. Remember that these resolutions are for You first and foremost.
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6.78: The Blood Basin: Basin stained with old dried blood. Refilling it (which requires draining a medium creature or equivalent) causes the wall the basin is on to swivel, opening a one-way secret door for one dungeon turn. Empty.
6.79: The Hot and Cold Doors: Southern half of the room is bitingly cold, northern is baking hot. Metal slab doors only stay open as long as they maintain the opposite temp (hot for southern and cold for northern). Empty.
6.80: The Heavy Weapons
6.81: The Infernal Escape
6.82: The Hanging Doors: Walls painted with frescoes of hanged pirates. Gibbet extends between northern and western doors, which have no keyhole or handles. If a corpse is hung from the gibbet’s noose (regardless of whether it was killed by the noose or not) the door that it faces opens. Empty.
6.83: The Truthful Guards
6.84: The Frozen Leviathan
6.85: The Truthful Dead: Floor carved with runes: zone of truth on entire room. Corpses of two anchor devils who appear to have frozen to death. Empty.
6.86: The Wall of Masks: Northern wall completely covered in devil masks that laugh and jeer when mortals approach them. Ten of the masks conceal buttons, which, if pressed in the correct sequence, open the secret door to 6.87. Only Ukarith knows the correct order, (1-6-8-5-4-9-7-10-3-2) but it can also be gleaned from touching the ice in 6.84. A creature who presses the buttons in the incorrect order must succeed at a Wisdom saving throw or fall prone and become incapacitated and unable to stand for one minute as they’re wracked with laughter. Empty.
6.87: Ukarith's Secret Shrine
6.88: The Tree of Hearts' Desire
(Non-key rambling under cut)
Aaaaand that's a wrap for 2024! Thank you to everyone who supported this project, especially @aranov, @bcswowbagger Decoder13 (no tumblr) @fishdavidson, @lunaofthemiste, @skinslip, @spewagepipe. Your comments, ideas, playtesting, etc. mean the world to me, and you made doing this much more rewarding.
I should have a post about what's next for the caves up in a day or two. Happy new year, mateys!
Blood vessels crawl like vines up the curved eastern wall of this chamber and onto the ceiling, where they’ve sprouted 2d4 fruits the rough size and shape of a human heart. The vessels and fruits move and rustle of their own accord. Creatures who approach the eastern wall hear unintelligible telepathic whispering; when they touch a fruit or blood vessel, the whispering becomes clear: Pick your heart’s desire. Ripen and wither.
A mortal who eats a fruit from this room may choose to gain the effect of the wish spell. One who does dies one year after eating the fruit and is reborn as a wretched soul in 6.43 soon after. Nothing (including another wish) short of divine intervention can alter this fate. A mortal who eats the fruit and does not choose to have a wish granted takes heavy necrotic damage. Each subsequent fruit a given mortal eats deals heavy necrotic damage, no matter what that mortal chose the first time.
The fruits have no effect on non-mortals (fiends, undead, etc.). They rot an hour after being picked.
(Non-key rambling under cut)
This is the last new (occupied) room in the dungeon, so let's get freakin nuts! See you tomorrow for the final roundup of rooms
The walls of this briny-smelling chamber are hung with deep blue draperies, and an image of a monstrous whale (after the leviathan in [AREA]) is painted on the floor and ceiling. In the center of the room is a stone altar, which always feels damp. A chunk of unmelting ice the size and rough shape of a horse’s head sits on a deep blue cloth on the altar, surrounded by a ring of thirteen black candles. Twelve of them are lit; the thirteenth is a candle of invocation that Ukarith intends to use to open a gate to the leviathan’s home in the abyssal ocean.
The ice possesses the same properties as the iceberg it was chipped off of—see [AREA] for details.
(Non-key rambling under cut)
Usually I do inking and weekly roundups on Sundays, but since there's only two days left in the year I'm doing a room instead. Tomorrow will be the last "filled" room, and then I'll present the final week+ roundup on the 31st.
