#Dungeon23 Megadungeon Challenge

[ericthered]

Jan 23 etr

Description: A circular track 15 yards across on the outside and 10 yards across on the inside, with an arched 15 foot ceiling. An illusory kaleidoscope of color fills the room up to a height of 2 feet.

The Illusion: This is a magical effect. It has an effective skill level of 20 (for opposing remove curse). It only fills the human visible spectrum: infravision and ultravision can see through it.

Hazards: Three 5 yard pits (2d damage from a fall, -3 to climb out) 3 yards across are found in the floor. The pits are not filled with the illusion, and one of them contains 4 giant viper eggs, worth $200 each.

Monsters: A Giant Viper (DFRPG Monsters page 31). As it has infravision, it can see through the illusory effect. It is quite hungry and will attack aggressively.

Treasure: ~$500 in silver coins, pick up $50 worth per margin of success, +5 if a way to see through the mist is present. Two keys are found in this room, on a search roll at -4.

Exits: The chamber has four heavy wooden doors at the compass points (DR 3, 33 HP). The Doors all have locks with a -1 modifier to pick. All of the doors are locked.

[ericthered]

Jan 24 etr


Description: a 2 yard wide by 7 feet tall passage ten yards long. There are six Average iron grill doors on each (DR 9, 18 HP per bar) with +0 Locks, all requiring the same key. 2 yards is between each grill, and the smashed remnants of a skeleton is in each cell. The grills make a horrendous grating noise when opened. (+4 to attempts to hear the party approach)

[ericthered]

Jan 25 etr


Description: A 10 by 10 yard room with a 1 yard ring of magical fire (1d6-1 per second) around its edges, and a second 5 by 5 yard ring of magical fire in the middle. A short Altar is in the center of the room, bearing two monstrous idols. The room has low sancity, generated by the altar.



Monsters: 2 Demons of old, armed with chains, and with an extra DR 5 against fire, and having an achilles heel of destroying the statues or removing them from the room rather than stabbing through the heart. The demons are magically bound to the room.


Treasure: Inside the altar is a ruby worth $3,000. The idols are worth $1,000 each intact.



Vision: -1 (the room is full of fire)
Hearing: -4 (the crackling of the fire)



Exits: Three doors, each in the center of a wall. They are Light wooden doors (DR 1, 23 HP) secured with light bars from the outside (+5 to pick).

[ericthered]

Jan 26 etr

Description: A 7 yard by 20 yard chamber with a 5 yard ceiling. In the center is a massive stone sculpture of a sword (2 yards high, 2 yards wide, 10 yards long with an altar with ivory inlays on the cross-guard. Climbing up the sword is at -1.

Summoning effect: When the threshold is crossed (Traps -2 to spot it) a magical bonfire ignites on the altar and 10 demons appear on top of the sword. They have the stats of Dinomen, except they lack the disease effect from their bites, have fire DR 5 on their hands, and can hurl fireballs from the altar. (range 10/10, Acc0, 1d6 burning damage, skill 14). These demons will be summoned each time the room is entered until the altar is properly consecrated with a religious ritual. A destroyed altar will continue to summon the demons, who will do their best to repair it after the intruders leave.

vision: -3 if the altar is on fire, -10 otherwise

Treasure: Ivory Inlays from the altar are worth $600 total.


Exits: Massive Arches at each end of the chamber

[ericthered]

Jan 27 etr

Description: A 10 by 10 yard room flooded with 2 feet of standing water (see exploits page 25), and a ceiling 15 feet above that. Two stone pillars, 4 yards apart from each other and three yards apart from each other, running north-south, are in the center of the room. They are smooth (-3 to climb) and end 8 feet above the surface of the water. various shiny looking things are on top of them.

Visibility: -10
Hearing: -3 (sloshing water)

Exits: Four entrances, each at a corner of the room. Each has a set of stairs that descends 4 feet, then immediately turn a corner.

Monsters: Two Eyes of Death.

Treasure: in two stashes on top of the pillars. four coral gems worth $200 each, and five pearls worth $250 each are on top of the north pillar. On top of the south pillar is an dwarven primer on resist fire, written in dwarven ($200, 6 lbs), a dwarven textbook on thaumatology, also in dwarven ($350, 12 lbs).

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by Dalin

1/18 — Dauðagrip Front Porch (map)
. . .
Crawl space: The crawl space is so low (1 foot) that a human-sized character needs to be fully prone to enter it. This causes −4 to attacks, −3 to defenses, and a maximum movement of 1 yard per turn.

. . . Talk about claustrophobia!

Sounds like a good opportunity for fright checks once sufficiently inside.

You caused me to use a ruler to measure myself from the floor lying down.

I'm assuming you would need to remove heavy armor to infiltrate the area, an interesting consequence.

~~~

By the way, Dalin, what software or techniques do you use to create your maps?

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Tom H.

. . . Talk about claustrophobia!

Totally. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Sounds like a good opportunity for fright checks once sufficiently inside.

You caused me to use a ruler to measure myself from the floor lying down.

I'm assuming you would need to remove heavy armor to infiltrate the area, an interesting consequence.

Yeah, I actually wasn't sure what the minimum realistic height might be. Fright checks would make sense. And removing heavy armor. Good ideas!

By the way, Dalin, what software or techniques do you use to create your maps?

I've been randomly generating caves using Donjon Then I modify with Photoshop. I haven't done much customization yet, but I added the narrow tunnels for the Dauðagrip caves along with the shading and red outlines. I used a photoshop brush to create the rubble in the collapsed passage. (I wasn't entirely happy with it, but it got the basic idea across.)

This week I have been at a remote camp in northern Minnesota as a chaperone for a school trip. Didn't have a computer, so I drew some maps and wrote in a notebook. It's been many years since I've tried that. I'll post pictures of the results when a get a chance later this weekend.

[Dalin]

1/22 — Forgeling Smith Front Door

This is my first entry done by hand in a notebook. It's also my first time ever inking a map and adding crosshatching.

The forgeling is from Monsters 2, p. 18. This is definitely the "hero" variant from the sidebar on p. 19, though I'll probably break some template rules if I create a full character sheet. I also think he'll be better as a wrestler rather than a barbarian.

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by Dalin

This is my first entry done by hand in a notebook. It's also my first time ever inking a map and adding crosshatching.

Your map with the crosshatching reminded me of the technique used by Dyson Logos.

I was into The Fantasy Trip a while back and purchased the Hexagram mini magazine Issue #5 from October 2020.

Starting on page 24, there was a two page brief interview with the owner and creator of Dyson Logos.

He described his popular map designs. Here are a few takeaway points:

• He inks everything by hand.
• He's transitioning to digital with a tablet but still uses his hand technique. He doesn't rely much on software effects.
• He practices all the time.

I purchased a very basic Wacom tablet to create maps, but I haven't started using it yet.

I'm assuming an iPad with an Apple Pencil is a very powerful approach.

[Tom H.]

Also, this Megadungeon Challenge reminds me of one started by martinl back in 2019.

See the Collaborative DFRPG Mega-Dungeon thread.

martinl had a useful backstory for a diverse dungeon collaboration:

Originally Posted by martinl

5. Framing-story - The God of the Underworld holds dungeons sacred. It has rescued a bunch of its favorites from across space and time and merged them into a sprawling complex that is part museum, part temple, and part delve. Almost anything may be found within its confines, and "dungeon sanctity" boosts the power of many of its denizens, but delvers are always "welcome" to try their luck. The God roots for the home team, but doesn't rig the game. ... Much.

This idea could be useful if this exercise really takes off as the year unfolds.