Beneath Ahknoor - Early Playtesting

Earlier this spring, I ran a short, limited playtest of Beneath Ahknoor during my lunch hour on weeks when our group wasn’t playing something else.

In our first session, we handled Character Generation, Making Entry, and a short stretch of Delving, two of the game’s four phases. The following session wrapped up Delving and carried us through Getting Out and Above Ground, completing the loop.

Character Generation

Character creation follows a familiar Carved from Brindlewood cadence, but with a clear nod toward OSR priorities. Starting position matters. The world is dangerous. The dungeon will change you.

After naming and describing their adventurer, each player allocates 3 points among their attributes. From there, they choose a starting location, the place that set their baseline expectations about safety, community, and scale.

For example:

Harjet’s Ford

Description: A backwoods village on the northern frontier, Harjet’s Ford is a gathering place for trappers, hunters, and peddlers. Blustery winds drive lashing rain across the cabins and sod huts clustered around a muddy trading common.

Character Question: What memory of Harjet’s Ford is the measuring stick by which you judge other communities as bigger and better than your home?

Move - Hedge Magik: Once per Delving phase, you may use a minor magik to gain Advantage on any roll except Unlocking. You must describe the magik you use.

Players read the location aloud and answer the question. This is not backstory for its own sake. The question establishes contrast. When the party later encounters cities, enclaves, or underworld communities, the table already knows what “big,” “safe,” or “civilized” means to this character, and how those assumptions might be wrong.

Next, each player chooses a travel location, a place they passed through on the way to the ruins of Ahknoor. This is not where they are from. It is where they learned something expensive.

For example:

The Necropolis at Okchit

Description: A deserted mesa topped with mausoleums, ossuaries, and crypts from civilizations across the world and across deep time. The honored and the infamous are entombed here together. Riches and secrets lie among the dead, guarded by traps and by things that remember being alive.

Character Question: What tales led you here, and why will you never return?

Move - Whispers of the Dead: Once per Delving phase, a spirit whispers a truth to you. If you make and describe an appropriate sacrifice, treat your next roll, other than Unlocking, as a 12+.

Again, players read the description aloud and answer the question. The reason for this question is risk calibration. Everyone at the table now knows what this character considers too dangerous, too costly, or not worth the price. That line will get tested.

After each player answers, the Keeper and the other players collaboratively name one item in that character’s Pack. Each Pack item can grant Advantage on a single roll.

More importantly, Pack items are an abstraction of the party’s carried resources. We are not tracking individual torches, arrows, or rations. Instead, as Pack items are marked off or exhausted, the Adventurers know that supplies are running low, luck is thinning, and it is time to think seriously about getting back to the surface. The Pack gives the table a shared, fiction-first signal for mounting pressure without turning the game into an accounting exercise.

Why This Structure Works (So Far)

On the surface, this is a light framework. In practice, it does several very OSR-friendly things:

• It establishes a baseline world before the dungeon distorts it.
• It teaches players what kinds of risks the game cares about through play.
• It gives the Keeper concrete material to threaten, twist, and call back to later.

By the time we entered Delving, every adventurer already had something to compare the dungeon against, and something they were quietly hoping not to lose.

I’m pleased with how quickly this produced playable, motivated characters without locking them into fixed arcs or elaborate backstories.

If you are a referee or designer reading this, does this feel like a useful way to front-load tone and stakes? Is it something you would want to steal, adapt, or stress-test at your own table?

Back to the Dungeon - New Stuff To Talk About!

I’m back.

It’s been a little over two years since I last posted here. In that time I tried out a few other platforms, kicked the tires, learned what worked and what didn’t. After all that, I’ve landed back on Blogger. It turns out this is still the best fit for how and why I write.

Over the next little while, I’ll be harvesting some of the strongest pieces from my Substack and reposting them here, alongside new work written specifically for this space.

A lot of what you’ll see right now centers on Beneath Ahknoor, my in-progress, OSR-feeling, Carved from Brindlewood–adjacent megadungeon game. I’ve already posted the game’s “North Star” in my writing space, but it bears repeating here:

Adventuring grants power at the cost of self.

The dungeon is a corrupting force. It offers short-term advantage in exchange for lasting loss. Players are responsible for recognizing, shaping, and telling the tragedy of their characters against the backdrop of a great adventure.

Beneath Ahknoor is a dark fantasy game about exploration, transformation, and the price of going deeper.

I’ll also be writing about other projects in progress, including It’s Worse Than That, along with some other Carved from Brindlewood and old-school work that isn’t quite ready to step into the light yet.

If you’re still here, or if you’re just finding this place for the first time, I’m glad to have you. There’s good stuff in the pipeline.

Beneath the Cliffs - part 4

This week, I've finished up two more sections of the Ruined Monastery of St Amruss. I wrote the last descriptions of the kitchen area and wrote up the three rooms that make up the upper entrance to the great library beneath. 

I also started writing Moments and Liminal Questions which I'll continue to work on for this site as well as the other sites I write for Dungeon23. These are a pair of ideas that come from Jason Cordova's Brindlewood Bay.  

Moments are like mini-scenes that a GM can use to reinforce the atmosphere or engage the players between activities, encounters, or locations. Here are the first three for the ruins:

Scritching noises in the walls give away the presence of rats crawling around out of sight.

A hand-sized spider clings to the ceiling in a corner of the room, light glitters as it reflects in its eyes.

A gust of wind swirls through the room, whipping up paper, leaves, and other trash from the floor.

Liminal Questions are a form of Paint The Scene question used when the PCs are passing from one section of a dungeon to another. Here are the ones I've written so far.  (I'm sure I'll be revisiting these to improve them, but I think they're a good start.)

Rooms 3 & 6 - MAGULIN are the embodiment of spirits of guile, deceit, and trickery. They appear as twisted humans with enlarged, toothy maws; pointy ears; and plain, white eyes. Short tufts of thick hair stand out in clumps from their warty, grey skin. You are entering an area inhabited by these creatures. What is different about this room that lets you know MAGULIN are nearby.

Room 11 - As you enter into an open hallway that surrounds an overgrown garden, what do you sense that reveals a deep corruption of the garden and the plants growing there?

Rooms 19-21 - The outer library was once a gateway to the collected rumors and knowledge of the Land of Ten-Thousand Thousand Shrines. Now, its looted entrance lies empty before you. What stories do you remember that make you believe there is a priceless store of knowledge still hidden in the vaults below?

 

And, here are the descriptions of these two areas. (Rooms 12, 14, 17, and 18 were posted last week.)

11 Garden Hall
A 10' wide covered walkway surrounds the monestary garden. A plinth stands in each corner of the hallway. Deep gouges along the floor show something heavy was dragged away from the plinths and into the garden itself. 

12 Outer Kitchen
Large kitchen tables are overturned, thick wooden tops facing the north doorway. The wooden slabs are marred with deep gashes. Smashed crockery and simple tableware litter the floor.
A skeleton, missing the skull lies in front of one of the tables. A POLTERGEIST haunts the room hurling debris at anyone entering and muttering or wailing indecipherable words.
If the skull in the Dining Hall and the skeleton are appropriately laid to rest, the POLTERGEIST will be appeased and show their benefactor the hidden silver place setting in the Dry Pantry 

13 Inner Kitchen
Sturdy tables are pushed up against each wall. A pair of dry sinks are set into the northern tables.
An empty key hook hangs on the wall next to the eastern door, a splintered bucket and pile of trash lie on the ground beneath it.
Hidden beneath the pile is a ring with 6 keys on it. (The keys open the doors to the Abbott's Sanctum and the Gardeners Shed)

14 Dry Pantry
Shelves line the walls of this room, broken pottery sits on the shelves. Some has fallen off onto the floor.
A musty, rotten smell fills the room. Mice and insects crawl over and through the detritus.
There is a secret panel behind a pile of broken pottery shards. It conceals a small compartment.
The nook contains a finely made, full place setting in silver, including a wine jug, goblet, charger, and plate. 

15 Drying Room
Shelves sag from the walls and hooks hang from the ceiling.
Loud buzzing fills the room. Wasp nests cling to the underside of the rotting wooden shelving.
If disturbed a stinging cloud of WASPS will swarm the offenders. 

16 Well Entry
A small room, coat hooks are on the wall. An overturned boot rack sits beneath them.
The outer door lies, splintered, on the floor, burst from its hinges when invaders struck.
A forgotten boot is tossed in the corner. Hidden inside is a carved-stone amulet, bearing the likeness of Saint Amruss. 

17 Well
The well is solidly constructed and still has clean water at the bottom, though there is neither rope nor bucket with which to draw it.
Vines have overgrown the shaft, hanging down some 20' along the walls. A silver holy symbol can be seen glittering on a ledge about 15' down.
A VENOMOUS WATERSNAKE hides in a hole in the wall just above the ledge. It can easily climb the vines and hunts small animals in the area.
It will not attack, except to defend itself from anything drawing too close to its lair. The snake wants to be left alone.
The shaft of the well gives access to the crypt. 

18 Dining Hall
A pair of large tables run nearly the length of this room. Broken pottery plates, bowls, and mugs are set out as though for a meal, but any food in them has long since rotted away. A human skull lies on a wooden carving plate at the head of one table. This belongs to the POLTERGEIST in the outer kitchen 

19 Library Outer Entrance
The frescoed walls of this room show people in robes carrying books and scrolls up and down stairs and through torchlit hallways.
A sturdy standing desk stands a few feet in front of the north wall. Its front and sides are solid wood from the floor to the top. They form a 6" high rim around the desktop.
Looking behind the desk reveals four drawers on the right and left side. They are empty.
If the bottom-right drawer is removed, a small niche can be seen in the floor beneath it. The space contains an ornate brass key, the bow is in the shape of a book.

20 Library Outer Reading Room
A large table surrounded by eight broken chairs. Small, ink-stained depressions run down the center of each table.
Frescoes show people sitting at the table reading and writing. Candle holders line the walls.
Four SKELETONS in frayed robes stand, at the corners of the table.
They will animate, pick up chair legs (treat as clubs), and attack if anyone attempts to damage anything in the room, attack them, or go down the stairs into the library proper. 

21 Outer Librarian's Office
A simple-looking desk sits against the wall, beneath a set of broken shelves.
The frames of bookcases stand against the wall behind it, their shelves ripped out and tossed to the floor.
In the center of the room a charred skeleton lies in the center of a pile of ash and the burnt spines of books. The ceiling above is stained with soot.

Weekly Update - 2023-01-20

I'm still mired in my job change (which came complete with a looming deadline), but this week I've mixed in a cold just to keep things interesting. I hope y'all are having a better week than I.

What I'm reading

I'm really admiring all of the cool things folks are posting about Dungeon23. Here are hree you should check out:

• Amelyth is creating amazing maps
• Taichara is doing good stuff.
• Pete of Garblag Games is posting about his the Shattered Temple of Kadraethis

I just finished a second pass through the first three episodes of The Darkened Threshold I'm slowly convincing myself that I need to play more Carved From Brindlewood games and maybe even write one myself.

I also just reread Maze Rats. Once My Monday group finishes Winter's Daughter, this will be the next short game I run.

In my offline time, I'm bouncing back and forth between Swords of the Serpentine and Blades in the Dark. I want to run both of these games this year. I just need to find out when and where.

What I'm writing and drawing

One conflict I'm running into as I write my Dungeon23 is how I want to write my descriptions. I absolutely love Ben L's lush writing in Through Ultan's Door but the house style of OSE is growing on me. I've been writing text entries to this point, but I think I need to try out the OSE version. A good first step would be to rewrite some entries into that - maybe even a couple of my favorites from Ben.

I'm hoping to finish the Fettered Factory maps next week. Then I'll be moving on to a redraw of the upper floors of the Ruined Monastery of St Amruss and the library (and crypt) beneath it.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

Martin Luther King Jr Day meant no lunchtime game at work. I'm excited to pick up Winter's Daughter next week. We've had a long break, so it will be important to get a quick recap to remind everyone where we are and then dive into some action to shock us back into play.

Wednesday's game was focused on putting together the clues we've gathered over the last several sessions and deciding what our next steps ought to be. It looks like we're going to dive back into investigation mode, with an eye to figuring out which factions a couple of NPCs belong to and how we can play those factions against each other.

On Thursday, the PCs spent a while navigating a cluster of flooded caves by boat. They found an exit guarded by bugbears. 

Due to their semi-alliance with Shuzgrap, the new bugbear chief in the Lost City, (and a really good reaction roll) they avoided an immediate fight but were stymied in how to move forward. 

They went back to the network of caves to look for another path. When they couldn't find one, they decided they needed to blitz the bugbears and get past them. Since they'd spent a couple of hours re-exploring, I gave them a small chance to surprise the bugbears and they did. We made it through their initial attack.

When we pick up next week, I'll be leading with a pair of questions:
(For the paladin) What would Galzar, the Lord of Battle, think of your breaking truce with the bugbears? 
(For everyone else) How do the bugbears react to your attack after your previous negotiations?

Beneath the Cliffs - part 3

This week was rough. I got behind quickly due to a lot of other demands on my time.  I discovered another person writing their descriptions in Obsidian, and I'm thinking about doing some reorganization based on some of their comments. 

On Thursday, my wife had a late class, and I was able to use that time to write up my missing days' descriptions.  I've also gone back to some earlier entries to connect them to things I wrote this week and I touched up the map (including adding numbers for two more encounter areas). You might notice I skipped a couple of rooms. I plan on going back to fill those in this week. I was trying to hit some of the areas that I felt inspired about.

8 Chapel 

This room is filled with broken, wooden pews that once faced a statue at the front of the room. The statue is gone, leaving on an empty plinth, and scratches in the floor leading to the North Transept.  

Frescoes adorning the walls have been defaced. 

If anyone shows signs of regret for the damage, or reverence for what was once a sacred space, a sorrowful voice will whisper "Cleanse my house. I will reward thee." 

9 Northern Transept 

The burnt and rotting remains of a wicker man. The charred skeleton of a person lies within the litter of branches that remain. Soot stains the ceiling. 

10 Southern Transept 

Broken pews and litter are pushed back against the walls. A thaumaturgic circle is inscribed in chalky brown on the floor in the cleared space. Some of the tracings has been rubbed through, although this is hard to detect without a careful, knowledgeable search. 

Anyone using this circle for spell casting is in for a nasty surprise. 

11 Garden Hall 

A 10' wide covered walkway surrounds the monastery garden. A plinth stands in each corner of the hallway. Deep gouges along the floor show something heavy was dragged away from the plinths and into the garden itself. 

12 Outer Kitchen 

Large kitchen tables are overturned, thick wooden tops facing the north doorway. The wooden slabs are marred with deep gashes. Smashed crockery and simple tableware litter the floor. A skeleton, missing the skull lies in front of one of the tables.

A POLTERGEIST haunts the room hurling debris at anyone entering and muttering or wailing indecipherable words.

If the skull in the Dining Hall and the skeleton are appropriately laid to rest, the POLTERGEIST will be appeased and show their benefactor the hidden silver place setting in the Dry Pantry 

14 Dry Pantry 

There is a secret panel behind a pile of broken pottery shards. It conceals a small compartment. The nook contains a finely made, complete place setting in silver, including a wine jug, goblet, charger, and plate. 

17 Well 

The well is solidly constructed and still has clean water at the bottom, though there is neither rope nor bucket with which to draw it. 

Vines have overgrown the shaft, hanging down some 20' along the walls. A silver holy symbol can be seen glittering on a ledge about 15' down. 

A VENOMOUS WATERSNAKE hides in a hole in the wall just above the ledge. It can easily climb the vines and hunts small animals in the area. It will not attack, except to defend itself from anything drawing too close to its lair. 

The snake wants to be left alone. The shaft of the well gives access to the crypt. 

18 Dining Hall 

A pair of large tables run nearly the length of this room. Cracked pottery plates, bowls, and mugs are set out as though for a meal, but any food in them has long since rotted away. 

A human skull lies on a wooden carving plate at the head of one table. This belongs to the POLTERGEIST in the Outer Kitchen

Weekly Update - 2022-01-13

 This has been a busy week with a big project at work, my wife starting a new term in her Theater Ed program, and her attending a Theater Conference where she taught a class on using RPGs to develop characters in theater. Needless to say, this has bit into all of my gaming activities.

What I'm reading

As part of my Dungeon 23 interest, I've been going through Cyclical Dungeon Generation and Jaquaying [sic] The Dungeon, combing for ideas. I really like both concepts, and I'm trying to find a good way of interleaving them. 

I'm following a few Dungeon23 aggregators and the hashtag on Twitter. There are so many great maps and rooms being posted. Eg., this one. And of course, Dyson is getting into the act, twice 

I also found an old post about Downtime - Finding the Right Buyer, which is based on Ben L's Downtime in Zyan.  I'm going to be integrating this into my current AD&D campaign and the OSE (probably) campaign I'm planning to replace it.  It has a nice table of complications. I added a set of benefits to go along with it:

d8	Description
1	The buyer pays an extra 20%-50% (1d4+1) for this sale.
2	The sale gives the seller(s) an extra step on their renown tracker
3	The sale embarrasses a rival party who was publicly seeking the item.
4	The buyer becomes a new Relationship
5	The sale embarrasses the rival of an NPC the seller has a relationship with.
6	The sale adds a step on a tracker for an institution the seller has a relationship with or starts a new tracker for an institution for the seller if they don't already have one.
7	The seller may take an extra Revelry downtime action as a part of selling or celebrating the sale of the item.
8	The buyer also provides a scenario hook.

 I play a lot of podcasts and youtube stuff in the background. This week a really enjoyed getting back into some Monster Man - my only complaint is that after almost every episode, I want to start a brand new campaign to riff on James' ideas. I also like the new episodes of 3d6 Down the Line's Arden Vul play-through and The Dungeon Minister's family BECMI game recaps.

What I'm writing and drawing

I'm about 1/2 way through the base maps for Fettered Factory. I've still got to label them and do a bit more cleanup. Each map is being done in a DM's map with labels, secret doors, and the like, and a player-facing map that can be used in the VTT of the DM's choice. 

I'm plugging away at Dungeon23. You can read this week's update here.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

Due to work constraints, we only played our Wednesday game this week. We managed to defeat the wraith and take our prisoner to the authorities who'd hired us to find her. I'm looking forward to figuring out who she's working for as we work our way up the food chain of a conspiracy that seems aimed at bringing down the kingdom where the game is set.

Beneath the Cliffs - pt 2

I've been moving right along on my #Dungeon23 project.  I drafted three hooks/rumors. I only feel like one of them is actionable so far:

The monks of Saint Amruss once collected maps, tales, and recollections from adventurers returning from The Land of Ten-Thousand Thousand Shrines. These records may still lie in the Underground Library of the monastery. 

I'll see what comes of the others as I add more room descriptions. Speaking of which, I added five more :

2 Southern Stairs

A rickety, wooden staircase ascends to the upper floor of the main chapel.  Rubble and debris are piled against the walls and the supports for the stairs. The piles are home to a dozen gaunt GIANT RATS. They want food and will attack anything but the MAGULIN to get it. They will also be distracted by any food tossed their way.

Hidden among the rubbish is a golden ring set with an opal.

The stairs are trapped, the landing has been weakened and will collapse under the weight of a person. In addition to falling damage, the noise will alert the MAGULIN above.  

3 Tithing Room

The doors have been ripped off their hinges and are nowhere to be found. Faded frescoes adorn the walls, showing adventurers paying offerings of treasure to bald priests. Webs crisscross the ceiling, concealing two LARGE SPIDERS. They are hungry.

In the debris on the floor is the shriveled husk of a small humanoid.

4 Washing Room

This room is free of debris and trash, the frescoes on the walls are less worn than the others in the ruins. They show adventurers receiving ablutions from robed priests in this room. Gem-encrusted bowls and cups are pictured but are nowhere to be seen.

5 Blessing Room

The door into this room is trapped. It is jammed closed, and a layer of loose stonework will fall on any character trying to shoulder it open or pass through it (1d6 damage unless they make a DEX check.)

The room has been stripped and any frescoes on the walls have been destroyed. "Die Followers of the Usurper!" is painted sloppily on the back wall in large, red letters. 

6 Northern Stairs

Four MAGULIN are supposed to be guarding the stair. Instead, they are rolling dice against the wall. Each has 3d4 sp, and there is another 24 sp in the pot. Their weapons are nearby, but not ready to hand. If they seem overmatched, they will try to flee up the stairs.

The room is strewn with trash. A small fire burns in the southwest corner with a pot of stew keeping warm at the edge of the fire. Four dirty wooden bowls and spoons are scattered on the ground nearby.