Week of 2022-12-16

 I'm still neck-deep in my job transition, so that's got me more than a bit busy. I'm trying to write these weekly updates even if they're shorter than normal just so I keep up the habit. If there's something you'd like me to write about, please let me know.

What I'm watching, reading, and listening to

I just listened to the latest Fear of a Black Dragon podcast (about The Isle of Dread). As usual, I'm excited to go off and run a lost world adventure, or maybe just work some of those ideas into my Land of Ten-Thousand Thousand shrines Dungeon23 project. 

I also picked up a new podcast, Fine Blueprints, and listened to their episode about Bump in the Dark. The podcast seems like a good addition to my queue, and I'll be listening through the back catalog. Bump seems like a great game, and I'm left wishing I had so much more time to play all these cool games. 

I mentioned this in my #Dungeon23 writeup, but Ben Laurence's Catacombs of the North Wind post is an awesome trove of Zyanese goodness. It's an example of what a Dungeon23 project can be like if set in an existing world, drawing on lore that already exists. It's also a teaser/trailer of incredible things to come from the Through Ultan's Door line of zines. 

Graphite Prime wrote a good post about improving the playability of non-room, transitional spaces in dungeons, Liven up Those Corridors. 

Luke Gearing has written three (so far) posts recording his Pariah campaign. You should read part 1, part 2, and part 3 for a good look at what "Old School Roleplaying When the World Was Young" could look like. I'm excited to read future updates.

What I'm writing and drawing

For the first location in the Land of Ten-Thousand Thousand Shrines, I redrew an old map of a monastery using my new digital tools/workflow and touched it up with ideas from Liven up Those Corridors. I'll be releasing it next week on itch in my map collection there. I'll be doing the same thing for the next two sets of maps I'm going to use in my Dungeon23 work, a catacomb beneath the monastery and a reworked The Climbing Tomb. These will also get some significant Jaquaysing to help improve them. 

I'm also working on the maps for Fettered Factory, a commission from the Kickstarter. 

I've got two little writing projects that are just waiting for the new job and commission loads to subside - one on city crawling, transitional spaces, and eliminative lists, the other is about relationships and renown. Tell me which you think I should pick up first.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

We only played two of our regular games this week, and the next couple of weeks will also be disrupted by holiday schedules at work. On the other hand, I'm planning on running a game of Mausritter for my wife, son, and daughter-in-law when we visit them over Christmas.

OSE - Winter's Daughter 
The group avoided combat with the floating skeletons and explored a couple of additional rooms. They're now in the statuary room and I don't know if they realize that something important is hiding under all that mold. We'll get to that in the New Year though.

Hochheim 
We were missing a player so instead of following up on the main group, we used the Downtime in Zyan zine to run downtime activities for other PCs of the players in the session. (Playing an old school game, each player has a couple of PCs with retainers so they can pick and choose which character to play on any given adventure.) They're in a small fishing hamlet that has swollen to four times its size due to troop movements in the civil war/invasion that are happening in my campaign. The illusionist attempted to gather intelligence about the enemy forces in the next town but rolled a 3, and failed to find anything useful. The ranger went Carousing with the troops, we had some fun with a couple of role-playing bits there, including (accidentally) nearly encouraging some troops to desert and chase after treasure in a nearby dungeon. The thief was thinking about investing in one of the temporary bars to create a local institution, so I created three possible options for the thief to choose from:

• Leon Radnitzer's dockside shack, where they fish in the morning and sell cheap booze and fried fish at night.
• Basti Schau's farm, where the widow sells pies and drinks in the old barn on the property.
• Jacob Henschel's egg farm, where he's sold poultry and egg dishes alongside mead and cheap ale.

Sadly, the thief didn't bite on any of these. 

Next week, we'll snap back to the revolt and duel at the bugbear encampment in the Forbidden City. The players will run Shuzgrap and Yrak. I'll be adding a pair of clocks (a la Blades in the Dark) - a 3-step clock to turn the crowd in favor of the chief and a 4-step to turn the crowd in favor of Shuzgrap. 

When we finish there, we'll turn to the battle between the fishing community and the next town over, using the Battlesystem mini-rules.

 

The Land of Ten-Thousand Thousand Shrines

My #Dungeon23 Project (expect this page to be updated) 

A small forested expanse lies at the foot of a mighty cliff. Above the cliff sits a vast plateau, home to the Ten-Thousand Thousand Shrines.

I'm collecting inspirational links here:

• Sean McCoy's writeup of Dungeon23
• Ben Laurence's response to Sean's article
• Ben Laurence also wrote an introduction to his Catacombs of the North Wind Dungeon23 project
• Eric Nieudan is jumping in as well and blogging about it at Macchiato Master.
• some good thinking about making passages more interesting from Graphite Prime.
• Twitter threads for Dungeon23 and City23
• Shouting Crow's Monthly Mega Dungeon Maker
• Z.W. Garth's The Dungeon Architect's Woorkbook
• Spicy Tuna created a daily creation notebook
• Hexed Press created a tri-fold Dungeon23 Helper

Each week will have a brief description, a map, an establishing question, a system-neutral key, and a random encounter list (using expanded elimination lists).

As I fill in the various locations I'll list and link them below:

• Before the Cliff
• The Climbing Tomb
• The Steepest Stair

 

Week of 2022-12-09

Two weeks ago I accepted a new position at work and I'm in the middle of that transition. Between that, a mapping commission I took on, and the US Thanksgiving holiday, I've let my weekly updates slip. This is my chance to get back on that bike.

Two things

This week I'm sharing an NPC with a built-in scenario hook, along with 8 wrinkles to make that scenario more interesting.

Melody appears to be a short, young woman with dark skin and hazel eyes. Her parents are farmers who live just east of the village center and are cousins to most of the village. Melody has fallen in love with Ennric, who lives in Relaste, the next village. Melody’s family and Ennric’s family have been in a generations-long feud, that occasionally boils over into violence.

Melody approaches the party seeking safe passage for her and her beloved to Riverton, a thriving town about five days journey to the west. She fears that the two families will do anything to keep the two lovers from being wed.

Melody has a well-crafted silver necklace with a small amber pendant (worth about 250 gp) that she is willing to pay the PCs for their efforts. This is the bulk of the goods that she and Ennric have gathered to start afresh in the “big city.”  (She stole it from her mother after being told to stop seeing Ennric.)

Wrinkles (roll a d8)

1. Ennric is much older than Melody. They may be preying on her.
2. Melody’s family will try to kill Ennric en route.
3. Ennric’s family will try to kill Melody en route.
4. Both families will try to kill the other’s child (and each other)
5. Melody (a 3rd level thief) plans on killing Ennric, framing the party (and keeping the necklace.)
6. Everything is as described above, but Melody is obnoxious.
7. Everything is as described above, but Ennric is obnoxious.
8. Everything is as described above.

What I'm reading

I've been really inspired by #Dungeon23. You can read about it from Sean McCoy (who kicked it off) here or from Ben Laurence (who drops some juicy Zyan goodness too) here. I plan on working on this project and posting about it here. I expect that there will be weeks that I don't get anything written, but I hope that I'll post something more weeks than not. I'm planning on writing it in Obsidian, but there's a nice-looking workbook from Z. W. Garth that you might look into if you want a cheap notebook to use for your project.

Speaking of Zyan, Third Kingdom Games interviewed Ben Laurence and he dropped some info about his upcoming Zyan projects. Go read it here.

Not so much reading, but I did enjoy watching Seth Skorkowky's Dungeon Design Part 1, and I'm looking forward to Part 2.

I've also enjoyed this collection of quests for thieves.

What I'm writing and drawing

I've put up a second map set on itch. Now you can grab the fully funded set He Built a Crooked House. It shows a sprawling mansion house with over 90 rooms spread between 4 floors. My Mushrooms Caves set has a map, 2 sketched maps, and a document with Underdark familiars and a collection of mushrooms. It's a quart of the way to its first funding goal which will let me publish a final version of one of the two sketches. The price for this set is currently $1 but will climb as funding goals are met and additional material is added.

Since the Fettered Factory funded, I'll be drawing six maps for the project. I'm pretty excited about this since I need to come up with a pair of new wall and floor styles for some of the maps. I've got some ideas to try out.

I'm also diving into my Obsidian vault for Zyan, with notes from the two articles linked above.

What I'm playing, running, and planning

Seven Sons 

Our characters went looking for a grove outside of Ila (the town we're currently adventuring in). After a couple of false starts, we found a ring of trees that weren't native to the area. In the center of the ring, stood a weathered stone altar. We took up hiding places and looked on as a group of our enemies gathered. 

After they made plans to respond to us, most of them left, but the leader remained and began a rite that gathered darkness into the grove. The darkness was crushing and as we began to take damage, one of the PCs brought forth a blinding flash of light to disrupt the ceremony. It brought a moment's respite, but that was when we had to call the game for the day.

Hochheim 

As the PCs were sneaking toward the Bugbair lair in Dwellers of the Forbidden City, they happened on a patrol with Shazgrap (a bugbear hoping to overthrow the current chief and take control of the band) - the two groups parleyed and the PCs agreed to back Shazgrap's play. 

The bugbear led them to the lair, detouring to let the concealed spellcaster know their plan had changed. Dominik, the mage, cast Strength on the bugbear to prepare him for the duel. The session ended as Shazgrap led the PCs into the lair, bellowing a challenge to Barnank, the current boss.

OSE/Winter's Daughter 

Since we missed a game, I decided to ask the players a pair of questions to move through the Dolmenwood as they journeyed to the tomb of Sir Chyde. (I rolled for encounters and they had none.) 

The Dolmenwood is known as a strange, fey-touched place. As you enter into the outer parts of the forest, it seems refreshingly normal though.  What do you notice that reassures you that you're still very much in the realm of mortals? Based on their answers, we placed the hamlet of Greenbough along their path and had them spend the night there. 

After eating a dinner of mushroom stew, rolls, and pie with the Ashpetal family, and spending the night in their front room, you move on from the little hamlet of Greenbough. The forest gets denser and darker. Before long you realize you've moved into the fey-touched region of the Dolmenwood proper.  What do you sense that tells you that you've moved beyond the realm of men? 

Once they reached the tomb, they skirted around the stone circle outside it, forced the open door, and made their way in. They explored the entry room and discovered the mosaic then moved on to the family crypt beyond. In the crypt, they spoke with the two skeletons dancing through the air and explored the room. The two skeletons moved to the attack when the PCs tried to force a coffin open. We had to end the session at this point.