The stairs go down. The stone is older than the city above it. Something in the rock remembers what you owe.
Beneath Ahknoor is a Carved from Brindlewood megadungeon I've been developing for a few years. The dungeon functions as a corrupting force: every gain trades against something real. The Keeper doesn't pre-author truth and players don't declare it freely. The moves determine what holds.
In May 2026 I launched two structured playtests running concurrently, each designed to stress-test the game with a different player population.
The Two Campaigns
The Target Campaign (Thursdays) runs with three narrative-game-literate players, two of whom playtested 0.5. This campaign is open-ended. I'm planning to play it through to the final level.
The Adjacent Campaign (Tuesdays) runs with four players primarily grounded in 5e and OSR play. This campaign is time-boxed to roughly six weeks, scoped to introduce at least three levels and Reckon with at least one.
Running both at the same time is intentional. The design questions that matter at this stage aren't only "does it work," but "does it work for players who didn't help build it" and "does the text do the teaching the table shouldn't have to do."
What I'm Watching For
Both campaigns are generating feedback against the 0.6 checklist, but I'm also tracking what the checklist doesn't capture:
- Where does the fiction engage players coming from a different mechanical grammar?
- Where does the Reckoning Move land as written versus where it needs more scaffolding?
- What does the Saga produce at two different tables working through the same level?
That last one is already interesting. The Saga is non-idempotent: different groups generate different dungeon folklore for the same level. That's a feature. I want to see it in evidence.
Session Chronicles
(Links will populate as sessions are written up)
Target Campaign (Thursdays)
- Session 1 - Saga of the Buried Library
- Session 2 - The Door is Hungry
- Session 3 - The Sword of the Whojamajigs
- Session 4 - Saga of the Plundered Catacomb
Adjacent Campaign (Tuesdays)
- Session 1 - Saga of the Plundered Catacomb & The Statue Without Eyes
- Session 2 - It took up Residency
Development Context
If you're following the design process, these devlogs give the necessary background:
- Adding Trappings to Beneath Ahknoor
- Retainers: Something Old, Something New
- Reorganizing Beneath Ahknoor
- What Happens Before the First Roll? Playtest Underway!
Ongoing Notes
I'll collect design reflections, procedural experiments, and cross-campaign comparisons here as they develop.
(Links to come)
Related
- Beneath Ahknoor at mountainfoot.itch.io
- The Arden Vul campaign, where I'm running a megadungeon in Dungeon World and thinking through a lot of the same structural questions from a different angle
If you have questions about the campaigns, the design process, or how any of this connects to the published document, the comments are open.
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