Cravana (Gygax 75): Week Three - The Dungeon
It's been a while since my last post as part of this challenge. Life often has this funny habit of getting in the way of things. However, in the last week or so, I've had a surge of creativity that's gotten me back on track.
The next step in the Gygax 75 challenge is, as Gary himself states, "very difficult and time consuming". And that task is to plan out and stock three levels of the starting dungeon for your world. Ray Otus has provided us with a list of tasks, as for the previous weeks, so let's get too it!
Picking the dungeon...
From my post on the starting area, there are two possible dungeons to choose from that I could flesh out for this challenge: Valour's End and Crackpot Mine. It's the latter of these that I have chosen to embellish as part of this series of posts for the Gygax 75 challenge. (Note: the name for Crackpot Mine comes from Crackpot Hall Mine, a real mine near Richmondshire. Crackpot is also supposed to derive from the old norse for "crow's hole".)
Describing the entrance
The first task is to describe the entrance to the dungeon is a short, 7-10 word sentence. Here's how the entrance to Crackpot Mine looks:
Mine entrance shrouded in gloom, surrounded by scattered and abandoned tools.
Given the mine is supposed to be fairly new and miner's fled from the place in a rush after discovering what horrors were contained within there, the scattered tools outside are the last remaining relics of their passage.
The dungeon levels
The next task is to describe the first three levels of the dungeon. Ray breaks this down into a number of separate tasks. The first is to create a simple point-to-point map, similar to a mindmap, that shows the various rooms and how they link together. The number of rooms on each level, passages up and down, and features throughout the dungeon are randomly determined. You should also create a list of 11 different monsters and three wonderous items to populate your dungeon with. Finally, each dungeon level should have a theme, with a randomly generated budget used to placed themed features (whether monsters, traps or treasures, or just general weirdness) throughout each level.
While planning out Crackpot Mine, I used these tasks as a guide at first, but then let my natural creativity take over, building on the various rooms and features added to the dungeon as I went. While I've gotten a good start, there is plenty more work to do to fully flesh out this locale.
Level One
The description I started with for this level was: A mine, with discarded tools and unmoved ore. Shattered bodies litter the passageways. Unstable, some passages have caved in. Cave spiders and a mountain troll have moved in after the miners fled. The themes for the level were: spiders, mining, massacre. My dice rolls indicated that there would be 12 rooms and four passages up/down (this seemed like a lot, so I added some going up to secret entrances to the dungeon and down to other areas within the level, to give it a more dynamic feel).
The entrance to the mine (1) is partially collapsed and littered with the rotting corpses of dead miners. There is evidence of fresh kills dragged inside, signs of the troll lurking within. The largest passageway from the entrance leads to a large, strangely circular shaft (4), the focus of the mine, in which a nest of cave spiders has taken up residence, though I am thinking of creating something similar to the Arathim from The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance for these. Lead and iron ore has been mined from the surface, revealing occasional veins of precious gemstones. This chamber descends all the way down to Level 3 (and beyond), with a rickety wooden gantry spiralling into the depths below. It is actually an giant and ancient purple worm burrow, the ore and gemstones being its waste.
Two other passages lead off from the entrance: a collapsed passage that leads to a storage room (2), full of equipment and mined ore, which loops back to the main mine face; and a passage that was once clearly marked as dangerous, though something has recently torn the signs down. This leads to a series of natural caverns (3, 7, 8), one of which is filled with natural gas (7), a hazard to navigate, before reaching the troll's lair (8). This network eventually leads to a second, hidden entrance (10) to the mine complex. I should note, as well, that the troll here will not be the standard D&D-esque troll, but one more akin to nordic folklore, and is something that potentially can be conversed with (and thus tricked, fooled or overcome without combat!).
The main mine face leads to smaller faces (5, 6), one of which reveals a curious set of crystal stairs leading down into Level 2. This is where the miners first broke into the dwarven ruins below. Area 5 also has a small, natural chimney, which can be crawled down to get to the troll's lair (8), while a side passage leads up to a small natural cavern (9) containing one of the miner's corpses, as well as a number of looted items from the ruins. From this cavern, a thin, winding passage leads to a small cavern (11), the home of an ancient knocker (a kind of tutelary spirit from British folklore), which has grown angry at the lack of tribute since the miner's left. This spirit will likely haunt the players throughout this level and provides an opportunity for them to negotiate with it, perhaps making some kind of offering in order to gain its help. It also plays up the folklore aspect of the setting.
The final area (12) is accessed via a slippery climb up a fissure, which leads to a small cave currently being used by nesting nithroc: large, black and ominous birds, harking back to the nithroc nests at Malgun Tarn.
Level Two
My notes for Level Two state a combination of mines, caverns and dwarven ruins. Crumbling structures and broken statuary. Unstable pockets of gas and other dangers. Dark. Undead and duardin automata. I rolled up 8 rooms and 3 passages up/down, and decided my thematic elements would be duardin automata, undead, unstable caverns.
The first area on this level (13) continues the large, central mine shaft, part of the purple worm burrow, which continues down through the mountain. More spiders lurk here, as well as thick webbing hanging from the wooden walkways. From here, another chamber, this time cut into the stone and accessed by stairs leading up, contains equipment (18). A small, horizontal crawl space leads to a carrion crawler nest (17). This chamber is usually filled with natural gas, which the carrion crawler isn't affected by, which seeps up from Area 16, which contains a sulphurous, bubbling pool that spews out this noxious substance. Clever players can ignite this gas to deal with the paralyzing menace.
South of the main mine shaft, the elements shift slightly, as more of the dwarven ruins make an appearance. Area 14, which connects up to Area 5 on Level One, is a room cut through a glittering crystal vein. Broken automata, destroyed by the miners, litter the floor. From here, passageways lead off to a workshop filled with all kinds of cogs and gears (15), in which a damaged automata has hidden and tries to repair itself, and the upper level of a large, resplendent, crystalline hall (20A), the lower level of which is part of Level Three. In this hall, the desiccated bodies of long dead duardin lay scattered about, as if a great battle had been fought, though several of the bodies appear to have moved since... Both the workshop and the hall lead to a second workshop (19) filled with diamond tipped tools and half completed statuary, which is unnaturally clean. This is where the first of the wonderous items can be found, a sad, lonely automata, which may aid the players.
Level Three
The third level really emphasises the dwarven ruins and brings in more horror elements. My description of this level read duardin ruins, stone, carved into bedrock. Unnaturally warm, Undead and shadowy demons. Traps and treasures. Well preserved, as if time stood still. I've since tweaked this, giving up the demons and instead using OSE's spawn of the worm, from the Advanced Fantasy: Monsters book. One of the "big bad" creatures in the world is Caorthannach, a demonic creature that lives in the depths of the earth that is based on Irish folklore. She is said to be the "mother of demons", which are often described as snakes. Worms wasn't too great a leap, and fits with the theme of part of the mine being a purple worm burrow.
Randomly generating the number of rooms, I was given 9 to populate, with 4 paths up and down. My themes were duardin ruins, undead, traps and treasures.
The third level can be accessed from two locations, the main mine shaft and the grand hall. Sticking with the mine shaft (27), here the wooden gantries end, while the shaft itself continues downward. Criss-crossing tunnels can be seen below (more worm tunnels? Or parts of the duardin ruins? I left this to decide in the future). Here, though, there is evidence that the dwarves also exploited the resources left by the purple worm's passage, with a number of rooms linked to it that lead to areas like mine workings (26), a smelter (29) and ore processing (28), all of which continue the theme of strange mechanical equipment. Part of this equipment is another wonderous item, a sentient hammer named Gullsmiðr.
The lower level of the great hall (20B) is strewn with duardin bodies, with many of the corpses infested with spawn of the worm, which the dwarfs contracted when working the mine shaft. Spawn are generally quite tough, especially at lower levels, so I am considering nerfing them a little, weakened by their long dormancy. There is a throne in this hall, on which seats a dwarf lord holding a jewelled sceptre, the largest gem in which is another wonderous item known as the Eye of the Wurm.
The hall leads to more of the duardin settlement via doors that were barricaded in ages passed. These lead to areas such as sleeping quarters (24), kitchens (25), a feasting hall (23), and the lord's chambers (21) and treasury (22). Some of these areas contain more spawn of the worm, while the remainder are populated by dysfunctional automata.
A starter for ten...
This is just the outline for this dungeon. There is loads more to do. For example, what do the wonderous items do? What kinds of treasures can be found within? However, I think I have the seed of something quite fun here. An I have a name for this dungeon too—The Worm Riddled Vaults of Crackpot Mine. Let me know what you think!