No-Art, Punk Contest: Baleful Bastion of the Beastly Boys

Broo - I wasn't able to identify the artist

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Baleful Bastion of the Beastly Boys

Princeofnothing, a fellow with large opinions, and a fondness for the Old Ways, is hosting a dungeon design contest, an undertaking which he dubs the "No-Artpunk Contest!"

The design brief: 20-30 rooms stocked with book items and book monsters for a 0e - 1e D&D (or clone) system. 5 -20 pages. "Presentation and layout should be whatever you want. Worddoc, Plain text or Paint. Homemade maps, terrible self-drawn paint art, is all welcome."

Now, to be sure, I tend to be a fan of much of what is labeled artpunk in the old-school-ish D&D scene. I backed the new Patrick kickstarter the day it became available (you should back it too!) and I ran a 20+ session Mork Borg campaign. However, I am a sucker for a contest and constraints inspire creativity. 

In preparing an entry, I decided to full embrace the Fundamentalist D&D ethos and produce an adventure that uses the most basic possible monsters, in the most basic possible set up and try to imbue it with fun solely through the clever arrangement of situations, traps and monster tactics. The adventure should work, swapping out all of the monsters for different ones. 

For the layout, I took my cues from the spare, functionality of DM prep notes rather than the verbose, blocky text of early modules. My hope is that the brevity and convenience of the layout would let most DMs run this without even reading it all the way through first (though reading it will take 10 mins max). 

Anyhow, whether or not the Nihilian Potentate appreciates my efforts, I like the little castle I have created and hope that folks enjoy it. 

Demoniad (Part 3): Practical Demonology

After two posts blathering on about the creeping chaos of demoniac meta-physics and planar cosmology, it's time to get down to practicalities. 

• Part 1: Azathoth, Manifestation and Masking
• Part 2: The Abyss, the Warp and the Ruinous Powers

Design Goals

In a recent episode of the Monster Man podcast, James talked about the "Creatures of the Warp" and the importance of making chaotic outsiders from beyond normal space, feel truly alien. In game terms, they should break the rules, and do things that other monsters can't do. They can't be just another stack of hit points.

Another priority for me in exploring demons in my setting is showing their mutability. Not only are demons existentially corrupting to everything they touch, they themselves are also changed. Consequently, once you start finding demons, you'll see lots of mixtures of demons and other things. Demon-dragons, demon-possessed sorcerers, demon-animals, demon-oozes... and on and on. 

Since I'm prioritizing, reality-bending and inconsistency, I can't just pull a standard stat blocks for Tanar'ri.

Bocage Crawl

 

Maybe this isn't anything, but I had the idea that the mixed terrain of woods and small fields of a bocage landscape could make for a fun and picturesque landscape-crawl. 

According to Wikipedia: 

In English, bocage refers to a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture, with fields and winding country lanes sunken between narrow low ridges and banks surmounted by tall thick hedgerows that break the wind but also limit visibility.

This differentiated topography is more interesting, both tactically and aesthetically, than the wide open farms that I (as an American) typically imagine. The restricted sight-lines and labyrinthine  structure lend themselves naturally to a area-by-area crawling exploration style. The sunken lanes are analogous to corridors and the hedgerows break the fields into well-defined rooms.

If we exaggerate the features of bocage, shrinking & diversifying the fields, reinforcing the hedges with vorpal ferns, and dotting the landscape with ruins and eccentric dwellings we have an effective outdoor dungeon. 

One Page Dungeon Contest: Kill Several Demons

 

Download Here! 

On Friday, I was catching up on my D&D blog feed and I saw a post about this year's one page dungeon contest. I thought to myself, "Awesome! I've been meaning to enter but I always forget and miss the window, I wonder when submissions are due..." 

Turns out it was Saturday. To make a long story short, Saturday morning, I set myself the goal of making a One Page Dungeon in one day, from idea to finished PDF. 

Needless to say, I don't think I'm a real contender for the contest but I had a lot of fun making my dungeon and I hope folks will enjoy it. I'm pretty proud of what I produced on a tight deadline.

Thurstle Island: Actual Play Map

 

Sometimes it's fun to see the maps that turn up in actual play rather than the ones that were drawn with careful premeditation during prep. 

We play with just a whiteboard rather than a virtual tabletop and I draw as we go. 

I ran the Ruined Fort over our last couple sessions. It's been a lot of fun.

More Favorites

It's been much too long since I've done a shout-out post. The last time I did, people still thought that the "novel corona virus" was basically just a bad flu.

Map Crow is fantastic. I know that Ben Milton just gave him a highlight in the latest issue of the Glatisant, but for real... check this out. Most of his vids have < 500 views and that seems totally wrong. 

This week, The Lizard Man Diaries has released a Part 2 to the incredibly useful Generic Room Stocker (now available in PDF). I'm looking forward to filling up a few levels of my City of the Ancients with "generic" content like: 

A room that is "Ethereal and vaporous - twisting, flowing and floating." Ornamented with "decorative weapons" that are "far to flat" and "vaguely incorporeal". An "inhabitant, puzzling over the way in which a device is used", reacts "mockingly and "derisively" but is "open to discussion." The devise "informs" but "requires a sacrifice to operate.

 

Labytinths of Illrith Varn from Swamp of Monsters! In May 2020 Nate L. described "how i did my megadungeon." Earlier this week, he posted a campaign summary and map overview. I really enjoyed reading the original post laying out how the dungeon was created, followed by the look-back on how it worked. 

72 Encounters from the City of Spires from Against the Wicked City. Joseph Manola has packed years of his campaign into a giant table of awesome mini-adventures, plot hooks and city encounters. Back in September, he did a series of posts (1, 2, 3) on how he runs the campaign. Reminds me a bit of the map he posted in 2019 for his previous Team Tsathogga campaign (which I found very inspiring) but at a zoomed in level.

In Classic Vs. The Past,  All Dead Generations considers how modern games differ from the games of the 70s and 80s. Gus L. points out four major departures in how the games are played and gives some suggestions on how to address these in campaigns.

1. Two to three hour sessions
2. Shorter campaigns
3. Smaller groups
4. Online play

Gus has also released several adventures this year, which I highly recommend. The Bruja, The Beast and The Barrow which I ran and reviewed back in March and Broken Bastion which I've purchased but haven't run yet.

A Thorough Look at Urban Gameplay in D&D from A Knight at the Opera. Exactly what it says on the tin. A truly excellent compilation. 

Chris Tamm of Elfmaids and Octopi continues to be awe-inspiringly prolific. It's hard to pick what to link but I enjoyed this post about Dungeon Ants and this one about Omnisaur + Dungeon Design in which he describes "I might try some alternate configurations when done and have them as bits a GM could cut out and reassemble or ad to some other map. A strange new kink in my process." I'm thinking about some cut-up dungeons too so it was nice to hear someone else on that track. 

PrinceofNothing is Introducing a No-Artpunk Contest. Despite the fact that I like most of what I've seen described as "artpunk" and have run 20+ sessions of Mork Borg, I think making an old-fashioned, "back to the Moathouse" sort of dungeon could be fun.

___

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of deserving people. Hopefully, I'll catch them the next time I do this (hopefully sooner than 16 months this time...)

Thurstle Island: Ruined Fort of the Crusaders

In our most recent session, my players explored the first level of the Barrow of the Twisted Wyrm. They retrieved, the major artifacts and saw the clear evidence that the barrow had been previously looted by Gothic knights. They have deduced (correctly) that the corpses they found (as armored zombies) were likely from the abandoned fortress on the hill above the town. They're planning to explore the fort in our next game.

Getting back to the fort will be challenging. The only way the players know to reach the fort takes them through both the  Old Forest and the upper portions of the Smuggler Caves.The druids in the forest are furious that someone has desecrated the barrow, and the Smugglers (the "Willing Few") are beginning to rebuild their operations after the player characters wrecked their hideout.