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Dungeon 23 week 1 - The False Priory

Welcome to the end of the first week of Dungeon23! Last week, I talked about the overall plan for my journey through Dungeon23, so this week, I'm going to jump right into the first dungeon: The False Priory


Last week, I mentioned that my vision for Dungeon23 is powered by Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), and we see that manifesting in a few ways here. Most importantly, this first dungeon is written to be a bit of a "funnel" adventure, which is how characters are created in DCC. Rather than showing up to a new game with a pre-made character, DCC gives you four randomly-generated hapless level-0 peasants and thrusts them into adventure. Any that survive level up to 1st level and can become your character for future adventures. Therefore, this dungeon has a few tough monsters and area-damage traps to try and winnow out the peasants a little bit. 

I've also tried to include a few "elements" of the base classes—Warrior (piles of weapons and foes in area d.), Thief (hidden treasures in area e.), and Wizard (the altar golem's ability to grant a taste of Magic Missile)—so that characters can get a taste of higher levels. I haven't included the Cleric yet, because I haven't decided what this adventure's gods are going to look like. Once I have an idea of that, I'll probably come back to this dungeon and try to add an opportunity to bind yourself to a god's service in exchange for a boon to round this out. The basic idea here is that for players who want to, there can be a satisfying "arc" to their journey from peasant to adventurer. When farmer Visha gets to level up, she can look back at the time she snatched a rusted sword from the Prior's bedroom and slew a ghost to say "it makes sense that I'd be a warrior now" if she wants.

I also mentioned last week that I'm modifying the challenge a little bit, going from one room per day to one 5-room dungeon per week. This gives me two extra days to work on larger "meta-dungeon" content, and this week, I've started that work by beginning a list of "secrets", an excellent Judging (the name for the GM in DCC) tool created by Sly Flourish. The whole article is linked there, and it's also explained in his "Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master", but the gist of it is that you make a list of information that the party could learn, and then look for opportunities to hand out that knowledge wherever you can within the adventure.

Secrets

  • The monks of the priory were invisible warriors dedicated to a dark purpose 
  • A few of the Trapped claim to have seen the monks, leading to their worship
  • A rare few Trapped make it out of the Priory—most who are taken are slain
  • The dangers and treasures of the Priory reset each time it takes someone
  • None of the Trapped have ever escaped by returning through the Priory, but plenty have ventured into the dungeon and not return, so maybe there's a way out there?

For this first dungeon, the secret list is pretty short, and furthermore probably won't be handed out at all in this adventure, but as I move forward creating the larger dungeon environments, the list will grow. My intent is that eventually, appropriate secrets can be dropped either from the secret-wailing ghosts in (b) and (d), or from plundering the tomes in (c), which will then foreshadow useful things in the adventures to come.

That's all for this week's first dungeon; tune in next week for a look at the first glimpse of the larger megadungeon our adventurers find themselves in, showcased by the Nowhere Market.

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