Dungeon 23 Week 4 - The Glistermarsh

Welcome back to my Dungeon23 challenge, where I'm making a megadungeon for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, one five-room dungeon at a time. Last week, we introduced where the water that sustains this part of the dungeon comes from, so this week, we're pivoting to what happens when that water meets the underground and alien environments of the Old Priory dungeon halls: a big, bioluminescent marsh!

As I think I've alluded to in the past, when I'm designing this dungeon, I have a sort of "main story" in mind for each section. In this part of the dungeon, it's the conflict between the Lost (the inhabitants of Nowhere Market, detailed in Week 2) and Fune's Basalt Tower (which will come up in weeks 10-13). This wetlands section (the Mistfall last week, and the next few weeks centered around different things that happen when a bunch of water gets dumped in a dungeon) is more "side quest" or verisimilitude in intent, but that doesn't mean I can't slip a few main story things into it:

The first of these, of course, is the Basalt Amalgam at the end of the adventure. This gives a bit of a foreshadowing that Fune can reach pretty close to home for the Lost and summon chaos, so the party probably shouldn't sleep on dealing with them. Plus, fighting a crumbling basalt elemental in a glowing cattail marsh can give a pretty memorable encounter to cap of this bit of exploration.

The second is what might happen right after dealing with the Amalgam - the discovery of Myrmakrii at the bottom of a small pond. As I'm fleshing out my list of secrets, I'm making sure to put the notion that the Basalt creatures are drawn to magic, and a few other clues that there might be a magic weapon somewhere in the marsh, so that the party has a reason to hunt around for something good. Aside from a powerful demon-slaying sword, Myrmakrii is a hint at the second "main story" thread running through this place: following in the footsteps of a long-lost "Tonal Expedition." What this is will be fleshed out in the deeper parts of the dungeon (or, you know, from half paying attention to Elder Scrolls lore...), but I wanted to start hinting at it now so that it comes out as a logical discovery rather than a weird intrusion later on.

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Dungeon 23 Week 9 - Cliffbarrows

Welcome back to another week of Dungeon 23! This week is the first entry in a brand-new region of the dungeon, a sublevel of level 1 dominated by Fune and the Basalt Warriors. Last week we looked at Deepcrossing, the fortress Fune has for safeguarding the only entrance into this area. This week, we look at the cliffbarrows, the first stop on the long switchback leading down to the basalt flats below. More than anything we've seen so far, my goal for this place is to signal to the party that they are somewhere different now. They travel through the long corridors of the Deepcrossing, feel themselves descending into the earth, and suddenly come to this wide open basalt space. As they descend the ramps to the flats below (which will be more detailed next week), they are immediately set upon by boulders thrown from the cliffs above! Here, hidden in the cliffs, are horrible mixtures of human and basalt, failed experiments from Fune's prisons. They are hostile, and survive by taking...

Dungeon 23 Week 6 - Pumice Rapids

Welcome back, for week 6 of the Dungeon23 challenge, where I'm writing a new 5-room dungeon every week that will interconnect into a massive, multi-level adventure machine in the forgotten depths of the world (we hope!). Well, that's a bit of a lie, since this week is the first entry where we completely break with the 5-room dungeon format, and instead go with a "5-thing table" entry for the Pumice Rapids: Why the format break? As I alluded last week, one of my goals with this project is to make a series of connected 5-room dungeons without them feeling like a series of connected 5-room dungeons. I want attentive players to be able to sense that they've moved from one "zone" to another, but not necessarily to peg "okay we just crossed into a new dungeon, get ready for a Guardian-type room!" Most of this will be achieved by having the sub-dungeons connected in multiple ways, so you don't always progress through each of the five rooms in ord...

Dungeon 23 week 2 - Nowhere Market

Welcome back to the second installment of my Dungeon 23 challenge. Last week, we covered the funnel adventure that serves to trap our doomed adventurers in the Deep. This week, we'll look at the community of Trapped that has sprung up just outside the steps of the False Priory, which can serve as a base of operations for the party as they delve into the dungeon around them and try to find a way home. Since this megadungeon has an element of being trapped within it, I knew early on that I'd want a "home base" sort of place where the party can retreat to and rest between adventures. In fact, I want a few of these peppered around the dungeon, but this is the first. A community of people, trapped in the dungeon the same way that the party is, surviving on scrap and endless lentils grown by the crime druid. Sure. However, it isn't Swords & Sorcery if the party isn't attacked by Minions of the Evil Ruler™ on their first entry to a marketplace, so this is also an...

The Wight's Barrow

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