One of the things I've been missing on the blog is a regular reason to post content - I haven't been purchasing as much 3rd party stuff for review, and the Black City posts are mostly game reports. Regarding the Black City, I am making consistent progress on turning notes into a written manuscript, and I also got a new computer tower over the holidays. I'm putting some energy into updating mapping software and turning my pencil and graph maps into something electronic. In the meantime, I'm looking at changing things up for next year to give the Lich House some more focus.
The Junkyard, the name I use for my parking lot of half-baked ideas, is littered with various mega dungeon concepts in sundry stages of development. For 2014, why not dig one out of the Junkyard, and make it a weekly, public project for posting on the blog? The structure would do me some good. I remember fondly when The Society of Pole, Torch and Rope was a thing and Amityville Mike posted the first cut of Stonehell through updates every week or so.
To this end, I'm going to get some feedback from my players, and ask any dear readers to take a moment and drop a comment or vote on the new poll. Here are the contenders for the 2014 blog project:
Harrow Home Manor
Regular readers have probably seen the name Harrow Home Manor - there's at least a dozen Harrow Home related posts out there. Harrow Home is a gothic horror themed dungeon beneath the Yorkshire Moors. Sorcerers and wizards escaping persecution have gathered in the halls beneath Harrow Home to pursue their arcane research far from prying eyes. An ancient cyst of unknown properties rests in the depths of Harrow Home, daring investigation and madness.
Death Mountain
There is a tortuous entrance to the Greek underworld and the realms of the death god Hades through Death Mountain. As god of death and wealth, Hades' dungeons of Death Mountain are filled with deadly traps and unimaginable wealth. Whereas most of my themes involve low magic and a subdued degree of fantasy, a setting like Death Mountain presupposes active gods, powerful magical effects, and a degree of heroic fantasy. All of the legendary monsters of Greek myth could have a place here.
Vaults of Xibalba
I spent a phase last year reading a ton about colonial history, the Caribbean, and the age of piracy, but my general discomfort with pure hex crawl and wilderness campaigns kept me from going any further. The Vaults of Xibalba is an attempt to bridge the gap, by placing a large Mayan-style ruin on a mysterious island off the Yucatan coast. A chasm rift across the ruins is the mythic road to Xibalba, the fairy otherworld and realms of the dead from Mesoamerican folklore. We always see dungeon style adventures with Tolkienesque elves and halflings and wizards, how about pirates, buccaneers, voodoo priests and bokors? The Lords of Xibalba are powerful extra dimensional prisoners in the ruins, and the dungeons beneath the ruins hold both ancient prisons and gateways to the realm of Xibalba.
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I'd be intrigued to develop any of these dungeons on the blog - so let's hear what grabs your fancy. Harrow Home and Xibalba would be low magic, using LOTFP style rules and early modern technology - guns and rapiers. Death Mountain supports a much different flavor of magic (lightning bolts and fireballs, woot) and would probably work best with Labyrinth Lord or ACKS as the default rules. Harrow Home is heavily influenced by the horror tradition, Xibalba touches on my love for ancient astronaut theories and weird science, and Death Mountain would be an homage to Ray Harryhausen movies and has "the gods" (who could just end up as horror inducing extraterrestrials if I don’t carefully curate the themes). They're all pretty interesting!
The Junkyard, the name I use for my parking lot of half-baked ideas, is littered with various mega dungeon concepts in sundry stages of development. For 2014, why not dig one out of the Junkyard, and make it a weekly, public project for posting on the blog? The structure would do me some good. I remember fondly when The Society of Pole, Torch and Rope was a thing and Amityville Mike posted the first cut of Stonehell through updates every week or so.
To this end, I'm going to get some feedback from my players, and ask any dear readers to take a moment and drop a comment or vote on the new poll. Here are the contenders for the 2014 blog project:
Harrow Home Manor
Regular readers have probably seen the name Harrow Home Manor - there's at least a dozen Harrow Home related posts out there. Harrow Home is a gothic horror themed dungeon beneath the Yorkshire Moors. Sorcerers and wizards escaping persecution have gathered in the halls beneath Harrow Home to pursue their arcane research far from prying eyes. An ancient cyst of unknown properties rests in the depths of Harrow Home, daring investigation and madness.
Death Mountain
There is a tortuous entrance to the Greek underworld and the realms of the death god Hades through Death Mountain. As god of death and wealth, Hades' dungeons of Death Mountain are filled with deadly traps and unimaginable wealth. Whereas most of my themes involve low magic and a subdued degree of fantasy, a setting like Death Mountain presupposes active gods, powerful magical effects, and a degree of heroic fantasy. All of the legendary monsters of Greek myth could have a place here.
Vaults of Xibalba
I spent a phase last year reading a ton about colonial history, the Caribbean, and the age of piracy, but my general discomfort with pure hex crawl and wilderness campaigns kept me from going any further. The Vaults of Xibalba is an attempt to bridge the gap, by placing a large Mayan-style ruin on a mysterious island off the Yucatan coast. A chasm rift across the ruins is the mythic road to Xibalba, the fairy otherworld and realms of the dead from Mesoamerican folklore. We always see dungeon style adventures with Tolkienesque elves and halflings and wizards, how about pirates, buccaneers, voodoo priests and bokors? The Lords of Xibalba are powerful extra dimensional prisoners in the ruins, and the dungeons beneath the ruins hold both ancient prisons and gateways to the realm of Xibalba.
----
I'd be intrigued to develop any of these dungeons on the blog - so let's hear what grabs your fancy. Harrow Home and Xibalba would be low magic, using LOTFP style rules and early modern technology - guns and rapiers. Death Mountain supports a much different flavor of magic (lightning bolts and fireballs, woot) and would probably work best with Labyrinth Lord or ACKS as the default rules. Harrow Home is heavily influenced by the horror tradition, Xibalba touches on my love for ancient astronaut theories and weird science, and Death Mountain would be an homage to Ray Harryhausen movies and has "the gods" (who could just end up as horror inducing extraterrestrials if I don’t carefully curate the themes). They're all pretty interesting!
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ReplyDeleteI think Vaults of Xibalba and Harrow Home Manor are those worthy to develop on your blog since they seem to have to have an heavy horror-themed atmosphere, an important thread of your blog.
ReplyDeletePersonaly, I would favour Harrow Home Manor because you wrote about this project for a while, but I'm still curious of what you can come up with the Vaults of Xibalba (I love pirates and Mayan too !)...
I would love to see Harrow Home Manor completed.
ReplyDeleteLurker vote for Xibalba; I've long wanted to run something mesoamerican-themed, but figured it was too unapproachable for random players, and so would be very interested in how you do it. Setting it in the 17th century and low fantasy / horror already seems easier to explain.
ReplyDeleteI did early design on a megadungeon about a year ago, didn't take it as far as the detailed development but did get at least a little adventuring done in it. It's a bit of a different approach than I've usually seen, though.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kjd-imc.org/hall-of-fame/setting-design/node-based-megadungeon/ is the landing page for the series, showing how each region was developed and how I went about it.
I don't know enough about any of the locations you're planning to flesh out to place a meaningful vote, I just thought you might find the approach I took to be of interest.
Hi Keith. I'm about to embark on a megadungeon project of my own and I think a node-based design is the way to go for me, so I'll be reading your blog with interest. Thanks for the link!
DeleteGreat! I hope you find it helpful. If you have any questions, drop a comment on my blog and I'll be happy to talk about it.
DeleteThe Vaults of Xibalba sounds tremendously fun. It definitely gets my vote.
ReplyDeleteI can think of several Greek and gothic dungeons but not a single good Mesoamerican one.
Add my vote to the Xibalba column - sounds utterly fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI vote for Vaults of Xibalba.Greetings from Spain.
ReplyDeleteXibalba sounds like the best to me. Second choice would be Harrow House. Looking forward to whichever you choose
ReplyDeleteIf you go with Xibalba, make sure you watch the movie The Fountain for some inspiration.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of a pirates & swashbucklers megadungeon. That it would include elements of lost civilization, ancient astronauts, and the Mesoamerican otherworld makes it irresistible to me.
ReplyDeleteDeath Mountain - I'm a sucker for the greco-roman world
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ReplyDeleteI voted for Harrow Home manor, as I would really like to see The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the LotFP campaign.
ReplyDeleteI think Rafael Chandler might be working on a Mesoamerican themed megadungeon also.
Let me know if you hear anything more. Xibalba is a popular idea with my players, too, but I don't want to overlap a larger project when I have other options.
DeleteIf you're in his circles on Google Plus, search for his name and Tlatelolco and I think you will find info about it. Or just message him directly.
DeleteThanks for the heads up! There were some public G+ posts about it, so I'm pretty confident there would be little to no overlap if Xibalba is the go-forward choice.
DeletePersonally I like Xibalba - some non-eurocentric, non-medieval megadungeoning could be a wonderful thing.
ReplyDeleteWhy not release Black City as commercial product?
ReplyDeleteI'm working on it - it'll get there!
DeleteThe Xibalba sounds interesting. It might even make for a fun Fading Suns adventure.
ReplyDeleteStructure is awesome, great idea for the new year. I love the idea of Xibalba.
ReplyDeletepersonally, I would love to see the Vaults of Xibalba expanded on and completed, sounds like it would be a blast.
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for The Vaults of Xibalba! I think it's the Old School answer to Paizo's Skull and Shackles and Serpent's Skull APs. Also, I think the surrounding wilderness and political opportunities are much greater.
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for The Vaults of Xibalba! I think it's the Old School answer to Paizo's Skull and Shackles and Serpent's Skull APs. Also, I think the surrounding wilderness and political opportunities are much greater.
ReplyDeleteThe Vaults of Xibalba! Everyone loves pirates and jungles, maybe with some ancient cthuloid monstrosities fighting with yuan-ti for dominance! I love all of your stuff, it's been a big inspiration to my home games.
ReplyDeleteI have voted for Harrow Home Manor because I like the posts you already published.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Xibalba would be great too. For some time I have been thinking about a sandbox set somewhere in Yucatan but before the age of piracy, in the 16th century.