Returning to an Old Friend : The Ever Expanding Dungeon

I denied it for some time, but I had become burnt out playing solo sessions of The Ever Expanding Dungeon. Although I had the best of intentions to return to the game, I could not muster the will.

Part of it was Perceval's death - it caught me off-guard. Part of it was the fact that I had run 26 sessions in little over a year, essentially playing every other week (although the actual calendar dates would not look like that). It is the longest continuous campaign I have ever run, with by far the most sessions.

It has been nearly 6 months now, and I have been bitten by the bug again, after re-reading the latest exploits of Sister Linkat and her rag-tag band. [Those of you who have seen issue #2 of my zine will note that Sister Linkat and Manchiever make an appearance. That article is non-canonical.]

I did not have time to get into the game tonight, but here is something to whet your whistle: the never before seen maps of the legendary dungeon:

Entire 1st Level

Level A (above Level 1) Eastern-most map

Level A Western-most Map

That last picture shows where the party was when I so rudely left them back in January.

I plan to play session 27 on Wednesday.

A Dungeon Map!

Almost a month ago, on Gothridge Manor, in my comment on a post of a hand drawn map for the One-Page Dungeon contest, I noted that I was inspired to scan my own map, which I had worked on for the contest but never bothered to finish.

Well, better late than never right? (The original is black ultra-fine Sharpie, but it turned to grey-ish when I scanned it. I tried to re-color it, and this is the result. Also not visible, my pencil hatching - oh well.)

It's pretty much linear as dungeons go. In cavern 14, I think I should have put a secret tunnel connecting it to cavern 4.

While it may not be art, I think it could be usable at a table.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Feel free to use it, if you want. If you stat it out or anything, I'd love to see it.

The Ever Expanding Dungeon: First Level Map, Incomplete?

I had two surprises this weekend. The first was finding out that Hexographer has a cousin called Dungeonographer, and it too is available in a free version. The second came while plotting out the first level of The Ever Expanding Dungeon into something I could share here: the party isn't done with this level!

Even the completely oblivious can't help but notice the large amount of grey in the lower right corner. The passage there has never been explored!

There are also two doors that have never been opened and probably won't be - one is off the evil priest's chamber and the other off the throne room of the "mad king."

The green areas represent exits/entrances.

For the curious, the room in the upper right corner is the one that has contained goblins, a giant spider and bugbears. On my map, that's room 17.

I also noticed that there really aren't that many traps. My perception must have been skewed by the fact that multiple PCs have died in the pit trap just beyond room 17.

Dungeonographer has some limitations, such as not having a symbol for a one way secret door, covered pits, or any symbol for an exit to the surface world.

Still, for free, it's a great little program and it does just what it sets out to do. Both it and Hexographer have the added bonus that they run on my netbook - on which I'm running SimplyMEPIS as my OS.

A Brainstorm on Bloody Ridge/Edson's Ridge

While taking out the garbage last night (when all great ideas strike), it occurred to me that I could also play a game representing the whole of the Battle of Edson's ridge (or at least the 2nd night as I'm inclined to do), rather than only small semi-historical actions loosely set on the ridge.

If, instead of 6 figures representing a section, I make 6 figures equal to a company, I can field Edson's force of 8 companies (5 Raider companies and 3 paratroop companies), and with the recycling of the Japanese casualties, the two battalions of IJA.

Of course, I'm playing a game, not crafting a simulation, so liberties would undoubtedly abound. Indeed, if I pursue this, I will most likely aim for a very abstract playing surface  - more board game than terrain-covered table (not that I go through any great lengths in that respect anyway).

Wait.

Does this count as yet another project? I mean if all I have to do is some research and maybe cut up some foam core. That's not a project is it?

Campaign Prep for bx/LL/AEC or How I Spent My Lunch Break Today

They aren't pretty but here are two pieces of the town my players might go to next:

Visby, located in the Duchy of the Glittering Strange

The foreground is obviously the map (on an index card - the scale as a far as I'm concerned is irrelevant) while the background is a web of relationships for notable NPCs in Visby. 

The eagle-eyed zine readers among you might recognize the name of one Everly Moss. Everly appears in Loviator #8. I transplanted him from the hamlet of Dorim, as presented in the zine, to my village of Visby. He's involved in the same line of business and still has some troubles with the law, but not quite as intense as Christian gave him! My players, I suspect, will see him as a business partner.

If they spend any time in the town beyond sleeping there - it really depends on how gung-ho they are to release Chaos upon the land.

In any case, the relationship web is very messy - I think it might be better to create a table in a spreadsheet program with the names as column and row headings, and describing the relationship in the cell at the intersection.

A Map of Helvetica

The other day I decided to make a map of Helvetica - the imaginary setting for my imaginations conflict - for no particular reason (my campaign isn't map based after all). It doesn't look like much - I have neither cartographic skill nor a flair for imaginary geography. Still, it was a total blast to create and it makes the campaign feel all the more in the tradition of Bath, Featherstone, Morschauser and the like. If you're doing a campaign and you haven't made a map, do it! It only adds to the fun. Who cares what it looks like! 

Hmm. Colors need some touching up for sure.

Now to finish writing up the last battle so I can prepare for the next one.