Friday, January 7, 2011

[Spoilers]Dungeons and Dungeons

Just as a friendly disclaimer, players in any of my games should refrain from reading this.

Work Progresses on my Algol Megadungeon, which now consists of a ten level complex with 1138 rooms; at this point, aside from the first level, I've been focusing on the mapping before stocking and detailing the lower levels, although I have some monsters, treasures and features roughed out.

Below is the first level; in play it's been pretty barren and picked over. The southeast portion of the top map is an ancient convention center facility; the large chambers in the southwestern potion of the top map are ancient supply storage hangars, long since stripped aside from several barrels of "dimetheloxychloxcyanidateonium..."; the spiraling and flooded center potion of the bottom map is the House of the Snail, the aforementioned snail being some sort of savant or oracle. There's a staircase to a submerged portion of the fourth level in the center of ole Mollusk Manor. I dig how the silhouette of this level turned out.

The second level; the upper map is actually the first draft of what became the northern map of the first level; I still liked the map, for both it's rectangular "city block" layout and also how it made me think of tomb complexes. The southern map is primarily the remains of a suicide cult temple, as well as a gladiatorial arena presided over by evil robed skeletons.

 The third level; the western region is a maze of chambers of "baroque decrepitude," whereas the eastern portion is some sort of scientific research facility. The topmost map is the uppermost level of another temple complex. One feature of all three maps is that I placed "major avenues" of corridors and chambers without doors, to allow the free passage of inhabitants sans hands or equivalent.

You may notice that compared to my previous Algol Megadungeon post that I've incorporated the previous version's second and third levels into the current second level; and also that I've further modified and expanded the maps.

For the fourth level and downwards the dungeon becomes four "sub-dungeons" and two side-levels, including a couple of Indiana Jone-esque "deathtrap treasure mazes."

8 comments:

  1. How long is it taking you to map a level (not key, just draw the map)?

    I'm finding it takes 8-12 hours per. Maybe I'm slow. Maybe I'm wicked fast...

    For the fourth level I'm thinking of dropping in an underground Black Ziggurat. Haven't started working on that yet, I need to key up the 2nd and 3rd levels first.

    You publishing this bad boy, or is this just for the campaign?

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  2. ahh shet, thats a damn nice map.

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  3. You aren't kidding when you say "Mega-dungeon", are you?

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  4. Love this maps and they're getting better and better every post. :)
    Like the last one with the three writing pad. The little dungeon looks so...cute... ;)

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  5. I imagine the writing pad dungeon has a high, squeaky voice. "Hey guys! Look at me! I've got treeeasure! And big monsters wouldn't fit in here! C'mon, pleeeease?"

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  6. Thanks guys!

    @ Pat: I'd say it takes me about an hour to rough out one of the big maps, but I can spend [i]hours[/i] (esp. when watching the boob tube with the old lady) fussing with and altering the maps!

    I keep meaning to throw in a subterranean Black Ziggurat as well :) Eventually I'd like to publish it, perhaps as one of the components of a PA box set...

    @ Mattias & 1d30: Hohoho! Oddly enough, at 10 feet per square that tiny little pad (it is cute!) actually can cover a fair amount of real estate...you could fit a cthulhu in one of it's levels!

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  7. An hour?!? Man I am slow. In an hour I can draw maybe a few rooms and a hallway or two.

    Pleeeeease publish Planet Algol. Must have More Algol.

    I'm planning to have my players gate over there at some point, probably if they fool around with the Michael Curtis hangways I've started adding.

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  8. @ Pat: I'm guessing here...I'm going to try an experiment on the blog to test this hypothesis.

    It will be published...when it's awesome enough; I'm gratified that you it fit for the adventures of your players!

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