Improved Pluton Zone Map

On my previous attempt I forgot to include the colors of some suns as well as some binary and trinary systems (I have a less hideous way to represent binaries and trinaries, but Hexographer is being buggy). Oh, and I used Hexographer to make did.

I have a black and white version that I prefer aesthetically, however instantly seeing the star colors is useful in play.

The dotted red lines indicate multi-system "Dominions" held by especially powerful System Lords/Houses.

To the "south" of the map are the more civilized/normal regions of Human space, where things change from Humanspace Empires to Stars Without Number. To the "north" of the map is howling space wilderness and barbarity, the Terminal Space region.

Also, the hex numbers are bunged up on this version. Oops...

Map of the Pluton Zone

Nine Cave & Lair Geomorphs

Above are nine of the thirty-six cave/lair geomorphs I'm working on for the Jewel Throne. The idea behind this is to present a system for a DM to quickly assemble caves or lairs when the party has random wilderness lair encounter; a treasure map; comes across a hex key lair entry sans map; and so forth, much like the example cave maps from X1: The Isle of Dread. They are also designed to be "semi-compatible" with Dyson's geomorph system.

Jewel Throne Update

Regarding The Jewel Throne, I'd like to thank everyone for both their kind encouragement, as well as those who have generously offered to contribute in any fashion to the project.

In true Gamer-ADD fashion, I've been shuttling between several different articles for first issue of the Jewel Throne, and here are some of the contents:

- "War...War Never Changes:" Wasteland & Fallout inspired equipment for Gamma World & Mutant Future.

- Cave/Lair Geomorphs: A set of 36 geomorphs for quickly assembling caves and lairs; they conform roughly to the Dyson Logos format, but not entirely...they don't always "play nice with others."

- Snake Men: Statistics for strictly Robert E. Howard style Snake Men of varying levels.

- Twenty Sorcerers, with statistics, details, backgrounds, personalities and spellbooks; their spellbook selection ties into the following.

- "Grammaree:" Twenty-odd Magic-User spells, inspired by Eldritch Weirdness (one of my favorite OSR products) and Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets. Incantations to become an iron colossus; raise a sunken ship for 1 day; know all of your target's shameful secrets; possess telescopic vision particle beams; curse a victim to slowly transform into an ape; summon a polyp of the upper vapors to serve as a flying carpet; and so forth. Some of these are inspired by my own Magic-User PC going "Fricking heck, why isn't there a spell for X so I can do Y!", others by the events of current and past campaigns, as well as fantastic literature. EDIT: Here is a list of the spells I am working on:

Become the Form of the Mog-Molarch
The Black Lasher
Black Vapours of Anthrophagic Fever
Call Servitor Polyp of the Upper Vapours
Crystal Armor
Curse of Lunar Possession
Exhale Cloud of Stinging Flies
The Eyes of Far Death
The Golden Spheres
Luminous Purple Mist
Mass of Serpents
Psychic Reaping
Raise Drowned Vessel
Ray of the Ape Curse
Returning Missiles to Their Sources
Shaft to the Underworld
Shroud of Shining Shards
Speak With Cats
Swarming Leaves of Death
Uproot by Black Storm

The focus for this issue will be "material that can be immediately useful for GMs in a wide variety of campaigns." For possible future issues some of the ideas I'm considering include D&D-compatible Fighting Fantasy/Tunnels & Trolls style solo adventures and  mini-rpgs such as "Action Movie D&D" (with random fire-escape determination tables and explicit rules for jumping from rooftop to rooftop ;D).

Also, JDJarvis has posted some great one-hour dungeon maps Here, Here and Here.

One Hour Dungeon Map

Pat from the excellent Henchmen Abuse asked me how long it takes for me to make on of my megadungeon maps; my estimate was one hour...with the caveat that I spend hours afterward idly adjusting and altering the maps (usually while watching the boob tube with the Warden); dungeon mapping is a two phase affair with me: first the preliminary map, and than aforementioned adjustments

As an experiment, I decided to see how much dungeon I could map in an hour. I set a timer for one hour and took pencil to paper, with the end result below (I cheated and numbered the rooms after the time limit expired).

Apparently, the biggest influence on my dungeon maps seems to be the fire escape plans in large buildings... Anyways, although I like this map it seems to be screaming for "The Adjustment Phase." There's far too many samey rectangular rooms; it's lacking in architechtural features such as fountains, statues, and pillars; there's only one connection to another level; many of the rooms are far too big (a lot of these maps would make more sense at a 5-foot-per-square scale); and some of the empty spaces are screaming for "shadow complexes" of rooms accessible by secret door; and I prefer blacking about the solid areas surrounding corridors and chambers for easier visualization of the layout.

I didn't have any idea what the theme of this level would be before drawing it, but the layout makes me think of museum (top right-hand section) meets Resident Evil scientific complex...video & computers games seems to have a strong influence on my dungeon levels.

The obvious next step in this experiment is to give myself one hour to stock and key the map...

[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."

Megadungeon Maps (Spoilers!)

Disclaimer: If you are a player in one of my games than you damn well know better than to be looking at these or the comments ;)

Below are the maps for the first four "main" levels of my Algol megadungeon; there are a few multi-level side dungeons as well. Click to embiggen:

The main area of the first level, with more to the south.

The southern region of the first level, SPOILER "The House of the Snail," the eponymous inhabitant being some sort of invertebrate savant./SPOILER

The second level.

The third level, SPOILER which I think of as an "offside mezzanine"; the connections between the second, third, and fourth levels are complicated by an adjoining complex of levels, the maps of which have not been posted./SPOILER

The forth level, SPOILER with architecture dissimilar to that of the above regions./SPOILER

My Take on the FGG Swords & Wizardry Cover Controversy, Cave Map & Blasphemous Bestiary Request

So some folks aren't taken with the cover artwork for the upcoming Swords & Wizardry complete edition being released by Frog God Games. See Here, and Here.

Now, I absolutely adore Peter Mullen's artwork and his cover for Swords & Wizardry Core (I've seen pictures of folks in a shirt with that artwork...anyone know where I could get one?), I've stated several times that my dream team for Planet Algol cover artwork would be Peter Mullen & Stephen Poag.

However, I'm also a big fan of the artist responsible for the cover of the upcoming Swords & Wizardry FFG release, Rick Sardine (or however you spell it...). I find them subtle, evocative, and with a rich depiction of lighting. Mesopotamia, Coils of Set, this cat has done some great covers.

I love the Peter Mullen cover, but I'm quite down with the new version as well (although if I wasn't financially strapped right now I'd be desperately ordering the Black Blade Publishing version of Swords & Wizardry core in order to own a copy with the Mullen artwork).

To me the the Rick Sardinia cover says "Some may poh-poh the idea of a simple, oldschool system such as S&W providing a rich, sophisticated, adult RPG experience..but you're wrong! Not only is S&W good for simple dungeoncrawls, Rient-sian gonzotude, and funn cheetoism; but it can also be used for serious, "adult," dramatic, "literary" play!" (not that I'm advocating railroading, Dragonlancing, or story-before-game), "Not only can you use S&W for the Treasure Dungeon of Darth Viraxis, but you can also use it for a serious game of Tolkein-ish questing!" (does anyone else get a watcher at the gates of Moria vibe from it?).

However, and a tangentially related topic that gets my blood boiling with NUCLEAR NERD RAGE!!!1, I HATE HATE HATE the newer Swords & Wizardry logo; and I absolutely fucking love the older, cryptic, Metal-er one.

BRING BACK THE OLD SWORDS & WIZARDRY LOGO OR I WILL UNLEASH THE HYDRA!!

Well, since the above constitutes an internet argument, I must kowtow to the wisdom of the esteemed JOESKY; here's a hand-drawn map (tee-hee) of  a cave complex for all you DMs & GMs to stock and use (yeah, my players can forget about checking it out!):

Also, does anyone out there have one of those preview copies of Blasphemous Bestiary that were in circulation before the editor nuked them? I'd love a chance to check it out...it sounds like it was right up my alley! (planetalgolATgmailDOTcom)

Another Algol Dungeon Map Preview

Sans room numbers, doors, stairs, pits, shafts, altars, etc.

Planet Algol Preview Dungeon Map

Although I've found my self somewhat less that choleric lately, I have been working on dungeons for the Planet Algol booklet. I've found that micro- and mini- sized pads of graph paper invaluable for my mapping style, I just keep on churning out tiny to normal sized dungeons maps. The below is one of my favorites:

How I key a Hex-Map

I recently received an email from Nicolo, with a pulp mutants & sorcery campaign "The Doomed Wastelands" which also features further iterations of cactus people, who is an inexperienced DM with little sandbox experience asking advice on filling up a hexmap key.

How I keyed my map went in several stages: procedures

1) The Map. Certain locations immediately suggest and appropriate key entry for the hex, such a landmarks, ruins, and the like.

2) Ripping Off Others Work. I make a list of cool things to put in the map that are usually inspired by something from a fiction, history or real life, and put them where appropriate. When I'm working on a project like this I try to read a lot of good fantasy & sci-fi, comics and the like. This also includes pop culture/literature/genre/rpg "easter eggs". I add to the list when I come across something inspiring in a book or daydreaming.

3) Use the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide Random Wilderness Generation Appendix. I roll for every hex on the ruins/castles/settlements table, and if I get a result I like I put it in the hex. Larger settlements I usually arbitrarily make into ruins, smaller settlements can be outcast camps; fortified stockades; subterranean hidden enclaves and the like, with usually random determination for what kind of man/being inhabits it. For ruins and castles I follow the DMG guidelines for the generation of monster, human or high level NPC and entourage inhabitants.

4) Stock the Dungeon. I treat every hex as a dungeon room, generating it's contents in the same fashion as classic OD&D or B/X D&D.

For monster results I roll from one of several encounter tables from different editions/sources (OD&D; B/XD&D; AD&D; Gamma World; Carcosan Grimoire; etc, determination of which source being random as well), and I try to come up with a "Algolian" encounter from the result, altering the monster as I see fit to make it fit the campaign. Usually such results mean that the "monster" has a lair or building in the hex.

With treasure results there's treasure somewhere in the hex, either monster loot or stashed somewhere.

With trap results there's a hazard, such a spiked pits; areas without oxygen; toxic gases; irradiated water, and the like, located in the hex.

With Trick/Special results theres a wilderness equivalent of such dungeon phenomena, stuff like ability score altering fungi, altered gravity or glowing psychic crystal skull hologram oracles.

5) Roll for a random encounter in each hex, using the probabilities from B/XD&D or the Carcosan Grimoire, and roll from a randomly determined encounter table in the fashion of stage 4 above. I Algol-ize the results or reroll if I don't especially feel the result. I'll use the "%Liar" to determine whether any monsters are lair monsters or just passing through the hex.

6) Repeat stage 5 (and even 4) until the hex key feels dense enough.


ALSO MORE JOESKY!!
I'm down with JOESKY's words of wisdom. Enough hot air blather about the most recent iteration of Carcosa Gate/Porno Gate/et al and more monsters, houserules, and maps!

I've been doing a bunch of mapping lately with my sweet new tiny mapping-box. I've found the combination of a cheap school geometry set; an selection of cheap and high-quality mechanical pencils; an assortment of fine tip to larger markers; a palm-sized pad of graph paper; and a small lidded box to hold it all to be a great asset for dungeon mapping creativity, I'm practically shitting out small (yet actually covering a fair amount of 10' square ground!) dungeon maps. One of the benefits of these small maps is that I can easily stitch them together to generate larger dungeon maps with a nice "inconsistent grain" that also avoids the 8.5"x11" phenomenon of bog-standard dungeon mapping methodology.

Shrine of the Lavender Cocoon and the Crystalline Citadel

These two dungeons are of the "lair" variety as opposed to the complex, multi-level "proper" dungeon. The sort of dungeon that you can clear out in a single expedition. Stylistically and method-wise I was inspired the The Year Of The Dungeon, I like using different techniques when making maps and I also dig the contrast between the cold, strict architechtural regularity of graph-paper based maps the the more freeform, organic "Call of Cthulhu/Year of the Dungeon" style grid-less maps. My usual procedure for such grid-less maps is to either sketch them out on the reverse side of a sheet of graph paper or scan them and put a grid in them in AutoRealm.

Currently I'm aiming to put several dungeons, both the lair/microdungeon variety and the classic multi-level sprawling complexes, in the Planet Algol booklet. One of the goals with this project is to provide as usable as possible "straight out of the box" sandbox setting, which makes including a variety of sufficiently detailed  adventure locales an inexorable priority.

This significantly increases the workload as opposed to simply writing "Hex 6745: The Emerald Labyrinth: A simple stone shrine contains stairs leading to a sprawling underground complex of glowing translucent green stone, inhabited by tribes of malformed human/alien hybrid beings." There's nothing wrong with that, I love that sort of detailing and find it a great springboard for creativity, but I can't think of many sandboxes that include maps and keys for many of the described locales, and such keyed maps make this DMs job faster and easier, and hopefully provide a deeper adventuring experience.

Saturday Scrawl - "Black Smoke Razor Labyrinth"

SPOILER WARNING: Of course I trust the players in my game to not examine the below maps...

These are the preliminary maps for one of the "dungeons" I'm working on for the Planet Algol booklet, showcasing my appalling scrawl and attempts at complex interconnections between levels.

Friday Night's Exquisite Corpse-Dungeon

As previously discussed, Friday night was spent having some drinks at Lester/B Portly's with Lester & Cameron. There was much discussion of dungeon design and the idea of doing an "Exquisite Corpse" dungeon map came up.

The above map was the product of such an exercise, the top section being Cameron's first ever dungeon map! We also did some round robin dungeon stocking, and we had a lot of fun. One of the goals was to show Cameron some dungeon design methods (we also hooked him up with some crucial dungeon design texts), hopefully he'll be DMing a dungeon soon and we're looking forward to some more boozy Friday night rpg collaboration efforts...such as finishing "Breeon's Exquisite Pit."

Still stoked on Punk...