LAW, ORDER, & DOLMENWOOD: Bringing Courts, Calendars, and Consequences To A Fantasy Setting

Initially, I thought Dolmenwood was going to be a hazy, dream-like, amorphous setting for D&D with talking animals, but it turns out its a pretty extensive history overlaying a frictious polical landscape...and talking animals. 

Jockeying for power are:

• 5 Fairy Domains
• 1 Usurping Outer God
• 1 Deposed Fairy Lord
• 1 Scheming Witch Cult
• 1 Duke (Human)
• 6 Human Houses
• 3 Breggle Houses
• 11 Old Gods
• 1 Monotheistic Church
• And more!

What this means to me is that PC actions generally will be within the (literal) realm of judgement by one or more of these groups. And those political lines are mostly known from the outset. In Dolmenwood, it is well understood the PC are in the Duchy of Brackenwold, under which there are 6 human and 3 breggle houses. Check out Among Cats And Books' breakdown of how you might run those factions.

In a previous post, I outlined a general picture of law and order in medieval England✤ from the very gameable Ian Mortimer’s The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. So let's put this into use in the Dolmenwood campaign.

Quick Aside: The goal of this is not some strict simulationism, but instead to use what is very present in the setting to provide weight/consequence to PC choice and actions. When actions are committed, but have no weight, it makes (to me) a setting like Dolmenwood feel very flat and hollow. There's mention and reference to all these factions, but PCs never feel their consequence.

LAW & ORDER IN DOLMENWOOD

The Sheriff of Brackenwold oversees a bailiff for each human and breggle domain (which covers all the villages) and a bailiff for each large town, city, and stronghold in Dolmenwood. Additionally, a steward for each hex a keep is in will function as a bailiff but be beholden to the lord there, so an additional 9 stewards will be known to the Sheriff of Brackenwold.

Each bailiff (steward) will oversee a number of capital pledges for each hamlet, village, and small town. A hundreds court will be held 1/month by the bailiff and 12 wise freepeople to hear cases related to anything like debts, fights, and theft.

Each capital pledge will oversee the law & order of the village the PCs are in. Any mishaps in carousing will result in the subduing of the PC and/or transmitting the news to surrounding villages 1-2 days away fairly quickly. PC will then be brought to the bailiff and hundreds court.

Example of a Domain Hierarchy

Sheriff of Brackenwold

    A. Bailiff of the Domain

        Capital Pledge of each hamlet, village, and small town

    B. Bailiff of each Large Town, City, Stronghold

    C. Bailiff of each Lord's Castle and really answerable to the Lord and nominally to the Sheriff

The Sheriff of Brackenwold could be the only representative of the Crown that the PC see during the course of an adventure, at least (by old-school OD&D standards) the PCs reach 4th-5th level (hero) or, more likely 8th level (superhero)

At the level of the bailiff, you can really see how politics can come into play. The bailiff of the domain is most likely going to be chosen by the Sheriff of Brackenwold, while the bailiff of each Lord's Castle is chosen by the lord themselves. And the bailiff of each large town, city, and stronghold is going to be loyal to those populations.

LAW & ORDER EXCEPTIONS

Exceptions: Breggle domains

As part of the pacts long ago, breggles have retained some of their own autonomy. Therefore, Breggle bailiffs and Brackenwold bailiffs must submit disputes and those accused to the Breggle manorial courts. Breggle courts are run differently due to the known (and feared) ability of the breggle gaze to inspire awe and respect. This has allowed many to confess to crimes they otherwise would be silent about.

Brackenwold Bailiffs in Breggle Land: Also, given that Brackenwold bailiffs have to navigate this ancient pact, I could imagine they might be more of an older, seasoned, minor aristocratic sort. Slow to move, but able to drop a sly hammer. PCs asking something from these folks might get them further embroiled in their political machinations. You'll owe a favor and they will collect at an inconvenient time.

Exceptions: House Guillefer

It is said that no criminal rests easy in the domain of the Nodding Nobels because they are troubled by dreams of their wrongdoing and pursued by the Sleep Wardens. This is mainly true for those who commit murder or other crimes of that magnitude. Given the nobility's lax attitude toward governance, it is a domain where a fair amount of tax evasion and smuggling occurs. This makes the domain a constant thorn in the Backenwold Sheriff's side.

Sleepwalking Sentinels: However, its difficult for the Sheriff to do anything about it because most serious crimes have the criminal running to the nearest bailiff, shattered from lack of sleep and willing to do anything for relief. Those that don't come running are found dead in a state of fightenined rictus. The bailiff or capital finds them due to prophetic dreams or just themselves sleepwalking to the body. Sometimes the Court of Hundreds is called the "Court of the Thousand Yard Stare" in the Guillefer domains.

Exceptions: The Pluritine Church

The Enclaves of the Pluritine Church follow the one true Law. As such, it is the authority in the church lands near Lake Longmere. And given its military power, can project that authority to its holdings in other lands, towns, and villages- provided they get word. Therefore, any accused who can reach a church's doors and demand sanctuary comes under the church's jurisdiction.

Human Centrality: Given the Church's desire to gain influence, they take this right very seriously. However, it does not extend to fairyfolk and perhaps not even enchanters and magicians. Additionally, spending downtime to actually pray, give alms, or perform other works for the church will increase the likelihood of aid.

Spells for Truth: Additionally, like Breggle courts, the Church has easy access to spells that can compel the truth from the accused. Spells like detect evil and reveal alignment will provide strong proof of innocence or guilt. But these are also known qualities in the world, so "professional" criminal organizations will seek to subvert those. The Church is also known to use holy quest to place the guilty on a righteous path-- mainly to recover the lost shrines. These groups are known as the Penitent Expeditionary Forces.

COURT CALENDAR OF DOMENWOOD A hundred's court (100s) is held locally every month by the bailiff(s)but and, due to winter, Braghold, Grimvold, and Lymwald are avoided as months for Sheriff's courts

01     Grimvold The onset of winter, 100s
02     Lymewald Deep winter, 100s
03     Haggryme The fading of winter, 100s, Sheriff's Tourn Court (rotating domain)
04     Symswald The onset of spring, 100s
05     Harchment High spring, 100s
06     Iggwyld The fading of spring, 100s, Sheriff's County Court at Brackenwold (outlaws declared)
07     Chysting The onset of summer 100s,
08     Lillipythe High summer 100s,
09     Haelhold The fading of summer, 100s, Sheriff's Tourn Court (rotating domain)
10     Reedwryme The onset of autumn, 100s,
11     Obthryme Deep autumn, 100s, Sheriff's County Court at Brackenwold (outlaws declared)
12     Braghold The fading of autumn, 100s,

COURT EXAMPLE

How would this play out?

The inn in Prigwort "mysteriously" burns down after a week PCs spent carousing. As a market town, Prigwort has a bailiff and a church. The hue & cry is raised! All able members of the town now are hunting the PCs. So, the PCs have a decision: submit to arrest, reach the doors of the church, or skip town.

If they skip town, they will be pursued, mostly like by the Harrowmore bailiff, and the hue & cry will be raised in other settlements to not give quarter to those matching the party's description. If they remain at large, then the Prigwort and bailiff can submit a request to the Sheriff of Brackenwold to have the PCs declared as outlaws. The PCs can now be killed on sight. Just like Robinhood! Either the Harrowmore or Prigwort bailiff can also kill the accused in the process of pursuit, but not once they are caught.

If they submit to arrest, they will be placed in a gaol until the first Hundred's Court can be convened by the Prigwort bailiff. Since they are already in a town with a bailiff-- they don't have to be transported anywhere. And this is where their local connections come into play.

The Prigwort bailiff will then convene 12 judges from Prigwort in order to hear the accusations against the PCs. Good questions to answer are: Were they a general menace? Did they do good things for the town? Did they make/have friends? Did they have friends in high places? These will factor in who attends their trial and who speaks against them.

If they touch the doors of a Church, then the Church will now evaluate their sanctuary status (harder to do with magicians and demi-fay). Then they will undergo sentencing via tribunal. If no one dies, then jail time, a fine, or indentured service✤✤ (or some combination of the three) might be applied to a guilty party. If someone did die, well then the accused will be jailed until the Sheriff's Tourn held twice a year and the presence of a coroner. With a coroner and royal judges present, the Sheriff can now have said person executed.

The Sheriff's Tourn might also occur in a different location, so its possible the PCs will have time to save their condemned friend or hatch a plan to effect their escape as they are being transported. Again, instead of dry procedure, this is some exciting adventure stuff!

❧ A Trial Procedure (modified from Errant)

First evaluate the PCs reputation in town on a 1-6 scale. With "1" being "cause of all ills" and "6" being "pillars of the community". If you need a reputation:

• Just got to a hamlet, village, small town, reputation is "2" as folks are close, know each other, and PCs are strangers✤✤✤.
• Just got to a large town, city, and stronghold, reputation is "3" as locals see a lot of folks passing through

Next, roll a d6 representing the mood of the court and add the above reputation to get the current sway of the court:

10+    Court levies judgement for the PCs

7-9     Case requires additional evidence to sway the court

2-6     Court levies judgement against the PCs

Remember the PCs can find evidence, bring witnesses, intimidate, bribe, stage a show, give speeches, and use magic.

✤ In brief, a village is governed by a capital pledge who answers to the bailiff of the county. The bailiff collects tithings, holds the court of the hundred, and answers to the sheriff of the kingdom or the manor lord directly in control of the land. The sheriff is historically a locus of power, an extension of the king's will, including controlling a sizeable armed force. The sheriff holds a county court every 6 weeks and a Sheriff's tourn twice a year.

✤✤ In AD&D it was noted that most magic-users in association with town guards were actually indentured.

✤✤✤ I believe in an evaluation of medieval law, newly arrived strangers were in fact blamed for everything

APPENDIX N(EW DUNGEON CRAWL): Modern Media For Delving Deep Down

Tower Dungeon by Tsutomu Nihei

I was trying to get together some other new posts, but those are slow going so here is something that has been rattling around in my brain- how much recent media there is that is based in a dungeon. 

I listed a chunk of it in the Why Megadungeons post, but at the risk of repeating myself, I did want to separate it out into its own thing. I also tried to limit the media to roughly the last ~10 years. I think benchmarking the last decade also helps illustrate how much new popular media there is that will be most people's first contact with the genre.

Worth noting that none of these give a 1:1 experience of playing an RPG dungeon, of course, but most include scenes which match common elements in good pen & paper dungeons.

Anything missing?

Appendix N(ew Dungeon Crawl)

Video Games

• Darkest Dungeon (2016)
• Hollow Knight (2017)
• Dead Cells (2018)
• Minecraft Dungeons (2020)
• Hades (2020)
• Hollow Knight: Silk Song (2025)
• Marathon (2026)

Movies, TV, & Animation

• Dungeon Meshi (2024, manga 2014-2023)
• Backrooms (2026)

Fiction & Manga

• Piranesi (2020)
• Scholomance (2020)
• Dungeon Crawler Carl (2020)
• Tower Dungeon (2023)
• The West Passage (2024)

Art & Installations

• MeowWolf (2016)
  
  

Meow Wolf, Santa Fe

BEHOLD AND BE NOT AFRAID: The Mistaken Divinity Of The Beholder

 

The Eye from
The Baleful Gaze of Tabaldak's Geas
my 2025 Appendix N entry

This post by Gus L. over at All Dead Generations dovetails with a thought I had about a beholder kin which I used in my Appendix N Jam entry The Baleful Gaze of Tabaldak's Geas

The Secret of Bone Hill Is The Spectator

The Spectator is one monster I really like from L1:The Secret of Bone Hill. I imagine it's one of the first published "kin" of the beholder. It can be summoned by a magic-user using monster summoning V (~14th level magic-user to cast) and 3 small eyes from a beholder.

Stats-wise, it's HD 4+4, AC 15, and guards a magic item or something of at least 15,000gp in value. It has a few notable abilities as one might expect:

• Magic resistance of 5% (1:20) to all spells cast at it
• Its central eye can reflect 1 spell cast at it back to the caster
• Its four smaller eyes can cast: cause serious wounds (2d8+3), paralyzing ray (5d4 rounds), telepathy (implant suggestion), and create food & water.

Mana From (Approximately) Heaven For The (Hijacked) Masses

Create food & water really got my gears turning because why would some extraplanar monster need that spell? Sure, we could argue that a guardian being would pack in their own meals, but meh the hobby generally has allowed demons not to have to eat unless they want to. And how does create food & water align with this creature's main mission of guarding magic items?

What if this mini eye of terror is using create food & water to lure other dungeon creatures into protecting it- a sorta dungeon mutualism. Like ants that farm aphids. This allows the eye to extend its reach and power in a given location when it can't leave the thing it is guarding. 

This is why the orcs in the dungeon have a burning eye on their shields. Not because of some dark lord; they've just found god. And god is on the 4th level.

When this effect is combined with telepathy and paralyzing ray, or as an alternative fear, this mimics the "DO NOT FEAR ME!" feel of biblical angels. And now you have a reason for a dungeon faction- a cult of the eye.

But how large could this cult get? My preferred D&D, BX, separates the spells into create food and create water, but uses the exact same text. So let's calculate how many "normal humans" this spell can support. The text says:

Volume: Food sufficient for twelve humans and twelve mounts for one day is conjured.

If a standard mount is a horse, they require 6 times as much food as a single human (according to internet searches), so 1 horse equals 6 humans. So, 12 + (12 x 6) is ~84 humans- a true lair's worth!

Example

Thank goodness for the words of Sister Mary, the only blue-eyed one among us (a favored sign she says), who began writing the angel's rules down in a book she found once it started speaking to her heart directly. Take only the food and nothing more!- it directs.

And so each day the procession begins at noon. Two open the door. Mary announces our presence. Take only the food and nothing more! We respond in kind. Then four of us shuffle forward on hands and knees to retrieve the shields laden with sweet meats, fruits from divine gardens, and crystal goblets of water more crisp than any wine.

This is how we've escaped the horrible strife between the Wolf and the Hound? It was Mary who led us to the sorcerer's tower where she worked as a child, but no one has seen the wizard since before the war. Many say the holy eye drove him out, unable to stand the gaze of the divine.

It was Mary who pushed beyond the foryer once food ran low and the sickness began. She found the inner sanctum that held the angel. Praise THE EYE! Proof the gods smile on us as long as they don't touch the flaming sword, it hovers above-- but no worries Sister Mary says the chosen one should be arriving soon...very soon...

TORCHES (6): A RPG Microblog Collection 9

 

Well, 6+1, but hey, you found an extra
in the crypt...

Work has been keeping me occupied, so posting has slowed down a bit, but here are some other great works that are in the blog-o-sphere that will fuel inspiration!

Torches (6) is a collection of microblogging about cool posts I've come across. This feature is lit at irregular intervals 

[Dungeon] Fruits Are A Great Source of Nutrients [/Paralysis]: Alice over at Dungeon Dolls is back with another solid post on fruit found in the dungeon. To my eyes, each example feels like a great take on potion/scrolls. I think the post does three clever things:

1. You can't bank the fruit outside the dungeon- use it now or mark it for (maybe) later
2. Each comes with a risk
3. The risk and reward combined make eating them an exciting choice rather than a casual use item

Your Party's Spirit: Goblin Punch is out there again with another anti-cleric stance! Given general D&D's polytheistic stance and environment where the gods do tread the earth, it makes sense that PC would be far, far more religious than they often act. The key here is around incentives. 

I think this would blend well with the shrine system I cooked up for a home game.

How To Run Arden Vul: This is a pretty amazing Reddit thread form a DM who's run Arden Vul for 3 tables using 2e AD&D. I think the most interesting advice is how this DM ran each of the three tables at a set time and did not deviate. There was no West Marches player-organized time; the DM laid down the time, and you just had to show up. However, the knock-on effect was that scheduling is very simple and very consistent- food for thought:

[Arden Vul DM] I am a stickler about my schedule. Trying to arrange my schedule around when the player's are available is a no go for me. I'm simply too busy. (In addition to running 3 private tables, and 1 public, open table, I also have a comic book podcast I record 1-2 episodes a week for, plus I need to spend time with my spouse. Literally almost all my time is spoken for between spouse, hobbies, and work.)

I've also found that if you don't have a set schedule to game just doesn't work well. We play every Monday from 545-845 no matter how many people show up. We play every Wednesday from 545-845 no matter how many people show up. We play every Saturday from 545-845 no matter how many people show up. I'm not trying to get myself off in some scheduling hell with a west marches style set up. It just doesn't work for me, and I'm of the opinion it would kill the tables.

There is also the limiting factor of, if I open sign ups for my place on Mondays someone might be at work and miss the chance to sign up. So I don't get to see that person that week. Maybe they are always at work during the sign up time frame (2 of my players are teachers). So they always miss the time frame and I never get to see them.

Set groups on set days solves all my problems with scheduling. 

And speaking of getting people to show up, a convo on Discord recounted how a DM running an open-table zombie campaign had a rule that if you missed 3 sessions in a row, your PC got eaten by a zombie off-screen.

Room Size & Geomorphs:  Playful Void does the maths to examine average room size. I'm always interested in stuff like this. Much like average treasure, I think understanding the "environment" of D&D helps construct good DM tools for ideally more off-the-cuff play (see Human Centric Game Design). Using the calculations here, one could roll a set of 6 rooms to build out a dungeon, or better yet, fill in a dungeon geomorph

Human Centric Game Design: A Manifesto: Personable Thoughts is really zeroing in on what I think is one of the most relevant game design ideas in today's increasingly digital world. What do human-centric RPGs bring to the table? And how can that be maximized? This is especially true as video game RPGs also offer, not necessarily competing, but different RPG experiences. 

I think this is true not just in terms of a game system, but also in the raw running of games. For instance, when I run an encounter, what can I bring to that experience that a computer can't? And how can I double down in that?

A Better Equipment List: This is a nice post with equipment descriptions to better highlight to players how equipment can matter- almost like low-key powers. Some examples:

CLOAK, DARK, HEAVY: conceal; disguise; pad; bundle; smother; shadow  

ROPE, HEMP, 50 FT.: climb; bind; lower; haul; measure; rig 

I am starting to believe that one of the best things the back of the character sheet can include is common equipment, price, and descriptions like those above. It also sorta feeds into my feelings on how ultimately equipment is interesting in how much the players choose to carry. But for that to matter, Paladin is right, they have to see it as valuable.

Folks of the Guild (Still Building a Better Thief): Love this Hags post for showing that ODD is still alive and well. And the "better thief" brain worm still wiggles. I like the way this post grounds the thief's abilities in the world and creates a visual mark that is a thumbing-your-nose at the punishment the thief would receive. It also helps one back-calculate, to me, the laws of the land (and as such, you might need a sheriff). Example:

The Barbers

Automatically hit and double any damage when attacking an unaware opponent from behind.

Barbers wear scarves or cravats, a dainty reminder of both their trade - a slit throat - and the murderer's sentence - a hangman's noose. Neck adornments play a special part in Guild symbolism as one of the Two Ends: in this case, Death by the Law.

FRIDAY NIGHT DUNGEON DRAFT: Editing Six Doors of the Forgotten Lord Rooms 07 to 12

 

Continuation of my series to edit a quick "Friday Night Dungeon" using Dolmenwood.

Tomb of the Twin-Headed Hawk (Pg 4)

Link to the Draft Document: Six Doors of the Forgotten Lord

Key Detail: Room 07 is a door, so another roll on the heraldry table yielded "hawk" and for a room type I rolled "weird" so, I went with an animate door- a squawking two-headed baf relief. Its odd, will prompt discussion, and is an alarm obstacle

Initial Treasure Total (silver standard): 120sp with the opportunity to gain a large talking jug.

Three Initial Problems: 

1. More Description of Important Things: The animated door and describe the jar heads of the barrowbogeys (peak Dolmenwood monster) with a little more flavor
2. Empty Crypt (#10 & 11a) Is Too Bland: I should know better since I wrote a post on it. Something needs to go here to punch it up.
3. More Treasure: Not enough for sure at 120sp. On average, level 1 treasure is about 600sp (or gp...whatever standard you use). Treasure shouldn't be evenly parcelled because that is boring, but it should still be there.

Three Potential Solutions

1. Colorful Descriptions: Let's see...
• Door: The bas relief of a twin-headed hawk strains to grab the green grasshoppers that float past it; occasionally, the heads nip at each other in frustration
• Barrowbogey heads: "...its clay head is a squat double handled jar with a black and white checkered glaze" or "...both heads are rustic wine decanters shaped like crowing roosters..."
2. Empty but Not Nothing: Well, let's roll on the table for rooms #10 and #11a...to get... "a clue or password" and an "encounter clue"
• Okay, #10 leads to a weird room where there is a toast to summer, so how about we put a banner hanging from the beaks of two very large taxidermied twin-headed hawks, that says "TO SUMMER".
  
• For #11a, since the northern passage leads to the crypt with the zombie mermaids, let's put 4 frozen bodies in this room and an unnatural chill. They'll all have gold coins frozen in their eyes. Does it completely make sense? No. But it will make the PCs pause.
3. More Treasure: One easy thing to do is to increase the value of the holy symbol in #12 from 100 to 300. And if there is a pile of frozen bodies in #11a well, how about if you move them (2 turns) then it will reveal a bronze, fur-trimmed diadem worth 300. Now our new total treasure is 600 plus the magical jug. Not bad.

Final Thoughts

I've actually started to play this dungeon a little bit and so far I'm happy with it. I think 07-12 set of rooms is one with a strong Dolmenwood flavor because it involves the barrowbogey who I've connected to a rumor of stolen pottery locally. Whimsy that could get you killed!

DON'T SPLIT THE SESSION: Rule 0 For Avoiding A Play-Killing Mistake In Modern Lives

"We'll stop here and finish it next session, no problem!"

In my current megadungeon home game, we have not played for almost 4 months now because of a mistake I made. It's a mistake that makes sense at the time, but has had disastrous consequences for play since then. 

The mistake: I ended a session in the dungeon right at the start of a big battle because we ran out of time.

I should not have done this. I knew it could be a problem. At the time, I didn't want to risk having a PC die because we were in a "hurry up and finish" mode of combat. And I just didn't have a clever way of resolving the fight in 10 minutes that would be satisfying. I figured that stopping at the beginning of a key battle and the potential rescue of an NPC would carry enough potential energy that the next session would be focused and start with a bang! Combat! Action! High stakes!

That was 4 months ago.

Now modern life of work, kids, and family life have understabily intervined. Don't take this post as any sort of angry rant. My play group's focus is rightly on the various important aspects of their lives and playing D&D is a minor aspect. However, it IS a hobby everyone greatly enjoys and consistency is a key aspect. Long absences can dissolve the game.

I wish I had stuck to my rule of ending the session at the end of our allotted play time, and if that meant the players could not save the NPC, then so be it.

Fail Forward...Into The Next Session

In general, I think splitting the session led to three general, unwanted downstream effects in addition to delaying play for an extended period.

Denial of Agency: At the time, I thought that making the player go back to town and have the NPC become a sacrifice was robbing the players of agency, a big no-no in old-school play. However, in not completing the town-dungeon-town loop, I ended up robbing the players (and myself!) of 4 months of agency by not playing!

Decreased Flexibility in Attendance: I also decreased the flexibility of the megadungeon set-up to host a variable number of players and not require the attendance of 100% of my player pool to start a game. It is often this strengent 100% attendance requirement that kills a lot of trad-games or even any game. Hence, the joke of modern D&D is that the BBEG is "scheduling". In my experience running this game, I've been able to host a variety of out-of-town players who drop in for a session or two because we begin and end in the town. It creates a solid staging point and does the least to disrupt the narrative flow.

Yes, I could certainly have PCs with absent players be slightly off camera or function as sorta meta-ghost. But no one ever really likes doing this. And in my experience, it always results in awkward situations where present players will want to use the "ghost" PC's abilities, but then it has to be explained away why they don't directly come into harm's way or some other setup.

Missed Opportunity to Shake the Status Quo: Finally, I think the big thing I also denied my world was the chance to evolve it around an unfortunate outcome. Just look at how awesome it was when Ned Stark got it in Game of Thrones. It's a shocking twist, certainly, but it really drove home the feeling that the world moves under its own power instead of the author's. It's not true, of course. But that illusion is key in making an enthralling read AND an enthralling game.

Disruptions like the death of an NPC, particularly one the PCs witness, can be a catalyst for antagonist goal advancement AND a disruption of the status quo around the PCs. So not only do the bad guys advance but the good king now hates you for not saving the knight.

A Possible Fix...And A Suprise!

To remedy this problem, I turned to some of the RPG Discords I am on and was handed a really nice solution, which has since been turned into a blog post: Mindstorm's Quick Stakes for Tense Situations.

Exactly what I was looking for. And I set up my own table below.

It provides plenty of player choice to decide what would happen, leaving some up to chance and forcing some hard decisions. I even ramped it up by allowing players only 3 free choices before they had to move some into the WILL NOT HAPPEN category in order to remove remaining items into the WILL HAPPEN.

My players ended up deciding that both the monster and cultist WILL NOT be killed in order to ensure no PC was grievously wounded, and they saved Ambrose. But in the end, we were able to actually get everyone at the game, breaking the no-game curse.

How the fight actually went down is that they were able to save Ambrose, kill the monster, and the cultist got away- ah well- time for a new villain!

FRIDAY NIGHT DUNGEON DRAFT: Editing Six Doors of the Forgotten Lord Rooms 01 to 06

 

CONTEXT & GOALS

I have a slight fascination with understanding how much creative mileage one can get out of the Basic D&D and a couple of sheets of graph paper. I hold this idea that a DM of minimal experience should be able to hammer out a dungeon with the creative energy of Monday bored-in-class and have a good time running it Friday night. But I might be putting too much faith in random stocking and shooting-from-the-hip ideas. There is a reason both Moldvey and the Designing Dungeons Course councils are brainstorming key items, monsters, and locations as anchors when building a dungeon. Those central idea provide thematic & aesthetic guidance for the dungeon.

So to test, I grabbed a Dyson map, the Dolmenwood campaign for flavor, and started stocking with an eye toward speed-to-play, not quality-for-publication. I also took each set of rooms, six at a time, to hopefully create unified micro-areas.

But what would be interesting would be to blog an editing pass at this dungeon. What works and doesn't? What happens when you lean on a random stocking? And what are 3 things I can do to improve each section without a full re-write? I don't think I've seen this done before. And I want your comments below too!

CRYPT of the MERMAID'S ANCHOR (Pg 3)

Link to the Draft Document: Six Doors of the Forgotten Lord

Key Detail: Room 01 is a key dungeon entrance, so I rolled a on the heraldry table and got a mermaid motif- sea theme it is!

Inital Treasure Total: 900gp, no magic items

Initial Problems: 

1. Too Hostile: The six rooms have a total of 9 hostile skeletons, which feels too intense for 1st-level characters right in the first set of rooms. It promotes as sorta look-and-leave stance with little exploration. We want to draw players in.

2. Boring Treasure: The secret door is not too hard to find, and yields a helpful MU NPC, but not really an exciting treasure. They discovered a secret, so let’s get the fantastical rolling

3. Door to Nowhere: There is also a frozen fountain, 3 skeletons trapped in the ice, and a visible staircase which leads to a “level 2”- however, I don’t have that planned.

Edits to Punch It Up:

1. Unexpected Hostilities: How about behind the north door are zombie mermaids that spit freezing salt water? The skeletons around the frozen fountain will be inert, but those in the west coffins will only attack if the south door is kicked in. Honestly, maybe we should have more zombie mermaids in lieu of skeletons, which were rolled on the random encounter table

2. Thematic Treasure: Okay, so they fight off 4-6 enemies, so let's give something cool. I made a list of treasures that is under 600 gp- on of these is a wizard pipe. This wizard accidentally fell asleep so maybe a spilled bag of sleeping sand (as sleep; 1 dose left). And since we have a sorta pirate theme, how about a treasure map- which is not often seen any modern modules. Because these treasures aesthetically match other elements in this area, I think players will be triggered to spin off conclusions about how the items all connect. Maybe those musings can be DM fodder.

3. One-Way Portal Fountain: Hmm, since I don’t have a 2nd level here, perhaps we can turn this into a one-way portal. One-way doors were also a feature of older dungeons, but I don’t see often now. So let’s pick an interesting place that maybe has a mirror or have them just fall through the ceiling somewhere else. Or maybe a ship moored somewhere else- a micro-dungeon?

Final Thoughts

Undead mermaids are just plain more exciting. A one-way portal feels "WTF!" from the player side, but surprising. But the treasure needs better work. I still like the idea of releasing a PC who becomes a part of the base town.