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Godsbarrow Old school Old School Essentials Tabletop RPGs

#dungeon23: The Black Furnace

Sean McCoy‘s #dungeon23 challenge has been making the rounds on Mastodon: Every day in 2023, write one room of an old-school fantasy megadungeon (or whatever similar project tickles your fancy). I’ve been intrigued, but felt like I didn’t really need another project next year — until this morning, when the puzzle pieces fell into place.

Dungeon23 logo created by Lone Archivist and released under a CC BY 4.0 license

These days I do best with long-term projects that I can 1) work on every single day, no exceptions, and 2) just “check the box” if I don’t have the energy today. That means projects with lots of variety in their components, and which can survive banking the fires — basically only working on them in the most technical sense, like a dab of paint or writing a single name — while I recharge my creative juices or deal with life’s curveballs.

This is how Godsbarrow got created, and how I’ve worked on it daily since March 2021. It’s how I wrote and published The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link]. It’s how I work on my 40k miniatures. It prioritizes continuation, completion, and realistic expectations — and it’s baked right into #dungeon23. There’s tons of variety (365 rooms!), and writing “Empty room” is a 100% valid and necessary component of any megadungeon.

Sean’s longer write-up makes that explicit, and it’s what really sealed the deal for me. After many past false starts, I’m going to take a run at creating my first megadungeon: the Black Furnace, my favorite dungeon that I’ve mentioned in my Godsbarrow material.

My WIP simple spreadsheet, as of December 10, 2022

My approach

I get the appeal of working on #dungeon23 in a physical notebook with hand-drawn maps; that will produce a lovely artifact at the end of the year, and it hearkens back to the origins of the hobby. But my handwriting is terrible, I won’t always have that notebook handy, I know drawing dungeon maps is a roadblock for me (I always get too deep in the weeds and then abandon the project), and ultimately whatever I produce is likely to be something I want to publish — so why make more work for myself by doing it by hand?

Once I knew that, the rest of my path became pretty clear. Here it is in rough form, as it stands now:

  • Google Sheets: I’ll be creating my megadungeon in Google Sheets. Easily updateable and editable, always available, and already digital.
  • Dyson Logos’ maps: I’m going to use some of the wonderful maps created by Dyson Logos — specifically, the ones Dyson has generously released with a royalty-free commercial license. If I finish my dungeon and like it enough to publish it, this makes that possible.
  • OSE: Old School Essentials is my old-school system of choice, and the game I’d most likely use to run a megadungeon, so that’s sorted. And OSE has a third-party license for published products that looks entirely reasonable, so I’m covered there as well.
  • Dungeon stocking: That also means I can use the OSE rules for random dungeon stocking, which I quite like. That breaks down to 1/3 empty rooms, 1/3 monster, 1/6 special, and 1/6 trap.
    • I might also use the method from AD&D 1e, which comes up in Courtney’s PDF (the next bullet).
  • Random generators: I love random generators, and with 365 rooms to write (even if 122 of them are empty!) I’m going to need plenty of inspiration. There are a billion tools for this, but I’ll start with two.
  • A snazzy logo: Lone Archivist created a free #dungeon23 logo pack (as well as one for sci-fi projects) with a CC BY 4.0 license.

That’s the how, but what about the what?

The Black Furnace

I created the Black Furnace when I was designing the Unlucky Isles, and I like how it turned out. Even though it’s only a region-level sketch, that’s plenty to get me rolling on room-by-room creation (which is one of the things I love about region-level sketches!):

This black stone kiln the size of a large house, its soot-covered iron door always warm to the touch, rises from the earth during times of great strife. It was thought to have receded from the world centuries ago, but in recent days trappers and woodcutters who work the Hulawe Hills claim to have seen this fell edifice, and those who have gone to look for it have not returned. Folk tales say that it’s the entrance to a sprawling subterranean maze, or to the realm of a long-forgotten god, or a maw which releases ancient monstrosities into the world. In truth, the Black Furnace is all three of those things, and its reappearance bodes ill for Brundir.

From The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link]

That’s got all the bones I need for #dungeon23: A sprawling subterranean maze: check. The realm of a long-forgotten god, which hearkens back to one of my favorite modules, Tomb of the Iron God [affiliate link]: check. A maw that spews monsters, which is already giving me all sorts of ideas: check. And potential region-level, world-shaking implications, which I love in a dungeon: check.

In the spirit of drawing from my first Godsbarrow and proto-Godsbarrow ideas for worldbuilding, I’m going to reuse, remix, and draw from the megadungeon I started designing back in 2016, Marrowdark. (I’ll likely use that name for something else in Godsbarrow — maybe even a dungeon; it’s the ideas I’m after here.) Some of the rough clay in those notes has already made its way into wider Godsbarrow, notably the null slimes of Middenglum, and I want to explore more of its themes.

Many thanks to Sean McCoy for kicking this off, and for posting about it well in advance of the start date! I needed that time to get my ducks in a row and think things over, and now I’m excited to get rolling in January.

Out now: The Unlucky Isles

The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
Categories
Tabletop RPGs Traveller

Traveller generators: worlds, systems, sectors, subsectors, and Mongoose 2e characters

I’ve posted about Traveller generators before here on Yore, but I’ve also used one or two I’ve never posted about — and recently found a great Reddit list of even more generators that were new to me. Time for a round-up!

My brain is in Mongoose Traveller 2e [paid link] mode at the moment, but given the broad compatibility of the various editions of Traveller — especially in terms of setting creation — these generators should be useful no matter which flavor/fork appeals to you. The only exception is the last one on the list, which specifically creates Mongoose 2e NPCs.

Mongoose Traveller 2e core book (sitting atop High Guard on my paint-spattered desk)

Sectors and subsectors you can revisit, with maps

The inimitable Alex Schroeder offers a triple threat for Traveller GMs, with some really cool features. The main Traveller generator page features links to generate random sectors and subsectors; those output on a new page, with a unique URL. (To generate a new one, you have to hit the link on the main page. Refreshing your generated page, logically enough, changes nothing.)

You can also paste in your own list of UWPs (and the list the page itself generates is preformatted to work perfectly here), or the URL of a page you just generated, and then hit the “Submit” button, and the site will also generate your subsector or sector map. (The map needs to be saved locally for future use.)

Systems, sectors, and subsectors, with options (rift, spiral arm, etc.)

If you want some options when it comes to type of sector/subsector, neuzd’s awesome Mongoose 1e generator is a one-stop shop, and includes options for rift, sparse, spiral arm, and densely populated sectors and subsectors. Those options are what make this one so cool. Do note that you can’t bookmark the results; you’ll need to export or paste them for future use.

Best of all, you can select the type of sector/subsector with this generator, copy the resulting list, paste it into Alex Schroeder’s generator (above), and the latter will create your map for you. The best of both worlds!

Systems and worlds with bells and whistles

One of my go-to sites for generators of all stripes, donjon, offers an amazing system generator that includes planetary images, a breakdown of the system, and a full work-up of the core world that includes a randomly generated world map. For a new system, just hit refresh. The simplest way I’ve found to preserve its output is to take a screenshot.

Worlds you can revisit

The PBE Games world generator is fantastic. It will spit out random worlds, of course, but you can also provide your own UWPs and it will expand them into full write-ups. Best of all, the generator provides a seed for every world it creates — just save that seed (a short string of characters), and you can plug it back into the generator anytime to re-create that world.

Worlds based on milieu, with extras

Not only can you specify the milieu and other details before generation, Traveller Tools will also tell you fun stats like refuel time, travel times and distances, and available trade goods. This one appears to be Mongoose 2e-specific (to the extent that that matters). A permalink is available for every world you create.

Mongoose 2e Traveller character generator

Traveller Tools also features a great Mongoose 2e Traveller character generator, and there’s a permalink for any character you create. You can specify age and careers or just let the randomizer do its work; either way, it’s intended for NPCs and, as the page notes, takes a few liberties with the rules to enable random generation.

Mongoose 2e characters aren’t quite as simple as OG Trav characters (which generally fit into a line or two of text), so I was thrilled to find this one.

Want more?

The Zhodani Base offers a beefy list of Traveller generators covering everything from sectors to counters to magazine covers. There’s plenty here that should be handy for any Trav GM.

Out now: The Unlucky Isles

The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.