Per this post last week, I have issued a challenge to start writing smaller dungeons as a creative exercise. I'm calling the elemental nodal building block a dungeon patch.
This post is a stream of consciousness description of how I'm going to start putting together my first patch. I'll clean it up for publication (on the blog) in a future post.
To recap, I've argued that a dungeon patch should have five things:
1. Something that advances your dungeon checklist
2. 3-6 keyed rooms
3. An intentionally blank room that can hold a key for a lock in another section of the Underworld. I should call these spaces connections.
4. A gate that connects to a different section of the Underworld.
5. An evocative name
Basic brainstorming
My patch will start with just the germ of an interesting idea: "An animate wooden golem ventriloquist dummy torturing a dressed up halfling."
I want to write patches for His Majesty the Worm, so I'm going to ground my writing in one of the dungeon seeds that are included in the game. I flip through those for a little while until I find one where it seems to fit: The Castle of Crossed Destinies. One of the most vanilla dungeon seeds.
Warren's position in the Designing Dungeons Course is that making a 30-room dungeon is essentially the act of using the elements of the B/X stocking procedure to make six-room nodes five times:
1-2: Monster (50% chance of guarded treasure)
3: Trap (~30% chance of trapped treasure)
4-5: Empty Room (~15% chance of hidden treasure)
6: Special (which are unique rooms)
I'm not writing towards this stocking procedure, but having prompts (2 monsters [1 with treasure], a trap, 2 empty/lore rooms, 1 special) is helpful for any exercise. I'll keep this ratio in the back of my mind.
Sketching out the core concept
This dungeon patch will be centered around a monster: a human-sized wooden doll controlling (horribly) a halfling as a living puppet.
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| This is a related concept, but not quite right |
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We Need to Talk About Kevin Pinocchio |
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| I'm picturing the wood golem to look like those mannequins used for drawing references |
The idea of a ventriloquist's dummy feels very modern to me, but a Punch and Judy puppet feels perfectly cromulent for a dungeon game. So the wooden golem will be like a mannequin--an uncarven, unpainted blank slate--but its prisoner will be forcibly dressed like Punch, and tied up like a marionette.
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| I always thought Lady Elaine from Mr. Roger's looked upsetting. Maybe this is how the halfling is dressed up. |
Perhaps self evidently, Googling pictures for inspiration is part of my creative process.
The wood golem will both puppet a living creature as revenge (maybe?) but also to express itself in a way that it cannot without being completed. A believable need to be understood, but escalated to an upsetting extreme. Also, perhaps the wood golem could be completed as a matter of negotiation. Perhaps an enemy-to-friend scenario? Or if the players don't do a good job, the golem goes berserk?
What sort of room does this duo call their lair in the Castle of Crossed Destinies? I assume a theater? In a makeshift puppet's theater in a courtyard? In a woodcarver's workshop?
I'm inclined to say all three might exist. The empty puppet's theater in a courtyard will point towards the more adult theater inside the castle. Backstage of the theater will be the woodcarver's workshop. Perhaps the woodcarver's workshop is the wood golem's main lair.
Finalizing the stats will be come later. This idea will give me enough to flesh out a room description.
Brainstorming additional rooms
Since I want to focus my energy on a single node--a cluster of rooms--I'd tuck "outdoor puppet theater" away for later development if I was building out an entire dungeon level.
Right now I have two rooms: woodcarver's workshop and an adjoining theater.
Aiming for ~6 rooms, let me just write out some other ideas. I'll select the ones that are most compelling for development.
Box office. I know that the term "box office" comes from Shakespearean times where patrons' money was collected and kept in a strong lock box. Players love picking locked boxes! Maybe a box office. [Trap + Treasure?] Although, on second thought, if this stage is part of a castle, would there be paying patrons? Perhaps not.
Backstage. If there's a theater, there should be a backstage. The empty room would have unused scenery, prop weapons, costumes, wigs, etc. ["Empty" room?]
In Disney's Pinocchio, Geppetto had lots of cuckoo clocks. Should those feature somehow? [Trap? Treasures in their own right?]
This reminds me of the terrifying clockwork music box doll from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Can that complement the idea of cuckoo clocks? Is a finished full-sized doll what the wood golem was supposed to be, but it is still unfinished? [Special?]
Puppets were a plot point in Being John Malkovich. Maybe I should put a tiny door somewhere in here because that's just a nice dungeon feature to have. Perhaps that's the gate that connects to another dungeon level (which is one of my suggestions for something that each patch should have). Maybe the door is very small and requires the players to cast Shrink before using it.
Hang on. What sort of things would a medieval theater have in them anyway? Well, wait, let's look up Renaissance theaters. The most famous one I know: The Globe.
OK cool, I found this map online.
At first glance, I thought 12 keyed locations would almost be enough to make several patches out of a theatrical section of a castle, but on closer reading, many of these would be a single room key. I think the only meaningful ideas from reading this pamphlet was that calling the dressing room "Tiring House" would be flavorful and that the stage itself should have a trap door. There's a trap!
Where did the marionette-ified halfling come from? An adventurer, I assume. Perhaps some of his old companions are still lurking here as undead. [Another monster]
Final rooms to be keyed
OK, that's enough brainstorming. Let's actually conceptualize what rooms I want to write.
I want to
This dungeon patch is part of the Castle of Crossed Destinies.
1. Theater. The stage of the theater has a trap door. Under the gallery, there is a curiously small door that leads to another section of the Underworld. [Trap, Gate]
2. Under the stage. Mechanisms that power the trap door. An undead adventurer (fallen victim to the trap) has some loot. [Monster with Treasure]
3. Backstage. Storage for stage props, including other blank but inanimate mannequins. [Empty]
4. Tiring house. The dressing room for would-be actors, filled with different stage costumes. This will be a type of treasure. [Treasure]
5. Puppeteer's workshop. The workshop of an artisan who created the puppets, the sets, and other objects of the theater--now haunted by the Rude Mechanical, an unfinished wooden golem, who puts on performances with Tom Joiner, a captive halfling dressed up as a marionette. Valuable cuckoo clocks hang on the walls. [Monster, Treasure]
6. Storage room. A storage room near the woodwright's shop. This room's key will be intentionally left (mostly) blank to form a potential connection with another patch. [Connection]
This area will be called the Theater of Tragedy. Because of har har, stupid joke. It contains a reason to fight, a reason to talk, and a reason to explore.
Saved ideas: I liked the idea of a cuckoo clock/music box room and an outdoor puppet theater that would connect conceptually to this patch, but don't want to lose focus. These ideas will be saved for later development.
Further reading from other big brains about this subject
Murkdice had the idea of "Patchwork Megadungeons" a while back as a way to chunk the work. Great minds!
Aryxmaraki reminds us that patches (and hexes, and points) are all just a type of node.
The first to heed the challenge of the dungeon patch for Worm
Lusunati of the Worm Discord was the first person to accept the challenge and show off a dungeon patch for Worm. They've created a couple others in the past as well!
By the by
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