Beholders are intellectual property, eh?

No matter what you call them, Beholders are vile servants of the coastal wizards. 

But worry not. They have monstrous cousins that can be used to populate (monsterate?) your dungeons. Less common and less popular, perhaps, but not less worthy.

Mumblers

Also called: Omniphagists, Gabblegob, Chew-Orbs

Art by Felipe Faria

This spherical monster levitates through gaseous sacs in its body. Its central cavity is a gnawing mouth of yellow teeth which leads into an extradimensional space (similar to a bag of holding). Eight tentacle protuberances each end in smaller mouths. All of the mouths can speak: each voice is lustrous and rich. The central mouth is always the voice of authority, but any mouth may offer suggestions, warning, quips, witticisms, or retorts. As it floats through dungeon corridors, you can almost always hear the mouth-stalks talking to itself; it never provokes surprise.

The mumbler's chief pleasure is in taste. It wants strange delicacies, obscure drinks, unusual taste combinations, or varieties of mouthfeel and texture. In a pinch, "raw flesh" (especially that of humans) is always welcome. 

AC 2 [17], HD 13 (58hp), Att 1 x bite (2d8) and magic mouths, THAC0 10 [+9], MV 90′ (30′), SV D4 W5 P6 B5 S8, ML 12, AL Chaotic 

Swallow whole: An attack roll of 19 or 20 on a bite attack indicates a human-sized (or smaller) victim is swallowed. Swallowed creatures are banished to an airless extradimensional space and suffer 1d6 damage per round (until the mumbler is destroyed).

Magic mouths: Each mouth-stalk has an AC of 5 [14]. A mouth-stalk can withstand 6 points of damage before it is severed. This damage is not applied to the main hit point total of the mumbler itself.

The more mouth-stalks that exist, the better spells the mumbler can cast: see table below. Each spell can be used three times per day.

1 mouth-stalk: charm person

2 mouth-stalks: sleep

3 mouth-stalks: phantasmal force

4 mouth-stalks: dispel magic

5 mouth-stalks: lightning bolt, protection from normal missiles, 

6 mouth-stalks: confusion, hallucinatory terrain

7 mouth-stalks: charm monster, feeblemind

8 mouth-stalks: cloud kill

Hearkeners

Also known as: Audio Enslavers, Omniaudient, the Listening Ones, Earbs

A giant, distinctly human ear attached to a hairy orb that moves through levitation. The long hairs covering its spherical body and growing within the ear cavity are prehensile. It has no other visible organs. It communicates through telepathy within 1000'--it sounds like it's whispering directly into your ear.

The hearing of a hearkener is obviously incredibly sensitive. It can perceive, with almost total clarity, anything that is happening on its own dungeon level. It also has excellent control over its audial processing; it is never disturbed by loud sounds. A hearkener, while not a huge threat in combat, can coordinate the defenses of monsters throughout a dungeon incredibly effectively. 

Music is the heartkener's main motivation. It despises the clumsy sounds of human and demi-human peoples. It tolerates extraplanar music, and enjoys angelic music (although angels loathe hearkeners). There is a sub-genre of efreet music that is like a narcotic to them. In a pinch, the wailing of the enslaved will suffice.

AC 1 [18], HD 5 (22 hp), Att 3 × grasping hairs (1d8) or cone of vertigo, THAC0 15 [+4], MV  90′ (30′), SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S16, ML 12, AL Chaotic

All-hearing: A hearkerner is immune to surprise.

Blind: Hearkeners are blind, but use their hearing to perceive the world. A silence spell blinds them.

Cone of vertigo: 3/day: 30 ft. long x 30 ft. wide cone, must save vs. paralysis or suffer vertigo. While under effects of vertigo, suffer -4 to hit and -2 AC. In addition, each time the victim moves, they roll a 1d12, treating results as a clock hand, and move in that direction. Victims of vertigo can reroll this save at the end of each turn to remove the effects.

ESP: The hearkener benefits from ESP at will, as it can hear even the thoughts of those within 1000'. 

Spell immunity: Unaffected by charm and sleep spells.

Ventriloquism: At will. Can make an audial illusion seeming to originate from anywhere within range 1000 ft.

Snuffler

Also known as: Sternutacion, Sphere of Many Smellers

Snufflers look like giant, spherical dog noses with tiny black beady eyes and wide mouths. They float using a gaseous sac a few inches above the ground. Sensitive hair-like antennae cover their orb-like bodies. 

A snuffler's world is that of smells. They perceive olfactory subtleties that paint vivid pictures of the present and the past. They tend to lead packs of weaker monsters (kobolds and goblinoids, mostly) to through secret doors towards hidden treasure caches, which they horde. Fortunately for civilization, they tend to be plagued with perpetual hay fever. They sneeze, wheeze, and sniff constantly. These humorous fluids have alchemical effects.

AC 2 [17], HD 11 (49 hp), Att 1x bite (1d8), 2 x acid snot (1d6) or alchemical snot, THAC0 11 [+8], MV 90 (30), SV D6 W7 P8 B8 S10, ML 10, AL Chaotic

Acid snot: Two globs of acid snorted within 30'. On a hit, acid deals 1d6 damage each round until the snot is washed off.

Alchemical snot: Snufflers can extrude or benefit from the following potions 2x/day. 

• Control Animal
• Control Dragon
• Control Giant
• Delusion
• Gaseous Form
• Healing
• Poison
• Treasure Finding

All-smelling: A snuffler can perfectly perceive hidden and invisible creatures.

Immunities: Unharmed by gas and poison.

Magic resistance: +2 to all saving throws versus magic effects.

Graspers

Also known as: Crawling Hands, Severed Hecatoncheires

A floating spherical orb with a single eye and wide mouth. Protruding from the sphere are five giant human-like fingers, giving the appearance of a hand with a round palm. Although the orb naturally levitates, graspers walk on their fingers like Cousin It. Graspers can walk on walls and ceilings.

Although less magically inclined then some of its cousins, graspers are as strong as giants and as fast as a horse.

AC 3 [16], HD 9 (40 hp), Att 3x flick (1d10) or grab (3d6), THAC0 12 [+7], MV 240’ (80’), SV D 8 W 9 P10 B10 S12, ML 10, AL Chaotic

Grab: A grabbed creature suffers 3d6 damage per round; a successful save vs. paralysis allows escape on subsequent rounds.

Kingdom of the Tooth Fairies - A Dungeon Patch

Here is a modular dungeon node to connect to others, with potential connectors left exposed for the GM. Since I showed my brainstorming process before, I'll skip doing it for this week and get right to the good stuff. 

This next dungeon patch is set in the dungeon seed called the Spires, which is basically like this level from Dungeon Meshi. Each area is a Ewok treehouse-like platform connected by rope bridge hallways. The skeletal trees glow with ghostly mushrooms.

1. Fairy Toll

A crossroads between two bridges. Nailed into the tree is a sign post carved like two fingers pointing: one west and one east. Each finger is marked with Cant sign. Empty lanterns hang on the branches of the trees: [0-3] tooth fairies nest in the lanterns, waiting to demand a toll from passersby.

• Tooth fairies: Tooth fairies look like the kind from Victorian children's books, but wear arms and armor made from milk teeth. Each tooth fairy present demands 20g to put under children's pillows. They'll waive the fee for gnomes, who they see as children.
• Those who fail to pay the toll have 1-14 extra teeth magically grown into their mouth. There is no test to avoid this.
• Sign post: The Cant reads: (West) Down Staircase | (East) Monsters

2. Shrine

Tucked into the hollow of the giant, desiccated tree is a small wayside shrine. On a cairn of stones sits a wide, shallow brass bowl with a few teeth (various kinds) in it. A tiny bell hangs above the bowl. Behind the bowl is an empty pedestal. The trunk of the tree bulges out to offer a semicircular bench near the shrine.

• Bowl: A place where offerings of teeth can be made. Already present is an orc's tusk, a pig's tooth, and a handful of bat teeth.
• Bell: If the bell is rung, in a couple of minutes a tooth fairy will zip in from area 3 to inspect the offering. 
• If there is no new offering, the tooth fairy will pull a tooth (painlessly) from whoever rang the bell and put it in the bowl. 
• If there is a new tooth in the bowl, the tooth fairy will bless the character. They can draw 1 minor arcana card and use it instead of drawing a card (for either a test or Challenge) at any time until the end of the next City Phase.
• Empty pedestal: Obviously, something important is missing here. A statue or idol?

Potential connection: Put a statue in another dungeon patch. Hauling it back here and installing it will improve the shrine, win favor from the tooth fairies, or unlock a hidden treasure in this location.

3. Northern Ruined Spire

One of the towers of the Castle of Crossed Destiny stabs upthrust like a skeletal finger here. Inside the tower is a winding staircase down to another level.

This area key is intentionally left mostly blank to be used in service of a connecting dungeon patch. Fill it with a quest item, key, treasure, gate, rumor, lore, or other item needed to make a connect patch work.

4. Kingdom of Teeth

The rotting trunk of this colossal tree is patched and held together with a gigantic papery nest, like that of a paper wasp: where it bulges from the top of the tree, it is shaped like an extracted human tooth. Tooth fairies buzz hither and thither from the nest. 

• Papery nest: This is the castle of the tooth fairies. They have bored countless hexagonal chambers into the tree and reinforced it from the outside with chewed pulp and calcium-rich spit.  It is home to Dentania the Queen of the Kingdom of Teeth. It is too small for adventurers to enter.
• Tooth fairies: The tooth fairies will challenge anyone approaching the castle or crossing through the area. Tooth fairies have the logic of toddlers playing make believe. Each time the guild crosses through this area, generate a random disposition (core book, p. 100). 
• If the tooth fairies ever feel intensely surprised or frightened, they will summon Queen Dentania to handle the situation.

Queen Dentania

Likes: Milk, Small Dogs 

Hates: Candy, Tooth-worms, Cold

Fairy queens are the most intelligent of fairies, but still have a simplistic view of the world. Roleplay them like the Ghost of Christmas Present from The Muppets Christmas Carol. 

Queen Dentania, like all tooth fairies, can grow and remove bones (especially teeth) painlessly. If her subjects have inconvenienced an adventurer with an abnormal amount of teeth, she'll usually fix the problem.

Potential connection: Queen Dentania could have a bounty for guilds who meet with her based on the rest of your dungeon: forge an alliance with another dungeon faction, retrieve a stolen artifact, defeat a bothersome monster and bring back its teeth. In exchange, she will exempt the guild from the fairy toll (area 1). 

5. Wood of Webs

These wooden walkways, supporting towers, and branches of colossal trees are all covered in the ghosts of cobwebs, covering everything like Spanish moss.

Refer to the top card of the discard pile for a special encounter in this area:

• Swords: Four sword spiders descend from above, ambushing the guild unless they specifically mention looking up. They weave webs as their initial attack.
• Pentacles: Attached to the side of the stone tower, about 12' high, is a bulging bundle of webs around an adventurer's backpack. It potentially contains loot, but how will the guild approach the task?
• Careful inspection reveals almost invisible gossamer tripwires attached to the backpack. 
• If the tripwires are severed (by pulling the backpack down, etc.), a web trap is activated: a web net falls, automatically capturing any adventurers in the area, then is pulled into 25' into the air. 
• Four sword spiders will return within a watch to inspect their captured prey.
• The backpack is full of 100g.
• Cups: An adventurer with a Cups 4 will notice that there are 3 webbed bodies hanging under the wooden walkways. These are the mummified remains of adventurers. They potentially contain loot, but how will the guild approach the task?
• If successfully looted, each body has 40g on their person, as well as the starting equipment  package of a random adventurer.
• Wands: The first adventurer in the marching order walks through a web (unless probing the area with a 10' pole, or similar). It is gross, but not harmful.

The Theater of Tragedy - A Dungeon Patch

This post delivers on the promise of our last brainstorming post. Go and read that one (and the definition of a dungeon patch) first, if you haven't.

Here is a dungeon patch called the Theater of Tragedy: a 6 room segment of a larger dungeon to be mixed and remixed with other dungeon patches to create a much larger configuration for your players. Rules are for His Majesty the Worm, but adaptable to your OSRish system of choice.

1. Theater

A lavish indoor theater lit by six chandeliers hanging from the wooden crossbeams. The stage (1a) rises five feet from the rush-strewn auditorium. Surrounding the stage are two levels of galleries (1b), which provide seating. 

1a. Stage

A wooden stage extending out into the auditorium. Three curtained doors at the back of the stage allow actors to enter and exeunt.* There is a rotten smell nearby.

• Walking on stage: Any character heavier than a gnome or halfling triggers a trap door when they cross center stage. They must test Pentacles or fall 10' into the stage mechanisms (area 2).
• Smell: The stink of the zombie in area 2.

1b. Galleries

The galleries surround the stage on three sides, providing simple bench seating. The upper gallery directly across from the stage is lavish, with boxed seats and three high-backed thrones.

• Investigating the thrones: There is a hidden button in the arm rest of each throne that allows the platform on which they are set to pivot, so that the thrones swing away from the wall. Behind the thrones is obscured a small, secret door.
• Small, secret door: Like what Alice had to go through in Wonderland. A Shrink spell is required to use it. The door leads to area XX (a connection to another dungeon level). 

* Pursued by stats-as-bear.

2. Stage Mechanisms

Under the stage is an access hatch filled with interlocking gears that power machines used during productions. A dead wood elf lies facedown beneath the trap door of area 1a.

• Dead wood elf: A former adventurer (named Ducat Dangerous-Game) wearing a badgerskin hood. If disturbed, he raises as a zombie (core book, p. 286). Its legs are broken; it Moves by dragging itself along the ground. The zombie carries a purse with 55g and a smoke-bomb mushroom. 
• Machines: The machines under the stage perform a variety of simple functions. Each machine is man-powered through cranks and bellows.
• Raise and lower a platform through the trap door.
• Raise and lower a variety of backdrops on stage (a cityscape, a wilderness, a wedding, a night sky). 
• Cause a rumble like thunder.
• Play a merry melody.
• Latching the trap door: The trap door on the stage may set into a locked position from the access hatch. The "trap" of the trap door on the stage is essentially an OSHA violation.

3. Backstage

The backstage is an unlit storage area. There are several pieces of stage scenery stored here. There are two life-sized wooden mannequins, a king and a queen; both have completely blank faces. 

• Scenery: A variety of simple, wooden props to be placed on the stage to add color or set a scene; each stands on its own and is light enough to be moved by two people. There's a tree, a wall, a box, a (fake) chest, a lamppost, and a cloud-throne. None have any value.
• Mannequins: Life-sized puppets. Inanimate. Their faces are blank and unpainted, but have fastenings as if a theatrical mask could be placed on them.

Potential connection:

Elsewhere in the dungeon, there can be masks that animate these two mannequins. Perhaps they want to perform a play? This could be like the opera scene from Final Fantasy 6, where the players are given a brief amount of time to memorize some lines and then need to regurgitate them at the appropriate times. Perhaps they have six lines and can write down a number of them equal to their Cups score and remember the rest? 

Or, more simply, the would-be actor will have to play the Listener Limerick Challenge from Wait Wait! Don't Tell Me. 

4. Tiring House

An unlit dressing room filled with tables and chairs. A variety of costumes hang from a rack. There are character masks hanging from pegs on the wall. Props spill from a wooden box. In the corner, there is a humanoid figure draped with a cloth.

• Costumes: A collection of costumes depicting: 
• A particular commoner's profession (weaver, tinker, tailor, actor, etc.)
• Noble's clothes (fake, but convincing)
• God's robes (obviously fake)
• A monster (convincing in low light)
• The Lavritic (the geas-bound servants of the Castle of Crossed Destinies) will treat anyone wearing a costume of any kind as a person of that rank or profession (a potential connection).
• Masks: There are ten masks here, each portraying some stock character: a villager who pretends be rich, a foolish senator, a mean-but-not-evil braggart, a cunning clown, etc. 
• When appearing in a play (a potential connection), a mask must be worn to define the role. 
• Props: There's an array of props; all fake but rather convincing: jewelry, two swords, crown, fairy wings, fireworks, wizard's wand, military banner, and six potions of various colors.
• Humanoid figure: A life-sized, inanimate puppet. It is dressed and painted to look like a sun god (a sort of stock character). 

5. Puppeteer's Workshop

A wood wright's shop: a workbench, pile of lumber, and specialized carving tools. A variety of life-sized puppet parts litter the area, unfinished: an arm joint, a lower jaw, a roughly-carven head. Elaborate cuckoo clocks hang on the walls. It is dimly lit with a single candle.

This is the lair of the Rude Mechanical.

• Rude Mechanical: The Rude Mechanical is an animate life-sized mannequin. It is a blank slate: unpolished, unpainted, unfinished. Because of this, it has a personality crisis and pretends to be the puppet maker (it isn't), kidnapping adventurers to turn into its puppet children. It current is holding a halfling named Tom Joiner captive.
• If the Rude Mechanical was "finished" by given a painting, a costume, and a purpose, it would change its personality to match.
• Tom Joiner: A halfling adventurer. Ambushed and enslaved by the Rude Mechanical, he is currently dressed up like a Punch puppet, and is bound at the wrists and ankles by fishing wire attached to a cross (like a marionette). He is starving and weak.
• Cuckoo clocks: Each cuckoo clock is a work of intricate art. There are 12 total. Each is worth 100g in the City. Each is fragile.

New keyword: Fragile

A fragile item breaks if the adventure carrying it suffers any Wounds. A fragile item can be bundled with cloth to make it an oversized item, but reduces the chance for it to break to 1-in-4.

Art by Felipe Faria

6. Storage Room

This room is intentionally left blank to be used in service of a connecting dungeon patch. Fill it with a quest item, key, treasure, gate, rumor, lore, or other item needed to make a connect patch work.

Here is a simple map of the area. Hand drawn and looks like shit, but this is what my players get from me!

Note: I have failed my own challenge of doing one of these a week because of Real Life Stuff (TM). But I hope--like my brainstorming blog post before this one--it is helpful to show how the actual sausage is made. Sometimes you miss deadlines! That doesn't mean you stop working on the project if you're still having fun with it. You keep trucking forward because making stuff is fun! Excelsior! 

Making a Dungeon Patch - Sausage Making

Per this post last week, I have issued a challenge to start writing chunks of a dungeon as a creative exercise. The Worm community is calling this 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 potential 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.

This is a related concept, but not quite right

We Need to Talk About Kevin Pinocchio

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 a mannequin--an uncarven, unpainted blank slate--but its prisoner will be forcibly dressed like Punch, and tied up like a marionette. 

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 puppet a living creature both 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? And 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 an office 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. Maybe the door is very small and requires the players to cast Shrink before using it.

Hang on. What sort of things would an olde timey 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 for us! [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.

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 puppeteer's workshop. This room's key will be intentionally left  (mostly) blank to form a potential connection with another patch. [Potential 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

If you're interested in reading my process for building dungeons, I've written a course on the subject. It's free! It won a golden ENNIE this year.

The play's the thing

For people who get upset about reviews of modules unplayed

Would you get mad at playwrights giving feedback after reading a script on a play not yet produced?

This post brought to you by: microblogging.

The Elemental Level of Megadungeon Construction

There was a post on Facebook (cess pit that it is) that I found really inspirational. Here's a screenshot so you don't ritually defile yourself by going there.

It's a node-based megadungeon. It looks sprawling! 

They clarified that each node was 4-5 rooms large. If you have 54 nodes and 5 rooms a node, that's 270 rooms. That feels solidly megadungeon level--past the point of "Is Pluto a planet?" and "Oh yeah, that's Mars."

KJ Davies of the In My Campaign blog has been working on similar projects since 2014. A storied career, with many blog posts, ideas, and dungeon design to support their work! Check out their last nodal megadungeon! (Each level doesn't seem quite complete to me, but they're what His Majesty the Worm would call a dungeon seed - a jumping off point to be fully mapped, Meatgrindered, and filled with monsters and treasures.) 

Gus exchanged some of his own nodal megadungeon ideas with KJ Davies, and even did this cool picture of their dungeon:

[SIDEBAR] As has been said, blogs create ruins. I'm so glad that these ruins from 2014 are still around for me to crawl through! It also just goes to show you how many people want the thing you're making but can't find you. Marketing isn't efficient, but it's an attempt to connect the author with the audience. I wish I had found them sooner! [/SIDEBAR]

I said when I was writing Worm that writing a megadungeon isn't hard (I still hold by that statement): it was just making a series of atomic choices. 

Some things are atoms. (And everybody thought atoms were the smallest thing imaginable, until scientists hit them with a hammer in 1932 and a lot of like, quarks and neutrons and shit fell out.) But the more I work on megadungeon design, the more I understand that we don't want atoms. We want elements. That's what we make things out of.

In the Worm Discord, we've had this concept dungeon quilts. Not a dungeon in toto, but a patch that could be sewn into it--drag and drop it in wherever. Nodal megadungeon design is parallel development to this concept.

A dungeon node / dungeon patch of 4-5 themed rooms is an element that is usable. 

It resonates with Sean McCoy's advice to write rooms in pairs: 

You can think of these rooms as sequels and prequels to the rooms you’ve already come up with. Setups and punch lines.

Writing in pairs builds connectivity and halves the amount of work you have to do.

This gets you in the mindset inherently of connecting your spaces rather than thinking of a dungeon as like thirty different themed rooms. Once you start doing this it’s hard to stop.

It resonates with what Gus talked about in his Jaquaysing article:

By breaking down even a small dungeon into these kinds of nodes, and limiting their connections, players can better understand the space, and the designer can better imagine it, creating rational connections between the keyed locations that allow for more complex play rather than a sort of directionless ramble.  With larger dungeons shortcuts and alternate entrances become more important, either as ways to quickly get to unexplored areas or to change the direction that the party approaches certain obstacles from. Faction territories can be logically delineated by choke points or defensible areas, disrupted by secret passages.

By way of example, let me break down one of the levels from The Castle Automatic: 

Art by Guy Pradel

This is the Sanctum of Swords, one of five levels of the Castle Automatic. It's not a huge level: only 18 rooms. But you can think of it as a series of discrete nodes. 

• Purple: The Black Oil Heart (which powers the mechanisms in the level) and surrounding trapped rooms. An entrance to the level. Underground. 
• Teal: The lair of Pimple the Vampiric Torturer and surrounding rooms. A guarded exit from the underground section of the level to the above ground section.
• Honestly, the distinction between purple and teal is a little arbitrary on my part. This could also be an 8 room patch--an underground section.
• Red: Four rooms connected by a theme of a moat flowing into an underground river. 
• Yellow: The Court of Swords, including all the noble NPCs (and the boss of the level, the King of Swords).

All of the patches have at least one exit or connection to another level (not just another node in this level).

• Purple: A mirror portal connects room 201 (current level) to room 101 (entrance level).
• Teal: There's a trap door in the ceiling of room 209 that connects to room 310.
• Red: The moat leads to room 311 if you solve the riddles of the Moat Twins.
• Yellow: This node has multiple exits--doors to the Threshold Tower, doors to the Palace of Pentacles, and unlockable mirror portal in another level that teleports adventurers into room 215.

The level is cohesive, but is also chunked into discrete clusters of themed rooms. The map could be rearranged in any pattern the excellent Guy Pradel wished as long as those nodes were kept together. The Meatgrinder (overloaded encounter table) ties the level together thematically, even though many of the patches have different environmental details and dungeon construction.

Having conceptualized this more fully, I issue this challenge: Write your dungeons in 4-5 room elemental building blocks. 

1. Start with a kernel of a good idea. One of the things your dungeon needs: a reason to explore, a reason to talk, a reason to run away, etc.
2. Build out 2-3 rooms around this core idea. 
3. Connect an intentionally blank room to it. This blank will be filled by the dungeon assembler. They can either repurpose it into a lore room or make a connection to another patch using it--a lever that opens a door in another area, an idol with empty eye sockets that activates when gems from level 5 are placed into it, etc.
4. Put a gate that intentionally connects to another level (not just a door to another patch).
5. Give your patch an evocative name: The Pit of Pain, the Tomb of the Clown Prince, Lift of the Condemned, Wyrm-Hole. 

As a writing exercise, try writing a dungeon patch every week for a month. You'll have a 16-20 room dungeon at the end of it!

Post your dungeon patches on your blog so your friends can use them. Take dungeon patches from your friend's blogs. 

Make your megadungeons like a quilt. 

The gods are the gay people that live in my phone

Sometimes I kvetch about how boring I find fantasy pantheons that are just Greek gods with a bad coat of paint. Sometimes I've blogged about it.

Guys do you want to hear about my setting's unique pantheon? My god Warfrith is the god of both war AND peace isn't that interesting?

The next time you sit down to start writing a list of 10 gods and 1 evil god, stop. Don't do that. Do this instead.

Think about your RPG friends that aren't in your immediate campaigns. Maybe they live out of state. Maybe they work third shift. Select 3-6 of them. These are your setting's gods. There might be other gods elsewhere in your world, but these are the local ones that form the basis of the major religion(s). 

(Prerequisite: You must have 3-6 RPG friends. If you don't have any, come join the His Majesty the Worm Discord.) 

Think about something you know about them. What is their job? What are their hobbies? What is their user name and pfp? These are the gods' spheres of influence.

Take the letters of their name and rearrange them, spell it like Jolly Old England, or write some fantasy gibberish with similar phonetic tones. These are the gods' names.

Look at your campaign map. Put temples, fanes, and wild altars to these gods everywhere. A city has one god as a patron: put their main temple there. Put a desecrated altar to one of your gods in a dungeon (the players can cleanse it). Put a Pantheon - a Temple to All Gods - on a high mountain or remote island. 

When your players encounter a temple to a god, they may make an offering and petition the god through prayer. Write these down.

After your game session, text your friend. Tell them what the player offered them and what they prayed for. Ask them what they think would happen.

Take their suggestions and action them in your world. You don't have to tell the players that their prayers were answered. Perhaps they'll never connect the prayer to what happened on account of your friend's advice. But gods work in mysterious ways like that.