#dungeon23

is a community event that runs throughout the entire year on Mastodon. Each day you add the description of a room in a dungeon. At the end of the year, you’ve got yourself a 365 room megadungeon. It’s a writing project, with the same aims as Nanowrimo: an endurance building game where quantity is more important than quantity. Hopefully, along the way you realise that anyone can write a thing, and feel empowered by that realisation to write yourself.

Each week should have:

  • 7 rooms which match a theme.
  • A theme is a “subplot” of the dungeon. A question that can be answered in those seven rooms.
    • Why does this thing behave like that?
    • Who invented it?
    • Why are these people like this?
    • How did this status quo end up like this?
  • Consideration for exploration.
    • Answering the above questions.
    • Traps and puzzles.
  • Consideration for social interaction.
    • A memorable NPC that should impact the goal.
    • Exposition should happen via NPCs.
  • Consideration for combat.
    • The hostile creatures should share a theme.

Rough idea. The Mater Wardens are being purged – wiped out! This began a few weeks ago, and only now have they realised they need outside help, something they’re aggrieved and highly reluctant to do. With good reason too since the only way they can ask for help is to give away the secret of their circle: their secret monopoly of the vineways. The vineways allow travel across vast distances instantly. For centuries they’ve been in control of these dimension-bending tunnels, but someone has managed to infiltrate them and take control of various bits. They’re killing Wardens left right and centre to get the remaining bits. These tunnels lead to different parts of the dungeon. Some of the parts are controlled by the Wardens (not all happy to see the PCs) and some are controlled by the mysterious assailant.

The first map.

A seven room dungeon layout. The entrance has a door only possible to make with Move Earth, which leads to other areas of the "dungeon" level.

The map walls are squiggly, rather than straight. The image doesn't show that the terrain is in a dense foods, with clearings. I figured the uneven walls would demonstrate that a little better.
Made with Dungeon Scrawl.