Perilous Realms: Mythic Underworld Meets Demon Haunted Lands

[tetramorph]

Okay, so one of the directions I am traveling now (and assumed in my proposal for "mini-modules") is something like the following for a setting:

I want to combine Wayne Rossi's account of the "Original D&D Setting" of The Outdoor Survival Board (or some equivalent wilderness) as a "Demon Haunted Land" with Philotomy's Musings about the "Dungeon as Mythic Underworld." I imagine doing so by filling up the wilderness with lairs and "dungeons." So, if literally using the OS board, the difference would be between standing deer (lairs = 20) and crouching deer (dungeons = 9).

The lairs and first levels of these dungeons would be "mini-modules" of 1 to 3, but preferably only 1 "level." Clear a lair, and they are cleansed. They are irruptions of chaos in what should be lawful, fay lands.

The "dungeons," on the other hand, would be a lair that also served as a portal to other dungeons and lairs -- perhaps even rolled randomly at the table! (So there would need to be a lot of prep for all the different lairs - hence my desire to "crowd source" this one, guys!)

If one departed the entrance/exists of a deeper lair or dungeon one would exit at its actual location in the wilderness. If it were a lair, there would be no way back to that particular magical configuration of levels. If it were a dungeon, upon entrance, the ref would roll randomly again, giving another, more than likely quite different configuration of "levels." So long as one stayed in the dungeon, the current "stack" would remain intact. Dungeons could not be so easily cleared as independent lairs. Dungeons are irruptions of the underworld. The only way to "clear" a dungeon hot-spot would be after each possible random lair was cleansed. Then cleansing each dungeon. So there is a kind of "end-game" per wilderness: complete cleansing and restoration to wonder, fay and law.

The "mythic underworld" itself usually represents some odd, enchanted, diabolic "subsuming" of the various lairs and dungeons throughout the wilderness. Going on this, I would also assume that each dungeon and lair was really the chaotic corruption of some previously lawful or at least wonderful thing. So, for example, an orcan lair would probably be the defile of a previously beautiful elven stronghold. Goblins subsume something dwarven. Trolls something Entish, etc. This would explain why so many powerful and good lawful items are down in the underworld. Chaos herself is "eating up" all these good items in a mad babbling attempt at domination. The adventurers purge the bowels of the earth and reclaim the buried antiquities.

I love the way this contributes to a more fantastical dream-like encounter. Just as in dreams where you can walk from one familiar place and suddenly find yourself somewhere completely different. Imagine a "haunted house" level where, out the windows, one saw a grey-blue dim-lit land of wandering specters and forlorn ghosts. If the windows are opened or one walks out the doors -- you are suddenly in the wilderness -- somewhere else!

So you can see also my motivation behind each lair or map being keyed for normal, heroic and super heroic levels. That way one is ready to go for your given party, even if randomly rolling the next "level."

You could do this lots of different ways. I think I would put a limit on any given "stack." No more than 3 lairs. But I would probably just stick to the entrance and one other random lair or dungeon lining up beneath it.

But under any given dungeon configuration the "third level" would be a cavernous mushroom forest of clean-up crew and purple worms. Then, once the hidden entrance was discovered, one would finally come, one more level down, to Hell itself: "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here." The "Hell" level would be the main lair of Chaos' henchmen doing all the subversion of law and eruption of chaos throughout the good fay wilderlands. Some kind of giant's hall, like Dyson Logos has made, would be perfect. Here the highest level baddies would be met! This may be the best way finally to purge the dungeons themselves -- clearing this local hell. The key or a very important campaign artifact may be necessary to bring down there and shut down operations -- all foretold in some ancient, riddle-like oracle.

What do you all think?

[hengest]

I love the way this contributes to a more fantastical dream-like encounter. Just as in dreams where you can walk from one familiar place and suddenly find yourself somewhere completely different. Imagine a "haunted house" level where, out the windows, one saw a grey-blue dim-lit land of wandering specters and forlorn ghosts. If the windows are opened or one walks out the doors -- you are suddenly in the wilderness -- somewhere else!

This is very cool.  Wish I were at the table for this.  Will try to post more, but want to say at least this in case I forget.  Sounds like the OS megadungeon folded in on itself -- plus actual meaning to the chaos and a campaign world where it "makes sense"!  I dig it.

[tetramorph]

Thanks, hengest, I think you've caught my idea well.

In terms of being at the table for this -- perhaps I should run a PbP here in the Perilous Realms? What do you think? I am afraid it might be too hard!

Yes, "the OS "megadungeon," folded in on itself" -- just like chaos. Yes.

I have further thoughts in this direction.

What if in the wilderness "getting lost" did not mean some war-gaming literalism, but represented another way to interact with the classic legendaria. You know how when one of the knights of the round table head off on an adventure they just "suddenly" find some other castle out there, some lair, some elven palace?

What if "lost" meant: caught in fairy. What if fairy and the OS board were parallel worlds. Wondering monsters just appeared in the wilderness, much as in the dungeon, just popping out of fairy. Lairs were whole regions of fairy popping into the wilderness.

But when you got "lost" you would be "trapped" in that "hex" until your mission in fairy was accomplished. So this would involve a lot of quests and geases -- all within fairy.

If half were chaotic, then you would get the fell creatures and their ruinous take-over of elven and dwarven holds of old. If a third were neutral, you would get random sylvan beings such as centaurs and dryads. If a sixth were lawful you would stumble upon an elven Lord's castle -- visible only with witch-sight, or the mighty gates to dwarven vaults below.

This campaign setting is getting harder and harder to pre-plan -- but much more what I actually would want to play in as a player: and therefore what I feel obliged to provide as a referee!

[Admin Pete]

I like where you are going with this and a pbp might be the thing to really bring it to life!

[hengest]

I would be happy to try a PbP in the Perilous Realms.

So, the parallel worlds would be a bit like Alice Chess with its two boards?  I like it.

I almost don't want to ask many questions or suggest much.  The whole idea of pulling "getting lost" away from survival-literalism sounds simple and excellent to me.  The "mythical hike" with concerns about food and water is so hard to pull off if you're not Tolkien.  Keep it all right on the edge of Fairy!

I blindly smiled, my feet were wild,
My lips were quaint and curled,
For as I came back from Zanzos,
I went reeling up the world.

-from "Zanzos", Rose Cecil O'Neill

[jmccann]

I would consider PBP in a campaign like this. Timing and the expected responsiveness considering my job workload is something I would have to consider though.

How would it work mechanically, how many moves per week? What are the time steps?

It sounds like there would be hex-level exploration rounds that might be quick to adjudicate, but then individual encounters get played out. How fine-grained will the encounters be? How long will they take to play out? We have seen from experience that a PBP can grind to a halt if it becomes too burdensome. How would random encounters be handled?

[hengest]

Yeah, am def interested, but would want to be sure I can commit to it. tetramorph, please let us know what you're thinking if you're seriously considering it.

[tetramorph]

hengest, and jmccann, thanks for the interest and good questions.

I think the key thing for me would be figuring out how t handle mapping. I would want to keep it very simple.

Wow, Alice Chess. That is some pretty crazy stuff.

If we started with lvl1 PCs, they would start at the tavern and follow rumors to local lairs and dungeons until at least lvl4.

At lvl4, or if we started at lvl4, PCs would captain their own details of 10 soldiers. MU archers only. CLs other CLs only. FM any troop type. These would accompany them on exploratory journeys into the wilderness. When a lair or dungeon is encountered, the troops would "keep watch" and only PCs would explore and descend. When they got "lost" in fairy, this would involve all of them, but, of course, key exploits would focus on the PCs. I would keep combat fairly abstract. I would probably resolve much combat doing several rounds on my own before asking for new player interaction in order to keep PbP play moving.

So it would work just like "normal" D&D at the dungeon, outdoor and hex levels. I imagine running the game the way makofan runs his -- only no where near as well! So you could check out his games over at ODD74 to see. The one I am in over there is much more war-game-y and that is how I would want to run this.

Does that answer y'all's questions? And that is assuming I could even figure out how to do the mapping!

[hengest]

First, thank you, tetramorph , and I am pretty sure I am interested, if you will take a player who has not played something quite this wargamey before. I will check out makofan 's campaign.

Second, a little more comment on your first post.

Everyone on this board surely has seen corruption. People in authority behave poorly. That's usually what we mean by it. The other sense -- the process of becoming disorganized, putrid -- is also still with us, though not as active.

The first post here mentions a kind of corruption of order by chaos. A good system or culture is replaced by a "foul" version of itself, as if by an organic process. Sort of a blend of those two senses.

This would explain why so many powerful and good lawful items are down there in the underworld.

Cool.  So dungeon-diving becomes a kind  of search and rescue / autopsy.

[jmccann]

How many posts per week do you envision?

[tetramorph]

hengest said:

Cool. So dungeon-diving becomes a kind of search and rescue / autopsy.

Yes! Exactly! Read some of my other threads in this sub-forum. The underworld is like the "bowels of the earth." The earth herself is a "character"! And it corresponds to our own struggles with our own inner demons, held deep in our guts. I love mythomorphic gaming.

jmccann , take a look at makofan's online game over at ODD74 to get the feel. Skim through the "western groups" threads -- the ones I am involved in. Makofan would be my key model, although my NPCs would not be so nearly rich and detailed -- they too, would be more mythomorphic in nature.

So, to answer your question a bit more directly. I would imagine if you could check in everyday, with one or two days off a week, and post once on those days that things would move along at a nice clip for a PbP.

I would take several weeks off each year. Probably the whole month of July and much of January. I would, of course, announce these breaks.

makofan , how do you deal with your maps? How to you conceal and then reveal? What do you upload your picture files to so that you can link to them in the threads? Thanks for the help!

[makofan]

I use Microsoft paint Grab some graph paper images and start drawing with basic lines and fills. And I created a free account on Imgur for hosting.

[tetramorph]

Sept 11, 2016 16:38:13 GMT -5 makofan said:

I use Microsoft paint Grab some graph paper images and start drawing with basic lines and fills. And I created a free account on Imgur for hosting.

Okay, thanks for the tips, makofan!

[hengest]

At that rate of posting, please do count me in, tetramorph.

[tetramorph]

hengest, jmccann, makofan: guys, I use a mac and I don't have photoshop (way to expensive for a hobby!). Any suggestions for software where I could easily color in maps, snap pictures of them, for upload?

It is really still the mapping that is "dragging me down"!

jmccann, ar you still in?

Guys, should we start at 1st lvl or 4th? What sounds right to you?

And we would need at least one more player to get the three basic classes going.

[hengest]

I think Gimp has all the power you need and more, tetramorph, but it was a little hard for me to get started with it. However, I'm slow with this stuff, and it's free.

Maybe someone else has the perfect suggestion.

[jmccann]

Sorry, I can't commit to this right now. I am not busy with work, but I will get very busy over the next few months.

[makofan]

Sept 13, 2016 18:18:58 GMT -5 tetramorph said:

hengest , jmccann , makofan : guys, I use a mac and I don't have photoshop (way to expensive for a hobby!). Any suggestions for software where I could easily color in maps, snap pictures of them, for upload?

It is really still the mapping that is "dragging me down"!

jmccann , ar you still in?

Guys, should we start at 1st lvl or 4th? What sounds right to you?

And we would need at least one more player to get the three basic classes going.

For over world maps, take a look at the free, online version of Hexographer
www.hexographer.com/

For dungeon maps, just get an image of some graph paper
cdn.printablepaper.net/samples/grid-portrait-letter-2-index.png

Paste it into whatever basic Paint program you have with a Mac, then just use a line drawing tool to start drawing lines.

The map you see in your current dungeon is from a free downloadable module that I am running you through, so I just do a print screen with the PDF open, paste it into Paint and crop and edit

[amjeerih]

I like this, tetramorph. Great ideas here. I wonder if you have seen the post Mythical Wilderness at Hill Cantons, which I think is a nice complement to this.

[jmccann]

I will be interested to follow along if this campaign gets going, and I could see participating in it at some point if I think my workload will allow it.

[tetramorph]

Sept 16, 2016 16:46:39 GMT -5 amjeerih said:

I like this, tetramorph. Great ideas here. I wonder if you have seen the post Mythical Wilderness at Hill Cantons, which I think is a nice complement to this.

Hey amjeerih -- I've only just now started following this blog so I missed this post.

It is very good and I am glad to see that someone else is thinking along these lines!

He even gave me a few ideas.

Thanks for the link.

[tetramorph]

Hey friendly folks who find this interesting, hengest, Admin Pete, jmccann, makofan, amjeerih

So I ran a session for my Friday group yesterday and had a lot of fun. I was using one of Dyson Logos' maps: Dwarven Shrine something or other. It is rad.

Towards the end, I just started winging it based upon some of the ideas presented here and in a couple other related threads.

At one point they came to a couple of doors to where I was imagining the dwarves were holding out against a goblin invasion. It entered to a mirror room and if they walked in, they just ran into each other out the other door. Using a special magic key, one door led to the hiding dwarves, but the other to their magically hidden treasure. The players asked them, "hey, where does that other door go to." They said, "what other door, there is only one door to this room. Must be some of that magic that is afoot once the goblins arrived."

I started realizing that all the magical tricks they found were due to the "chaos" that came in the wake of the goblin invasion. The players kept asking, "are these magic-using goblins?" I finally had the dwarves answer, "goblins are idiots. don't you understand? wherever they take over, chaos comes in its wake. thus all these evil things have come to infest themselves in our once proud halls, etc."

But as I played it out, I realized that, of course, some of the magic was "good." The same magic the followed the arrival and take over of the goblins that kept the dwarves away from their own treasure was also protecting the dwarven treasure from the goblins!

So, although I still like my ideas, above, that somehow chaos is "swallowing up" good things and dragging them down into the mythic underworld, there is a converse reason why there are so many good magic items and beneficial "tricks" in the underworld:

It is like nature's immune system. As the mythic underworld shows up again, chaos irrupts once again, like a fistula on the face of the earth, so too "lawful magic" arrives right away, like an immune system, like white blood cells attacking an infection in the intestines! So some of the beneficial tricks "feed" "nourish" "help" the party as it clears the chaos, and some of the good magic items are like a handful of "white blood cells" for the part to disperse for the healing of the world.

It was a lot of fun realizing this through actual play, and only slowly unveiling it to the players as they probed and discovered to try to figure out what was going on. They still don't quite get why some of the magic was good. They will have to role play and figure it out!

Fight on!

[hengest]

This seems obvious now that you say it, but I would never have thought of it!

I like the idea and also how you "discovered" it during play. Look forward to hearing more.

[Admin Pete]

Oct 29, 2016 12:53:15 GMT -5 hengest said:

This seems obvious now that you say it, but I would never have thought of it!

I like the idea and also how you "discovered" it during play. Look forward to hearing more.

This is a great idea tetramorph, I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes you!

[tetramorph]

hengest and jmccann:

See this:

ruinsofmurkhill.proboards.com/post/10559/thread

Do you think this would be "good enough" for mapping?