Last fall, preparing to lead my own tours to Neuschwanstein, I followed a few tour guides around the castle. The second most spectacular view on the walk to the gate overlooks Hohenschwangau Castle, set on a hill between the lakes Schwansee and Alpsee. All the guides told the gathered group about a dragon that lay in the landscape. They pointed to the castle, saying, “That’s its crown.” They showed the high hill, which is the dragon’s back, and the green hills on either side, its wings. None had a story about the dragon or where it came from or how it got there. I searched online. Nothing.
A dragon, lying right there in plain sight, is intriguing. But, without a story, it’s hardly worth pointing at. I knew I had to make something up. And wouldn’t it be nice if I could relate some real history in the tale’s telling. So I did a little digging in Bavaria’s ancient past. There are lots of good stories back there. The Ostrogoths went through the region before the Franks arrived. Before them, the Romans were there. Before the Romans—and after them too—there were Celts. With Celts come druids… I can work with that.
And when you are planning an excursion to Bavaria, see “Stephen guides castle tours” and get in touch. I’ll show you around a castle, and we’ll play some D&D!
The Baiuvarii Dragon
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, Celtic tribes spread out of Bohemia onto the Alpine Foreland and up into the river valleys of the southern mountains. These people became known as the Baiuvarii /by-you-var-ee/, which may have meant “people from Bohemia.” From this word we get Bayern in German and in English Bavaria.
The Baiuvarii were a fierce and independent people. The tribes were led by chieftains. Their spiritual leaders were druids. The druids were wise men and women who served as legal authorities and judges, lore keepers, healers, and advisers to the chieftains.
The druids were also sorcerers. They drew power from nature: from rush of wind, from steady of stone, from fall of water, and from heat of flame.
Then came the Franks from the east. They dominated the Baiuvarii and set up the first dukes to rule over them. The Franks feared the power of the druids and, so, tried to repress them. To defend themselves, the druids called up from the earth a great dragon.
The dragon was big as a mountain. On wide wings, it swooped in the air, its scales were hard as rocks, it moved quick like a river, and it breathed great gouts of fire. The dragon defended the druids against the Franks.
In the 8th century, Charlemagne came. Charlemagne fought the dragon and subdued it. He was then crowned emperor in the year 800. His son Louis the Pious appointed the first king of Bavaria. There followed a series of six Bavarian kings in the 9th century. These kings were fabulously wealthy, the next more wealthy than the previous.
Now the dragon had been subdued but not defeated. And when the last of the six kings died, the dragon collected the treasure of the Bavarian kings and brought it to the Alpsee. It dropped the treasure to the bottom of the lake. The dragon then lay down beside the lake, with the Crown of Bavaria upon its head, and slept.
Do you see the dragon…?
Hohenschwangau Castle from the Overlook at Jugend. The Schwansee (lake) on the right, Alpsee left.The Crown of Bavaria
The castle is the Crown of Bavaria atop the dragon’s head.
Do you see the dragon?
The dragon’s snout lies in front of the castle. Behind the castle, the hill crest runs up its neck to its back, the tallest hills. Its wings, green hills, spread behind the lakes on either side. The tail stretches into the background, right.
I may have made up parts of this story. Druids are commonly associated with the Celts earlier in history. We don’t hear so much about them later. This is perhaps due to two reasons: one, it was first the Romans, then later Christian conquerors, who repressed the druids for fear of their power, and two, in compliance with their own customs, the druids didn’t write.
I’m sure I’ve exaggerated the Bavarian kings’ wealth, and as far as history is concerned, druids did not call dragons. Some of us know better.
“…the participants can then be allowed to make their first descent into the dungeons beneath the ‘huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses.’”—Gygax and Arneson, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Men & Magic
Some say Ludwig II was a genius. For others, the king was mad. The vast castle he built is yet far from ruined. Though when the time comes, the pile will be huge.
“And the dungeons beneath?” a friend asked after I posted yet another photo like the one above on social media. Since I left the Isle of Myth a year and a half ago, base town is across the river from Bavaria’s most famous castle. In reply I recited a local legend:
An old man lives outside the village in the castle’s shadow. He is blind and frail, so doesn’t often leave his hovel. But if you bring him a bottle of single malt and tell him stories of daring adventures of youth, he’ll tell you to go, on a winter’s day, to the bridge behind the castle. Bouncing planks take you high above a gorge. Cool mist rises from a laughing cascade below. It brings an odor of pine and earth. The sun at its zenith reaches deep between two central towers. There, dazzling rays reveal to the keen observer a cavernous portal of unknown depth, into which few have ventured and from which none have returned.
In the middle of a dark night, the ground shook, the earth groaned. Startled from shadowy dreams, the folk of Domesday lay still, wondering throughout the night what new doom had befallen their accursed town.
The sinkhole was soon discovered by goatherds in search of strays in the steep, rocky hills outside town. All was quiet, at first, in its dark depths. Before a year was out, though, shadows could be seen deep down, and after unquiet nights, strange tracks appeared in the narrow gorge that led to the rim.
The townsfolk built a watchhouse to block the only easy access to and from the pit. The post was manned in the day, but none would stay the night after the first such attempt. Avery Dain was a man of 27 years when he came to be called “Oldave,” for he aged a lifetime in that one night.1
Even the daylight shift proved too hazardous. One stormy afternoon the next year, a fury of flames blew from the depths and ravaged the watchhouse and the hills around.
That was a hundred years ago. Now called Fury’s Deep, no one goes there these days save the foolhardy… Save the foolhardy.
Description
A tear in the landscape, Fury’s Deep stretches 110 feet from Rock Point (map 96, northeast) across to Deep’s Dark Defile (104, southwest) and 180 feet from Faerie Falls (102, southeast) to the Carver’s Sand Cliffs (105, northwest). A pit (106) in the western crevasse, over 400 feet down, is said to be bottomless.
Fury’s Deep, Deep Dungeon Doom
An upper floor once joined the two rooms of the Old Watchhouse (95) that straddle the only safe path into the Deep, which is otherwise surrounded by steep granite hills. Steps carved into a rocky cliff once led up to a door, but the wooden upper structure is burned away.
Slipping by the ogres, who lair under a log shelter within the watchhouse, we proceed to a rocky outcrop, called by the locals Witches’ Finger (97), from which we survey our path.
Natural stairs take us to the first precipice (98), down which we must climb or rappel. A hundred feet below, a steep, winding path of rocky dirt leads through Unicorn Grove (99), under the Dryad’s Tree (100), to an Enchanted Lake (101). We then follow the river west, passing Hive Rock (103) and Deep’s Dark Defile (104), before descending farther into the Deep in the northwest at the Carver’s Sand Cliffs (105). A second precipice drops 60 feet onto a slope that slips under an archway of pitted granite stone blocks (107). The archway is about 400 feet below the rim. We avoid the Bottomless Pit (106) to the south.
In Deep Dungeon Doom, I follow #Gygax75 and #Dungeon23 to create a D&D dungeon campaign in a few minutes per day for one year. I post irregular updates here. To get the daily rooms, follow me on Mastodon.
Nexus
Fury’s Deep is a nexus, connecting to diverse dungeon levels and other worlds. Except the Old Dwarf Road (107), further development of the following areas are left to the DM.
98 Cave of the Unknown: They say no one has ever come out of this cave alive, and it’s true. But no one has ever gone into it, either.
101 Enchanted Lake: Nixies live in a complex of submerged caves 80 feet below the surface. The caves may lead to another dungeon level or to an underwater realm beneath the surface of some distant sea.
102 Faerie Falls: The 200-foot waterfall hides two passages:
First, from where it emerges from the cliff, 50 feet below the rim, we can follow the river upstream to the Subterranean Lake (33) in Kubra Kowthar’s Realm (Lyceum Arcanum). Who knows what lies between here and there.
Second, through a grotto beyond the cascade, we enter the realm of Faerie or that of Grimshade, depending on some unknown factor. Both realms are dangerous for mortal beings. From neither does one easily return.
104 Deep’s Dark Defile: Here the river drops into unnatural darkness. I don’t yet know how far down it goes or through what dangerous paths. Eventually, it enters a lower level (probably 8 or deeper) of the dungeon.
105 Carver’s Sand Cliffs: These three sandstone cliff faces seem to be carved by a giant hand. Behind this bizarre facade, a nest—or multiple nests—of giant ants riddles the earth. Foraging tunnels may lead to other dungeon levels.
106 Bottomless Pit: Descending to a magical void on a lower level, the hole is truly without end. Perhaps the void takes hapless characters to the world’s underside.
107 Old Dwarf Road: Beneath the archway, we enter a wide thoroughfare built during the dwarven civilization. We now follow this road farther down into Deep Dungeon Doom.
1 I have the idea that Oldave, despite his apparent advanced years, went on to enjoy a long and successful adventuring career. On retirement, he bought a tavern in Domesday. He became its keeper and occupies the post to this day—for he yet lives, going on his 14th decade and in perfect health!
In Deep Dungeon Doom, I follow #Gygax75 and #Dungeon23 to create a D&D dungeon campaign in a few minutes per day for one year. I post irregular updates here. To get the daily rooms, follow me on Mastodon and Twitter.
“Step 2 requires sitting down with a large piece of hex ruled paper and drawing a large scale map. A map with a scale of 1 hex = 1 mile … will allow you to use your imagination to devise some interesting terrain and places, and it will be about right for player operations such as exploring, camping, adventuring, and eventually building their strongholds” (Gary Gygax, Europa, April 1975, 18).
Making the Wilderness Map
Scale
We might assume a “large piece of hex ruled paper” is tabloid (A3) size, although I have no idea where one would acquire hex paper in the mid ’70s, especially tabloid size.1 Even at that size, one mile per hex makes what seems to my eyes a too-small area for building strongholds. I suppose I’m used to establishing a barony and having extensive space to explore.
When perusing Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign (Judges Guild) map and text, though, I imagine a more intimate setting for several PCs and their interactions, the 1977 map’s scale notwithstanding.
Furthermore, with Deep Dungeon Doom’s focus on the dungeon, a small wilderness area feels right, and Ray Otus points out that we’ll have “time to draw a larger scale map in week 5” (The Gygax 75 Challenge, 11).
The reMarkable gives me a hex grid that comes out to ½" hexes on a letter-size page.2 One hex per mile—and limiting the map size to 8" × 10", so as to fit on either US letter-size or European A4 paper—gives us an area of 16 × 20 miles or 320 square miles. Intimate.
Settlements
Following Otus, I place a large town on the coast and a couple villages support-distance away. I like to work in as many terrain types as is logical for a map’s aesthetic appeal and to exercise the wilderness encounter tables, which are differentiated by terrain.
Domesday and Environs.
Mysterious Locations
I choose a remote, vacant area between highlands for a mysterious location. I don’t know why the vale is forgotten or why it might be important to the campaign, but I’m guessing it’s got something to do with the Doommaker herself.
Also, inspired by the real-world map source, the central hills connecting the north and south mountain ranges also mark a geographical divide between the eastern highlands and the western lowlands. A long, straight, sloping tunnel runs between the two. Parallel to it, a series of level tunnels joined by sheer precipices runs the same length. Both structures are huge and blocked by rubble, debris, and monsters. A surface-level track also traverses the hills.
Cyclopean Tunnels
The parallel tunnels are a remnant of the Greater Ones. The sloping tunnel was used for ground transport. The other, after the builders diverted the river, was a series of locks for watercraft. The elves of the eastern woods re-diverted the river some longtime ago.
Dungeon and Base Town
The dungeon, which I name after its most prominent feature, is located off-center, and I place the base town—a stronghold—nearby. I also add regions inhabited by PC races, plus monstrous races for tension.
So early in the campaign—the PC party is still practically at the dungeon entrance, I don’t expect the neophyte adventurers to explore the wilderness soon. I highlight only geographical features on the map, marking each with a single large icon, and restrain myself from adding further detail—apart from an encounter table.
Wilderness Encounter Table
I divide the wilderness map into quadrants, marked by the central hills. Entries separated by a pipe “|” should be read west|east; those by a slash “/” north/south. For example, a 3 result yields halflings when traveling in the west or elves while exploring east of the central hills.
2d6
Result
2
Magic-User (Men*) (L or N)
3
Halflings|Elves
4
Knights**
5
Orcs/Dwarves
6
Men*|Humanoid*
7
Roll on Wilderness Encounter Table*
8
Bandits
9
Lizard Men|Goblins
10
Ogres
11
Trolls/Hill Giants
12
Magic-User (Men*) (C)
* See Wilderness Encounter Table (X57-8). ** Knights? I don’t know yet.
Daily #Dungeon23 Rooms on Mastodon and Twitter
I post the dungeon map, updated with the day’s room and a brief description, every day on Mastodon and Twitter.
1 Avalon Hill of course. In “Hexmaps and Random Encounters Before D&D,” Tom Van Winkle notes that the makers of Outdoor Survival (1972) sold 22" x 28" hex maps for amateur game designers (Tom Van Winkle’s Return to Gaming, September 2, 2023). In an email exchange, Tom points me to a notice in the July 1964 issue (Vol. 1, No. 2) of the Avalon Hill General. Under the heading “Design Your Own Games” on page 1, AH offers the large hex maps in sheets for $1.00 each.
2 Only interesting for reMarkable users: To achieve half-inch hexes, I use the reMarkable template medium hex grid, portrait orientation, exported to PNG, and printed at 176 ppi. Use the highlighter in different colors and export grayscale to get the varying shades. I have to turn the tablet landscape, because reMarkable got the hex orientation wrong. The engineers maybe never played Outdoor Survival, whose map board has the horizontal lines at top and bottom. This is, therefore, the “correct” orientation.
Added footnote 1. [19:04 8 September 2023 GMT]
Edited footnote 1 to include the source. [5:45 11 September 2023 GMT]
“Not playing through it, I use the rules booklet as a reference work. Tony Dowler’s dungeon-building game provides primordial nexuses, ancient civilizations, and master villains to fill out the dungeon’s space and history should need arise.”
As a prelude to some future rendition of Deep Dungeon Doom, I’ll play through an extravagant run of How to Host a Dungeon to establish a robust and detailed history for the 24-level adventure locale. By extravagant, I mean: instead of eight, the dungeon spans 24 strata; not one but a few nexus points are planted within; instead of one each, I’ll run several ages of civilization, monsters, and villainy. Even greater in scope than Wyrm Dawn, it’s a dream project for another day.
Meanwhile, for this outing, we adhere to #Gygax75 and #Dungeon23’s prime directive: “Don’t overthink it!” How to Host a Dungeon is a reference work. I use elements from the game’s various “ages” as focal points. So, “rooms” that might be built during civilization and villainous periods become sections of the dungeon, principle characters become major historical figures, and a brief outline of history based on the successive ages becomes the framework for hanging past events on a time line.
“The (unobserved) past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.”
—Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design
Working Framework for Historical Events in Deep Dungeon Doom
The following table outlines the major historical periods in the dungeon. This is how I see the time line now. Other—perhaps many other—civilizations, monster ages, and villainous periods, certain to have taken place, may be inserted as the campaign progresses. A thing is malleable until it is observed, that is, used in play.
Time Line—Deep Dungeon Doom
Ages
Primordial Nexuses
Civilizations
Villains
Prehistory
Void
Primordial Monsters
Alien (Illmind)
Cyclopean Complex
Godthrone
Gateway (Abyss)
Demon
Devil (empire)
Bronze Age
Drow
Iron Age
Dwarven
Giant (empire)
Dark Age
Medieval Age
Magician (Lore Kings)
Fearthoht (empire)
[Present]
?
This historical framework is mostly for the DM, so to maintain some coherence as I build out dungeon areas. The process also informs the present situation in the dungeon. Player characters might learn some of the dungeon’s history as they explore it, but they are not obliged to. Players themselves may not much care.
Illmind
The Illmind is a sinister collective of hyperintelligent, extra-dimensional beings. It is responsible for the Rending—the cosmic cataclysm that is the campaign world’s origin. (See Song of the World Dragon.) After the cataclysm, the Illmind established a colony at this location. The colony, whose objective is not yet known to me, grew into the dungeon’s first civilization.
The Illmind civilization ends with the construction of the Godthrone (Megastructure) and the Gateway (Uplift Facility). The latter gates in demons to destroy alien works. The former is now called “Godthrone,” but its true purpose is unknown.
Lyceum Arcanum
To get straight into the thick of things, I want to start the campaign with something about the wizards. Looking at the magician civilization’s constructions, I am attracted to “Lyceum Arcanum.” According to How to Host a Dungeon1, this large structure is built at a nexus point either above or below ground (16). I place it on the surface, knowing that, at civilization’s end, it is buried under a new surface level. For the required nexus, I choose Ley Lines, which is one attraction for the immigrant magicians and later generations.
Lore Kings
As it may be of immediate usefulness, we sketch the history of the magician civilization. It is important to note that, when referring here to ages and civilizations and empires, we speak of the local dungeon and its environs. Other ages, civilizations, and empires take place in the greater world, in parallel and at greater scale.
During the dark age that followed the fall of the Giant Empire, mages were drawn to the donjon, a towering remnant of the Greater Ones from before the Rending. As they grew in power, the mages formed a civilization that brought the dark age to an end.
The magician civilization was ruled by a succession of monarchs, who sought arcane lore lost in the Rending. The Lore Kings discovered much but lost it again in their own apocalypse, which sages now call the Time of Vengeance.
Sometime later, Fearthoht Doommaker rose to dominate the dungeon in an age of villainy that ended with her imprisonment. Now, the dungeon has fallen into another age of monsters, in which the Doommaker Cult attempts to free Fearthoht and promote her to godhood.
Meanwhile, other monster groups vie for power—either through amassing wealth or increasing their numbers—in order to become the dungeon’s next master villain. To determine which monsters form what factions would be overthinking it. Details spill from play.
1 Dowler credits Philip LaRose for the Magician Civilization.
Landscape is better! In room 9I “Baal-Dagan’s Prison”: 1 Baalgaur /BAY-el-gaw-r/ (demon lord) Demons use the term gaur to refer to their own kind. The baalgaur ruled the dungeon during the demon civilization. Nice streak of few-minute days ruined. #Dungeon23pic.twitter.com/0ntHjVHrYZ
In Deep Dungeon Doom, I follow #Gygax75 and #Dungeon23 to create a D&D dungeon campaign in a few minutes per day for one year. I intend to post irregular updates here. To get the daily rooms, follow me on Mastodon and Twitter.
Gary Gygax, in the Europa article (April 1975), notes mythology, folklore, and fantasy and swords & sorcery literature as typical sources of inspiration.
“Settings based upon the[se] limits (if one can speak of fantasy limits) can be very interesting in themselves, providing the scope of the setting will allow the players relative free-reign to their imaginations” (18).
In addition to listing our inspirational sources, Ray Otus suggests we write a few concise bullet points in describing the campaign setting to arouse the players’ excitement (The Gygax 75 Challenge, 7). My general inspiration, as well as two of five specific sources, comes rather more from D&D itself. The dragon eats its tail.
Mimicking a source, I preface the lot with a brief background. And, because Winninger’s Dungeoncraft is in my DNA, I make up a secret, which I hide behind a spoiler tag. Those who wish to explore the dungeon in play should not peek.
Background
“…the dungeons beneath the ‘huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses.’”
—Gygax and Arneson, Men & Magic (D&D Vol. 1, 5)
The last of these mad wizards desired godhood. In a laboratory on the dungeon’s lowest level, Daerdread Fearthoht constructed a device that would channel divine energy. She had only to capture a god. A religious order tricked the wizard, trapping her in the device, thus preventing the apotheosis and rendering the wizard impotent. But not before Fearthoht, now called Doommaker, threw a powerful curse on the dungeon: “To all who enter herein—DOOM!”
Doommaker
Fearthoht feigns impotence. Though trapped in Godthrone, she communes with a sect of evil mage-priests devoted to the would-be deity. The mage-priests have reversed the energy flow between trap and device. Their continuous prayers restore the wizard’s power.
Description
DONJON LANDSsetting: The campaign takes place in a far-future Earth: “a world with magic, monsters, and a ring around it, with stars that aren’t fixed but dance and swirl.” See also its creation myth Song of the World Dragon.
Medieval Greek and Roman culture: An empire recently encompassed the known world. Following a collapse of imperial power in the west, an overlord retains power over eastern realms.
Dungeon campaign: Game play focuses on dungeon exploration with occasional wilderness forays.
Wizard opposition: The principal villains are Fearthoht Doommaker and an array of powerful wizards and their many and diverse minions.
Fun-house dungeon: Encounters and adventures are intended to be fun without so much attention to fantastic realism.
Deadly: The mood is doom.
fun housenoun : a building in an amusement park that contains various devices designed to startle or amuse
Tegel Manor: Commonly considered the original fun-house dungeon, the 1977 Judges Guild module’s terse descriptions also lend well to #Dungeon23’s short-handed stocking method.1
Magic-users of Jack Vance and Clark Ashton Smith: Various works of these two authors portray the sort of “mad wizards and insane geniuses” I’m looking for.
How to Host a Dungeon: Not playing through it, I use the rules booklet as a reference work. Tony Dowler’s dungeon-building game provides primordial nexuses, ancient civilizations, and master villains to fill out the dungeon’s space and history should need arise. I may elaborate on this point later.
World history: The campaign is set in a place and time similar to the 11th-century Byzantine Empire.
Greek and Roman mythologies: Gods and religion are drawn from an amalgam of these two real-world mythologies.
My notebook is a reMarkable tablet.
1 “365 rooms written like ‘3 orcs, 25 gold pieces’ is better than 5 rooms written like ‘In this beautiful hand carved obsidian room sit 3 orcs arguing over a dice game. 25gp sit on the table, each of them…’ See what I’m getting at?”—Sean McCoy, “#Dungeon23”
I may have spent more than "just a few minutes" today... I do like to front-load a big room with lots of exploration opportunities and multiple exits. #dungeon23#DnD, the world's most superlative role-playing game. pic.twitter.com/zNJ3Nprnl4
Here I sketch a few details in broad strokes. I’m saving a rumor table for the final article, which pulls previous articles together into a campaign background.
Reading Map
This is the seventh article of a series outlining a B/X D&D campaign inspired by an old map.
G. FILL IN IMPORTANT DETAILS AND POINTS OF INTEREST.
Names
In the May 1999 Dungeoncraft installment (Dragon #259), Ray Winninger addresses the naming of people and places in our imagined settings. He suggests several pointers for coming up with appropriate appellations, one of which is to borrow from existing languages. “Remember this number: 400,” Winninger writes:
“That’s the Dewey Decimal Classification number for language. If you go to your local public library and browse around the 430s through about the 490s, you’ll find plenty of foreign-language dictionaries, each of which can be mined for good names.”
Being of the old school, we remember the number as well as the Dewey Decimal System and public libraries, still proud bastions of knowledge and learning. Today, though, no foray to base town is required. Online dictionaries and interactive translators put entire lexicons at our disposal.
We already covered noble titles in “Thirteen Graves.” In “Monstrous Denizens of the Pale Moor,” I made reference to a few names, which I noted on the map (reproduced above). These are examples of the system’s loose application. As source languages for this region, I lean on Frisian, Dutch, German, and Old High German, though other languages are not excluded.
Emden: Many historical names on the map are serviceable for our purpose. Seems to me that Emden (city) and Emder (county) must be related to the Ems (river). Porting all three saves us some trouble. I don’t find any etymology for the root, which leaves us carte blanche to invent a fantastic meaning for “em.”
Broeckemeer: Embellished from Emmius’s map. Suitably suspicious.
Reidermark: The name for the territory now submerged beneath the bay is also lifted from the historical map. I change it from “land” to “mark” as it was, before the flood, a boundary province. At the time of the campaign, it is most often referred to as Lost Reidermark.
Dragons Watch Mountains: Here I resort to English. We came to know them in Wyrm Dawn as the Western Mountains. Throrgrmir dwarves refer to this range as Fjallaheim (mountain home, Old Norse). Since dragons heard rumors of wyrmlings creeping in the dwarven dungeon, these low peaks make convenient roosts within easy flight of the place the Age of Dragons is prophesied to begin.
Elding Wood and Ellriendi Forest: Both names are from the Valormr Campaign. Last summer’s game flew by in a fog of war, but I believe I pulled them somehow out of Old Norse.
Valhallan (misspelled on map): Settled by a warlike clan of religious zealots, the grave takes its name from the chief god’s great hall.
Hekselannen, “The Hex Lands”: “Hekse lannen” is Frisian for “witch lands.” I concatenate to arrive at the proper appellation of the Forsaken Peninsula. From there, simple word play gets the vulgar name.
Grave Subjects
Most human PCs hail from one of the thirteen graves and, as such, are subject to the landgrave and, if the landgrave swears fealty, to the herzog. We established earlier that the graves compete with each other for the Pale Moor’s resources. Persons of the adventuring class, then, are valued subjects, provided they agree to undertake the occasional quest for the hierarchy. A subject who is known to undertake quests for other landgraves is admonished or punished according to the quest’s importance and impact. Penalties range from a small fine to public execution.
A DM might introduce the idea of adventuring licenses—something akin to letters of marque—issued by the landgraves or the herzog, which grant a limited authority to act in the name of the issuer, usually to claim land and other resources.
Total Protonic Reversal
This might qualify as crossing the streams, but there’s definitely a very slim chance we’ll survive.
I think it fairly obvious that, when naming the Keep on the Pale Moor in the Valormr Campaign last year, I had in mind the most famous keep in D&D. Then, in “About the Reedition of Phenster’s,” I mentioned the resemblance of the fictional society’s “Great Halls of Pandemonium” to the Caves of Chaos.
I want to put the two ideas together. I don’t mean that we drop in the Keep and the Caves and be done with it. I mean that we reuse parts of Dungeon Module B2 that fit the scenario. I’m thinking specifically of the Keep map and the concept of the Caves.
The Keep on the Pale Moor
We reuse the map of the borderlands Keep (B2, 16), but the once great fortress, constructed as a staging area and supply point for the Chaos Armies, is now in ruins. Recently, its walls and gates have been crudely reconstructed by its current hobgoblin inhabitants.
Maybe the hobgoblins are aware of the “secret entrance to a long forgotten dungeon” from the cellar beneath area #16 (B2, 25). Or maybe they have reason to believe it exists but haven’t found it yet.
Either way, the key to lifting the Pale Moor curse lies at the bottom of the dungeon. Therefore, the Keep on the Pale Moor becomes the campaign’s initial focal point. The PCs must, first, defeat the hobgoblins and reclaim the keep before the Wraithwright can raise an undead army. Then, using the surface ruins as a base, they must defend the keep, while they descend into the dungeon to lift the curse before the Wraithwright, with his now-raised army, destroys the keep.
The Dungeon: The Great Halls of Pandemonium
After events play out at the keep, the campaign’s focal point shifts to a ruined city of the Greater Ones, taken over by demons, rebuilt in their chaotic fashion, and named by them Pandemonium, after the capital city on their home plane. The cyclopean ruins are now sunk beneath the mires of the Pale Moor.
Because events at the keep will have an impact, it’s too early to tell what the scenario might be when PCs arrive at the Great Halls. The vision, in general terms, is to apply some of the concepts of the Caves of Chaos:
Each “hall” is a small dungeon, most of them connected to adjacent halls.
A temple is dedicated to the demons who once lived there. Within the temple complex, evil priests work to call the demons back to the Great Halls.
The halls are densely populated with creatures of chaos, as the evil priests gather the chaotic horde to fill the ranks of the demonic legion.
To complicate matters, the Warlock abides in a nearby tower. To further his goals, the Warlock uses devils—or devils use the Warlock to further their own.
Evil Factions
There are two major villains in the campaign. Each leads a faction. The Wraithwright, aligned with demons and chaotic evil creatures, may sometimes work with—and sometimes work against—the Warlock, aligned with devils and lawful evil creatures. Departing from B/X rules as written, the remainder of this series assumes a five-point alignment system as in Holmes Basic. (See Demons and Devils and Alignments in “Monstrous Denizens of the Pale Moor.”)
Secret #10: It was not long after the Rending and events of Song of the World Dragon that demons came to the ruined city of the Greater Ones. They sought a powerful object constructed by the now extinct beings. They found it. I don’t know yet exactly what this object is, but its misuse provoked the destruction of the rebuilt demon city of Pandemonium and sent the demons back to their home plane. It’s possible that devils, jealous of the prize, were involved. It’s probable that recovering this artifact is a primary objective of either or both of our villains. There is no doubt, though, that it may eventually be found deep in the sediment beneath the shallow bay where lies Lost Reidermark.
I thought to cover the last three steps of the D&D Expert Rulebook’s Designing a Wilderness (X54) in a single article. I try to keep the word count between 400 and 1,000. This one, covering the next step, approaches the limit. So, I cut the remainder again into parts, one article per step, and the “short” series becomes less so.
Reading Map
This is the sixth article of a short-ish series outlining a B/X D&D campaign.
Emden is a fortified town. A river borders the south side, and defensive walls enclose the remaining perimeter. Four gatehouses at drawbridges allow entry. Canals divide the town into large quarters and give access to one small port, maybe two. The population is 10,000.
A large town gives PCs access to all the usual resources, while allowing room for growth through their actions. As the campaign progresses, PCs might reduce the monstrous threat from Darkmeer, remove the Pale Moor curse, and extract great wealth from the interior. Population increase follows.
The herzog maintains the seat of government in Emden. He resides in a palace (which may well be under construction or recently constructed at campaign start) and keeps a palace guard. In addition, the sovereign may raise an army. While the herzog manages affairs of the duchy,1 an appointed burgrave is charged with the administration of the grave itself, including the town. A town guard maintains order within its precincts. In case of outside threat, the burgrave may call upon the local militia.
Supporting Services
Church
The church holds great sway in the Thirteen Graves. The landgraves need the church’s support to combat the undead and the infernal menace from the Pale Moor. The church takes advantage of the situation to gain secular support to give its edicts the weight of law. A bishop (7th-level cleric) runs the church in Emden and leverages the herzog’s power to establish the church hierarchy throughout the duchy.
Secret #8: The bishop believes the church is much more capable of defending the realm and defeating the infernal hordes. He schemes to take over the duchy and make it a theocracy.
Religious Factions
Here we have an opportunity to come up with some factions within the church that promote a particular doctrine. Here follow three examples:
Crusaders: A knightly order of warriors who battle demons and devils wherever they encroach upon civilized lands. When an infernal horde gathers, the knights petition the bishop to proclaim a crusade, and they lead expeditions into the Pale Moor. Members are clerics, paladins, and fighters, knighted by the herzog.
Inquisitors: A sect that believes witchery is the root of all evil. Their inquisitors search out any practitioners of the black art. Witchery is the practice of witchcraft. In the context of our setting, witchcraft, strictly defined, is any dealing with a devil or demon. Therefore, warlocks and witches are the primary target. But sometimes the sect’s definition of witchcraft may become overly broad.2
Undead Slayers: A band of clerics that recruits warriors to destroy the abomination that is the walking dead. The band is known to make daring raids into the Pale Moor.
The Ghouling Gauntlet
Given the opportunity to reuse—or in this case pre-use—an already created element, we take it. The Ghouling Gauntlet is an ancient order of undead slayers that appears at the end of Wyrm Dawn and the beginning of Wyrmwyrd, thousands of years in our current setting’s future. Perhaps the order is recently formed in response to the moor wraiths. (See the heading The Ghoul of Tower Mill in Wyrm Dawn’s “Empire of the Undersun.”)
Guilds
Magic-Users: While it accepts members regardless of alignment, the Magic-Users Guild is dominated by lawful members, many with ties to the noble family. It maintains strong relationships with the magic-users guilds of the other lawful graves, often working together to further the herzog’s goals, which its lawful members believe coincide with their own. Chaotic members may join together temporarily to foil the efforts of the lawful group when they interfere with their own objectives.
Thieves: The Guild Master of Emden’s Thieves Guild is a member of Broeckemeer’s ruling clan. Her major ongoing operations include spying on the ducal hierarchy, harassing trade routes in and out of the capital, and political assassinations.
Lodging
Travelers and locals may find accommodation, restoration, and entertainment in a few inns, several boardinghouses, and numerous taverns. Following are examples, lightly sketched.
Gasthaus Herzogs: Situated just outside the palace gates, the herzog’s inn provides luxury quarters and gourmet meals to its wealthy clientele. It is patronized by diplomats, aristocracy, the richest merchants, and the spies who note their comings and goings and pretend not to be listening to their conversations.
Gasthof der Langenruhe or Inn of Long Repose: All sorts of travelers, including merchants, adventurers, and the occasional aristocrat, stay at this inn on the main square. Locals sometimes dine in its private dining hall. Mercenaries and men-at-arms frequent the inn’s public taproom.
Geitenhoef Taverne or the Goat’s Hoof Tavern: The southeast quarter has declined in recent years. Geitenhoef Taverne once catered to more affluent patrons. Now, its regulars are laborers, low-ranking soldiers, and adventurers down on their luck. The Geitenhoef is reputedly a hangout of members of the local Thieves Guild.
Widow Walpurga’s Pension: After her husband died 30 years ago, childless Frau Walpurga—known to everyone as Widow Walpurga or “the Widow”—began renting rooms of her large house. Her reputation is that of a kindly old woman, hard of hearing. One or two lodgers may be permanent residents. The Widow keeps one small room for herself at the top of a spiral staircase in the widow’s watch.
Witch Hunting
The landlady is named after Walpurga Hausmannin of German legend. The historic Frau Hausmannin was a tragic victim of a witch hunt. Our Walpurga may be more malefic.
To give context to the trial as well as to the general setting, I recommend Chapter 7 of Carl Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World.3 The chapter gives its title to the book.
1 I find it awkward in speech, but a DM might replace duchy with the German herzogtum.
2 An inquisition scenario might be fun. I’d be careful about letting it dominate the campaign.
3 I recommend Sagan’s book, as a whole, for it gives context to the present real-world situation. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, New York: Ballantine, 1996.
Inspired by the map and the myth from last week’s “Atlantis of the Clay,” let’s make a campaign. To keep the task manageable, we’ll do only a broad overview. A DM can fill in details to suit.
I intend to follow the steps for Designing a Wilderness provided in the D&D Expert Rulebook. To begin campaign design, though, I refer to an early article from Ray Winninger’s Dungeoncraft column. Again for brevity’s sake, I won’t go through Winninger’s entire process, but the second installment of Dungeoncraft (Dragon #256) is a great way to get started. (See below Old-School D&D Campaign Building and Mapmaking Resources.)
Campaign Hook
After laying down the First Rule of Dungeoncraft, which is worth repeating to oneself every morning and every evening: “Never force yourself to create more than you must” (20), Winninger tutors the campaign builder to begin with a compelling hook. This is the “concept that captures your players’ imaginations and draws them into the game” (21). Winninger divides campaign hooks into five categories:
Culture
Environment
Class or Race
Opposition
Situation
Even attentive readers may be forgiven for not recognizing the landmass depicted on Ubbo Emmius’s 1730 Tabula Frisiae Orientalis as the location, far into our own future, of the Keep on the Pale Moor.
From the Valormr Campaign, we know the keep was constructed by Chaos Armies commander Hadewych the Arbiter to serve as a staging area and supply outpost during the Battle of Throrgrmir. We also know the Forces of Law stormed the fortress as part of a successful plan to cut off Chaos’s supply route.
From my campaign journal, second week of spring, “Day 4, morning: Law storms Keep on the Pale Moor. Garrison destroyed. Warlock saves.”
“Saves” refers to a method, part of a simulator used to expedite the lesser battles, in which heroes and wizards are determined to survive or perish when their unit is defeated. This was the warlock’s second save.
At Valormr’s opening, the warlock was stationed with the Chaos garrison at Port-of-Sands, a day’s march east. When the Forces of Law took the port, the garrison was destroyed, and the warlock, making his first save, retreated to the keep.
Two days later, having saved again following the keep’s storming, the warlock, so I now imagine, fled into the Pale Moor… Here I see the silhouette of an opposition campaign hook.
The Valormr Campaign uses Chainmail, wherein a warlock is a wizard “able to manage” four spells. To fill out the opposition hook, I’ll read the denomination in the traditional sense: the warlock is a practitioner of the black arts who calls on demons and devils to work his malevolent magic. So, while the “warlock” may be the campaign’s arch villain (and probably further advanced in experience levels), he is accompanied by demons and devils, witches, warlocks, and other evil magic-users, as well as evil clerics and—for the old-school in it—an “evil high priest” or two.
Potential allies are lawful clerics and other members of the established church. We might invent or borrow a B/X paladin. Furthermore, I imagine the church has got its hands in secular politics. Through its influence, witchery—any dealings with infernal beings—is unlawful, the crime punishable by death.
… Fleeing deep into the moor’s boggy interior, the warlock discovered the vestiges of an ancient city, sunk beneath the mires. Within cyclopean chambers, dank and dark, much wealth and magic remained. The warlock fell upon grotesque skeletons of unknown beasts, stone vats coated in foul residues, and deep pits containing vile creatures, still living. In perilous forays, he unearthed large tomes, whose covers were embossed with gruesome faces, the pages made from human skin, and the glyphs inscribed thereon protected by dire curses.
Secrets
Winninger closes the article with the Second Rule of Dungeoncraft: “Whenever you design a major piece of the campaign world, always devise at least one secret related to that piece.” For the warlock and his discovery, I have two secrets:
Secret #1: The warlock was a traitor. After his narrow escape from Port-of-Sands and seeing the forces—including a wizard in command of a flying carpet—arrayed against the single battalion which garrisoned the keep, the warlock made a secret deal with the opposition commander. He would open the gates in exchange for safe-conduct.
Secret #2: The city is much more ancient than one might suppose, having been built in the time of the Greater Ones. After the Rending, the ruins were taken over by demons and rebuilt in their grand and chaotic fashion. Even that was long ago. Demonic sanctuaries are since caved in. Any donjons of the Greater Ones are long fallen. Only the warlock’s tower, formidable though crumbling, marks the ground, beneath which much more may yet remain.
Old-School D&D Campaign Building and Mapmaking Resources
This is not an exhaustive list. These are a few resources that I have found useful or inspiring over the years.
D&D Expert Rulebook, Designing a Wilderness, X54 (1981)
AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide, Starting from Scratch, 103-6 (1986)
Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide, 51-83 (1990)
While Winninger re-treads some ground covered in the Campaign Sourcebook (above), he integrates campaign-building with mapmaking and does so in an efficient manner, with the goal to get from campaign concept to character creation as quickly as possible while covering all the major concerns along the way.
What resources have you used, whether from D&D or other RPGs, for campaign building and mapmaking?
Herein is described a sublevel of the Deep Halls, the site of our dungeon exploration in Dreaming Amon-Gorloth. Numbered encounter areas refer to the keyed map in “Keys to the Deep Halls.”
During the war, Menturoc, Ardent Champion1 of the Solar Goddess, and the Nine Companions led an assault on 132. Gate of the Inner Redoubt (5G). The assault succeeded, and the dreaming priests were vanquished. But Menturoc and the Nine Companions fell in battle, all slain except the ardent champion, who was in a state of profound unconsciousness.
Though his wounds were slight, Menturoc appeared dead. The Radiant Host entombed the comatose body in 6. Hall of Menturoc’s Tomb and interred the Nine Companions in sarcophagi in 5. Mausoleum of the Nine Companions.
α2 A sour odor of offal pervades the corridor between areas 4, 5, and 6.
4. Shrine to the Solar Goddess
The odor in this room smacks the face. The opposite wall is painted with symbols around a blank central area. The symbols are pitted and cracked, as if by blunt instruments, and smeared with offal. The blank area is marked by two stonework protrusions. Before it, an open pit is filled with refuse and crawling with giant beetles, mandibles sawing.
This room was originally a shrine to the Scarab God. Before the redoubt’s storming, when victory was close at hand, Menturoc converted it to the worship of the Solar Goddess. He modified existing symbols to fit the chief divinity and mounted a lion’s head, carved from stone and gold-plated, on the northeast wall. Menturoc fixed a decanter of endless water within the lion’s head to make a fountain. Digging through the floor, he built a bath, where the faithful might cleanse themselves.
Returning after the war, the dreaming priests desecrated the shrine and removed the lion’s head fountain. Not taking the time to reconsecrate the shrine to the Scarab God, they now use this room to keep bombardier beetles3. Adepts dump the priests’ organic waste into the former bath. They sometimes lead a few beetles out of the level. The beetles then roam the Deep Halls until they find their way back to the feed trough.
Inspection of the mural reveals many scarab symbols showing through fading over-painted areas.
Bombardier Beetles (3-12)
The beetles stay in the pit unless lured out. If they are disturbed in any way, or if a light source remains for more than two turns without a feeding, they release a defensive cloud of noxious gas with an explosive noise.
Common Knowledge:
The scarab is a heretical symbol, for it was thought to push up the sun each morning—a task reserved for the Solar Goddess.
Research:
The scarab is the symbol of a god who represented the rising sun and the daily renewal of life in the Amwan Culture (religion).
5. Mausoleum of the Nine Companions
Stinking offal is piled high just inside the door. Beyond, nine open sarcophagi line the walls of the room. The lids are on the floor, some broken.
After removing the heads from their corpses, the dreaming priests animated the Nine Companions, who now roam the Deep Halls in search of their skulls. (See 2. Reliquary, 2A.) Now, adepts use this room to store refuse that will be fed to the beetles in 4. Shrine to the Solar Goddess.
Other than refuse in the near sarcophagi, all are empty.
Refuse Heap: Searching through the offal may reveal the following items (50% chance per turn).
Treasure (d6)
1-3
Pouch containing 50 c.p.
4-5
Gem (10 g.p.)
6
Scarab, faience (25 g.p.)
6. Hall of Menturoc’s Tomb
Murals on the north and south walls, stretching into darkness, depict ibises, papyrus plants, tablets and styluses, apes, and moon discs. In the middle of the hall, a stairway descends.
On the other side of the stair well, an anthropoid sarcophagus rests on a 10' × 6' dais, 1' high. The sarcophagus is 8' × 5' and 5' high. Carved from limestone, its cover depicts a male figure in armor and headdress, a sword upon its breast.
Each door in this room is framed by a carved motif of repeated symbols.
East Door: Ibises.
North Door: Tablets.
South Door: Styluses.
The murals continue on the walls of the west corridors, wrapping around the ends and coming back, to meet at the wall behind the sarcophagus, which hides the painting’s lower portion. On that wall, just above where the sarcophagus meets it, is the symbol of a tablet and stylus above an inscription in Sacred Signs [described later].
A TOOL TO REMEMBER A TOOL TO FORGET
Menturoc’s Tomb
The sarcophagus rests against the far wall between the west corridors. It’s three exposed sides bare the following decoration.
East
An inscription:
ARDENT CHAMPION OF THE SOLAR GODDESS MENTUROC
North
Another inscription:
MENTUROC
VANQUISHER OF THOSE WHO DREAM BUILDER OF THE FOUNTAIN SHRINE
FELL IN THE STORMING OF THE INNER REDOUBT
THE SOLAR GODDESS SHINES FOREVER ON THE SUN KING
South
Representation of a door, 5' × 3', carved and painted with images of a warrior wielding a sword, confronting enemies. Vanquished foes lay beneath his feet. The door is framed by a series of ram-headed humanoids with long, curling tongues extended.
Formerly a shrine to Thawt, god of wisdom, writing, and magic, this hall now houses Menturoc’s tomb, constructed by the Radiant Host.
Some time after the Radiant Host’s departure, a dreaming mage known as “the Renegade” reentered the Deep Halls. Discovering Menturoc’s comatose state, the Renegade spoke to the ardent champion in dream. The two agreed that Menturoc should remain entombed until the time is advantageous to take on the dreaming priests again.
Door to Dreams: The Renegade set a dweomer upon the tomb. Touching the false door triggers a sleep spell. In that way, Menturoc may speak with any visitors. See Menturoc’s Quest, below. The spell effects all creatures within the hall.
Menturoc’s Quest
Any characters who sleep or otherwise fall unconscious in this room slip into a dream. As the dream begins, the characters are lying on the floor in the same position as when they went to sleep. Looking around, they can see everything in the chamber, except any waking characters—that is, any creature not dreaming. Though there is no light, they can see anything within line of sight, as if physical objects are illuminated from within. They hear a hissing noise and a slither as a giant snake enters from the southern west corridor.
Dreaming characters have all equipment and resources, including hit points and spells, as at the moment of sleep. They can perform any action, as normal, but may interact only with other dreaming creatures.
Waking characters do not see into the dream. In the waking world, their dreaming companions are sound asleep. They may of course rouse their companions in the usual way. But events in dream happen quickly; play out the full encounter before the characters wake.
Upon waking, any character who took damage or cast spells in the dream must make a save vs. Death Ray. Success indicates any damage is ephemeral and any spells cast are remembered. Failure means any damage manifests in the physical body as the character wakes, and any spells cast in the dream are forgotten.
Any other resources expended in the dream, such as ammunition or oil, are present.
The states waking and dreaming are fully explained later.
Snake, Rock Python (1)
The dreaming priests discovered the sleeping trap and put a dream guard in the hall. The giant snake attacks any dreaming characters. In the first round of combat, the ardent champion exits the tomb, ducking through the door. He is armored and fights with a sword, attacking the snake in the second round.
Dreaming Ardent Champion, Menturoc
After the combat, Menturoc addresses any dreaming characters:
“If you will defeat the dreaming priests, cleanse the defiled shrine and reconsecrate it to the Solar Goddess. For it will then serve as a haven for those worthy of its protection.”
After delivering the quest, Menturoc dispells the sleep spell with his sword, a holy sword +5, and the characters wake only moments after having fallen asleep.
To complete Menturoc’s quest, the PCs must rid 4. Shrine to the Solar Goddess of the beetles and remove all refuse. A cleric of the Solar Goddess must then perform a consecration ritual. But first, the PCs must restore the lion’s head fountain, which is in 17. Pit of Heavy Hearts.
Opening the Tomb
The sarcophagus cover and its seam bare no marks or any other indication that the tomb has ever been opened. The 8' × 5' lid with the anthropoid relief, is 1' thick. It weighs three tonnes. To the DM to adjudicate attempts to remove the cover or break through it. The dreaming priests used a passwall spell (cast by a dreaming mage) to enter and remove all grave goods, including Menturoc’s armor and sword.
Common Knowledge:
Demons are commonly depicted as humanoids with animal heads and out-stuck tongues.
Often depicted on tombs, a false door is the means by which the soul departs on its journey to the underworld.
Research:
Demons guard a series of gates through which a soul must travel to the underworld (religion).
Thawt, inventor of the tablet and stylus, presented them to Amon, who said, “Thawt, with the stylus, man writes memories on the tablet and forgets them” (religion).
7. Forgotten Archive
Threadbare rags and broken pottery litter the floor.
Here, the dreaming priests discard useless items that cannot be fed to the beetles. The clay is shards of tablets and a broken cup. The few visible glyphs on the shards are too fragmented to be deciphered. The inside of the cup is stained dark green.
8. Workshop
Three large bowls on the floor are filled with water and clay. Hanging from a wooden rack, a couple of filled linen sacks drip water. Two small mallets lay next to several damp clay tablets on a wooden table.
In the west end, carved into the wall, a human male figure with an ibis head stands eight feet high. He holds a tablet in one hand. The other hand rests on the mounting frame of a lever, which resembles a stylus and protrudes from the wall at an upright angle.
The dreaming priests recycle unfired clay tablets in this room.
Thawt’s Lever: Pulling the lever has two effects: One, the character who pulls the lever forgets everything that happened in the last 24 hours. No memories remain, including all spells, clerical or magical, acquired during that time. Two, any objects or creatures in 7. Forgotten Archive are teleported to 143. Labyrinth of Forgotten Dreams.
Sometimes, in their interpretation of the channeled dreams of Amon-Gorloth, its priests make errors. To rid themselves of any unfortunate manifestations as well as purge their memory of the error, a priest places the artifacts in 7. Forgotten Archive then pulls this lever.
Thawt’s Lever of Forgetfulness
Wandering Monsters
Wandering monsters on this level are Dreaming Priests, adepts (1-3), from level 4D on an errand.
Wandering Monsters, Level 2B (2d4)
2
To dispose of an item in 7. Forgotten Archive
3-4
To haul refuse to 5. Mausoleum of the Nine Companions
5-6
To feed the beetles in 4. Shrine of the Solar Goddess
7-8
To fetch tablets in 8. Workshop
1 An “ardent” is a paladin; a champion is 7th-level.
2 I use lower-case Greek letters to denote details within a level but outside encounter areas. I’m not sure that I’ll put them on the keyed map.
3 Given the bombardier beetle’s description in Blackmoor (OD&D Supplement II, 18), I assume its appellation is an alias for dung beetle, a species in the subfamily Scarabaeinae. In Egyptian mythology, the Scarabaeus sacer, or sacred scarab, is associated with the rising sun.
