Friday, August 31, 2018

Curious Dungeon #2 - Cave of The Moths

It's been a while. Not only since i posted a Dungeon, but also since i posted in general. So here is the second Curious Dungeon. 

In my first Curious Dungeon (The Temple of Oyraka) i tried myself at drawing and designing Dungeons by making a map without concept and filling it with life after wards. This time i took a similar approach. 
I always wanted to try isometric dungeons. I love isometric dungeons. They look awesome. So i went out and tried it for myself. I was quite happy with the result and decided that i need to use it for more than just drawing practice. So as with the previous Curious Dungeon i turned this map into a full, system neutral, fantasy Dungeon along with Plot hooks and room descriptions. Enjoy


The Design Ideas for this one came fast. At the moment i started drawing the long staircase i noticed that i was making the stairs quite irregular. I was thinking of fixing it but then decided to completely roll with it, which gave the dungeon a crumbled and dangerous look. 

So the structural damage plays hugely into exploring the dungeon. Every step might bring the building to a collapse. 

Filling the Dungeon was not too hard. I started of with an excuse to visit it. As always, obtaining an artifact was enough of a reason for me. Since i just ran a quick, improvised session in which beings of darkness, hiding in a cave, impenetrable to normal light, were the main danger, an artifact to counter the light was necessary. So i created a lantern, bright enough to vanish all darkness. Instead of a well rounded Dungeon i decided that home of this artifact was the Place where it was built. Crumbled and long abandoned the light unfortunately does the same thing what my light in my room does in these short summer nights. It attracts pesky insects. And so the Cave of the Moths was born.

I am quite happy with this one. Creating a smaller Dungeon is just a fun experience. The first Curious Dungeon with it's 18 Rooms was quite tedious to write down, but this one was fun from start to finish. I always intended curious dungeons to be a series and i want to continue with them. Currently i feel more inclined to create short ones but feel free to tell me what you prefer!

Tell me how you like it. I'd love to hear of someone who incorporated this dungeon (and my other creations) in his campaign and if you just want to use the map, feel free to do so. I'd love to hear how other people fill these maps with life.

On a personal note... I'm back. I had exams in the beginning of august and despite my intentions to write something i just could not get things done. Holiday soon followed and i collected many ideas and began fleshing them out. I will keep a bi-weekly postsduring the summer and hopefully the entire autumn with posts occurring on Fridays. At least that's the plan.