Late to Week three - The Dungeon

This was not the week to get hung up on. Out of the whole challenge, this one requires the most work of all. Dungeon development is complex and tricky at times if you want anything other than a meaningless, random assortment of rooms with a hodge-podge of denizens, traps and empty spaces. In all fairness, the Gygaxian way would be something much akin to exactly that, but I'm not a huge fan of such design, so maybe I'm making more work for myself than I need to.

The first thing that I need to do is decide which of the potential dungeons in this setting to use. To me, the logical choice seems to be a dungeon in the Silver Spires. It is closest to Haven (save for the potential dungeon right below Haven) and fits the bill nicely for a dungeon that can be reached in less than a day. The Silver Spires is also a place where I can easily create multiple entrances to a single or multiple dungeons or combinations thereof. 

"A silver door hidden within a crack in ancient stone."

This should be enough to elicit adventure.

For me, this step comes too early in the list. Arranging rooms and levels without having established those things we do in later steps seems counterintuitive. For now, I will put that on the back burner and continue with the other steps.

This dungeon, in the Silver Spires will take the form of one of the spires. As such, I think it would be cool to give it an unorthodox dungeon arrangement. In this case, this means dividing the verticality of the dungeon between the areas closest to the ground, up into the spire itself, and then an area that goes below the ground in true dungeon fashion. 

For my three themes, I picked...

• Sand [3]
• Wreckage [5]
• Ancient Secrets [3]

This ratio of mundane to more fantastic thematic elements will work well for the first steps into the spires. I can imagine a party entering Level 1 and encountering places where the wreckage of the spire has left the interior exposed to the wastes outside and as they move up (Level 2) or down Level 3) within the dungeon they will encounter less sandy wasteland influence and more wreckage in whatever form that takes. Ancient secrets would be rare and will stand out and this vague theme can easily cover many wonderous things. 

This leads naturally into...

I chose to do this after establishing themes because I felt it would easier to conceive of ways up and down after I had conceptualized the dungeon more. My roll result are as follows...

• Level 1 = 2. This will make a very linear connection from the ground level which makes perfect sense. I immediately thing of an ancient lift tube that goes up into the skyward part of the spire (Level 2) and maybe a broken, crumpled passage down into the areas beneath the spire (Level 3).
• Level 2 = 2. Level 2 seems similarly linearly accessible but with one established connection to Level 1 perhaps the other passage only connects to Level 3. This immediately gives me the idea of some ancient conduit or service chute that goes from Level 2 down into the bowels of Level 3.
• Level 3 = 4. This is an interesting state of things as, even after calculating the direct connection to Level 2 up in the spire and the more gradual connection to Level 1 by the wrecked passage, we still have two other connections to someplace else. This is perfect for leaving the deeper section under the spire with two undeclared connections. In my mind, the branch out to spaces under some of the other spires.

One thing to keep in mind with this dungeon is the enhanced verticality of the spires. This means that Level 2, which is the spire proper will actually be many connected small levels, each being a floor of the spire but for the sake of design we will consider them a contained level. The lift from Level 1 will go up to Level 2 but within that level I can imagine a number of ladders, stairs and other doors off that lift from Level 1.

The exit from Level 2 to Level 3 will completely bypass Level 1 which, for this dungeon sits between 2 and 3. I'll explain this by having its wall made of some ancient, incredibly strong material that won't be easily breached. It's also important to remember that these are guidelines. It is possible that this long, vertical passage into the depth of Level 3 might be accessible at other point on Level 2 but that still only connects Level 2 and 3 directly.

Eleven different monsters in this setting should be easy enough but I want to stick to the weird and odd for this setting as I think it better sells the techno-fantastic, post-apocalyptic weirdness I want to permeate the world. Across the various old-school products out there, there are some really wild humanoids and monsters that fit this world far better than typical orcs and the like. Where a premade monster is missing, I will first try to reskin existing monster to fit the setting and ultimately create new ones if needed. Of the monsters in my first random encounter list, only the Steel Death and Silver Scourge were not stock monsters and they were only renamed and rethemed. 

My go-tos for monsters will be the Creature Catalog (CC) and Creature Compendium (CCom). These provide most of the oddball monsters I will need and leave the standard B/X monsters as fallbacks.

My list of monsters for this dungeon will be as follows...

1. Cactus Cat (2HD) - CCom
2. Gaseous Lantern (1 hp) - CCom
3. Giant Spider Gorilla (7HD) - CCom
4. Izzoo (3HD) - CCom
5. Steam Weevil (1/2HD) - CC
6. Wyrdwun (2+1HD) - CCom
7. Tangleworm (1-8HD) - CCom
8. Stinking Pile (2HD) - CCom
9. Skyfish (1HD) - CCom
10. Strangle Vine (1HD) CC
11. Scavengers (Bandits) (1HD) 

With this mix of monsters we have a mostly wild space without permanent populations of many humanoids or other intelligent monsters. Creatures like the Cactus Cat and Giant Spider Gorilla are likely here as predators, having come to feed on other monsters. Gaseous Lanterns, Steam Weevils, Skyfish, worms and plants and even the very strange Wydwuns are also likely part of the strange, mutant ecosystem that has built up around the spires, moving in and out through smaller holes and gaps in the structure. The truly odd creatures such as the Izzoo and the Stinking Pile are the most gruesome reminder of the horrible, toxic world having been created by the degeneration of other creatures, not over generations of mutating development but from quick and horrible degeneration. Scavengers, of course, are likely to be an ongoing and ever-present threat throughout adventures in the setting.

Random Encounters - Extra Credit

With week 2 wrapped up, all that is left to do is the extra credit. For Week 2 this means "pimping you map", which I already accomplished by using a nice mapping program like Wonderdraft, and making a random encounter table. 

Creating a random encounter table for a strange world such as The Land of the Poison Wind should prove challenging and may require a fair bit of proxying standard monsters for those more suitable to this magitech, wasteland setting. For the sake of producing the most usable table I can, this early in the creation process, this will be a generic table for the general wasteland environment.

As you can see the encounter table presents a combination of monster and NPC encounters with some falling someplace in between. With a setting like this, I wanted to stick to lesser known, more oddball monsters and so made good use of the old B/X and BECMI "Creature Catalog". When creating this encounter table, I also tried not to get caught up in making sure I had stats for some of them like the Steel Death or the Silver Scourge, even though having something of a general nature in mind helps both with eventually finding or making stats and setting up the hooks. I also included an environmental hazard in the form of the Poison Wind which also synergizes well with the Vapor Ghouls as a party who has encountered one or the other might mistake their current encounter of either as a repeat of the other. Later in the challenge there are opportunities to flesh out the world and create more encounter tables and it is at this point where I will get a little more creative with the encounters as they will need to be more specific.

So, that is it for Week 2. Week 3 is the doozy - The Dungeon. For me, this will be the single most time-consuming part of the challenge and will require a bit more thought and work to make it something worth while. The world I have created presents several good options for dungeons and I will also have a tough time choosing, though I think I have a good idea for the one I will start with (no, I'm not going to tell you.).

Stay tuned and check back next week.

-Eli

The Places That Make the World

 

The remaining steps of Week 2 of the challenge deal with filling out the world. Having already established some terrain features I now have a good idea where the major resources are and can place settlements in a way that makes sense. The first of the remaining tasks is...

The two settlements I decided on would be placed near two of the major terrain features. These places would tap into the resources of those regions, possibly trading with Haven or maybe even rivalling them. Unlike Haven, they do not have the benefit of the lush, pure waters and fertile land but they have found a way to carve an existence out of the toxic world.

• The Rift Fishers. Built on the edge of the rift, the village of the Rift Fishers is a loose affiliation of hunter/gatherers who make their ways delving the depths of the great chasm with massive harpoons, fishing lines, and great baskets that pull up all manner of creatures from below. They are fearless and skilled hunters and are well-versed in the various dangers of the The Rift and beyond. 
  
• Muck Town. Stilted above the bubbling mire of the Quickend Swamp, Muck Town is a shambling expanse of huts and palisades from which fishermen and poison gatherers ply their trade. Known as a place for scoundrels, double-dealers, and people of questionable character, it is also a place of knowledge and skill with the strange treasures that can be rendered from the ruined world. Along with their knowledge of poisons and venoms, the people of Muck Town are also known as skilled alchemists and even healers.

With my two settlements established it is time to look at a mysterious site. One of the themes of Haven is a large statue of a woman's head from which weep magical healing tears. To add greater mystery to this head and to create my new stand alone mystery, I decided that there would be another giant stone head out in the wastes....

• The Face of Time. Half buried in the sands a great bronze face looks skyward. It is said that those who are patient and wait will hear it speak words of wisdom and ancient knowledge. 

The last "requirement" for Week 2 is placing an entrance to place a main dungeon entrance. This is tricky for me as I have already established several good locations for dungeons to occur. So maybe, for the sake of my pass through the challenge, I create several. Whether they are different entrances to one main mega dungeon or separate dungeons can be left until later to be decided. 

1. The town of Haven is built upon an ancient ruin from before The Fall and so instantly provides a dungeon entrance, right under the PCs feet. 
2. The Face of Time would also be a good site for a dungeon, with the face bein just the tip of a massive underground complex.
3. The Silver Spires could have several dungeons in it. A combination of isolated dungeon spaces and linked spaces could be networked under and up inside the spires.
   

With this, all the main steps for Week 2 are complete. The extra credit step of "pimping my map" are taken care of by Wonderdraft. Next time I'll explore a random encounter table for extra credit and then I'll get on to Week 3. 

Thanks for following along,

-Eli

Terrain Before Settlements

Week 2 of the challenge goes through several steps. They are not presented in any particular order, just a series of bullet points and so I decided that the next step I would do, after placing the central settlement, was this...

Settlements form around features and so the map needed features. I didn't want to get too full on the map just yet but I also decided to go beyond the single feature the challenge asks you to make. This would establish the world a little bit more and allow greater interest in where the settlements would later be placed. Below, I will put some notes on the four terrain features I placed and named.

1. 
   The Silver Spires. Said to be great towers that crashed to the ground during The Fall, the Silver Spires is a strange place that glitters in the sun. The sand here is full of metallic particles and bits of strange metal that the people of Have and others in the wastes find useful and valuable. The spires themselves are in varying states of ruin and the entire area is dangerous to to traverse. Strange, horrific creatures crawl among the spires and it is said that the ghosts of the past can be seen wandering the silver sands.
2. The Quickend Swamp. Here the land sinks, not into gashes in the earth like those that surround Haven but in a more shallow bowl shaped manner. Teaming with strange and deadly creature and plants, the swamp is an unforgiving place that, as its name suggests, will bring a quick end to your life. While a great deal of water gathers here, it is also poisonous and unfit to drink by most folk.
3. The Rift. Haven is not the only place where the world has cracked and opened from The Fall. Deep below, within the canyons of the rift grow otherworldly plants and animals. The air here is poisonous but seldom kills directly. Instead, those that visit this place speak of visions and a feeling lost and disoriented.
4. Woewood. To the northwest lies Woewood. A seemingly endless forest of tress that spew poison and air that can can kill, this strange forest grow in place of a once verdant wood after The Fall. The plants and trees of the original forest are thought to have adapted to the poisonous world by collecting, isolating and expelling the toxics. Woewood and other forests like it are thought to be to blame for the poison winds that sweep across the world. 

These four terrain features form a good start and provide a number of places where adventures can take place in the world. They also set up some of the primary threats and tensions of the world from the ever-present environmental threat of environmental hazards like poisoned air and water to strange creatures, there is plenty enough in these four and to expand based on them.

In future installments we'll cover settlements and mysteries.

Hope to hear your comments and feedback,

-Eli

The Surrounding Area - Gygax 75 Challenge Week 2

Art by: Logan Feliciano

Week 2 is here and this is one of those points in the challenge that I can honestly see taking a week. As I am doing things digitally, this also present some interesting extra steps such as finding a hex mapping program I like. But let's look at what Week 2 is supposed to be all about...

Map the land around the dungeon and town.

“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 be about right for player operations such as exploring, camping, adventuring, and eventually building their strongholds. Even such small things as a witch's hut and side entrances to the dungeon can be shown on the map. The central features of the map must be the major town and the dungeon entrance.” – EGG

 

The Gygax 75 guidebook discusses some other options for scaling the map but cautions against going over 1 hex = 6 miles. For the purposes of Land of the Poison Wind, I feel that 1-mile hexes does not adequately communicate the wasteland setting and so will be going with 6-mile hexes. I'll also be using the 23 x 14 hex map size suggested by Ray Otus, giving me his calculated 12,432 mi² to work with.

This will give me plenty of room to work with. Lots of space to place things but also a lot of space to have a lot of nothing in between. This nothing, like any game world, will not be absolute nothing but will give that impression, isolating PCs from their resources while having to face the dangers of the toxic world. 

The core step of this mapping process is establishing a central base from which the PC will begin their adventures. This is described  in the challenge guide simply as...

A city seems too grand for this world and so this settlement of significant size will be a town. I will call it, Haven. This town, as I had hinted at in previous posts is an oasis among the dying world where ancient mysteries provide water and healing magic that keeps the people fed. Haven is a terraced fortress crawling up a natural rocky peak that juts from the center of a plateau created by the ancient devastation that came with The Fall. Steep cliffs create a circular canyon where water collects and green plants grow and spill out as far as they can before the toxic world around them halts their progress.

Covering a single 6-mile hex, Haven and it's surrounding area would be dominated by the terraced fortress town and as many farms as it can squeeze onto its limited, defensible space. A single defended bridge with numerous gatehouses connects Haven to the outside world, making it difficult for attackers to menace the city by land. 

There will be time to add further detail to Haven later in the settlement but this is where i will leave things for today. I have a week to work on the mapping of the game area and, while I could sit down in a single afternoon and crank out a detailed map, for the sake of the challenge and sharing the experience, I will pause here. 

Come back in the following days to see how Week 2 of my trip through the Gygax 75 Challenge progresses. I welcome any comments, questions, or feedback.

-Eli

What is the Land of the Poison Wind?

 

The idea for Land of the Poison Wind comes from a brief delve into a techno-fantasy setting I once imagined for a campaign I wanted to run for my kids. 

I have long been a fan of the old gonzo style fantasy art from the 60's, 70's and 80's. Whether it came from book or album covers or the pages of Heavy Metal magazine, that juxtaposition of fantasy and science fiction elements always appealed to me. Gamma World reinforced this and later in life Nausicaa added another nudge in that direction.

Add to this, that old Arthur C. Clarke quotes about super-advanced technology, 

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

This is what I really wanted to create. Not a world where fantasy characters walked around with ray guns and power armor but a world where where it was impossible for the people of the world to know that this high technology wasn't some sort of magic. 

As an example of this, my original campaign attempt had the PCs start in an isolated settlement positioned on a tall mesa with a natural moat of deep and wide chasms. At the heart and very top of this settlement there was a giant stone face with the visage of a woman. Every so often this statue would weep tears of a strange, slightly luminous fluid that worked as a healing potion. These blessed tears were revered but nobody knew where they came from even though I, the DM, knew they they were ancient medical material that trickled through some ancient machinery deep within the mesa. This will be detailed in Week 4, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

As I fill out the setting, I want to maintain the idea that the world has come to ruin and is full of the remnants of the past. Settlements, societies and even the environment will be shaped by the idea that a world before was devastated and has since recovered to whatever degree it could despite the fallout and debris of the world before The Fall. The poison wind aspect of the title plays into the idea that there are toxic elements left behind that can and do sweep across the world and have shaped its rise from the The Fall.

An additional inspiration that completely escaped me when listing out my inspirations is the artwork of Moebius. His wastelands and isolated landscapes very much reflect the sorts of places and things I want to fill my world. I will go back and add it to the list is my first post for Week 1. 

I hope this gives a little more information on the direction this will be taking and I hope folks enjoy following along.

-Eli

Patience Is Not a Virtue I Possess - Gygax 75 Challenge Week 1

 

One of the basics of this challenge is "You are allowed one week, (no more, no less!) for each step." I had intended to adhere to this schedule however, I don't feel all the initial steps are equally weighted. I also feel like, for the sake of motivation, trying to do things all on pen & paper is a losing prospect, especially for somebody who is so incredibly ADHD, such as myself. 

The first couple of steps in the process are...

As somebody who has been gaming for decades, this is something I have to excess. In addition, in a digital age, is this really necessary? I mean, as cool as it is to have notebooks and journals, I feel like I would get lost between the formats and this project would die. 

So...CHECK!

Next we have...

This is worth doing but I already have a pitch for this setting, as the name of the blog may have already telegraphed. So then, what is my pitch?

Land of the Poison Wind is designed with the B/X or compatible retro-clones in mind. This also makes it easily workable for other old-school and OSR systems. I've been wanting to run a non-5E D&D game for a good while now. This setting may have a superficial resemblance to Gamma World but the major difference here is that it leans into the fantasy before the scifi even though it combines both.

• Techno-fantasy world. Technology is so advanced as to be perceived as magic by those who do not understand it (most of the current world). Clerics and magic-users are often engaging with ancient technologies and remnants of a previous age.
• Post apocalyptic. The world exists after a world-shattering war called "The Fall" against an ancient enemy which has left the world blasted, scarred, poisoned and toxic. It is populated by isolated remnants of pre-Fall cultures and monstrous inhabitants. 
• Dying light. The forces of law and order are dwindling in the world as the chaos of the world overwhelms what little remains of the past. Evil city-states, slavers, roving bands of raiders and scourging hordes are ever-present threats to the remaining enclaves of civilization that cling to the wonders of the past. The past is seen as divine and an age of enlightenment.
• All races and classes allowed. Settlements are made up of remnants from, the various pre-Fall folk. Very rarely are there communities of a single race. 
• Mad gods and unreliable magic. The gods have changed since The Fall and have only become more incoherent, random, and fickle. Magic, as it is understood seems to come and goes, sometimes a trickle while at other times a nearly uncontrollable torrent.
• Ancient machines. The magic of the world is really ancient machines and the gods are AIs. The people of the present don't realize that they have all lived, linked to these technologies since before The Fall. 
  

That should do... CHECK!

By now you should have a good sense of the sort of setting I am designing and the next step will fill in some of the blanks as to what all inspired this. While none of these are direct or literal sources for this setting, all inspire me to the sort of setting I want to run.

My list of inspirations is less literary and more pulled from other media types. I will try to annotate them as best I can but I do think the more important part is to list them. My list is relatively short, but that is mostly a byproduct of so much of it just coming from my imagination as well as less defined inspirations that are not complete works of their own. A picture here, a thought there, a scene glimpsed in a passing show. All of these are as much an inspiration to me as any fully developed book, comic, film or other media. 

• Adventure Time, Cartoon Network, created by Pendleton Ward. A weird world full of interesting characters, concepts and a blend of technology and magic. 

• Thundarr the Barbarian, Ruby Spears Productions, created by Steve Gerber, Joe Ruby, and Ken Spears. A treasure trove of ideas for this sort of setting. Wizards, robots, strange races and ancient machines all bump elbows and exchange blows in this setting. Absolutely a must for this sort of setting.

• Gamma World (1st-3rd ed.), TSR. A quintessential resource for a Dungeons & Dragons-like, post apocalyptic setting in the classic, mutants and monsters style and not the dystopian brand of post apocalypse we tend to get today.

• Hayao Miyazaki movies (various), Studio Ghibli. While mostly Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky some inspiration comes from Howl's Moving Castle. These films and their associated manga are full of the sort of techno-wizardry I hope to feature in this setting. Nausicaa definitely inspires a good lion share of the visual language I have in mind. Another note worthy anime series, while not connected to Miyazaki is Children of the Whales, a series featuring a future in which people live on techno-magical mobile islands that move through a silt sea.

• The artwork of Moebius. (late addition) His wasteland environments, isolated characters, settlement and wonderous technologies that seem to blur the line between science and magic are absolutely spot on for this setting. 

There is a lot more I could list but honestly so much of what inspires me is difficult to pin down. This brings us to the extra credit section.

I will be putting together a mood board. This will be in the form of a Pinterest gallery - HERE. I'll fill it in as I find images, so check back now and again.

So, that is all that is required to get the challenge going. I'll start week two next Sunday (6/12/22). Other posts may follow before then but this is is the official Week 1 post for my run through the Gygax 75 Challenge. 

-Eli

Welcome to the Land of the Poison Wind

 

By Will Brosch

I may be a bit late to the game but I recently learned of the "Gygax 75 Challenge". In short, this is a challenge (not really) that invites DMs to create a campaign setting using a set of tools laid out by Gary Gygax in a 1975 article in Europa magazine. How could I resist?

The challenge is arranged in a sort of workbook style with each of the fives weeks across which it spans being dedicated to one aspect of designing the world with the ultimate goal being a solid, playable starting point for any sort of D&D campaign. Not being new to worldbuilding or setting designs, I was attracted to the challenge for the simplicity of it. For me it is a sort of back to basics approach to setting design and a chance to design a setting following the wisdom originally set out by one of the games co-creators.

This blog will follow my progress through the various steps. I will attempt to break each week's progress into as many blog posts as seems reasonable with a focus on sharing my ideas and the setting it creates. After the challenge is finished and the setting is framed out, I'll likely run a campaign in it and share the adventures there here. For those who want to check out the challenge for yourself, you can find the document here - https://rayotus.itch.io/gygax75.

The basics are simple (taken from the above linked workbook) - 

• Establish a setting concept

• Develop the surrounding area

• Create 1-3 levels of a dungeon

• Detail a sizable, nearby town

• Invent some campaign secrets

You are allowed one week, (no more, no less!) for each step. That may

sound a bit overwhelming, but don’t overthink it!

Following the rules, I will be starting this next Sunday though, as the title and image may have hinted, I do have something in mind already. Much of the work will be done on paper, as I am after the old school experience and would love to create something I can leaf through later and maybe, just maybe, leave to a future generation. That said, I'll then be posting my developments here in the digital realm using tools that I have available to me.

So, here we go. I hope you'll check back and follow me on this journey through the Gygax 75 Challenge. 

Enjoy,

-Eli