#Dungeon23

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This post is the start of a new track on this blog. Previously, Underworld Adventurer has served a functional purpose of management for my Twilight Age campaign. The beginning of December, Sean McCoy tweeted about and then later wrote on Substack about an idea he is calling #Dungeon23. The concept is simple: create a megadungeon in 2023 by writing a room a day and a level a month. A bunch of folks got inspired to take up the #Dungeon23 project. I am among them. I plan to post here about once a week or so with my progress on the megadungeon with more regular updates over on my instagram.


That is about the end of my established plans for #Dungeon23. Some folks have pretty develop ideas of what they aim to do for their megadungeon but I am looking at the endeavor as a chance to engage in some creative play. Before the pandemic, I used to spend a lot of time in coffee shops doodling in sketch books or keying dungeons like the structure the players in my Twilight Age campaign call "The Complex". I miss this kind of creative practice so I plan to keep things pretty free and loose.

One thing I do know is that I am turning to my old sketchbooks and journals as I ponder this project. They are filled with old dungeon keys, drawings, margin doodles, incomplete random tables, and partially drawn maps. More practically, I have pulled out one barely used one to be the home for my #Dungeon23 megadungeon:




One bit of text that has been on my mind when thinking about this task is this map location from a contribution I made to an old Google Plus crowd-sourced hex crawl:

From all around, lights can be seen at the peak of the mountain above Glasstone Pass from all around this hex and the next. The peak contains a wizard "tower" carved out of the blackglass. The tower's last master, the dead wizard near Wenderville (3B) did not create it.

The tower is a map of the planes with each room themed off of a different plane. The foyer is the prime material plane. The tower is packed with strange arcane artifacts and boobles as well as traps and creatures created by the wizard.

Notable residents include:
* Samson White, yeti valet from 8-B
*Yazoo, sparrowfolk butler
*The shadow of Bin Medun (20-A)
* Rufus Judge: the hulking male, lawful embodiment of the wizard's logical side.
* Delia Hart: a young woman who is the neutral embodiment of the wizard's empathy.
* Fidget: the androgynous, chaotic embodiment of the wizard's anxiety.

Notable items include:
*The architectural plans for the Last Spire (9-A).
*A bottle containing the love of the elf take from 40-A for the Old Spinster Rockford (5-A).
*A sensory organ from a kalgi-kogum.
*1d4 scrolls of trash pulp spells the Kisegres (35-A) will pay handsomely for.

The tower has no observable path to its entrance but is easily accessible from the air. The entrance is guarded by a construct of black glass.

Here are some of the old maps, drawings, and other sketchbook finds that I have been digging into as I mull this project over:
Some images culled from over a decade of dungeon doodles and notes.







Rough layout for an entry on "Goblins" I started in a journal.



I will leave you all with a pair of posts about #Dungoen23 by two players Twilight Age players. Sam (player of Dogmouth and Bludoon) wrote about his preparation process. Ben L. (Phasmo's player) posts rounding up folks takes and attempts on #Dungeon23 are the perfect place for anyone curious about the communal endeavor overall.

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