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Dungeon Draft: October 2019


death tribble

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October's draft is the first ever dungeon draft and is brought to you by Death Tribble with grateful assistance from Cancer who proof read the original transcript and amended it. Here is what you need to know

 

You are a sage and explorer, member of the Universal Geographical Society (UGS).  You are convinced you have found the most astonishing place in the world, and are trying to impress upon others that you deserve to be selected to receive this millennium's UGS Positronium Medal for Discover of Vast Previously Unknown Edifices at the next UGS Conclave.

 

You are investigating, and publishing your findings about, a dungeon in your world.  You do not have to fully map the dungeon to publish your findings.  Nominally, you are working with all of the other sages, with the goal being to document labyrinths in the same world. The competing/cooperating sages, and the dungeons they are exploring, all exist at the same time (though the dungeons need not have originated at the same time).  

 

The setting is completely blank.  You need not (should not) describe the world anywhere except within, and immediately surrounding, your dungeon. 


Here's what you'll need in your labyrinth.

 

Location, Location, Location. Where is the labyrinth? Recall the Tomb of Horrors created by Gary Gygax this was in the Vast Swamp and quite inaccessible. But yours can be a city empty or otherwise, beneath a city or in a volcano for example. The location pick is where the entrance will be that players characters would normally force their way in. The location pick need not be exclusive so you could have two demi-dungeons side by side like pyramids just not connected. You can have one floating in the atmosphere and another at the bottom of the ocean.

 

Who is in charge? This place was built for someone, but maybe now they are gone so just who is running the place now?  You can give sketchy details like ‘The Lich Maurice now controls the dungeon’ or you can give more details. This is a single exclusive choice.

 

Why go there? Dungeons are built to hurt people so why in the name of the Abyss would anyone want to go there. There has to be a reason such as an oracle, someone who has been kidnapped and is being held there, an artifact or vast wealth. This again has to be exclusive.

 

Five different featured highlights. Here you will list five specific areas in the dungeon and what makes them special.  Here you can place monsters or traps and you can list treasure. The traps and monsters need not be exclusive but if your ensemble is novel enough, you can make it so if you wish and declare this to be unique in the world (so that other draft participants cannot claim a copy). The outside world may or may not know anything about these locations prior to your picks.  The Draft Despot has Grimtooth’s Traps and various Monster Manuals so I should be able work out what you are plagiarising if at all.

 

Goals of the architect. Simply: why was the place built in the first place?  It is perfectly acceptable for the original purpose to be something besides punishing enemies; the corruption into a punishing pit would then have been retrofitted onto the original structure.  For example: Derek, King of the Swingers had a new Palace built underground which was then occupied by a Lich.

 

Who Built it.  This isn't the patron or the project manager; those folks don't do the actual excavation or construction.  Needed here is the identity of the person who supervised the construction on the site, and the nature of the labor that went into the construction.  That latter could be legions of nameless human (or not human) slaves, hordes of fanatically devoted followers, or a specific architectural firm, for example. These overseer-and-grunt specifications need not be exclusive, but a describing them should take into account the environment in which the construction happened.  As examples, if building was in a vast empty desert, or at the bottom of the ocean, puts special demands on those doing the construction.  You could identify the constructor as the same entity as the patron, but this puts demands on that patron, such as being an Archmage and a commitment of time and effort to putting the edifice in place.  The first person to post a particular builder can specify who they are.   This may by implication limit others wanting you use the same grunts and site boss; for example, an ordinary human cannot usually have built dungeons three hundred years apart.

 

Mythic Monster or Guardian or History. You can specify a unique monster or guardian for the dungeon. Alternately you can lay out an occupation history of the place. For example: Derek King of the Swingers moved in first; after he died High Priest Philip ran it; then Maurice the Lich turned him into a shrivelled toad, threw him out, and took over for a century or two, until he got too cocky, and Infernal Octopus Reginald found his immured heart and banished him forever.  Then the Japanese factory ships caught Reginald, turned him into tako sushi without realising what they'd done, and the place has lain empty since.

 

Round one will be your Location, but the rest can be selected in any order.

 

We will begin Thursday October 3, Five in the afternoon British Time which is Noon Eastern in the States. We take the weekends off.

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This post is reserved for rosters

 

Dungeon Draft 2019

 

Poster: Csyphrett

Location: New York city

Who’s in charge ? Rick Dicker, government agent

Why go there ? The facility holds monsters that people wish to use

Highlight 1: The Fish Tank contains predatory fish

Highlight 2: The Asylum where people have been experimented on

Highlight 3: The Grimoire where magic beings are held

Highlight 4: the Zoo where creatures are cared for

Highlight 5: Self Destruct mechanism

Architect Goal: A vault to seal experimental weapons

Who built it

Mythic Monster/Guardian/History: an electricity generating monster

 

Poster: Cancer

Location: The face on Cydonia, Mars

Who’s in charge ? Opportunity and Spirit

Why go there ?

Highlight 1: The Dark passage to and from Earth

Highlight 2: Conservatory of the White Apes

Highlight 3: Variable Gravity Tank

Highlight 4:

Highlight 5:

Architect Goal: As an arsenal and training facility for the fleet to invade Earth

Who built it: Issus oversaw slaves building it

Mythic Monster/Guardian/History: Marvin the Martian

 

Poster: Death Tribble

Location: Iron Crag in the Dragon Fangs mountains

Who’s in charge ?

Why go there ? To retrieve dwarven artifacts, destroy the Temple and greed

Highlight 1: The Pit which is the entrance

Highlight 2: The Gallery with portraits

Highlight 3

Highlight 4

Highlight 5: The Temple where souls are drained

Architect Goal: Originally a fortress then a death trap to feed souls to the gods

Who built it

Mythic Monster/Guardian/History

 

Poster: L Marcus

Location: The Troll Kin’s City south of the Pita and Aula rivers

Who’s in charge ?

Why go there ?

Highlight 1

Highlight 2

Highlight 3

Highlight 4

Highlight 5

Architect Goal

Who built it

Mythic Monster/Guardian/History

 

Poster: Lucius

Location: In Xanadu where the sacred river Alph runs

Who’s in charge ? Ancestral voices prophesying war

Why go there ? Women go in hope of winning a demon lover. Men go in hopes of learning  the diabolical secrets of demonic seduction.

Highlight 1

Highlight 2

Highlight 3

Highlight 4

Highlight 5

Architect Goal

Who built it: Kubla Khan oversaw legions of slaves building it

Mythic Monster/Guardian/History

 

Poster Pariah

Location: Cheyenne Mountain Colorado

Who’s in charge ? Ba’al former Goa’uld system lord

Why go there ? There is a Stargate there.

Highlight 1: The Chompers a la Galaxy Quest

Highlight 2: The Escherian Stairwell

Highlight 3: Klingon Rite of Ascension

Highlight 4: Goa’uld Light Matrix hologram

Highlight 5: the Wipeout Zone

Architect Goal

Who built it

Mythic Monster/Guardian/History

 

Poster Old Man

Location: Nomanisan Island

Who’s in charge ?

Why go there ?

Highlight 1: the Puzzle door a la Tomb Raider

Highlight 2: Shifting Maze a la Maze Runner

Highlight 3: Fireball traps a la The Hunger Games

Highlight 4: Laser Web a la Entanglement

Highlight 5: The Rolling Boulder a la Raiders of the Lost Ark

Architect Goal

Who built it

Mythic Monster/Guardian/History

 

Poster: Scottish Fox

Location: The Eye of Ertuk in the Ertuk canyon

Who’s in charge ?

Why go there ?

Highlight 1

Highlight 2

Highlight 3

Highlight 4

Highlight 5

Architect Goal

Who built it: Supposedly nature carved it

Mythic Monster/Guardian/History

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On 9/22/2019 at 8:58 AM, death tribble said:

Location, Location, Location. Where is the labyrinth? Recall the Tomb of Horrors created by Gary Gygax this was in the Vast Swamp and quite inaccessible. But yours can be a city empty or otherwise, beneath a city or in a volcano for example. The location pick is where the entrance will be that players characters would normally force their way in. The location pick need not be exclusive so you could have two demi-dungeons side by side like pyramids just not connected. You can have one floating in the atmosphere and another at the bottom of the ocean.

 

 

I'm not sure what you're trying to communicate.

 

Are you saying "Pick one and only one location. Another player can pick the same locale but that doesn't mean that each of your labyrinths connect in any manner. Your labyrinth is yours and yours alone."?

 

Or are you trying to communicate something else?

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8 minutes ago, death tribble said:

I was going to put you in Business or First class but ok......

 

Ha!

 

My family hasn't been on a vacation for so long that as we flying a whopping two states over to see our relatives this year we decided to book it first class.

 

Stupid waste of money, but I have to see what all the fuss is about before I'm too old or too broke to enjoy it.  :)

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