We currently have three separate teams of adventurers out adventuring in our West Marches-style Freebooters campaign. All three have made it across the Frightful Sea and are currently exploring the Southern Reach, an icy, crystalline continent once inhabited by the highly advanced Tvinne people. So far, 3 out of a total of 12 freebooters have bitten the dust.
Last week’s session ended with a band of 4 fighters and 1 cleric emerging from a sea tunnel into the midst of an ancient, ruined city. For prep this week I was just planning to roll up a bunch of discoveries and dangers to tailor to the setting, but that got me thinking more about the city until I found myself sketching out what it looked like in its heyday, before it was destroyed by the evil sorcerer Munemut Arnelumé. Then of course I needed to know what it looked like in ruins, since that’s what the PCs will be exploring.
I’ve never really run a lost city as a dungeon before, so this should be interesting!
Beautiful maps! Very evocative of the passage of time.
Something I think would be cool is drawings of the city from a few high vantage points nearby, so adventurers can claim that high ground and be rewarded with different sorts of insight as to the layout of the place.
Oo, if some large pieces fell off, perhaps there’s now a large, inconveniently sloped section of catacomb in the fallen piece at the bottom! The 45-degree dungeon!
Love it. Looks amazing.
Wow!
Wicked!
Dope.
So cool. I love love love the “conceive of it whole, then imagine how it’s fallen” approach.
Do you plan to do mostly random generation on the fly, or do you have notes for, like, what sort of buildings are in each district and what’s squatting there now?
Jeremy Strandberg, I’ve got notes about important buildings to remind me about details, then lists of discoveries and dangers. Right now I know there are giant magic-seeking wasps, British scavenger humanoids, and a giant raven-thing that occasionally flies over. And I made a custom table for Tvinne artifacts they might find if they go digging in the rubble. Additional stuff I will roll up as needed.
Michael Prescott, I’ll be sketching stuff on a whiteboard, so if they decide to make use of any vantage points I’ll be winging it.
The sections of the city that fell away crumbled into the vast crystal forest that fills what looks like the void on the left side of the image. So they’ve ended up more screes or slurries of rubble instead of intact planes. But I love the idea of a tilty dungeon!