[Dungeon] Cave of Trials, a prehistoric initiatory adventure!

I put together a stone age Cave of Trials! Survive and become an adult member of your tribe!

13 rooms, one page with the map, another with the key, so you can print it on a single sheet if you like.

Download PDF with map & key!

There is also an unlabeled players' map in the folder. The adventure is pretty much system-agnostic, run it in your favorite OSR or whatever system.

These uncooperative a-holes will NOT survive the Cave of Trials

Have fun!

[Mazes & Minotaurs Actual Play] Colonists & Chimeras! Session #12

One of these days, I'm gonna write a blog post that's not a Mazes & Minotaurs session recap! But not today... not today!

Previous installments: Session #1, Session #2, Session #3, Session #4, Session #5, Session #6, Session #7, Session #8, Session #9, Session #10, Session #11

Ellipsis the Hunter

Porphyra the Lyrist

Buff the Warrior henchman (level 1)

Chuff the second Warrior henchman (level 0)

Romulus the semi-domesticated (at best) wolf of Porphyra

Meteora's player was busy with work stuff :(

The group woke up after some well-deserved rest in the cavern. Porphyra was still unconscious... So her player was given the choice to play as either Buff the henchman or Romulus the wolf, and of course he chose to play as Romulus the wolf!

As a first order of business, Romulus marked the cave as his territory.

Ellipsis came up with a plan to reach the Source: tie something to a rope, and throw it down through the little "window" overlooking the cave of the Source, wait for it to come down with the current, and use the rope as extra support when wading upstream. However, with their numbers so low, they decided to leave that part of the exploration for a later time.

Ellipsis and Romulus decided to leave the cave and explore the surroundings a bit. They left Buff and Chuff behind to look after Porphyra.

Outside, it was a hot summer morning. 

Suddenly, there was some movement in the bushes about 70' away from the cave entrance --- and a group of scorpion men started shooting arrows! An ambush! Ellipsis returned the favor with a couple of his own arrows, and Romulus charged into battle. However, the three scorps posed a much greater threat. Ellipsis called for help, but Buff and Chuff needed a couple of rounds to reach the place of the battle. 

Ellipsis took cover in the cave entrance behind some rocks, but still he got hit by several arrows... The damage was enough to kill him, but instead he got an adrenaline rush and continued fighting for enough time for Buff and Chuff to join the fight --- but then........

DIY dungeon geomorphs

I made a set of dungeon geomorphs yesterday! Took a sheet of cardboard, divided it into 30 equal squares, and then drew various combinations of rooms, corridors, caverns. I made sure to have the entrances/exits meeting roughly around the middle of each side of the square. On some tiles, all spaces are connected to each other; while other tiles have two or more separate areas. I filled the leftover spaces with dead-ends and finials - tiles that only have one entrance.

The drawing was done in pencil first (but basically with no erasing/corrections), then inked it with one of those Stabilo black pens.

Cut it up with a hobby knife and scissors, and ended up with a nice pile of dungeon tiles!

The first dungeon was a random draw of six tiles:

The second dungeon I started out with a random draw, then "curated" it: switched, reorganized or rotated some of the tiles, and added dead-ends to close off passages towards the borders.

I used the tiles where the areas are not interconnected to limit the sprawl of the dungeon too.

Then I fired up my trusty GIMP, and turned a photo of the tiles into a janky but also kinda stylish dungeon map! I cut off all the unconnected areas for now, to create an enclosed space.

It's an evenings craft project, and lots of fun! The geomorphs can be used to create a quick dungeon (draw a couple of tiles, assemble, take a photo, edit out all the unnecessary passages) during prep, or even on the fly; or just to inspire yourself.

P.S.: I numbered the areas on the final map, you can see it here: https://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2020/10/map-forgotten-depths-of-geomorphic.html

Drawing dungeons is fun

Just an old-school dungeon level... I wanted to draw something labyrinthine, with densely packed and weirdly shaped rooms. Inspired by the megadungeon topics on Dragonsfoot. Of course, at ~80 rooms, this is a relatively small offering :)

This image is licensed under Creative Commons 4.0. You are free to share and adapt (transform, remix, build upon) this image, even commercially, as long as you credit me (Tamás Kisbali / http://eldritchfields.blogspot.com). Also, if you do end up using this, I'd appreciate a message to see what you made of it!