[Mazes & Minotaurs Actual Play] Colonists & Chimeras! Session #9

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

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 couldn't make it, so we commenced the exploration of the cave with two players characters and their henchmen.

The party (this time with a proper light source - an oil lamp) cautiously entered the cave. Ellipsis the Hunter checked for tracks, and found several, including prints of a single wolf and a cave lion. The lion's tracks, however, were strange, heavily impressed. Ellipsis thought it made be that somebody is riding the lion.

After the cave entrance, the passage branched into two. Romulus the wolf/dog gnarled at the left passage, so the adventurers proceeded to the right. In the next chamber they found a big eye caved into the rock. At the same time, a cave lion charged out of the left passage and attacked the rearguard. The two warriors put up a good fight, and with the arrival of the rest of the party, they managed to dispatch the lion quickly. 

But there was another surprise: it turned out that the lion was not a regular cave lion, but was a half-taxidermic, half-mechanic monstrosity!

This revelation greatly unsettled everybody. But they decided to investigate the lion's lair in the left passage, and found a weird nest made out of copper wire, and two marble eggs. The lion obviously was trying to hatch these stone eggs...

The adventurers returned to the chamber with the eye, and soon they found that its pupil could be popped open. A little niche behind it hid a metallic wheel or valve. Ellipsis turned out, and they heard a click from the neighboring chamber - a dead end. They searched that area, at first without much success. However, one of them realized, that the dead end was actually an illusory wall!

Ellipsis bravely walked through, and found that a strip of dark material was crossing the passage diagonally, however it did nothing. So he stepped through, and found himself in a built area!

[Mazes & Minotaurs Actual Play] Colonists & Chimeras! Session #8

 Previous installments: Session #1, Session #2, Session #3, Session #4, Session #5, Session #6, Session #7

Meteora the Amazon

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

The session started with a track to the south along the river. A mild rain started. The group circled around the frog-people's swamp, but found a couple of discarded miniature mice-weapons along the edge. These they gathered, to have more tangible proof about the great Batrachomyomachia they had observed the day before.

During the trip, Ellipsis eyed the sky cautiously, afraid of vulture attacks. However, peril came from another direction: the river! Two giant snakes slithered out from the water, and attacked the group. The monsters were strong, with coiling bodies and green-yellow-brown scales. Porphyra tried her signature move - WRESTLING! But she got constricted by one of the snakes instead, and was almost crushed. Ellipsis and the two warriors peppered the snakes with arrows and sling bullets. Meteora and Romulus took the serpents in melee. Meteora was constricted too, but she was able to break away. Finally Porphyra broke out of the deadly situation as well, and tried to fight fire with fire: she wrestled with the snake again! But the snake simply shed its skin! So Porphyra wrestled a fine snake-skin instead of a snake...

But in the end, the group was able to defeat both monsters.

As this happened about an hour away from the village, they decided to transport the snake-meat home. Ellipsis started gutting the monsters. He found a big bulging area in the snake's belly, so he opened it up, and found the remains of what seemed to be parts of a pony, and parts of a teenager. The group thought that this might actually be a young centaur (as they've learned a couple of sessions back that the west bank of the river is "centaur country"). 

They opted to spend some extra time here, risking travel at night, to give the remains of the centaur a proper cremation and burial.

Luckily, this delay didn't lead to any extra encounters. And around midnight they reached their home village.

There two of them noticed a person sneaking out of one of the houses, and running off into the night!

[Mazes & Minotaurs Actual Play] Colonists & Chimeras! Session #7

The first Mazes & Minotaurs session of 2021 was a blast!

Previous installments: Session #1, Session #2, Session #3, Session #4, Session #5, Session #6

Meteora the Amazon

Ellipsis the Hunter

Porphyra the Lyrist

Buff the Warrior henchman (now in technicolor level 1)

Chuff the second Warrior henchman (level 0)

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

The group, present in full, including their trusted henchman Buff, the newcomer Chuff, and Romulus, the wolf, wanted to go and explore alternative routes towards the volcano.

In the morning after the funeral of Guff, the village got hit by a vicious thunderstorm. The group stayed in the village, and erected a tent over the sacred hearth of Hestia. Then the village priestess did a rite and blessed everybody.

The adventurers stocked up on arrows, ropes, lamp oil and torches (you may recall how, during the last six sessions, they lacked some of these essentials).

And on the following day, when the weather got all nice and warm and dry, they set out towards the north, along the river that runs close to their village. It was their intention to learn whether this river is the same as the one they followed earlier, or maybe if the two connect up somewhere.

(see the hexmap later in the post)

[Dungeon] Maze of Amazement ( & Death ), one-page adventure for OD&D/Delving Deeper

So, if keying the entirety of The Maddening Corridors of Nuclear Chaos is not really a viable option, what can we do with it?

Well, we can cut it up and use a part of it as a complete dungeon!

I divided up The Maddening Corridors map into 36 quadrants, took a random one (by rolling two six-siders), cut it into half, edited out some errant corridors and superfluous exits; and ended up with a 60-ish room dungeon.

The next step of the exercise was to key it. I followed the basic procedure of my two previous OD&D efforts (Temple of the Berserkers and Outpost of Stone & Silver): stocked it quickly using Delving Deeper (made even quicker through Inspiration Pad Pro automation), then edited as needed...

You can fit 61 rooms on a single page... Of course, the key becomes very minimal, but still, I think this is playable. See for yourselves:

Download PDF with map & key!

Enjoy!

[Map] THE MADDENING CORRIDORS OF NUCLEAR CHAOS are just too big

2020 was the year of MAP DRAWING. I drew a lot of maps, even made geomorphs. But my magnum opus is this... THE MADDENING CORRIDORS OF NUCLEAR CHAOS! A megadungeon sketched onto four sheets of wrapping paper, adding up to around 100 x 75 cm (that's 40" x 29,5").

Today, I scanned it.

It took about 3 hours and half my sanity.

But it is done.

You can download the full map here...

(Click the link above to get the map in various resolutions, and I've also added a black & white version!)

Four long sheets of wrapping paper.

I scanned it bit-by-bit, in 16 bits. Then stitched it together in GIMP, corrected everything that wasn't lining up.

This is a thing of beauty.

It will probably never see play... But hey, perhaps I (or you, dear reader) can use parts of it?