Designing Hall of the Five Moons

Recently I published my first dungeon, the Hall of the Five Moons. It was originally conceived when thinking about putting together something with a heavy puzzle element to run for a one shot. Ultimately, it spiraled from the initial plan of a one-shot length dungeon into a thirty-five room dungeon that's probably at least two-three sessions- but it was still a fun one shot. 

 

 

Building a Dungeon

The first thing I did going into it was build a very limited scope design document to guide the process.  This was a really small scope caging of the goals of the dungeon and ended up as:

• Dungeoncrawl
  
• Puzzle Emphasis
• Multiple Routes
• Cairn
• Moon themed

And that was about it, short and simple. After this, I decided to try out something I've been seeing bouncing around here and there: Cyclic Dungeon Generation (CDG). The idea behind Cyclic Dungeon Generation is to create circular linked dungeon rooms, similar to common Zelda designs. As a fan of the Boss Keys Zelda series I was curious about how this would work- and I was looking for some actual inspiration for how to design the dungeon itself. My typical dungeon design procedures are pretty "shot in the dark and figure it out as you go" which has lead to some- from my perspective at least- boring and uninspired designs. 

After reading through CDG I refamiliarized myself with Into the Odd and Cairn, then got to work rolling on the tables in CDG. These tables were to initially generate cycles, circular looped dungeon chambers which would have a theme and be made of a few key points:

• Start: The start of the cycle, usually a single room
• Goal: The end of the cycle, an obstacle, a reward, something useful
• Arcs: Two lines that connect the start and the goal. There are short and long variants, with short arcs being 1-2 rooms and long arcs being 3 or more.
• Insertion Points: Point in the cycle where a subcycle may be added- nesting even more cycles inside of it. 

 

At this point I had started getting some general ideas of how I wanted the dungeon to flow. Taking some Zelda-eseque dungeons in mind, I wanted to have a central hub room with branches that all draw the adventurers back into the hub eventually. With this in mind, my first cycle that I rolled was a simple Lock-And-Key. This would be a short path to get to the goal, which would contain a lock, and then a short path to the key. I then started rolling a few more sub-cycles and put them all together in draw.io to create this rough map:

I had intentionally treated room 6 on this diagram as the hub room and ran two additional loops off of it, creating what would become the Ooze Wing and the Heretic Wing. 

Rooms Rooms Rooms Rooms

With some vague ideas of how I wanted to proceed, I started off simply with the concept and decided to treat 1 as a descent into the dungeon. The first loop that would be encountered is a Change-Return-Loop. The idea is that by reaching the goal in 4, the players should be able to return to 2 to find it altered. This is where I started to get the ideas for the Moons that must be collected through the dungeon, and the first one I settled on was the Drenched Moon which absorbed moisture. After that the wing became a mechanical puzzle with light on bone pits, pipes, tumbling machines, and once the players removed the Moon from its containment it would not only awaken all of the Desiccated Adorers but would also unleash the vampire in the sacrificial pit that 3 turned into. 

As I went, I was mapping in dungeonscrawl to build out a better map of the dungeon itself and tweak where I wanted rooms to run out. The free version of dungeonscrawl is pretty decent for this, but there were a few problems with actually mapping things where I wanted them to be or conveying nuances (can't even mark a secret door and have it look pretty with the free version) that I just couldn't do- but the dungeonscrawl map was good enough for me to run off. 

Eventually, all of the wings were rounded out and I did a check against the Dungeon Checklist to see if I had everything and felt satisfied that I did. It's worth noting that I was doing all of my keying for the rooms in ghostwriter in markdown, which ended up being pretty easy to read on the fly. The whole process took about two days/8 hours or so. I probably spent more time tinkering with Cairn to see if I wanted to tweak something and procrastinating actually getting dungeon on map. 

After the Run

With the run finished I got a worm into my head about actually polishing the dungeon up into a format that other people could run. I've had some players who have become dungeon masters of their own who have asked if they could see what materials I used to run previous dungeons and campaigns, but usually my own notes for running are nigh incomprehensible. So, the solution? Uhhhhh figure out how to format and  make a dungeon. Thankfully, Luke Gearing has us all covered and I only had to learn a little bit of LaTeX to get it all working. 

Format-wise, on hindsight I entirely failed to follow the Cairn SRD for how monster descriptions are written. But otherwise I thought I'd start with their stats and follow on with everything else useful to know. For the room descriptions I tried aping the style used in The Dark of Hot Springs Island- which I think was successful in conveying the intents for each room but, to my taste, feels a bit bulky. Of course, with a dungeon filled with puzzles I think this was sort of inevitable, but we'll see if I'll try other styles in the future. 

The last thing I did was the art for the pages and the map- all of which I did through Playscii which I've had a bit of fun working with before.  The art is pretty barebones, but it did feel like it added something to the experience of reading the dungeon- even if it's only intermittent. 

 

Summarizing, that was the basics of the process used to make the Hall of the Five Moons. I enjoyed it but will definitely try a few different things in the future for format and generation. Of the whole dungeon, my favorite part is everything in the Heretic Wing- and especially the Last Word that can be entirely missed in one of the last rooms in the dungeon. The whole process was engrossing enough that I then went and feverishly cracked out Bars Aplenty- which I might chat a bit more about later (1d12 is superior to 2d6 in almost every case for those random tables etc etc).

If anyone runs the Hall of the Five Moons- let me know!

Hall of the Five Moons & Bars Aplenty

The previously mentioned Hall of the Five Moons dungeon is complete and available for download on Itch! I'll chat about it a bit more in the near future. 

HALL OF THE FIVE MOONS

Bars Aplenty, meanwhile, is a colossal 66 page supplement for Barkeep on the Borderlands- one of my favorite modules to come out in the last few years. After catching that there was a barkeep jam going on I set to feverish work and put together 21 new bars to pubcrawl through as well as a variety of miscellaneous other rules and optional additions. 

 

BARS APLENTY

This was a lot of editing and writing for a week and I'm looking forward to a break- but I'll go into some more detail about these two productions in some posts in the near future. For now, I slumber. 

Hall of the Five Moons: Play Report

 

still can't pixel art but I can open Playscii

Recently, I invited some friends together to hang out at the local FLGS and brave the Hall of the Five Moons, a dungeon built for Cairn/ItO that I spent a few days last week on making and am polishing into a somewhat publishable product for the near future. While the session is still somewhat fresh in my head and to take a break from editing the document, here's the [abbreviated] session report.

Note: Since it was a bit of a celebration I had way more people than I usually run for and adjusted some bits of the dungeon on the fly for the 11 or so players. 

It Was Six Hours of Chaos

The players begin with characters rolled up from here heading down a muddy slope [1] in the wilderness, having heard rumors of a rediscovered temple with loot and a wish up for grabs. Immediately before a stone door at the bottom of the slope they halt and discover a tripwire in front of the door. Stepping back and tossing a broken helmet found on the ground, they trigger it and a stone falls from the ceiling where they had been standing. 

surprisingly decent map drawn by the players

 

Inside the room beyond [2], they find several large bronze tubs with pipes connected to them that run across the ceiling to the north. One of the characters (we went through 14 or so, not keeping track) opens it briefly and sees a desiccated figure bathed in blue light, and when the light touched the character they had the moisture drained from their body- so they quickly shut it and everyone agreed to leave the tubs alone. 

Heading up to the northwest [3] they find a bronze tub in the ground filled with bones and the hint of treasure at the bottom- but are wary of the blue light shining from a pipe in the ceiling down on the pit. One of the characters spies a still-humanish body in the pile and grappling hooks it out- only to be nearly killed by it when it wakes up and drinks his blood. The rest of the party kicks it back into the blue light and decide to investigate the attached room after ignoring one player's ingenious idea to tie a shield to their tenfoot pole and block the pipe and light in the ceiling. 

Peeking into [4] they spy all the bronze pipes going into one big, loud machine (dubbed the washing machine) and then exiting into the northeastern door [6]. Unfortunately the room also had seven shambling, listless bone-and-skin desiccated figures milling around, which are attracted by the sounds of a heated discussion amongst the group. The players decide to book it back to the bone pit room and quickly set up a chain at leg-height at the entrance to the room and get their donkey to make some loud noises and attract the desiccated bodies. The plan succeeds and the creatures trip on the chain where they are easily pushed into the pit and go motionless, leading to a few minutes of the party unloading guns, bolts, pointy sticks, and arrows into the pit for good measure.

Back in [4] they examine the machine through an attached tinted glass panel to find it acting as a filter for the water, tumbling now full of rocks, glass, a large bronze key [they quickly identify this is for the door to 6], and an undead python. They decide to leave it alone for now and head to the next room [5].

In [5] they find a pipe apparatus that lets them shut off the water and maneuver blue light from the pipe as necessary, as well as find a mirrored suit in a locker and a Rat Person- which they immediately kill and then awkwardly pass out its hand made bronze flute and locket with its family in it. The looting is interrupted briefly by another adventuring party approaching from 4 who have a cordial conversation and then leave with the gift of the Rat Person's corpse. 

Back in 4 and armed with the mirrored suit, the party opens the machine and grab the key, letting the serpent harmlessly slither off. They use the key on the door to 6 and find a blue orb inside affixed to some pipes that are blasting water being absorbed by the shining blue orb. The mirror suited one [who has been breaking every single door they can to show off how strong they are] detaches it from its fixtures and tucks it in a cloak to shield the light. 

Triumphantly, the party returns to 3 and digs through the bone pit to recover some gems and armor- interrupted only briefly by a sudden attack of Giant Vampire Moths. Confident and looking to unleash blue light on unsuspecting opponents, they head back to 2 and head south down the hallway- first finding a store room with a wheel of cheese [looted] and some other assorted goods. They poke their heads in 9 and see a huge tank of ooze and two ceramic-armored men dunking a rat person in it before they spy the party- and so the party backs off and briefly examines and then opens the hidden path to 8 which is full of brambles that are quickly drained by the blue light. A sudden rush and some floating armor reveals an oncoming Gelatinous Cube that the party runs back to 2 from, with one using a pole to poke the cattle prod in the cube free and another using it to stun and then handily kill the Cube. 

One character drinks a potion of flying, prepared by the party's alchemist, and uses it to examine 10, where they see a pit of black ooze that reveals some valuable items [big gem, ceramic armor, a glass violin] and he nimbly plucks them out of the ooze without getting caught. Meanwhile, the ceramic armored people approach from 9 and reveal themselves to be bloody oozes piloting the armor, and so the party readies for a fight and moves to 2, but instead hears the oozes blocking the door to 2. One character, an alchemist, uses a potion of Two Dimensions to slide under the door and is summarily killed by the ceramics- then re-3D'd in a bloody fountain of gore. 

In 11, the party discovers a giant room with a dark glass basin in the center, gems locked beneath the glass and a script claiming that when the five moons are placed in the fountain a wish will be granted. More interesting to them was the Rat Person mother at a cobbled together item stall. Some awkward discussion of the fate of her husband passes [and some light thieving of the stall, long discussion of rat morality and some opium smoking with the merchant cut here for time] and the party investigates 12, finding murals of different moons and one with a notable indent of an orange blossom in the wall. To the south of the room they hear some light string music, but upon breaking down [literally] the door they find it empty and sound gone. 

Now checking out 14, the party finds a room with a large ceramic press and some barrels of different oozes. Not wishing to risk opening any (aside from one with a glass orange blossom and yellow mold in it that deals heavy damage to the party) they throw them into the press and hit the lever, which breaks everything inside and kills the oozes- with one character tasting the residue and nearly dying. While this was happening, another character was experimenting with the glass violin, which they found made their actions silent, which came in handy as they watched another character lash some wandering desiccated creatures and be immediately swarmed and killed. 

Waiting for the all clear, the party emerges and puts the blossom in the indent in 12, opening a secret door to 15 where they find a fire nozzle in the ceiling as well as a trap designed to trap and burn anything coming from 16- and more Rat People cooking their food. The Rat People flee through a crack in the wall to the north, and the party decides it's time to make Rat Peace and offer the wheel of cheese they'd found- allowing them to meet Rat President Wilhelm who shows them on the map where the other orbs are and tells them of the Violet Light which granted them their Personhood- and warns them of the Exile in 16. 

In 16, a series of levers are attached to more pipes above four cages, one with an angry undead gorilla, one with a Rat Person [the Exile] , one with a pile of bones, and one with a patch of Yellow Mold. Tensions flare [and the night nears its end] and the party begins flipping levers, releasing the Exile who flees west and revealing that the pipes splayed purple light that rapidly evolved the gorilla into a four armed, iron plated, frenzied beast that was slowly breaking out. The shit really hits the fan when one character opens the barred [on this side] door to the northeast [17], revealing a colossal cavern as well as the Violet Orb locked in place in the center. Unfortunately, the commotion from inside the cage room draws the ire of the huge, Blind Violet Dragon in the room which promptly crushes the character in the room and then begins spraying violet flames in 16. Gravity gets reversed, the gorilla gets free, the yellow mold begins rapidly growing as it evolves, one character turns into a giant slug- another a half-raven, another a beetle person, and the players who fled from the dragon and go west find the Exile triggers the trap and cooks them alive. Ultimately, three now transformed characters survived- one clutching the Violet Orb and taking it to the surface to unleash on the world above. 

Results

All in all, it was a good run, a good party, and there was still much more to explore. This is the first proper dungeon I've made and mapped/keyed in advance since the olden Knave campaign and it felt good to scratch that dungeon making itch. As with the cobbled together gif above, I'm scrapping it together into a readable format and it's already swelling my appreciation for those experts that edit and do layout for RPGs. 

It turns out I can really knuckle down on a creative project as long as it's at the sake of procrastinating work on an OTHER one I had meant to be working on.