Dungeon Scrawler

Towering above the waves, encrusted with barnacles, a bridge spans the sea, high enough for ships to sail under it, and long enough to disappear into the horizon in either direction. Once a great trade route, now, the tower outposts --stationed every twelve miles or so--are mostly abandoned. The only living evidence of its former grandeur are a few fishing villages built right on the bridge and scaffolded haphazardly onto its columns. They still cheerfully charge a petty toll to those who seek to cross. Inspiration I'm basically ripping this straight from One Piece, but it's a great idea!

Face-stealer 8 HP, 10 STR, 10 DEX, 14 WIL, fists (d4) Their true form is that of a writhing mass of oily black worms, topped with a fleshy, mask like face. More often they wear the form of someone who's face they've stolen. They cannot steal a face against one's will, but instead must receive it through a consensual trade--usually an exchange for information or some object of value. An object received in trade from a Face-stealer is indistinguishable from the real thing by mundane means, and dissolves into a clump of black worms d4 days later. The worms eventually find their way back to the Face-stealer. From the shadows, a figure approaches. What at first seems to be a mass of writhing worms resolves into the silhouette of a human figure, black as pitch, but with a beautiful and pleasant human face. The face smiles at you, and in a bewitching voice as sweet as honey it speaks: "How may I serve you?" Face-stealer is a misnomer, for t...

At regular intervals, white steam billows from the earth. In calm weather, the cloud piles higher and higher in a towering column. As you approach, the forest turns oppressively humid, shrouded in a sweltering fog, before the ground gives way to a sudden drop and a massive sink hole, hundreds of feet wide and of uncertain depth. Commentary I like the idea that there are known places that connect the surface world to the place below. But I also like places like those to be more  than just a simple cave. (Like, if it is  just a cave, I'd like to be a pretty dang cool one at least.) I imagine this particular place leads to an underground, boiling lake, and I imagine a party making their way down with dedicated climbing equipment, absolutely soaked to the bone in sweat, unable to see how much farther they have to travel. What they find next is, of course, up to you and your own personal iteration on the underworld. Back to Wilderness Crawl Index

Oddling 3 HP, 7 STR, 12 DEX, 8 WIL, claw/bite (d4), slingshot (d4) Small, mischevious, grotesque humanoids with a variety of physical mutations. Avoid combat, except to take targets by surprise with numbers. Critical Damage: rather than doing further harm, a nearby Oddling steals a random item from inventory and runs off with it. No one is quite sure where Oddlings come from, though there are many theories. Some think they grow spontaneously from muck and refuse--where else do they get their ragged clothes? Others, with great sophistication, explain that when a gnome's mother tree withers, the whole tribe mutates into Oddling form. Still others think them the result of malign experiments performed on missing children. Wherever they come from, everyone knows an Oddling when they see one: diminutive, dishevelled, and mischievous in the extreme--and with the face of something entirely inhuman. For the Oddlings' part, they don't seem to mind--o...

Deep in the woods there is a great gnarled tree, branches snaking wide, blocking the sun.  Between it's thick, tangled roots is a gaping hole. Peering far into the dark reveals this is no simple animal's den, and footprints in the heavy mud tell you that you won't be alone deep among the roots. Commentary Some trees are just really dramatic, in particular their thick winding roots. Sometimes I've imagined shrinking down and looking between roots like an arch. Whether this be a mini-dungeon or just Level 1 of something bigger, I think it's awesome to stumble into a dungeon in a hexcrawl. In most cases, it's probably ideal for a rumor or hook to point  to that location, but just stumbling into one is pretty sweet, too. (Though if that's really how it's going to be, you might want to go with something smaller or steal from more creative people to save yourself prepping a bunch of stuff that your players may never see.) Or maybe you just needed an idea for a...

Bedrooms, studies--the somewhat personal  spaces where people sleep and think. Here are the rooms: To live would be a great adventure This can be a rabbit-hole if you're not careful. Dungeons do not have  to be completely  realistic spaces--touches of realism are great for immersion and encouraging certain bands of problem-solving. But getting side tracked while drawing your dungeon with questions like "where are the bathrooms?" is probably a high-cost, low-return distraction. Even so, living spaces can be a great inclusion. Aside from boosting the sheer variety of rooms in your space, they do  add some verisimilitude, and  they're a great place for placing characterful loot and lore . The questions to ask are: who built/occupied this space originally? what was their status? worthy of excellent craftsmanship and opulence? or lowly and humble? what was their attitude? ostentatious, or utilitarian? You may also consider the specie...

Bull-frog 8 HP, 1 Armor, 14 STR, 9 DEX, 4 WIL, bite (d8) Huge, hungry, solitary amphibians with thick rubbery skin and curved horns Sluggish unless hungry or it's territory is threatened, then fiercely persistent. Skull bash (d12): launches into a target within 40ft; if the Bull-frog collides with a wall or similar object, it cannot attack on it's next turn as it regains composure. Found in damp and humid places, these huge amphibians boast an impressive bulk and an even more impressive appetite. During the heat of the day, or times of rest, they will submerge themselves in deep water or cool mud, leaving only their eyes and nostrils exposed. Male bull-frogs are solitary and fiercely territorial; when a potential rival enters their territory, they puff up their stretchy throats in an attempted intimidation display. If this doesn't work, the competitors square up, cock their powerful legs, and crash their thick skulls into each other until some...

Deep in the woods there is a wall. If not for the trees, you would probably see it long before you reach it, for it towers above their boughs, and its depth is that of longboat. The stones are weathered, but large as boulders. Once, the wall might have spanned a hundred miles, but now it's crumbling remnants snake across a measly six, with ruined gaps every mile or so. Perhaps the stones have long since been carried off for other projects. Elsewhere, the stones are tumbled to the earth and overgrown--certainly in places moss and tree have reclaimed the wall so successfully that you could be forgiven for thinking it was only a natural cliff or rise blocking your path. It is inadvisable to linger near this wall, however. Bandits have been known to claim it's heights for their own purposes, and lurking predators can be found from time to time lairing in barely preserved tunnels along the wall's base. Inspiration There are two here: First, I'm sure everyone knows the Great ...

I'm pleased with my previous take on Spellbook magic. ...yet, at the same time, something inside me says it's too  detailed. Or perhaps, too "hard"; Brandon Sanderson is famous for (if not inventing the idea) popularizing the idea of "hard" vs "soft" magic systems. The explanations I proposed before definitely constitute a hard magic system. There's nothing strictly wrong with that, of course, it's just that everything else  about Cairn is so pro-abstraction. Other things in Cairn feel  "soft".  Mind you, this isn't a criticism; Cairn is quite practical--the focus is on good gameplay. But my motivation was to come up with a sort of coherent understanding of magic. I think I definitely did that (or at least about 80% of it), I just, y'know, wanted to do it again . In part to hew closer to the "spirit" of Cairn, but also, in part, to demonstrate that these things are malleable, and one person's explanation nee...

All things considered, I'm surprised this one took as long to materialize at it has. The topic began bubbling in my mind when I wrote my room post on Animal Rooms . I will repeat some of what I said there, but I realized I could say more, so get comfortable, because there's a lot more to say. So let's talk about monsters. Here there be monsters Why do dungeons have monsters? Resist the urge to get wistful and metaphorical (what is  a "monster", anyways?), I don't write this blog to lift your mind to new places (for one, based on my actual qualifications that would feel pretentious), I write it to give you practical tools. Simply put, "monsters" are there to: Present a challenge. We're not just walking around a museum, right? Monsters are a source of tension and excitement, and an impetus for problem solving. Explain why the loot hasn't been carried off already. If this was just a dusty basement surely someone would have come through here alre...

Within the last day or so, this blog crossed 25,000 views! Another milestone and source of encouragement. Thank you so much for reading and your comments. It really keeps me going. I started this blog for me; I found myself stuck without a particular kind of resource I wanted to have handy, so I decided to start building that resource. That work continues! And I'm happy that it seems to be resonating with people. Based on the categories of Dungeon Rooms I've worked out, I am expecting to put out about eight more Room posts. You may have noticed that my pace has slowed--that's partly  life  and partly just hitting that part of a project where the initial "honeymoon period" passes and the remainder is simply work. It's harder these days to drum up sufficient inspiration, but I have no intention of quitting!  It's hard to say how much longer the Index will take. A couple of weeks per room type would be a good steady pace, but that's more like a lower-boun...

This is a bit of an idle musing I wanted to put out into the world. In Cairn, magic is generally carried out in three ways. (More like two and a half really.) You've got spellbooks, scrolls (that's the half), and relics. Today's thoughts are all about those spellbooks and scrolls. Mechanical justification vs. diagetic justification For good, very OSR flavored, gamey reasons, spells in Cairn are contained within a single spellbook that occupies a slot. Casting a spell requires some level of safety, holding the spellbook open in both hands, and filling another  slot with Fatigue. That's more than enough for a good time, and we don't have to think about it any harder.  But , my brain is the sort that looks at this and says.... why though? I don't mean "why would you design it this way", the only reason needed for that is "it makes the game fun in the particular way we want it to be", but I do imagine some people with a stronger variant of my par...

Arenas, combat pits, and coliseums. Places where duels, battles, and similar sport take place! Here are the rooms: Let them fight Perhaps it's a bit contrived to set an arena or coliseum in a dungeon. Given how much of classic dungeon crawling entails fighting monsters, what, we stumble into a formal space for fighting monsters ? Especially considering how much classic dungeon crawling entails avoiding  monsters, are we really just going to waltz into an arena and face on down? Well, maybe! But really, I think there are a two main ways to think about an arena in a dungeon: In current use . This arena is a place where a local dungeon faction stages fights for sport. These bouts may be friendly (or at least non-lethal), or may entail setting up captured intruders to duel the factions' local champion. Perhaps the faction keeps a monstrous "pet" and feeds victims to it. Long abandoned and repurposed.  Just like our Great Halls from a previous post, this large open space ...