Friday, March 29, 2024

Five Visits to the Temperance Stone

Another "four scenario" project that became five scenarios... Dyson threw out this five-room dungeon some time ago, and it lived in my map repository until I needed a fun project. 

Source

Again, it was meant to be a "four scenario" exercise, but I had a few spare area descriptions that made it an even five (not the first time this has happened). The rooms are described in a brief, tabular format without much elaboration. This is meant to be a location to be stumbled upon, or as a couple of the scenarios imply, perhaps a location where the party can visit to be granted healing or other gifts. And, of course, a couple are just nasty. Enjoy:) 

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A note on the art. The standing stone drawings in the document are by Scottish archeologist and naturalist Frederick Coles. As part of his position at the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, Coles received support to survey and measure standing stone locations throughout Scotland. Through his career in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, he created one of the first catalogues of standing stone circles in the country. 


The bio notes that Coles would take his children along on these trips after his wife's death and would utilize them as field assistants. I'd just like to highlight this photograph of Coles and four of his children on one of his survey trips:


Based on the posture and expression of the young lady in the forefront, it's comforting to know that teen boredom and disdain has endured throughout the ages. "Daaaaddd! We go measure your stupid rocks every summer! Can't we go somewhere fun for a change?"

Anyway, have an enjoyable Easter weekend, for those celebrating the holiday. Looks to be a pleasant weekend here - hope to move around outside in one manner or another.

Also will be running a Deathbringer one-shot through Meetup this week, so printing out copies of the rules and figuring out which hole to send the erstwhile adventurers down. The usual campaign game will fire up again after the holiday. I'm sure that it will be a peaceful, uneventful session... ;)

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing! And thanks for bringing Frederick Coles work to my attention...

    As for the tabulated format, I tried something like this in my Parallel Dungeons. With the twist that these are not alternative adventures, but a single adventure where the party is given a dimension shifting device so that they can travel between the various versions of the dungeon. https://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2022/08/parallel-dungeons-dimension-shifting.html

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    1. Thanks! I'll look at your adventure - might be a fun concept to try. I've used the tabular format a couple of times. It works for these small areas, plus keeps the descriptions terse...
      Coles was a serendipitous find while searching for images on Wikimedia. It's always fun to learn about a new artist/individual and bring them to peoples' attention.

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