Checking in at the Ruins of Castle Kazza

Sneaking in one more before the end of the month.

Not much going on here, or is it? The locals report that a band of orcs are squatting in the vacation home of a beloved past king. Might as well go see what sort of mischief they are getting themselves into. 

Or not? 

We visit another one of Daniel Walthall's creations, a small castle in disrepair.

I waffled about how to present this space. It seemed to have a few stories or possibilities to it, similar to my "4 Scenarios" exercises. In the end, instead of changing the occupants and scenario, I kept our somewhat anachronistic band of orcs, and, instead, took inspiration from Daniel's signature random table on each map. So, we have several potential objectives for our orcs, a batch of other NPCs to influence the action, and some random pocket change, as it were....

Download the Ruins of Castle Kazza

 

I hope this inspires some play or threads of other ideas. Enjoy, and stay healthy and safe out there. 

Pyramid of the Restless Eye - A Walthall interpretation

Greetings from CoronaCon2020, Day Whatever.

Doing pretty well here, and hope that you all are safe and sound as well. Trying to keep up fitness, both physical and mental, so regarding the second - a writing exercise for today:

Daniel's Patreon

Ganked another of Daniel Walthall's recent maps - an evocative pyramid, and wrote it up as an objective location with a number of undead guardians that will require negotiation (and potentially a quest) rather than combat to gain information or other desires from the target MacGuffin. It's a bit open-ended, and an eccentric undead has their potential, as do the undead's companions, hopefully.

deviantart.com/kostya-pingwin

So hack and slash your way through the jungle until you reach the Pyramid of the Restless Eye, and find out what Amenhemti is interesting in adding to his collection in exchange for his services.

The Sea Caves of Gara, or where did these mushrooms come from?

Happy viral endtimes!

Like many folks in Seattle, I'm working at home if I'm not out in the field. Likewise, the wife is teaching her university classes remotely, so I hear the dulcet strains of her cursing technology now and then... The commutes have been speedy, and surprisingly, my local grocery has not been stripped of toilet paper. While the PNB performance we were to attend this weekend is cancelled, my improv performance on Tuesday night is (so far) still on.

So, taking a break from staring at construction workplans, and making the brain be creative. Daniel Walthall posted up this evocative sea cave map with a few interesting objects and details, so I wrote a brief scenario using only his illustrations as prompts (with one exception).

Download this fungal fantasy

...and as John Large says, it's not old school if there aren't random mushrooms.

laccaria amethystina
A serendipitous find posted by Greg Gorgonmilk

Come on in, the lava's fine!

Hi!

Damn, I've been unproductive/uncreative for over a month. Blame the seasonal change, family, general malaise, something.

So I needed to hammer out something to get back on the writing horse. Thankfully, and as I've mentions before, Daniel Walthall creates some compact, yet evocative maps of adventure spaces.  And his "Lava Caves of Tarko" popped up on my feed at an opportune time. Again, a good six-room dungeon, with pre-established environmental hazards and a bit of a maze to negotiate...

So I stuck a goal at the end of a maze, and threw in a few incendiary dudes from one of my favorite AD&D modules. The setup is pretty system-neutral, but I did toss in the usage die mechanic from the Black Hack for one item, to perhaps add a bit of tension in its use in a tight spot...

Have at it, and remember to stay hydrated!

Download this hot mess here

Four Trips into Malkara Caverns

It's been a while since I took one map and wrote multiple settings/adventures off of the single space - my '4 Scenarios' exercise. So, I grabbed one of Daniel's maps, this time the Malkara Caverns:

I borked it up with four one-page scenarios, each suitable for a session's play as a side-trip or destination. The cavern has some good geometry, with a scary bridge across a cavern, some side caverns, a subterranean pool, and a secret stash... The little quests are stuffed into a single document for ease, and use the Swords & Wizardry rule-set (but use whatever you like to run). Enjoy, and feel free to hack and comment.

Ella helped.

Download it here

"Sinking Temple of Gorth"

Hi all! Back from a fun weekend at Dragonflight 40, killing monsters and taking their stuff. Played with some familiar faces, met a few new folks, and didn't realize I was rolling with another local blogger until after the fact - good to meet you, JB - your "Random B/X Headgear Generator" is required for all my char-gen.

So, another quick statting of a Daniel Walthall map, this time his "Sinking Temple of Gorth"

So, a couple of design notes- I renumbered the rooms, as the original sequence is out of order (to me). While I populated it with only one set monster and one puzzle/trap, the time pressure of the flooding chambers should provide some good tension (along with whatever wandering stuff tunnels in at an inappropriate moment). And you never know if/when the water flow into the temple will increase...

So take a look, feel free to play/comment/tweak.  Statted out using Swords & Wizardry, but playable/adjustable for any old-ish system.

Exploring "The Abandoned Mine of Delko"

Hi all -

Thanks to MeWe, I discovered a new mapper this week, Daniel F. Walthall. Daniel crafts up generally compact maps of 10 encounter areas or less, suitable for a one-shots, side-quests, or destination adventures, as well as small hamlets, and other locations. A nice feature is that the map layouts include numbered spaces to outline the room contents, as well as a table with suggested challenges at varying party levels, random treasures, NPC names, or adventure seeds.

So go peruse his tumblr of released maps, and support his Patreon if you are so inclined.

I grabbed his "Abandoned Mine of Delko" (one thing I like is that his mines look like mines...) and ripped the map into my own format.

(Original map)

A crew of contract miners has failed to report in from their mountain prospecting, and their employer is eager to discover their fate, and even more eager to recover the ore they were sent to mine.

So grab some mooks, and go check out the goings-on in Delko...

Statted up using Swords & Wizardry critters, and perhaps a Richard J. Leblanc, Jr. spider...