Divine Patronage: A Separate System for Party Advancement

In the past, I've written about why parties should have their own character sheet.  The party sheet can track reputation, how noisy they are in the dungeon (i.e. how fast they advance the Underclock), shared resources, hirelings, et cetera.

I've been sort of pondering how to include party advancement, or party level-ups, into the party sheet system, but I never had a solid concept until I re-read these posts by Bret Devereaux on ancient polytheism and I think it clicked into place.  

• The characters level up by going into dungeons and getting treasure.  
• The party levels up by gaining the support of the gods.

Ancient polytheism wasn't about morals, it was about pleasing the gods so that they'll do things for you.  (Or at least, so that they'll refrain from doing bad things to you.)  You sacrifice to Poseidon not because you love Poseidon and align with his morals, but because you are bargaining with him.  "If I give you this bull, you won't sink my ship on the way to Athens, right?"  

It's results-based.  

And it's also subtle.  If you have clear sailing on the way to Athens, is that because Poseidon approves of your trip, or is it just good luck?

This creates a third way that a character can be good at something.

1. You improve your skill.  +1 lockpicking.
2. You get better lockpicks.  +1 lockpicking.
3. The god of locks is pleased with the party.  -1 to lockpicking DC.

You'll notice that these three options vary in liquidity.  If you improve your lockpicking skill, you can't share that with anyone else.  But if you have magic lockpicks, those can be given to someone else.  And if the god of locks is pleased with the party, then everyone benefits.

They're also different in terms of continuity.  Skills die with their owner, while magic items can be passed to the next character.  And a god's favor is functionally a permanent bonus to the whole party in perpetuity, which allows for a kind of permanent, party-wide progression.

There's also a sort of mythic resonance to it.  By the time party reaches high level and saves the world, they'll probably have many sorts of divine favor.  In many myths, the heroes are only able to do great things because they have the favor of the gods.

The October Horse? 
By © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

The Divine Patronage System

Throughout the city of Lon Barago, and in the dungeon beneath it, there are various churches, shrines, and altars.  Here are some of the gods you might find:

• Ashurbandus - God of War and Wine - Initiative Rolls
• Parshekkis - God of Hugeness - Breaking Doors, Bending Bars, etc.
• Trasmiel - Goddess of Locks, Knots, & Hair - Locks 
• Asmot - Goddess of Death and Disease - Death Saves
• Phosmora - Goddess of Gold & the Underworld - The Underclock
• Ephora - Goddess of the Hearth - Spirit
  

And of course, there are also altars set up to the king of Lon Barago.  You can make sacrifices at these altars, too.

• Calderion - King of Lon Barago - Negotiating with the Authorities

Make a significant sacrifice and you get a small boon.  The sacrifice can be something like offering a magic sword to the church as a gift, or making a donation of at least (3d6 *100) silver.  (You can make the roll after the players donate the silver.)

Do a great service for the deity and get a major boon.  This is probably a bespoke quest, based on the dungeon at hand.

If you ever do something awful, these bonuses can invert into similar penalties.  Examples of awful actions: desecration of a shrine, stealing a god's property, blasphemy, atheism.

Boons of Ashurbandus, God of War

(Note: I use flat group initiative.  Everyone rolls Wisdom against DC 15.   The average stat is +4, so this is roughly a coin flip.  Everyone who wins initiative acts first.  Then all the monsters act.  Then the sides just alternate from there.)

Minor - DC for Initiative checks is now 14.

Major - DC for Initiative checks is now 13.

Most other gods have similar boons to this.

Boons of Phosmora, Goddess of the Underworld

(Note: normally the Underclock starts at 20 and counts down.)

Minor - The first time you enter the dungeon, the first Underclock starts at 25.  Afterwards, the Underclock starts at 20, as usual.

Major - As above, except the first Underclock starts at 30.

Boons of Ephora, Goddess of the Hearth

Minor - +1 Spirit.

Major - +2 Spirit.

Since Spirit is basically a HP pool that the whole party shares, this is essentially more HP for the whole party.

Boons of Calderion, King of Phosmora

Minor - It is now easier to negotiate with guards and other royal personages (including the king).  Reduce these checks down to DC 13.

Major - DC 11.

You might point out that this is just normal gift-giving.  Of course the king will look more favorably on people who give him gifts.  There's nothing divine about someone treating you better after you've been showering them with gifts and praise.

My response would be: yes, exactly.  This is how it works for all of the gods, not just the king.  The only difference is that the king is still alive.  Both gods and kings can ruin your life with a wave of their hand.  There's less functional difference there than you might think.

Discussion

You can just write the new DCs on the same whiteboard that you use to list the Underclock.  That way the players have clear and visible proof that they are (1) advancing in a cool diagetic way, and (2) legitimately favored by the gods.

It's also worth mentioning that this is pretty easy to implement in my games because pretty much everything uses fixed DCs.  If a lock can be picked at all, the DC is 15.  If you have wildly variable door locks in your game, you can't just write the singular DC on the whiteboard because you don't have a singular DC for all locks.  (I also think that lowering fixed DCs in the easiest way to implement divine favor.  The other way would be to tell everyone that they get +1 to pick locks on this character and all future characters, which seems like one more fiddly stupid +1 that I would hate to track if I was a player.)

This also is a good mechanism for getting players to care about the different gods of your setting.  And if you're anything of a history nerd, this might soothe the part of your brain that chafes at all the incorrect polytheism that you see in D&D all the time.

Like, even the evil gods (Like Asmot, goddess of death and disease) should be respected and honored.  Ares and Hades are evil gods (sort of--they were definitely unpleasant gods) but were still worshipped by the Greeks.

Another thing I like about this system is that keeps the effects of divine favor relatively subtle.  Is the party having better luck picking locks because they've gotten better or because Trasmiel is smiling on them?  Or is it self-fulfilling, where the sacrifice to Trasmiel gives them the confidence to pick locks better?

I assume that this works diagetically.  If you made a big sacrifice to Ares and then go on to kick ass on the battlefield, you would probably assume that he is smiling on you.  So both the characters and the players share an understanding.

Lastly, I haven't spent too much time talking about the game design side of this, but please note that this system is both (1) permanent, and (2) party-wide, including new characters.

Getting +1 Initiative is not a huge bonus, but if the whole party gets it forever, it's huge.

Because future characters get it, too, it helps support troupe play.  Players are also incentivized to switch characters, since some of their "level ups" are now shared across all characters.  It also means that dying is a little less painful, since not all of their character advancement is lost--you get to keep your divine favor when you roll a new character.

One more thing: the gods are local.  So when you leave Lon Barago and cross the mountains and do some other megadungeon there, you need to start over with new gods, and rebuild divine favor there.  (You don't have to do it this way, but it's how I plan to implement it.)  This is basically a dungeon-specific form of leveling up.  This topic probably deserves its own blog post, but this can be desirable if you want (a) players to feel like they are mastering a specific location, not just their own character build, and (b) you want to allow a small power reset, if you have powerful character leave one area and go into another.

(Digression: I've often wondered if WoW would be better served by something like this.  Instead of having constantly higher and higher levels, followed by level squish, just have a character level and then a zone level.  Like, you're a badass in Outlands but you need to learn how to fight Shadowlands enemies separately.)

One last note: I've limited myself to a pretty modest implementation here.  +1 Initiative is not going to break your game.  But you could easily expand this to bigger aspects of progression.  What if you could get up to +4 to hit by making sacrifices to the God of War?  You could balance it out a little by reducing the amount of to-hit bonus you get from your class, sure, but the net effect is that the focus of the game becomes making big sacrifices to gods.  Since these bonuses are party-wide, it's sort of like everyone leveling up together.

One more knob to turn, when designing a game.

Gender Among the Elves

There are only two genders: male and female.

Men are strong, stoic, brave.  They protect the weak and build great things.

Women are sensitive, kind, and insightful.  They nurture and teach, and are more skilled in the arts of magic.

You will see this dichotomy reinforced throughout all elven societies.  Of course, not every elven enclave is the same, but the certainly follow certain trends.  Let's consider the elves of the Yavanelya forest.

(Digression: Note that we are mostly talking about high elves (a.k.a. low elves) and wood elves.  Half-elves aren't really true elves since most of them were born human, and while true elves often do without the cumbersome rigors of biology in the first place.  Here's a primer.  Here's more.)

Gender Among the Yavanelya Elves

Elven women are not permitted to be soldiers.  Elven men are not permitted to instruct children.  There are many professions that are limited to one gender in this way.  It is not elven laws that regulate this, but social pressures.  There is a right and a wrong way to do things, as everyone knows.

While there are not many children among the elves these days, most are in agreement that girls are easier to raise than boys, and so most elven mothers choose to have daughters exclusively.  The ratio of daughters to sons is something like twenty to one.

Among the Yavanelya, daughters are born during peacetime, while sons are born during wartime.  Because the society sees itself as eternally peaceful, they only ever birth daughters.  

Everyone knows that boys will get into more trouble that girls since they are more rambunctious, and yet most parents would prefer that their children experience both genders before they leave home.  While it varies between families, most elven children transition into boys for at least a few years in later adolescence.  

This time is seen as essential to the Yavanelya elves.  It takes time to learn how to perform the norms of each gender, and parents usually see themselves as the best ones to guide this process.  An adult male elf must be easily, effortlessly masculine.  The same can be said for elven women.

Sometimes parents transition along with their eldest children, in order to guide them during this confusing time.  A young elf might have two mothers when she is female, and two fathers when he is male.  (However, this is seen as over-indulgent by most Yavanelya elves.  It is more common among the smaller elven clans of the frozen south.)

Since boys are naturally rambunctious and girls are naturally docile, it is usually a sign of trust when a young elf is allowed to transition to male.  Younger elves who are seen as rebellious are usually not allowed to transition until they are seen as mature enough.

Adult elves vary in their own preferences.  Some prefer one gender over one another, but the majority of elves will prefer to spend time as both genders throughout the year.  Most elves have extensive wardrobes, with different outfits for each gender and each of the six seasons.

The most popular time to be a woman is in the warmest and the coldest seasons (estival and hibernal), since it allows elves to show the most skin and also affords the largest, most complex outfits.  (Women are the beautiful gender--men are more utilitarian, as everyone knows.)

And of course, changing your gender too frequently is seen as dramatic and self-absorbed.  A serious adult elf always has a good reason for changing their gender.  (Although sometimes that reason is just that there is a party that you need to go to, and your date is refusing to change their gender, so you did the noble thing and changed yours.)

Keeping Up Appearances

Elves have always had a tremendous amount of control over their appearances, with both simple illusory techniques as well as biologic ones.  Since elves can change their appearances as easily as changing clothes, this has led to increasingly refined beauty fashions, with everyone wishing to adhere to specific beauty norms while also being different enough from everyone else, and also not seeming like they're trying too hard.  (Elves spend a great deal of time in these pursuits.)

Biologic sex is a bit more complicated than changing the bones in your face, or regrowing a set of teeth after they become a bit yellow, but it is still a short process.  About 48 hours, for young elves.  (Older elves transition slower.)

Similar to gender, elves also choose their facial features in order to evoke certain personalities.  A broad chin to seem course and blunt.  A slender waist to seem erudite.  Large eyes to seem sensitive.  

In a way, it's no different from a human putting on a wedding dress, business suit, or little black dress.  Everything is effectively costume.  Changing your gender is somewhere between changing your clothes and changing your name.  Certainly not something you do flippantly, but also something that clearly has its place.  

Which makes it sometimes difficult for elves to interact with humans.  Of course elves know that humans can't control their appearances, but it still feels grating to see them behaving so out-of-sorts.  A bit like a race of creatures that can't help but wear business suits to the beach, or wedding dresses to the nightclub.  Sure, you can do those things, but how are humans not uncomfortable all of the time? 

To an elf, the life of a human seems to be both unbearable uncomfortable and boorish.  A human's life is uncomfortable because their genders are fixed, even when circumstances demand one gender over another.  (How can anyone go to a funeral while male?  Mourning is essential at a funeral, for both the individual and the family, and yet men cannot cry.  It is both uncomfortable and unhealthy.)  And humans are boorish because they break natural laws constantly.  Human males do in fact cry at funerals.  It's embarassing.  Men don't cry.

An Elven Myth

It was in the early days, before the other races were created, that the Authority first created the elves.

Elves loved beauty and hated war, and so they all remained as women, and there were no men, and no babies were born to them.

And so the Authority, in His wisdom, created menstruation, in order to vex the elves and drive some of them to embrace maleness for some of the time, so that the beautiful and wonderful elves would not die out.

Eventually, the elves discovered remedies and palliatives, and menstruation ceased to vex them.

It was then that the Authority created the lesser races, in order to bring war to the elves.

While the lesser races could never truly challenge the authority of the Firstborn, it was sufficient to drive many of the elves into manhood, for the bravery and wit of men was required to revitalize their glades, which had grown too placid in those halcyon days.

Thus were the elves renewed, forever and ever.

The Imanteur

Once there was a type of dress called the imaunteur which became enormously, overwhelmingly popular.  Everyone wanted to be seen in one.  Since men cannot wear dresses, nearly the entire population of the Yavanelya became female for the entire serotinal season.  

This was entirely untenable, of course.  Many of the masculine jobs were neglected entirely.  (During the season of the imanteur it was nigh impossible to find a decent jeweler!) 

The patriarchs immediately ordered their finest fashionistas to design newer, compelling male fashions in order to restore the harmony.  They were quickly successful, of course, since it is not hard to convince elves to adopt a new fashion.

Still, many elves of the Yavanelya still have an imanteur dress in their closet, and think back fondly to the serotinal season when the entire nation was female.  What a fun time that was!

(The patriarchs would never pass laws to control the population.  Such barbarism would restrict their freedom, and might make some elves feel uncomfortable.)

Relationships

Elves are monogamous, and their marriages are eternal.  Divorces are unpleasant things, and so they are not performed.  You'll only ever see divorces occurring in less developed societies, among the less-developed races.  (However affairs are common.  Among the Yavanelya, they could even been seen as normative.  The marital love is the one that is performed and described, but the adulterous love is the one that is felt but never spoken of.  But of course affairs have their own set of rigid social conventions that exist outside the scope of this blog post.)

Elves court and eventually marry.

At formal events, it is absolutely expected that they present as a man and woman.  They may switch from time to time, but same-sex couples are seen as disgusting.

In private, though, all sorts of things are done, and elves are nothing if not respectful of each other's privacy.  In civilized society, direct questions are brutish and rude.  Direct questions about the inner workings of another elf's marital relationship are obscene.

And of course, there are perfectly good reasons why two elves might need to both be male at the same time.  Perhaps they have health issues when they are a certain gender.  Or perhaps they have some other significant obligation that requires them to be one gender over another.  

Pregnancy

Very few elves want to be pregnant.  And there is very little social pressure to have children.  Quite the opposite, actually.

One big social reason to avoid pregnancy is because it locks you into a female body for a long period of time.  A second reason is that birth and nursing are social "fixatives".  While an elf might change genders many times in their life, elves who gave birth and nursed an infant are seen as slightly feminized forever.

No matter if they spend the rest of their lives as a man, they'll forever been seen as someone's mother.  And while elven society holds women in lower regard than men, it's even worse to be seen as static and unchanging.  Not only is it unfashionable, but beastly.  It's seen as something more animalistic--not "dirty" but definitely something that debases you.

Legal Status

The Yavanelya are led by patriarchs.  Even if some of them happen to be women this month, it is clear that they are patriarchs, since they were crowned as kings.  Women obviously cannot rule, since they are too irrational.  

If one of the patriarches happens to make a pronouncement while they are female, it is not legally binding.  However, everyone knows that they are one long weekend away from reverting to their masculine posture (this the legal term), and so the decrees from female patriarchs tend to be effected de facto, even though they are not obligatory de jure.

While elven women have fewer rights than elven men, this is hardly ever relevant given the ease of transitioning.

However, there one place where the difference is not negligible.  Male witnesses are legally held to be more trustworthy than female witnesses.  If an elf witnessed an event while female, their testimony is not held to the same standard as if they had been a man at the time of the witnessing, even if they later transition to male prior to the trial (in order to improve the logic of their mind).

Most elves have one gender that they prefer over another.  (Although it is a rare elf who lives their whole life as one gender.)  Upon death, they are assigned their preferred gender, even if they die while they are the non-preferred gender.  This is what goes on their tombstone (or ashakka) and how they are spoken of for all future discussions.

Other Races

To other races, elves sometimes seem a little androgynous to begin with.  (Although most elves would be very offended if you told them they looked androgynous.)  Elven men and women both have similar heights and builds.  They both love beautiful things.  

Elven culture seems highly gendered.  At a social gathering, elven women will always pour the drinks, while elven men will never touch a teapot.

Some elves will make allowances for the lesser races.  If a human woman raises a bow, it is not such an abominable thing.  Humans are frail and inflexible in their natures.  As the "elder brother" to humanity, elves have a duty to gently steward the younger race in matters of propriety, dignity, and morality.  It is difficult for humans to behave morally--they are stubborn and foolish, and they have so little time to mature out of their foolishness.  They are eternally children, putting their shoes on the wrong feet and laughing at it.

Other elves are more abrasive in their paternalism towards the lesser races.  If humans wish to behave like animals (e.g. women wearing pants, men crying) then they will be treated like animals.

Humans aren't always aware that elves can change genders over the weekend (especially since many humans think of half-elves when they think of "elves").  Reactions to their discovery to the contrary are mixed.

However, humans are often surprised by how different elves seem between their different genders.  Their elven friend Alyste might be pleasant and supportive when they are female on Friday, and yet be mocking and sharp when they are male on Monday.

Although this shouldn't be too surprising.  Elves see their natures are flexible and able to rise to any need.  Elves will change their personalities along with their clothing.  (Humans do much of the same thing, but tends to be smaller and more subconscious.)

How to Use This in Your Game

This blog post isn't really game content.  This blog post is more like speculative fiction minus the fiction.  It came from the idea of "Can you have a misogynist patriarchy where everyone is trans?"

If you think that your table would have fun with the ideas presented here (or in the Dwarven gender post) then you should incorporate into your game as much or as little as would be best.  And of course, this topic cuts very close to real world politics, so deploy this secret elven lore carefully.

But, hopefully this post is also encouragement for other people who will have other good ideas.  There's tons of creative people out there writing creative game worlds with creative societies, but it's pretty rare to see gender be a part the creative world building process.  I think we usually just take it for granted.

Be of Good Cheer

The party has a shared resource called Spirit.  This is confidence or good cheer.  A party gains Spirit by (1) resting in safe places, (2) being entertained, (3) eating good food, (4) having NPC friends, (5) taking a bath.  A low-level party might have 5 Spirit when they go into a dungeon.

At any time, any party member can spend Spirit to reduce incoming damage by 1d4 for each Spirit spent this way.  If you get double 4s, you also get a +4 bonus on your first d20 roll next turn.  You can only spend Spirit if you are with the group.  You can spend Spirit to reduce incoming damage that would normally kill you (and in fact, this is probably the best way to spend Spirit).

So, spirit kind of functions like a second, shared HP pool for the whole group.  

As a corollary, clerics are no longer a base class.  (Yes, this is another anti-cleric push.  Sorry.)

Why Clerics Suck

1. It often feels obligatory.  Lots of groups think that they need a healer.
2. Groups often do need a healbot.  Sometimes an unlucky PC takes a big lump of damage and they need a heal.
3. It isn't very fun for most players to be the healbot.
4. Lots of adventures expect you to have a healer/cleric in order to remove curses, etc.

This blog post is mostly a fix for #1 and #2.  The goal is to make healing accessible to the party through a shared resource, not a single PC that someone feels obligated to play.  Clerics shouldn't be a core class like Fighter / Thief / Wizard.

As for #3 ("It isn't fun to be the healbot.") some of you are probably already saying "But I love playing healers" and "It's not boring to be the cleric--it's actually very interesting and fun to manage the party's HP".  I won't disagree with you.  (How can you disagree with an opinion?)  But I will say that I think that most groups don't always have someone like you in them.

I also think healers can be cool!  White mages are cool.  Flesh god healers are cool.  But I almost see those as optional classes.

With regards to #4 ("You need a cleric to remove curses, negative levels, possession, etc"), I disagree a lot.  I don't think it's good adventure design if your adventure needs a specific class feature to progress past an obstacle.

Other Design Goals

. . . besides removing the need for clerics.

#1 Make It Grittier

I almost hate to use the word "gritty" nowadays because it means too many different things to too many different people, but I do think that if you have a magical healer walking behind you who can heal you after you get stabbed in the chest, threats feel a little less threatening.

Because Spirit functions as a second HP pool, we can allow player HP pools to be a little smaller.  I think the game "feels" grittier if you have less HP (relative to monster damage).  It might be less lethal (depending on how much Spirit the party has) but it might "feel" more lethal.

#2 More Visibility of the Resource

Not everyone knows how many heals the cleric has left, so they don't have good knowledge of how much delving they can safely do.  

This is bad!  Dungeoncrawling is closely tied to resource management.  Resources like torches, spells, and HP.  The number of healing spells that your cleric has available is another resource like those--it's just confined to a single person's character sheet (even if the cleric's heals are effectively a resource shared by the whole party).

I recommend putting the party's Spirit up somewhere visible, like the Underclock.  Perhaps a small whiteboard?

#3 Diagetic Character Power Advancement

The party doesn't gain Spirit by leveling up.  They gain Spirit by building bases, making friends, finding a stream to take a bath in.  Engaging with the world.

And this is something that happens naturally, not mechanically.  (Relatively naturally, I mean.  "I take a bath and gain 1 Spirit" is more naturalistic than "I gain 350 XP and level up.")

#4 Encourage the Players to Make NPC Friends and Go to the Coliseum

Mechanical encouragement for roleplaying.  Some people hate it.  I think you just have to do it lightly.

#5 Encourage the Players to Build Bases Outside of Dungeons

Basically necessary, if they want more Spirit.  Note that they'll probably want to build some small fortification outside of every dungeon they intend to delve repeatedly.  It might take more than 1 trip, require some hirelings (guards, cooks).  This is probably worth a few rules of its own, actually.

#6 More Opportunities for Roleplaying

We don't normally have a good yardstick for "How happy is my character today?" but if a player wants to have an idea for how chipper they are feeling that day, they could use the current Spirit as a benchmark.

Also, all that diagetic stuff up above gives the DM more opportunities to world build.  If the party wants to go see a play (in order to be entertained)

The Specifics

The party can get different amounts of Spirit from different things.

Safety - Up to 3 Spirit.  0 for a tent.  1 for a tree-house.  3 in a castle that you own.

Entertainment - Up to 2.  1 if you have your own bard, visit a brothel, go to Church, etc.  2 if the whole party does something new together for the first time (e.g. go see a play).

Food - Up to 2 Spirit.  Good meal -> Amazing meal.

Companionship - Up to 2 Spirit.  If you hang out with 1 or 2 friends*, you get 1 Spirit.  More: 2 Spirit.

Cleanliness - You get 1 Spirit if you've taken a bath since your last dungeoncrawl.

* Friends are NPCs that you hang out with because they're cool and you like them on a personal level, not because they pay you, give you quests, or cure your curses.  

You get Spirit after you eat a healthy dinner and get a good night's sleep.  If you are attacked at night and someone is hurt, you get no Spirit.

Gaining Spirit overlaps (does not stack) with previous Spirit.  If you gain 5 Spirit in town, spend 2 Spirit on the way to the dungeon, and then go to sleep outside the dungeon where you gain 4 Spirit, you will enter the dungeon with 4 Spirit.

Optional Rules

Ghosts and other undead shit can't hurt your HP, but they can lower your Spirit.  (Which is really just attacking a different HP pool.  Yes, this is analogous to ghosts removing healing surges.)

If a fighter gets double 3s on their Spirit roll, they heal for an additional +3.  This can't trigger more than once per turn.

You can probably do some fun interactions here with drugs, like giving everyone high Spirit but with huge downsides (e.g. everyone fails all Initiative checks).

Final Notes

1. It's easier to gain Spirit in town than it is in the wilderness.  Because of this, a party will usually be more chipper on the first day of dungeoncrawling than on subsequent days.  I like this.  It makes dungeoncrawling feel a bit more naturalistic, and gives parties a good reason to go back to town.

2. This caps out at 10 Spirit, for an average of 25 HP.  (Or 40 HP if it is only used by fighters, and only two Spirit at a time.)  This. . . is actually a lot of HP.

10 HP of healing is generally better than an additional 10 HP spread across the whole party's maximum HP, because targeted healing is more useful.  Like, if your 4-person party had to choose between everyone getting +1 HP, or being able to prevent 4 HP of incoming damage, the second choice tends to be much stronger since it can be applied exactly where it is needed.

If and when you implement Spirit in your own system, you should tweak it as needed.  Consider (1) if there are alternate sources of easy clerical healing, or if Spirit is a replacement, (2) how spikey the incoming damage is, or if it tends to be spread across everyone equally, (3) how the size of the spirit pool compares the base class HP.

You might also want to consider scaling the size of the Spirit die for high level characters.  I play GLOG, so all the characters cap out at level 4 with 10-20 HP, but it you are playing higher level games with higher character HP, your players might eventually need more healing than just a few dinky d4s.

Secret Santicorn 2025: Two Forges

 The Forge of Yakul

Yakul was obliterated, and his temples were sunk.  Memories of the dead god were struck from the souls of men.  A heavy punishment was levied on Yakul, for he strove mightily against the Authority in the early days of the First Temple.

Yakul is merely a curiosity nowadays, and a testament to the strength of the Authority.  Even today, the obliterations still hold their force.  Learn a prayer of Yakul and it will vanish from your mind by morning.  You can walk among the ruins, and learn the history of the place, but knowledge of Yakul is evanescent.  It flees before the dawn.  The only way to remember anything about Yakul is to write it down.

And so the ruins have become a shrine to memory, of sorts.  People now go there and pray to Yakul in order to remember.  Others make offerings to forget.  Some of those who are struck by diseases of memory go there to be healed, and others go there to study them.  The unspoken rule is that everything must be written down, because among the ruins of Yakul, new memories are forever vanishing, while written words persist.

The forge of Yakul was discovered intact, 180 years ago.  The Authority destroyed the temple and obliterated its priests, but the forges were hidden in a mountain, and so survived.  But the same compunctions of that obliteration weaken the mind but also reinforce the written language.  And so it is that the forge of Yakul can now forge weapons into books.

You'll need a weapon, a book, and a skilled blacksmith who does not possess perfect mental health.  Each blacksmith can only use the Forge of Yakul only once.

When you successfully forge the weapon into the book, roll a d4.  If it doesn't make sense, go up to the next number that does make sense.  If *that* makes no sense, pick.

1. The book describes what the sword is best suited to doing outside of combat.

2. The book describes how the sword deals damage.

3. The book describes who would be best able to use this magic sword.

4. The book describes the conditions that empower the sword.

5. The book describes what the magic sword's goals are in the world.  Give it a random magic power.

How to Use This in Your Game

Your players have probably been finding libraries full of cool books since level 1.  This forge gives them a place that they can finally use those books.

If you want, you can limit this to spellbooks only.

Goblin Slop Forge

Why do you want a good thing?  Good things are hard to make!  It's much better to have a LOT of things QUICKLY!

Come to the goblin slop forge!  We've used our sniffentific methods to "ingest" lots of "data", so that we can quickly make whatever you want!  It's great!  We've completely replaced all blacksmiths everywhere!  (Sorry, blacksmiths!)

You no longer need to be good at making something to make it!  Which is great because we're all shitty blacksmiths and we can make swords ten times faster than regular blacksmiths!  That's because. . . 

. . .we know how the slop forge works!

The Slop Forge is super magical!  No one knows how it works!  We made the thing and not even we know how it works!  Sometimes we think that it's becoming self-aware, and might want to kill us, but that's okay!  We can make SO MANY MAGIC SWORDS SO QUICKLY!  We can make a sword FASTER THAN YOU CAN SHIT YOUR PANTS*!!!1!11

Here's how it works:

1. You give us a magic sword.  It doesn't have to be a sword.

2. The Goblin Slop Forge will "ingest" it.  I *know* what it looks like, but seriously don't judge us.

3. Using modern sniffientific techmogolies, the Slop Forge will "hallucinate" 1d4+1 copies of the magic sword you gave us through a process called "diffusion" because of how wet and loud it is. 

4. You give us the "tokens" (i.e. money) and we'll give you the magic swords!  Guaranteed* to be artifact-free!

If we smash more magic swords in there we can probably get more than the usual 1d4+1 that we normally get, but you'll need to sign a waiver**.

*A sword guaranteed**** faster than you can shit your pants, or the sword is free.

**Sometimes

***A waiver is kinda like a pig that only goblins can make.  Sometimes the forge blows up when we put a lot of swords in there, so we just kinda want to get your signature before you die.  I dunno, the boss is making a collection or something.

****Lol, no.

DISCLAIMER: MAGIC SWORDS GENERATED THROUGH "DIFFUSION" HAVE A 2-in-6 CHANCE OF BREAKING WHENEVER THEY ARE USED.  IF MORE THAN 1D4+1 MAGIC SWORDS ARE MADE AT A TIME, THE BREAKAGE CHANCE WILL BE HIGHER.  MAGIC SWORDS MADE THROUGH "DIFFUSION" ALSO PROBABLY CAUSE CANCER OR SOMETHING.  WE'RE NOT SURE AND WE'RE NOT KEEPING THE SWORDS HERE LONG ENOUGH TO FIND OUT.  

TAKE THE SWORDS WITH YOU WHEN YOU LEAVE.  DO NOT LEAVE THE NEW "DIFFUSION" SWORDS BEHIND.  THEY SCARE US.

Secret Santicorn 2025

This post is a gift for Ethaniel in a field of snow, who asked for a couple of special forges for creating thematic magic items.

GloGmas 2025: The Genius Legionis

Everything is alive.  Mountains, winds, the earth itself.  Even cities can dream.

But "city" is an arbitrary concept isn't it?  There is no clear boundary, nor any clear membership criteria.

This is irrelevant.  Everything is alive.  Everything strives.  Every collection of anything that has any sort of a shared identity.  Sentience comes from identity, not structure, and identity is not something that brute material can dictate.  We decide.

What is a human, except a collection of singular cells that dreamed themselves unified?

When the legion was founded, the genius legionis came into existence.  It is the metaphysical consequence of thousands of men uniting their wills under one banner--although it is equally true to say that the unitary will of the legion is the consequence of the genius legionis.

The genius legionis doesn't have an intellect the way that you and I do.  It is pure will.  It doesn't communicate with words, but with instinct and gut feelings.  It doesn't want anything except the shared goals of the group that it champions.  It is strengthened by recognition, honor, success, and sacrifices.

But the legion has passed from memory.  With their passing, the genius legionis has also dissipated.  But its home remains--a bronze eagle atop a tall standard.  The genius legionis wasn't made up of bronze, but it resided there.  And now that the standard has been picked up again by new hands, a new spirit stirs behind the bronze eyes.

Playing as the Genius Legionis

This is a character class.  One of the players at the table can play as the genius legionis.  As a PC, the genius legionis is a little unusual.  They don't have a body, except the bodies of the rest of the party.  They don't have a voice, except the voice of the party.  They cannot die, unless the party dies.

Around the table, this might be a little bit awkward, but I think it might suite some players who like a more background role.

I would also recommend that the player who plays the genius legionis be given a hireling that they can roleplay as.  A standard bearer--who can also be a porter, torchbearer, etc.

The Genius Legionis Class

The genius legionis can help solve puzzles by putting ideas in the heads of party characters.  They can't speak directly, but other characters can speak for them.  And like anyone else, they get one action every round in combat.  (This action is usually performed via the body of a willing player character, although some of them are performed "through" the body of their opponents.)

Starting at level 2, a genius legionis gets access to Stunts.  Most stunts are useful in combat and can only be used when certain conditions are met.  Each Stunt can only be used once per combat.

Template Bonus: Everyone in the party gets +1 Initiative for every Genius Legionis template you have.

A Inspire, Killing Instinct

B Shrine, 2 Random Stunts

C Trophies, 2 Random Stunts

D Battle Flow, 2 Stunts of Your Choice

Inspire

You can't speak, but you can deliver ideas into the brains of anyone else in the party, at any time.

Killing Instinct

As a standard action, pick a party member who hasn't dealt any damage to anyone this turn.  They get a free melee attack.  You roll it.

Shrine

The party can set up the battle standard and make an offering to it (which can be literally anything, as long as it is delivered reverentially).  The site becomes a shrine.  Within the shrine, party members are automatically alerted (via spidey sense) if any enemy enters.  The "site" can be a campsite in a wilderness or a small fort, as long as it is fully owned by the party.

Trophies

In an hour-long ceremony that requires a bard and a lot of mead, the party retells the story of how they killed a powerful enemy.  (You gotta roleplay this at least *a little*).  Then a trophy of that enemy is affixed to the battle standard.  Against a similar foe, once per combat, as a free action, you can grant an automatic success after someone fails their save, or turn a critical miss into a critical hit.

You can affix a maximum of 3 trophies to yourself

Battle Flow

As a standard action, pick an enemy or a group of similar enemies.  Then pick a party member.  The enemies will all attack the chosen party member.  They get an Int save if this would expose them to immediate, obvious hazards.  They get another Int save if they are human-intelligence or smarter.

Alternatively, you can use this ability to make enemies *avoid* attacking a specific party member.

Stunts (d10)

1. Don't You Die on Me

Useable only when a party member is Dying.  For the rest of the turn, all attempts to stabilize the Dying party member get +2.  All attacks against the enemy that last dealt damage to the Dying party member get +4 to hit.

2. Special Delivery

One party member can cast a spell into a melee weapon held by another character.  The weapon glows, gets +4 to damage and to hit, and delivers the spell on the next hit.  If the weapon isn't discharged in one round, the spell dissipates.  If the weapon misses, you can use your standard action to give them an extra roll, as per the Killing Instinct ability.

3. Overconfidence

This ability is only useable after at least 3 attacks have missed this turn.  As a standard action, an enemy becomes overconfident and missteps.  They get -4 Defense for the next round.  Useable 1/combat.  

4. The Cavalry is Here

If one party member is separated from the party, and they are about to die (i.e. in combat and within 1 hit of death, drowning in a pool, etc), you can roll a d6.  On a 4 or higher, the party can arrive on the scene as long as it is feasible within the fiction.

5. Gank

An enemy takes 2d6 damage.  Useable only when three different party members have dealt melee damage to them in a single turn.

6. Suddenly, a Rat

At the end of a turn where an enemy moves somewhere new, a random rat appears and attacks the enemy.  The enemy steps on a rat nest or something similar.  If rats don't exist in this location, a creature of similar menace appears instead. 

7. Irresistible Monologue

A villain capable of monologuing spends a round monologuing, giving the party extra time to move, prep, or heal.  You can use this ability at the start of combat before any hostilities have broken out, or when the enemy seems certain to win.  The monologue ends as soon as anyone takes an action that is overtly hostile.  (E.g. the enemy has a readied action to cast power word kill as soon as you raise your bow--they're not monologuing with their eyes closed.)  Only works on enemies that can talk.  

8. Last Stand

A character at 1 HP takes a full turn of actions, chosen by you (and with the consent of the character's player).  They get +4 attack and damage on their first attack roll. 

9. Swift Punch in the Throat

An ally punches an enemy spellcaster in the throat, dealing 1 damage and giving them a 50% chance of fumbling their spell.  Only useable when an enemy is casting a spell adjacent to an ally.

10. Glorious Charge

When the entire party charges enemies simultaneously, all enemies take 1d10 fear damage.  When most of the party charges enemies simultaneously, all enemies take 1d6 fear damage.  Useless against enemies that are immune to fear or enemies that have no reason to fear you (e.g. ghosts,  elder dragons, werewolves).

Describe how the glorious charge appears in the eyes of the enemies.  For example, you might appear as a flaming hawk above the party.

Merry GLoGmas!

This is a GLoGmas gift for antitime at Temporal Negativity  

I'm sort of riffing of their Five Fighters class.  They also have a functional little dungeon here.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Eyes of Idola, Part 2

This is Part 2.  Here is Part 1.

Concept 1: Entering the Dungeon

Descending the stairs into B1, the party reach rooms that are dark, crowded, flooded, and don't have any apparent ways out.  Then after solving some simple training puzzle (for more complicated puzzles later), they open a door and enter B1.

It's a crumbling stone bridge across a huge gap.  The real floor is 20' below you.  No visible walls, the sound of water lapping below, stale seaweed stink.

Approaching the bridge and the undead archer across the bridge will audibly (and slowly) draw his bowstring, giving the party time to react.

Charging across the crumbling bridge will break it and send the whole crumbling thing into the dark water below.

There's also a safe way down like stairs, but players will probably look at the bridge before they take the stairs down a second time.

If they want to kill the skeleton archer on the far side, they'll have to find to approach from the other side, or do some tricky climbing.

Sketch 1

Sketch 2

I'm not sure what shape the big room takes, but it can be a hub room for the Area 1.  (I've decided that this is the public-facing side of the temple grounds.

Area 1 Hub Room

Other ways to enter the dungeon are the elevator and the sealed door, back in the Mouth of Mormo dungeon.  The elevator goes to the crypts.  The sealed door goes to the cloister/monastery portion on the far side of the juggernaut.

Concept 2: The Juggernaut

Crushed bones on the floor, scrape marks on the wall, and ceilings higher than your torchlight illuminates.  The wall is covered with a repetitive motif: warped men and women, all uniquely deformed, carry offerings towards Area 6 (Inner Sanctum).

Of in the darkness, a pair of eyes flares to life 12' above the ground.  Something huge begins grinding its way towards you.  Slow and first, but rapidly gaining speed.  Sparks flash where metal wheels scrape against the walls, illuminating a huge, rigid shape.

Up close, the thing is a stone-and-iron juggernaut, topped with an elephant skull, bound to the machine by silver wires.  A pair of red flames dance in its skull, focused on you with homicidal intensity.

Originally, the area 2 hub was going to be a flooded crossroads that the players would cross on a rowboat or something, and the monster (that is trapped in this zone) was going to be a blob or water weird, but after mulling it over, the juggernaut sounds more fun, and more accessible.

I know that this was supposed to be a water dungeon, but I'm rethinking the flooded rooms bit.  It's something new (yay) and it offers a new challenge (yay) but flooded rooms actually seem to reduce player options (boo) compared to dry rooms.  (This dungeon was also supposed to have the gimmick of water levels that changed with the tide, but I might take that out, too.)

Mechanically, the juggernaut behaves kinda like those big crushy-stabby spike chariots in Elden Ring dungeons.  Although the juggernaut is rudely sentient, not mindless.  (My toxic trait is that I don't think that anything in a dungeon should be truly mindless.)

Cross-shaped areas won't work anymore, we need a new shape for Area 2.  I have a few ideas but I'm thinking about making it triangular, with an opening on each corner and in the middle of each side, for a total of 6.

W goes to Area 6 (Inner Sanctum).

E goes to Area 4 (Crypts)

The two N exits go to the remainder of Area 2 (Cloister/Monastery)

The two S exits go to Area 1 (flooded statue hub)

The reason that some of them are doubled up is because the juggernaut likes to park itself in corners, so it can watch two directions at once.

Area 2 - Built around a square cloister.  Rotating statue puzzle is in the center (rotate the statue to unlock whatever blue door it is currently pointing at).  Scriptoriums, weird cultic induction rooms, and evidence that the abbot was up to some weird shit.

Area 6 - Inner Cloister.  Put all the high weirdness stuff here.  This is the conceptual climax.  Contains Eolalia the Forgotten (the lady of sand).

Area 3 - The Reef Beneath.  I'm moving away from cursed reef and more towards weird goddess of prophecy and mutation.  This area is going to be changed to a little town in the sea cave.  A few buildings on a rocky shore, with a bridge to area 5.

The Sea Cave contains a family of dolphins--some of the most evil creatures known to man.  (Sharks are beloved because they are simple beasts, but dolphins are all allied to the merfolk, and they delight in the murder of men.  They are intelligent enough to know their own magic.  They taught themselves to laugh like humans do in order to taunt us.  The only thing they prefer above murder is rape.)

The dolphins will family tackle people off the bridge, knock them in the water, and then a pair of dolphins will grab your arms and drag you down to the bottom of the save.  They can also squirt water to put out your torch.  (They can echolocate just fine in the dark.)

Area 5 - Ralupon the Red is here.  He believes that you are here because he summoned you.

Factions and NPCs

Ralupon the Red (Manamanian enchanter).  

Metal rings sewn into his hair.  A thin black veil covers his eyes while a huge pair of eyes looks out from a painted wooden “hat” that stands tall upon his forehead.  He is either a wizard, or very superstitious.  He carries a staff.  A small eyebat hangs upside down from one of his ears.  (Eyebats intercept the first spell cast at their wizard.  If they are lucky, they can reflect it.)

Currently a nest of giant starfish + an evil wizard.  They are human hypnotists, enchanters, and illusionists.  They are closely aligned with the Empire of Dathroya, the largest nation of the merfolk.  Most claim that they are their secret vassals.  (This is true.)

He believes that he summoned the party here by burning weird stuff in a fire for a couple of days, at the advice of his master.  (“That curiosity in your heart?  The greed in your belly?  I put that there.”)

If befriended, he can pay you, or teach you enchantment.  You’ll need to travel to Manamar to study under a master and get your spellbook, though.  (Seek out Shaymish.)  Shaymish isn’t a person, it’s a river.  The spirit of that river can teach you enchanting.

He is the son of Razubek the Bey, the guy who originally assaulted this place and killed the cult.  

Ralupon is back to finish what his father started.  He wants to claim the Chalice of Immortality from the Inner Cloister.  He will tell you that strong enchantments prevent him from entering the dungeon.  (False, but contains elements of truth.)  Offers to geas you to help with your resolve.  Will attempt a suggestion if he thinks he can get away with it.  (This isn't evil.  It's not even rude.  It's practical.  Still intends to pay you when you're done.)

When the party meets him, he'll be sitting on a crown of thorns (Giant starfish, stats as ogre) but there is no puppeteer tentacle up his butt.  The giant starfish actually serves him.  If combat breaks out, two more giant starfish burst from where they were burrowed, nearby.  The stars serve him--or maybe he serves the mind stars.

Friendly guy, but the enchanters of Manamar grow up in an environment where love potions are considered completely normal facts of life.  Everyone enchants everyone all the time, for all sorts of reasons.  Because of this, most of his normal behavior (enchanting people) would be considered evil by most civilized people.

He smiles and wishes you well, and he genuinely means it, but he'll never shake your hand.  (Too risky.)  Nor will he ever let you within 10' of him.

Makes a good stew though.

Eolalia the Forgotten

Lives in the Inner Sanctum, wants you to kill Ralupon, destroy the merfolk ghouls that still linger her, and restore the wards.  Will reward you with the chalice of immortality (very reluctantly) and teach you how to be a cleric of Idola.  Long term, she also wants you to find the surviving members of the Idolan cult and convince them to make her human again.

Lives in the inner sanctum, which is completely covered with words.  Eolalia is immortal but her mind is not, and she forgets things constantly.  Because of this, she needs to write her entire history--literally everything she knows--along the walls and floors of the inner sanctum.

At first she wrote on the walls with blood (back when she still had blood) and then scratches.  But now her body is too crumbly to scratch the walls any more, and so she now writes on the floor with sand.  Every square inch of the floor in here is covered in minute sand writing.  A stray footstep would erase parts of her childhood that she would never recover.

Keeper of the Chalice of Immortality.  She is made of sand and can have a very normal conversation with you if you allow her enough time to read things off the walls and floor.

She is made of sand.  As long as she is touching sand, she will instantly regenerate.  (All of the rooms in the inner sanctum are covered in sand.)

The Mannikin

A paperclip maximizer demon thing.

Completely and utterly evil, but also completely focused on maximizing the number of clean and beautiful sets of clothing available for the Abbot to wear.  Cannot leave the a certain area (the cloister?)

Mother Narshay

One of the fully sentient undead, and one of the two leaders of the crypt.  

Wants you to kill all of the remaining merfolk ghouls (she'll know when you're done) and leave the crypts the fuck alone.  

Seriously, why do people keep coming into the crypts?  Its for the dead, not the living.

Salakhan Latsu

Huge, mad, evil ghast.  Distended, elongated, and twisted into a new shape that is better for grasping and swallowing than his living body ever was.  

Leader of the mer-ghouls.  Currently trapped between two portcullises in the BAD HALLWAY.  (This will be the first- or second-most difficult combat in the dungeon.  It'll be telegraphed well--the players can open this useful shortcut at their own discretion.)

(Digression: why the fuck are lacedons just regular dudes?  They should be undead merfolk ffs.)

Cloakers

I forgot they were here.  Led by Mwoheth.

Goblin Merchants

Hatchi Matchi and his "sons".  The goblin king commanded them to open up shop here for 7 years.  He had a good business tip.  (False.  Hatchi Matchi was sent here because he's annoying as fuck and everyone hated him.)

Grandmaster Grunky

Living frog statue that sells maps.

Some Secret Doors

Obvious Door, Hidden Switch

1. 

A round stone in the wall with a pair of holes in it, about 8 inches deep.  About the right size and height for two dudes to stick their peepees in.

One room over is a metal thing shaped like TT.  

This is a handle meant to be inserted into the two holes and rotated.  (You can achieve the same thing with three spears, if needed.)

2. 

Evolved version of the previous switch.  Now the pair of holes is in the bottom of a pool of water.  You'll have to try a little harder to get leverage.

3. 

Next to the sealed door is a doorknob inside a blood-soaked hand mutilation machine.  Reach inside, turn the blood-slick knob, and your hand is painfully removed.

Door is opened by pulling the chandelier.

4.

All of the bricks on the wall are covered with random words.  Print this out and give it to your players.

Except some of them aren’t nonsense words, and can be pressed to spell out “PRAISE IDOLA MOTHER OF WISDOM”, a phrase that is seen elsewhere in the dungeon.  Wrong piles = poison gas or something.

All of the correct tiles are directly above one another.  Once all of them are depressed, you hear a mechanism click inside the wall, something shifts at the top of the wall.  Not clearly visible, but the depressed tiles form a perfect ladder up to the trap door in the ceiling.

5. 

An inscription reads “The key to this door cannot be seen, though all can feel it.  It cannot be held, although all have it except for the dead. From your mouth produce the answer.”

The answer is “breath” or “wind”.  Blow into the hole (a little narrower than your finger) to open the door.

(Eh, this is a fiddly puzzle–put something non-essential behind it.)

6.

This is one of the rooms hidden behind the rotating statue puzzle.  To open the secret door, you need to actually close the entrance door to this room by splitting the party, having half of the party rotate the statue out of alignment.  This reveals the switch on the backside of the door that you opened to enter this room.

Once the secret door is opened, it stays opened, and the party can rejoin and go through the secret passage.

The secret passage holds some monsters to fight, of course.

7.

Maybe combine this with #2?  

Flooded room with switch underwater.  When flipped, all of the water flushes everyone into the next room and into a pit trap.

8.

A bunch of tiles covered with random objects.

A door has a symbol of an egg.  Press all symbols that hatch from an egg.  (Rooster, Snake, Fish, Frog).  

Another door depicts a knight.  Press all the symbols that are weapons (Shield, sword, bow).  The incorrect answers: Crown, Whale, Shepherd’s Crook, Jug of Water, Cottage.

(Rating 2/5 stars.  Kinda fiddly.  Too escape roomy, not OSR puzzly enough.)

Secret Door, Secret Switch

Secret/secret doors should only be used in non-essential cases.  They make good shortcuts to areas that can be reached in other ways.  This lets skilled players access other areas earlier (like the Inner Sanctum), allows them to go around monsters they don't want to fight, and lets them sneak up behind monsters that they do want to fight.

1. 

One of the giant statues is holding a treasure chest.  Find a giant key, unlock the chest, and you can crawl through it into a new area (or maybe it just contains treasure).

(Might make for a fun, simple AHA! moment when the party finds a giant stone key.)

2.

Fountain pipe comes out of the wall, and water spurts from a fish head.  Examining it reveals that the pipe connected to the fish head is pretty big.  Knock the fish head off and start crawling.

(For exploration completionists.)

3. 

Behind a mirror.  No clues for this one--you just gotta smash it.

(For exploration completionists, and vandals.)

4. 

The bottom of a pit trap.  The floor and 3 walls are covered in spikes.  The fourth wall is hollow.  One of the wall spikes can be rotated to open the door.

(Maybe too easy?  It's tough to tell.  Players walk past this kind of stuff all the time.)

Dwarven Gender, Continued

Remember that post I did about dwarven gender?  

If you haven't read it--you're in luck.  You can be just as confused as Podrick, below.

It occurs to me that dwarves would also struggle to understand human genders, and would ask us as many stupid questions as we would ask them.

So this is some fiction about that.

Some Dwarves Learn About Human Gender

Featuring:

    - Podrick, human, age 41, male, father of 2, knight of the realm

    - Snorri, dwarf, age 191, blacksmith, 3288 total lbs forged, total debt 2400 silver

    - Osto, dwarf, age 284, blacksmith, 5910 total lbs forged, total debt 10,500 silver

Snorri

Look, I don't want to be rude, but Osto says its not rude to ask a human this, but, eh, what are ye?

Podrick

Am I a what?

Snorri

Are ye, hmmmmm, are ye . . . a blacksmith?  Or a miner?

Podrick

. . . what?

Snorri

And don't say that humans don't have blacksmiths and miners.  I know they do.  I just can't tell what ye are.  No offense!  Of course.

Podrick

Er, I'm a knight of his majesty the king.  I've never mined nor smithed.  

Snorri

Yeah, sure, sure.  But what are ye really?  You got a bronze belt buckle but your boots lace all the way up.  Little bit of cross-dressing, eh?  I'm not against it!  No judgement here.  I know a few dwarves that enjoy the same.

But how were ye raised?  Did yer parents dress you in bronze buckles or did they lace your shoes all the way up?  

When ye were little, I mean, on your name day.  Not what ye decided for yerself later.

Podrick

Have you gone mad?  Explain yourself.

Snorri

Calm your heels, man!  I apologize.  Osto said that humans weren't shy discussing stuff like this so I thought I could ask ye without being a prat.  'Pologize if I made ye feel a bit tetchy.

Podrick

You asked me if I've ever been a blacksmith?  And then if I wore bronze?  Is this something dwarves do?

Snorri

Yes, but not usually at the same time.  *laughs*

Look, let's try this a different way.  When does your heart sing?  When yer getting something?  Or when yer making something?

I'm sure you've done both.  (Hell, even I've done both, but don't tell Osto.)

Y'know.  What was your body born to do?

Podrick

I feel most at home when I pray in the House of the Authority, before the nine icons of the Prophetessa (may she live again).

Snorri

*tugging his beard* Okay. . . hmm.  There are two genders, right?

Podrick

Right.

Snorri

And which one are ye?

Podrick

I am male.  I have--

Snorri

That's not what I asked!  Who cares about yer pisser?

Osto

*entering the room* Humans are always talking about their pissers.

Lad, why are ye asking the man about his pisser?  I told ye to mend the tent.

Snorri

I asked him if he was a blacksmith or a miner.

Osto

Humans don't have--

Snorri

Yes, they bloody do!  Who makes their armor, then?  Who pulls their ores out of the earth?

Osto

All of them do both.  Each one is 50/50, right down the middle.  The Authority saw fit to make them all the same.  Don't know why, but I'm sure it was done in wisdom.

Snorri

That makes sense.  Then why's he talking about his pisser?

Osto

*straightening his monocle*  Well, humans divide everything into field and seed.  It's because they're obsessed with breeding.  Breeding children, breeding livestock.  It's the accumulation of things, see?  Can't have money without cows to sell.  Can't have land without children to work it.  That's why they always pair off, a seed with a field, every time.

Plus, they don't have much time to breed, so they have to start early.  Makes sense when you think about it that way.

Podrick

Do dwarves always talk so coarsely?  I have children of my own, but their purpose is not to work my fields.  And my wife's purpose is not to bear children.

Snorri

I'm sure your "wife" is a nice lad, but if he were here I'd ask him the same questions.

Podrick

My wife is a woman!  She is referred to as "she" not "he".

Snorri

Why are ye bringing yer wife's pisser into the conversation?  No one's talking about his pisser.

Osto

Snorri, at least try to use the human's pronouns.

Snorri

Okay, I'll bloody well try, but I don't know if I can remember them.

Osto

Good lad.  You'll sound less ignorant when we get to human lands.

Snorri

I'll try!  But it's a bloody infuriating thing to ask of me.  Does this mean I don't know how to refer to someone until I know what kind of a pisser they have?

Podrick

*sighs* I'm going to go tend to my horse.  Good day, dwarves.

Snorri

Angels below, I hope I didn't offend the boy.  There's really nothing wrong with being half and half.  I'm not prejudiced!  I'm not.

Do you think the human thinks I'm prejudiced now?

Osto

Snorri, yer a good lad, but you ask too many questions.  Go fix the tent, and then I'll tell you about the two kinds of human bathrooms.

Snorri

What?  Two?  Do they expect me to go into a different bathroom based on what kind of pisser I've got?  That's none of their bloody business!

Osto

Nah, all dwarves use the bathroom for seed.  They all get huffy if you ever go into the one for fields.  Don't know why, but I guess only human pissers matter.   

Snorri

It's still another hundred miles to the human kingdom, huh?  This is a long fucking trip.

Damn, I wish we had some miners with us.

*not a Patreon post, just for fun.

A Dungeon of Your Own

Have you written your own dungeon?

Everyone should write a dungeon at least once.  You'll be able to write stuff that you like, and stuff that your players like.  You can make it as small or as large as you'd like, based on the length of your sessions.  If your group likes puzzles, then you can dump three of them in there.  And by the time you're done, you'll basically have memorize the damn thing.

And you'll learn all the things that work and don't work.  When you run a pre-made dungeon, you come away with a sense that some rooms were more fun than others, but it might not be clear why.  When you run your own dungeon, your head will be full of the all of the alternatives, and it'll be easier to come up with improvements the next time you iterate on it.

Reasons Not to Write Your Own Dungeon:

1. Arnold, I don't have enough time.

        Fair point.  Have a nice day.  

2. Arnold, I can't write a dungeon as good as published modules.

        Absolute hogwash; get the fuck out of here.

There's some good published modules, but there are many, many more mediocre ones.  One of the oddities of this hobby is that you can have a lot of fun with bad dungeons, as long as you're hanging out with your friends and cracking jokes.  As a result, there's not a lot of evolutionary pressure for dungeons to improve.  

Trust me on this one.  The guys writing published dungeons are not lightyears beyond you.  It's not like comparing yourself to a brain surgeon.  It's more like comparing yourself to someone who is good at making sandwiches.

And even the guys who do write dungeons well and playtest them haven't playtested them with your group.  Everyone is different, so make the sandwich that your group likes.

The Missing Chapter

Writing your own dungeon is a pretty big cornerstone of our hobby, especially in the OSR space.  There's so much other stuff written that it's honestly surprising how little ink has been spent describing how dungeons are made.

I'm not sure if these is because dungeoncraft is a field that is still in its infancy, or because there is no wrong way to do it.  (I'm leaning towards the first one, though.  I certainly notice bad level design in video games, but that's because I've played hundreds of video games and its easy to compare them.  In contrast, I've probably only run a few dozen TTRPG dungeons over my whole life, and there are so many other things distracting me at the table that I don't think I've spent as much time thinking about the topic.)

A few DM's guides have chapters on creating your own dungeon.  A lot of them don't.

A bunch of them have sections on how to stock your own random dungeon, with random rooms and random monsters with random treasure, which I think is absolutely insane.  Imagine if you went to video game school to learn to design good levels for an FPS game, and your teacher was told you to roll dice to determine how big each room was, which weapons there were, and how many enemies there were.  (I am not a fan of procedurally generated dungeons.  You can do better than random.)

I am damn certain that the level designers in Halo didn't roll dice.  They had a system.

The System

I suspect that there are lots of ways to do this, but everyone starts with a concept, like "tomb" or "buried spaceship".  Certainly better is to have a couple of concepts, like "poisonous tomb" or "musical prison".  

It's frequently good to frame things in terms of what they were, and what they are now.  (Dungeons are almost universally old places.  It's how we justify their ruin, isolation, complexity, and contents.)  Examples would be "tomb that is now a hideout for bandits" or "magical library taken over by goblins".

It's also good to have some friction between your themes.  Don't just pick things that align neatly.  "tomb taken over by a necromancer" is a little thin--it's doesn't inspire anything, although it's a perfectly useable concept by itself.  "tomb taken over by necro-artists" is a bit more interesting, since I can already think of a couple rooms.  How about "zoo taken over my a necromancer"?  Also fun.

"temple to a benevolent god of rot"?   Or maybe "underwater prison for a god of fire"?  A little bit of contradiction can generate a lot of creativity later on.

Prior Works

Once you have your concept, you can move onto the dungeon itself.  I found a few good blog posts on this subject.

Chris wrote a really good one, which includes advice on how to include teaching encounters.

Dyson recapitulates the five room dungeon, which is a perfectly serviceable way to make a small dungeon quickly while ensuring that you have some good variety in it.

Gus has an excellent one where he talks about dungeon naturalism, and gives good advice for writing room descriptions.

Lastly, I have the dungeon checklist, which is just a list of things that I think all dungeons should include (except for maybe the smallest, most specialized dungeons).

Other Considerations

It's also useful to think about a few other questions when you are beginning.

1. How big do you want this dungeon to be?

Or to put another way, how many sessions do you expect your group to spend in this place?  Some groups do 2 rooms an hour, others can do 6 rooms an hour.  (You should already have an idea of how fast your group moves in your game.)

I also know that when I write dungeons, they usually bloat by about +20% or +50% from my original sketch as I think of new things to add, usually after running it once or twice.

2. Is this a dungeon with a singular goal (usually a boss the party needs to beat) or is it something that can just be explored partially and then happily abandoned?

3. What do you want the split to look like between combat, puzzles, exploration, and role-playing?

4. Do you want it to be naturalistic (i.e. it's a dungeon in a monastery and it has a floorplan that looks like an IRL monastery) or gamified?

Next Steps

Some people start with maps, other people start with key rooms.  A few people start with factions and random encounter tables.

Starting with maps is very common, and is probably what I've seen the most.  

I do think that dungeon creation is iterative for most people.  The first map you draw probably won't be the final one.  You'll constantly correct and improve, especially after playing through it the first time.  The same can be said for your encounters, NPCs, and magic items.

Beneath the Mouth of Mormo

I'm currently writing the sequel to the Mouth of Mormo dungeon that I posted a couple of days ago.

I want something much bigger, complicated, and challenging.  If Mouth of Mormo is a beginner's dungeon, I want something for experienced groups.

Anyway, I'm going to try to develop it on the blog.  Maybe it'll be useful for some people.  I do think that what I'm doing here is definitely overengineering--you can make a successful dungeon with a lot less work.  I just want to try doing something ambitious.

Concepts

1. Temple to the second goddess in the pantheon.  Mormo's sister.  Mormo is the semi-benevolent goddess of mutation (the sea-change).  Sister is something analogous (except perhaps mind instead of body) or prophecy.

2. Continues the theme of the Mouth of Mormo.  A fallen holy place destroyed long ago by starfish and merpeople.

Map

1 - Flooded rooms, half-sunken statues, and locked doors.  Seems abandoned at first.  Connects to Room 20 in the Mouth of Mormo.  Puzzle required to open doors (put matching hat on statue).

2 - Flooded halls.  You need a boat to navigate.  Some large monster threatens this hub area, but is too large/enchanted to leave.  Eel swarms in water.  You'll need to find a boat to navigate, or find a rowboat in nearby area.

3 - The Reef Beneath.  Navigate around a huge reef.  Morays, crabs, fish-things.  Sleeping monster (don't wake it up).  Giant archerfish spit water to knock you off bridge.

4 - Crypt.  Skeletons seated in chairs, beginning their slow transmutation into a living reef.  Body horror.  History of goddess.  This is where the elevator comes down.

5 - Sea Cave with island in it.  Hard to Reach.  Boss area?  Temple of minor god.  Wizard is here, an ally of the guys who destroyed the dungeon, wants to hire you to kill/loot the place.

6 - Inner sanctum of the Goddess.  Starts out locked.  Boss area?  The woman of sand sits here writing.  She’s writing the whole history of the world on sand.  When she finishes a section, she rakes it flat and starts again.  Wants you to kill the wizard.  Sand = mirror = prophecy = illusion.

Each room has 5-20 rooms, except for Area 2 which is a smaller hub area.

Gimmick

Tides.  Room water level rises and falls.  Combat is worse when the water is higher

History

Was a temple and a monastery.  We need an inner sanctum, monastery bits, some public areas of the monastery, and a crypt.

Factions

Lady of Sand - Cursed remnant of old temple, still loyal.

Wizard in Sea Cave - Wants to finish destruction/looting.

Sentient Undead - Wants you to leave them the fuck alone.

Goblins - Wildcard.

Random Encounters

Drowners.  Ghouls.  1 Elder Ghoul.  1 Necrophidius (forces focus).  More Cloakers.  Giant Fish.  Dungeon Moray.  Dungeon Clam (contains pearl).  Two Giant Starfish.  Flying Worms.

Treasure

I'll do treasure last.  (I'm not lazy!  I just think you can do treasure last, since nothing depends on it.)

Revised Map

Okay, after a little revision I have something like this:

HALLS is area #2.  It's the hub area that has a guardian that cannot leave the area.  Somewhere in this dungeon, there's probably some weapon or tactic that lets you kill it more easily.  I'm thinking a giant water weird that is powered by a skull.  Turns into a couple of different animalistic forms.  If you manage to pull the skull out (trick it into running through a net) you can smash the skull with a warhammer for an easy KO.

BAD HALL is between a pair of closed portcullises.  You can easily open it to get a useful new path, but the bad hall is crammed with a shitload of horrible undead, so maybe you don't want to do this.

Room 2A has a rotating statue puzzle.  Whatever door the statue points at will unlock.  The rotating statue can rotate to unlock 2B and 2C.  However, there's also similar locked doors that lead to 2F and 1D and clever players will realize that the statue's range is unlimited, and that's how you unlock those doors.   Can also use it unlock a treasure vault door on the sea cave island.