Offbeat Megadungeon: make-a-dungeon - but no, really

Step the First: Decide to really make something instead of constantly brainstorming on yet another amorphous project I get distracted away from and build up anxiety about not finishing

- me, a year ago 

lolz 

let's try again. this will be "maybe I'll just make a dungeon" except i just follow two-week megadungeon more closely and let it work its magic

goals

• keep it loose,  light hearted, and uncomplicated, no big ideas (or at least, no exhaustively thinking through the implications and interconnections of them)
• create it in an MVP fashion - something interesting and "complete" at each step
• hopefully, make it Good, Actually in terms of gameability,  toyetic interactivity
• and if i want, refine it into a nice, usable package, ala OSE adventures

touchstones

• a certain kind of gonzo/funhouse/mythic underworld that i can stand, because i'm making it
• a sense that anything is possible fostered by everything being a little off-kilter
• stuff that might be silly in isolation, but somehow works when played matter-of-factly in context or just obfuscated enough to wonder if its intentional or not
• more social than i usually end up making

influences

• art of the Sams, Mameli and Bosma 
• saturday morning cartoon - primary colors, but like, bad shit can happen
• adventure time, he-man, korgoth of barbaria
• spirited away
• hole in the oak/incandescent grottoes
• Black Maw
• morthimion
• operation unfathomable
• dungeon full of monsters

themes/setpieces/room ideas

• cantina - unspoken truce in no-man's land - if the party ruins wha thtey have going there, theyll  never be forgiven
• well of wine
• jobs, maybe unions
• thin veneers of decorum
• giant skull
• card game/tarot
• this room is just another dungeon - maybe one the players have done before
• coffee - maybe a coffee shop on every level - this might be too much conceptual overlap with the cantina, but maybe there's something here
• if he doesn't use it in sunken tower, skull_b0i's idea for a minotaur trying to make the level into a maze, by hand, with mixed results
• subarea: stonehell x office building
• what if ghosts but ___?
• the heads of mascot costumes
• brightness setting
• dungeon map as crossword (im sure that hasnt been done before, but w/e)
• get the band back together (to play at cantina? members all different factions)
• zelda style trading quest
• cheap crystals - colored with stains - gemseller with utter crap, like a new age shop
• if these walls could talk - some rooms with magic mouths  and their own perosnalities
• someone with dragon eggs but they're avocados
• maybe some slight anachronistic intrusions
• laser pistol
• shopping cart
• HS notebook

tyrants

• Two Dragons 
• one with dinozoid mutations
• one a white lionine
• snowy mane
• ice fangs and claws, causing anything poked to freeze instantly, and likely be shattered soon after
• might change this
• dungeon pedant
•  powerful, annoying, disliked by all factions but they have to tolerate them because they're unkillable, maybe untouchable
•  a lich or ghost or something
• basically skeletor x the boss from office space
• a "normal human" 
• given power beyond their ken
• but its just a social contract
• throws their weight around and make bad decisions
• a sentient sword
• who seems nice and good
• but something's off
• wielder is kinda meek but, y'know, a nice person
• cats
• just cats
• but everyone seems to tolerate their bad behavior due to superstition (I mean,  they've  seena nd heard of bad things happening to those who don't)
• in reality, their power is wielded via toxoplasmosis
• maybe: a vampire or werewolf, to force myself to find something interesting in them in an rpg context
• a vampire who is only a vampire when you aren't looking
• nevermind, it's all dumb

factions

• the workers
• swordfriends
• each wield a sentient sword and treat them as equals, BFFs
• would never part with them
• aside from the leader, they're all just +1 though, and their other bonuses are all weirdly specific
• various races and some monster types, all united in their swordfriendliness
• cats & toxoplasmoids
• but this is liek a secret cross-faction sleeper cell
• but if you piss off a cat, or look at them the wrong way, they;ll get you
• when it would become relevant, roll for a chance that basically anyone is a toxoplasmoid 
• or, when rolling reaction, if either die comes up 1, they're a toxoplasmoid, and likely attack if you've pissed off a cat
• weirdly tolerant of the piss smell that pervades lots of the dungeon
• wormfarmers
• what it says on the tin
• overlooked by other factions- no one wants the dankest nooks and crannies anyway
• seemingly weak, but who knows
• orclops
• just orc-like with one big eye
• prefer to eat jelly but the jelly merchant has stopped making its way to their level, whats up with that
• dinotaurs?
• various dinosaurs with human torsos in place of heads
• high HD, deeper levels
• complicated relationship with dinozoid tyrant
• holy shit - doozers
• rock gnomes i guess, but even tinier
• constructing cities and towns into dungeon walls
• multiple colonies throughout the dungeon
• need potion of diminution to parley
• or, turn to stone when seen, so they just look like someone has been making an elaborate dungeon miniature set
• art school
• minus the school part
• avant garde installations 
• performance art as wandering encounter
• coffee cartel
• controls distribution of beans to the coffee shop on each level
• coffee aids spellcasting and INT increase
• the throng
• dozens, hundreds of normal folks that just show up and crowd into a room for a turn, and then move on
• some kind of hive mind but individuals are like randos standing in a line who don't want to be bothered, kind of quiet and awkward, sometimes whispering amongst them
• bystander effect
• who are these people?
• maybe more of a wandering monster than a faction, but perhaps there is some way to communicate with them

monsters

generated by rolling two OSE dungeon monsters and merging concepts:

• little koboldlike guys that 
• when you kill one, they split into two, that are each half-there, and so on
• High Level Troll Adventurer
• they're basically the best. but kind of a loner. 
• amenable to share tips or tales if bought a drink, but yeah maybe dont fuck with them. 
• won't hesitate to throw you under the bus.
• Adonite, Pride of Pygmalion
• incredibly attractive sculpted stone person
• if gazes meet for a moment, save vs spells or the gazee literally turns to inert jelly
•  after a turn, if not disturbed too much, they safely reform
• afterward, if they are reminded of the encounter, they must save again or experience the same effect from the mere memory
• crystal trader
• made of crystal (or maybe just clad in them)

mapping procedure

• donjon - rooms on the larger side
• multiple individual donjon map outputs per level, assembled  - loosely (but heavily) connected clusters of rooms
• import each assembled level into mipui
• tweak and edit in mipui -
• refine a bit but leave some dumb stuff in
• combine some rooms into huge chambers
•  loose transformations and mutations beyond donjon's restrictions
• line up and add lots of vertical connections
• almost-all-level elevator or two, but it might be in use when th eparty wants it
• wine well
• classic staircases
• traps
• multi-level rooms

some other procedural stuff

• each faction has opinions on all tyrants, and some other factions
• wandering monsters should be mostly from factions, and even if not, should not mean instant battle but present some interesting social situation
• 
  

ok its time to stop because it's 5 and i should have been doing real work  🙃