Dungeon23 0-0: The prelude

The City had been around for centuries and had suffered through many crises. A century ago, the great red dragon Imbirrex devastated whole neighborhoods before a group of adventurers slew him in his lair. The adventurers who survived were lauded for years by the residents of the City, right up until the day they themselves disappeared. That was almost a generation ago. Since then, the City has been mostly quiet. 

Until recently. A month ago, a most strange event occurred. In the middle of dinner at one of the cities' many taverns, a dozen orcs spontaneously materialized and began to attack everyone in sight. Although the orcs were quickly overcome, the patrons and neighborhood watch were rattled. Even moreso when it happened again on the next night in a different tavern in another part of town. After a week of random monster encounters savaging citizens, the Lord Mayor called in his trusted sages, who in turn called in the most prominent adventurers of the city. These adventurers set out east from the city, into the Wilderness and three days later their search took them to the doorstep of the very same lair of Imbirrex. But whereas a large maw of a cave once greeted intruders, now a solid stone wall with a door of dwarven make marked the entrance. And on it's lintel was the most curious message written in stylized runes. It said 

"You are expected. Bespoke demises within".

The adventurers retreated to the city unaware that reading the words carried a curse and a geas with them. When they arrived at the guild, they reported their finds and upon repeating the words, they flew into a beserker rage. Most of the adventurers gathered in the city were present at the meeting and most of them died that day. The Lord Mayor was forced to rely on the greenest and newest of adventurers, noobs who barely knew the handle of a sword from it's pointy end. In short, you. 

But he sent you out anyway. Out into the wilds with only the most fundamental of protections and the thinnest of platitudes. Yet it was enough to steel your feet through the forests and up the mountains. And now you stand at the doorway. The magic of the words have gone but the fear inside you is greater than ever...

Dungeon23

 I've always wanted to do a megadungeon. I love drawing maps, I love creating encounters and I have some very specific and particular ideas about dungeon ecology and layout. 

What I've never had is time. When you think about it, putting together a 200+ room dungeon is a crap ton of work, on the scale of writing a novella or long graphic novel. And I never could figure out how to divide up the time so that I could manage it. 

And then along comes #dungeon23, suggesting I do a room a day. One room, one day, each day for a year. Got an idea for two days? Put the pen down after day one and sit on it for 12 hours. The idea for force myself to work in smaller, manageable chunks is itself a habit worth getting into (I'm one of those people who works at 200% until burnout) and if I can keep it up for a year, I figure the discipline alone will be worth it. 

That's the background. I'm going to do #dungeon23. I've ordered a nice journal, which should arrive sometime next week. After some nervous consideration, I've decided that any actual rules I incorporate into this dungeon will be of the "Old School Revival" variety. I don't think I have enough time and energy to worry about dungeon design and complicated ruleset balance. So it will be OSE or OSRIC or (more likely) a horrible mish-mosh of both. 

I have a general backstory written up as well. I'm not going to show it to you now because it would reveal too much about the dungeon ahead of time. And I'm proposing releasing a small block of text with each entry explaining the dungeon as your standard adventuring party encounters it for the first time. Thus you, the reader, will explore the dungeon along with me, the author. 

That's all. Wish me luck. I have no idea if I can keep this up for a year.