On the first day of the year, some people commit to knitting weather blankets, others make a promise to climb every munro before the year is out. In 2016, promised myself I’d write a novel in a single year. But I cannot knit, don’t like hiking, and absolutely adore derailing big projects with distractinating (that’s a procrastination and a distraction), so for 2023, I’m taking part in #Dungeon23.
I didn’t meant to become a tabletop gamer, much less someone who enjoys playing DM, but the possibility had always lurked just out of sight, where a decent perception roll might have given me fair warning. The signs were there - big into world-building, thwarted teen acting aspirations, slight childhood obsession with causality, a personality that on a good day could be described as generous humanist but on a bad day as petty dictator. And now I’m here: still working on that novel (among other things), while currently DMing 3 two homebrew TTRPGs, playing 5e DnD as a half-orc bard, designing a Quiet-Year-inspired post-apocalyptic symbology survival game, and strapping myself into a year-long dungeon-building project. So it goes.
Conceived by by Sean McCoy, the idea behind #Dungeon23 is straightforward: plan one room in a dungeon every single day of the year, until you have a mega-dungeon of 365 rooms, which in theory could be tackled by some very committed players. But I’m approaching it more like a writing exercise - a quick and easy prompt to pick up on heavy day-job workload days, to remind myself I can actually squirt out some words if I don’t worry too much about them. A corridor here, a room there, throw in some disposable baddies, some friendly assistants, some loot, some traps. Bish bash bosh.
At least, it started like that, but I do like a complication. And I don’t, as it happens, like a dungeon. Maybe it’s their fantasy underpinnings, maybe it’s the aesthetics, maybe I’m just not imaginative enough to design 365 distinct rooms that all share a common thread. Also, just a glance at the hashtag on Insta and Twitter reveals some intimidatingly good dungeon art which I couldn’t even hope to emulate, at least not without a spare weekend and a stationery drawer upgrade. But, whatever the reason, I’ve decided to give myself something more sci-fi.
My dungeon will be set on Aether: The Grand Floating Island Luxury Resort located on the tropical sea planet Ebisu, which in a tragic act of corporate sabotage crashed into the waves below and immediately became a waterlogged deathtrap. Maybe players came to the island to loot it, maybe they came looking for a stranded loved one who survived the crash, maybe they’re just disaster tourists. Once they’re on the island, they’ll quickly realise they have to deactivate the nuke reactor at Aether’s core if they want to get off Ebisu.
Think White Lotus meets Chernobyl.
I’ve had this in mind as a setting for a game for a few years now, but never quite got around to tackling it for real. Traditional dungeons have one entry point and one exit point (if you don’t count dying at the bottom of a spike pit as an exit). But floating islands that crashland into the sea? You can come at them any which way, and get off them by running very fast in one direction with your eyes closed. Progress won’t be linear. The scope creep potential is high.
So the plan is to come at this less like a dungeon and more like a choose-your-own-adventure book, with four basic entry points - air, sea, submarine, clifftop climb - all leading through various once-luxurious settings, into the ruined geodesic dome, and down through the lower decks, to the nuke reactor that’s gunning to blow.
But the plan is also not to over-plan. I could plan out what all those zones would be in advance - I think there’ll be a sunken casino, an overgrown swampy spa, a mega-mall full of escaped exotic alien animals, an industrial nightmare of a broken down utilities and maintenance area - but I’m also hoping the vibe of the place will emerge as I progress, and my desire not to repeat myself will lead to weirder and weirder idea generation.
I’m going to try and keep track of it on here, too, with some description of the process and thinking behind the project. Hopefully that’s not too much commitment for a single year. To manage expectations, though, I don’t anticipate my doodling or handwriting will improve!