dungeon26 - initial notes

Yes, dungeon26. I know that during dungeon23 I said "I don't like (writing big) dungeons" a lot, but since then I have read more megadungeons, and even starting playing one (Arden Vul, with OSRIC 3). I also failed to do region25 and I want to think about why.

My theory this time is that I put far too much effort into each daily room with dungeon23, because I am used to writing small dungeons, and if a dungeon is small, every room needs to have something interesting in it. Megadungeons or at least large ones allow for rooms which really are basically empty, which I think may fit far better with the rhythm of having to do one room a day.

A basis for it all is good though and this time I thought I would do one vaguely based around the first couple of books of the Gormenghast trilogy, which I enjoyed a lot as a teenager and have bought a copy of to re-read. This will be generally on an aesthetic and thematic basis rather than trying to mimic the actual books, which are very character-driven. I may also abandon it to greater or lesser degree. We'll see, this is just a starting point.

I also decided to write it for Old-School Essentials Classic, which is a reformatting of B/X D&D and has a freely-available SRD under the OGL. I have all the OSE books but I'm deliberately not using the Advanced part. This is of less importance as statting the dungeon isn't vital at all at the point of developing it, but having a target system allows me to think about potential party spells and abilities that the castle builders might be aware of.

Here are some scribbly notes from my reMarkable on the subject. Oh, and by the way, merry fucking Christmas. I'm stuck at home having fucked the tendon in my right foot, and any walking, even minor, is pain. I was going to see my dad this Christmas but I can't go across the country now and in any case he's not super well himself. So here I am planning for dungeon26.

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