My daughter's dungeon

My six year old daughter drew this dungeon a week or so ago, after watching me doing something similar. I think it's a killer dungeon, and I think it shows that she's a great fan of monsters (e.g. she always runs the monsters when we play Castle Ravenloft, and had this to say when she saw an image of Jabba the Hutt: "He looks kind.") And she's apparently a big fan of - plumbing!

Annotated version below the map, with her own descriptions.

Sejten, a dungeon map, with some hooks

Have a vanilla dungeon map I did over the last two days, including the two smaller mountain range pictures showing the area around the lair/dungeon/slightly evil place.

(And my six year old daughter named it. No I don't think she knows who Satan is.)

Adventure hooks, or maybe rather just things I make up as I watch the image above that you may find useful to get your creativity going

1. The bear skin rugs becomes animated for 2d6 minutes whenever someone mentions anything related to either food or weapons
2. The rats are highly intelligent and will sell for huge amount of coins. They understand human speech but can only squeak
3. Each painting holds a piece of a larger map on the backside, marking the birthplace of whoever built this place
4. While sitting on any chair, time passes twice as fast
5. Each rug acts as a time portal if the right word is spoken while standing on it (each rug has it its own word); anyone standing on the rug will travel in time but not in space for 1d6 minutes, and then return to the present:
1. (the past) When the lair was being constructed
2. (the past) One minute ago
3. (the past) When the lair was controlled by a very jolly queen who loved all and everyone
4. (the past) When the lair was controlled by a very gloomy necromancer who hated everyone, but rats most of all
5. (the past) The very moment when the To-Be-High-Lord-Snake-King and its troops invaded the lair (then controlled by a never-to-be-seen-again tribe of very friendly, human-sized rats)
6. (the very far future) Faulty, malfunctioning robots patrolling the halls, trying to shoot laser beams at any intruder (but not succeeding because a future dungeon party nicked all guns just days prior to our time travellers, replacing the guns with regular LED pen lights)
6. The egg is not an egg
   

Building something using words, chaotic cursor movement and maybe some dice

I don't know what this is, but there are two ways of doing it: the LINEAR, and the CHAOTIC.

THE LINEAR WAY

1. Roll a die and consult table INTRODUCING. This is what you're "introducing", or adding (an object, a scene, whatever). When adding a new sentence, you must connect it to what was described in the previous sentence, so that the two sentences flow naturally into each other (or chaotically, if you prefer that)
   
   
2. Repeat 1

THE CHAOTIC WAY

1. Roll a die and consult table CURSORY MOVEMENT. This tells you where to place your cursor (or pen, if you're doing this by hand and therefore must have incredible penmanship). Never place the cursor (or pen) in the middle of a sentence; a sentence is always isolated and untouched and locked down etc so to speak
   
   
2. Roll a die and consult table INTRODUCING. This is what you're "introducing", or adding (an object, a scene, whatever) exactly where your cursor (or pen) is. When adding a new sentence, you must connect it to what was described in the previous sentence, so that the two sentences flow naturally into each other (or chaotically, if you prefer that; people who use pen and paper for this method would probably do it chaotically)
   
   
3. Repeat from 1
   
   

TABLE CURSORY MOVEMENT

Place cursor (or pen)...

1. After the first sentence
2. In the middle of the document
3. After the last sentence
4. After the second sentence
5. Where your finger lands with your eyes closed
   
6. In the middle of the middle of the document, so like in the first quarter I guess

 

TABLE INTRODUCING

At the cursor (or pen), introduce by describing, using one or several sentences...

1. A stuffed bear
2. Stairs up
3. Stairs down
4. A door with writings on it
5. Used pots and pans
6. Shrubbery
7. Unusual tiling
8. A horse that's about to leave
   
9. A rug, halfway rolled up
10. A horrible landscape painting
11. A wall
12. A hallway, crudely lit
13. An open knapsack
14. An unusually small dog
15. A locked chest
    
16. Spiderwebs in the ceiling
    
17. A festive hall
18. A concealed weapon
    
19. Dirt and soil
20. Fire
21. A bottled message
22. A painting of a king
23. Several chests
24. Rats
25. A fireplace
26. A room with a large table
27. Stairs up and down
28. A person in a wet hat
    
29. Water breaching in
30. Several guards looking for something
    
31. A marketplace for illegal food
32. A pond and a toad
    
33. A blind ogre
34. A marble statue
35. A flowerbed
36. Someone lost
37. An intruder
38. A broken mirror
39. Lots of barrels
40. A deserter from a distant war
41. Rope hanging down from far above
42. Mechanical device that hums
43. Mechanical device that clicks
44. A sundial
45. A window
46. A floating creature with scales
47. Blood
48. A magical swirl
49. A makeshift instrument
    
50. Foreign coins
51. Claw markings
52. A rainfall
53. A well, with rope hanging down
54. A terrible yell
55. A dog digging
56. A scholar writing in a tome, a large list of ingredients, currently at item 56
57. A murder of crows
58. A crown made of wood
59. A golem waiting for a command
60. A gust of wind
61. Sand
62. An authority
63. A false prophet
64. A cheese wedge, disappearing
65. Mushrooms
66. A hidden way out
67. A rug of unusual quality
68. A secret
69. A mechanical person stuck in a loop
    
70. A portal too small to enter
71. A mirror concealed as a painting
72. A great hole in the ground
73. Bats carrying candlesticks
74. A mole with something attached
    
75. Lots of alcohol
76. A corner
77. Sudden movement
78. The passing of time
79. Glass jars containing experiments
80. Spoiled food
81. Smoke
82. A large bird, interesting
83. Something rotten
84. Concealed danger
85. A crowd looking for something
    
86. Out-of-place animals
87. A chest filled with stone, hiding a trap door underneath
88. Chanting
89. Displacement
90. Roots
91. An acorn, afloat
92. Intelligence
93. Religious practice
94. Slow but safe transport
95. A slow disassembly
96. A nest
97. Large optical instrument
98. Fancy clothes spread about
99. A highly sought-after glass bauble
100. Living vines

Four picture prep

 

As I upload these sketches and as I type in the title of this blog post, I start to wonder if you could use only four pictures for all things in session - that is, that's the prep for the night.

The four pictures above would then - for the whole session - all represent:

• The adventuring party
• Random encounters
• Loot
• Plot hooks
• Room descriptions
• NPC personality traits
• etc

For instance, you need to roll for a random encounter. Roll a 1d4 and either just use that picture as is ("You meet a knight in a never before seen armour; the knight waves at you and greet you all with a monotonous "HELLO EARTHLINGS!"), or rip off the various pieces found in the picture ("You find animal horns and hair - lots of hair").

(Now I need to get back to work. Ta-da)

Lair of the Bear that doesn't care

The lair of the bear that doesn't care

it can be everywhere

because when it hibernates

it transform, its body infiltrates

nature, like a balloon it inflates

< dungeon dressing, hallways, locked gates >

< mimic's blessing, old ways, ungrates >

The bear becomes the lair

but it doesn't care, 'cause it knows

between its snoring growls,

dreams of me and you and daring do's

and foes -

nine beats per minute

 nine beats per minute

  nine beats per minute

   nine beats per minute

    nine beats per minute

   nine beats per minute

  nine beats per minute

 nine beats per minute

nine beats per minute

Bells of spring ring, a recurring familiar thing

visitor begone, system collapse, song of crushing throng

blink and shrink and shrink and blink

visitor begone, take the money and run

the lair of the bear that doesn't care

resume, time to consume -

a beautiful day in June

The lair of the bear that doesn't care

it can be everywhere

 

Sketches sketches sketches

 

Mountain range