What you are looking at here is a still unfinished and flattened PSP image containing 8 layers from the top most towers to dungeon level one. This will likely class as a mega dungeon suitable for Level 0 thru 8; with the initial points of contact being entry level and the deeper you go, the more troublesome it becomes. With the Dream House out of the way, I have to turn once again to low level adventures; primarily because all the big characters in the campaign will be suffering from the time dilation of the The City of Brass. Therefore, we will turn our gaze back to humble beginnings...but not humble settings. I have some strong ideas for the Silver Castle that, hopefully, should lure players back to the same location without it becoming tired. My confidence in this regard has been bolstered somewhat by the fact that my players have already spent TEN sessions in the City of Brass and, rather than hastening to depart, are drilling down further. I suspect they will not leave prior to 14 sessions. Anyway, this new thing I'm tackling is meant to be more friendly to comings and goings...potentially luring the new batch of novice PCs intermittently over the course of their tumultuous and perilous young levels...back time and again to dare some new threshold, discover some new secret, and piece together another part of the puzzle.
The scope of this is far bigger than anything I've done beyond the Night Wolf Inn. Thankfully I have time because my players are still in the City of Brass.
Hope your Holidays are wonderful. Peace and happy gaming.
I agree. No need to key unless there's something there! No one wants to read "this room is empty" unless of course there's a note detailing what "might be there".
That is indeed a lot of locations, Anthony! I haven't finished rekeying (or completing the drawing of the levels, in some areas) my redesigned and re-expanded levels in Castle Greyhawk yet, but the largest to date (level 2) is going from 193 keyed encounters to at least double that, I believe, so I feel your pain =) So, a design Q for you about your keying approach: Do you number and key every space on the map, or do you just number the ones that require a key entry, leaving some map locations blank? (This is the core difference in presentation between WG5 and every other dungeon published by TSR). I've debated about both as methods over the years, but still feel that the time/eye scanning savings of not numbering all possible locations on a map is more useful---even though it means that I've not defined every possible space on the map, which sometimes still feels like cheating ;) I also like the idea of leaving room for the DM to customize and personalize within my design, by leaving such blank areas.
Allan.
I have completed the maps and assigned numbers to all locations. 452 keyed locations on the maps. That's a bit daunting. One bite at a time...
I have not. It rests in the fringes of the Witchocracy, in the direction of the Kingdom of Greymoor.
Should we know any more about the Silver Castle already---have you referred to it among your other posts/writings to date, Anthony?
Allan.