The S'rulyan Vault II

It's here!  ;)

I had a lot of fun with this one.  It was nice having a template and then doing things a bit different to both add to and diverge from what Glynn and I did with the original S'rulyan Vault.

+MonkeyBlood Design (Glynn Seal) has done another amazing job!

Basically, the dungeon is bigger (there are more areas within the space) and the PDF has a lot of cool stuff in it.

My favorite is the d100 table for faction quirks.  This table alone makes it fast and easy to come up with a unique faction on the fly.  Just roll on the table 3 times and the results will inspire you to fill in the rest of the details.

Thanks for all the Kickstarter backing and support - and thanks to everyone who purchases this!

VS

O5R Dwimmermount session #2

June is a busy month, so I lost two players from last session and gained a new player (with whom I've gamed a lot over the years).

The PCs:  Sir-Yut the human ranger (female), Iron Fist the dwarven fighter, George the human druid, and Bel-Vadren the elven magic-user.

So much stuff happened that I'm going to give the highlights (in no particular order)...

• Finally got to use The S'rulyan Vault map from last year's Kickstarter.  It really made the game come alive - without using a terrain map and miniatures that could disrupt our theater of the mind approach.
• Before returning to Dwimmermount, the party acquired a new hireling in town - a 1st level human thief named Barret.  He mostly keeps to himself, usually stays out of battle, and charges 5 gold pieces per day.
• I remembered to whip out the massive DCC tome in order to get the mercurial magic table for all spells cast.  There were a lot of interesting results!  The rat-like demons who crawl out of the wizard's sleeves to fight alongside him was possibly the best.
• The PCs discovered several steel cylinders containing azoth - a rare and potent sorcerous liquid that can be used to enhance magical properties.  Instead of black, as Dwimmermount describes it, I went with a luminous yellowish-green, like Predator blood... and Mountain Dew (seemed appropriate).
  
• I realize that more than ever, I should be rolling for the amount of noise being made in the next room, especially when characters are actively listening for it.  This is what I came up with.
• They fought gnolls, goblins, humanoids wearing dead spider parts, crab-men, a hollow-man from the DCC bestiary, and a gelatinous green troll based on a normal troll but given a little gin-sequoia via the Monster-Palooza random table in How to Game Master like a Fucking Boss. The only death was at the end with the green slime troll - Barret was hit, failed his save, and melted into a pool of slime.
• The PCs ransacked a forbidden library - all the books, save one, fell apart in their hands just like that scene in the original The Time Machine film.  The remaining book was magical and contained the spell Flaming Claw of the Demon!
• A wand was discovered hidden under a lip of some marble altar the crab-men were using to sacrifice one of the spider-worshiping dudes.  "Tastes like crab, talks like people."  Wands are interesting because they expend charges in order to make magic.  This particular wand had three spell-like abilities and each one used up a different amount of charges.  The wand was almost dry, but Bel-Vadren had the idea of soaking it in the azoth - turns out he was right!  The wand was fully charged again.
• One wooden door was carved with a triangle within a circle and that symbol had been glazed with azoth recently.  It was also trapped, as it happens.  Barret doesn't do so well with magical traps.  Luckily, George got in the habit of knocking on each door with his ten-foot pole after Barret's check.  It went from a ten-foot pole to a nine-foot and nine-inch pole as a sorcerous scythe swiped down and took three inches off it.
  
• I used a really old homebrew gemstone random table.  Wanted to use my translucent green Kort'thalis Publishing dice with the demon/dragon logo in pace of the "6."  First time I rolled the percentile dice, it came up "100," that made one of the found gemstones a star stone (aka sorcerer's crystal) which effectively doubled the potency of a wizard's spell once per day.
• Another time I rolled on the gem table one of the diamonds came up cursed.  To differentiate that diamond from the others, I had Harold roll on the color random table also from How to Game Master like a Fucking Boss.  The diamond had eggplant coloring with amethyst veins.  The cursed gem was simply bad luck.  Using the wand to remove its curse, the purple diamond became good luck, giving the owner a +1 to any roll he wished, once per day.
• They also picked up a magic weapon - a short sword +1, +3 vs. wizards; it detects the presence of undead with a sparkling black jewel in the hilt's crosspiece - it glows unnaturally when undead are within 30'.
• There was a dimly lit room where several robed cultists, chanting, sat around a feebly glowing shape set into a stone presentation area in the middle of the chamber.  It was faceted and semi-translucent, it's glow was faint because of all the caked-on dirt, grime, dust, and cobwebs covering it.  One of the cultists was about to pour a decanter of azoth upon the weird glass object.  The cultists were killed, with the pourer dying first.
• Bel-Vadren attempted the same trick as the cultist pouring azoth.  The azoth trickled upon an ordinary spider which turned it monstrously large and mutated.  It bit the magic-user's face which made him nauseous (with vomiting), but also gave him 4 arms.  After the spider was killed, George decided to smash one of the facets with his nine-foot and nine-inch pole.  I rolled a saving throw for the ancient vessel of magic and rolled a "1."  Bye bye, demon containment unit!  Luminous steam rose from the glass-like object and a malevolent presence entered George.  They now share possession of George's body and soul.
  
• In a circular chamber sat a large, hairy, corpulent demon upon a throne, attended by a variety of demonic humanoids.  There was wine and Iron Fist rolled a natural 20 to sneak up to the cask of wine and drink himself silly.  In exchange for a piece of jade found earlier, he let the adventurers pass through, after George negotiated with him in private, allowing them to head down the stairs to the next level of the dungeon, if they so wished (they did not).

If you're saying to yourself, "Hmm, this doesn't sound like the Dwimmermount I know," well... I've definitely made it my own.  There's a passing resemblance, but no other GM will mistake his Dwimmermount for mine.  It's been Vengerized!

We're all looking forward to next month's session #3.  Until then, I've got a bunch of exciting new content for this blog and Draconic Magazine.  Stay tuned.

VS

p.s.  Want your own (possibly) giant old school dungeon map?  The S'rulyan Vault II kickstarter is still happening.

Printed out the first S'rulyan Vault map

I shall be buried with this giant bastard of an old school dungeon map.  Let this blog post serve as my final will and testament.

For those curious, after my 25% off coupon from FedEx Office, this 46" x 36" color printed and laminated sheet cost me about $90.  Yeah, I didn't have to go that big (see that diminutive blue thing on the right - that's a full-size set of Chessex dice).  No, I didn't have to laminate it.  Sure, it's a pretty penny, but this is my "forever dungeon."

The thing I love most about it?  The little cracks drawn into the dungeon floor.

It'll take up the majority of damn near any gaming table you set it on.  The thing is beautiful!  +MonkeyBlood Design (Glynn Seal) did an amazing job.  This Saturday afternoon, I finally get a chance to try it out.

You see, my lame hand-drawn map of Dwimmermount sucked and even though the rooms and corridors are different shapes and configurations, I'll make it work for the monthly old school D&D dungeoncrawl.

I'm putting the whip to Glynn in order to make The S'rulyan Vault II even more badass, so definitely swing on by and back this Kickstarter.

Thanks,

VS

The S'rulyan Vault II

It's not the Kickstarter project I planned on (Gamma Turquoise KS happening spring, 2018), but it's the one I'm doing right now.  I'll be moving sometime in December, and didn't want the time, energy, and stress of that to affect what I can do for my wonderful backers (Love you guys!).

Plus, it's just fucking time for more dungeoning, am I right?  Glynn's already got his dungeon thinking cap on and will get me some preliminary sketches next week.  I want this mega-map (each quadrant is like it's own dungeon - put them together and it becomes a mega-map) to be different - older, deeper, and stranger... also more dense.

And I've got some exciting ideas for the PDF of random tables and whatnot that will accompany the map files.  I want to help GMs quickly and easily make "normal" dungeons more exotic and special, allowing you to run an awesomely non-standard dungeoncrawl on the fly - without any more than a few minutes of preparation!

I set The S'rulyan Vault II Kickstarter for 15 days, so there's about 2 weeks left.  If this is something you might want, please help us make it a reality with your generous support!  Be sure to get the word out - share this news with your gaming friends.

Thanks,

VS

Vault's open - come on in!

The S'rulyan Vault is officially here.

As I was explaining to someone only an hour ago, this product is mostly about the maps.  It's big, it took a long time to make, and costs are what they are.  The dungeon even comes in two different colors - old school blue/white and a golden brown parchment hue.

The PDF is meant to be the icing on the cake.  That doesn't mean I'm not extremely proud of the PDF, though.  I am.  I think it turned out really well and I'm excited to hear feedback from gamers who use my guidelines and random tables in their dungeon.

But yeah, this isn't a fully formed mega-dungeon with fleshed out encounters.  The meat and potatoes of it is up to the GM.  I merely provided the salad, appetizer, bread, and dessert.  The actual entree itself is not included.

So, keep in mind that you're mostly paying for the large, high-resolution map files that can be blown up to 34" x 44" at a professional print shop.

The PDF is 20 pages of neat stuff that will add depth to the dungeoncrawl that YOU create, whether that's mostly on-the-fly or with a few hours of campaign prep depends on what kind of GM you are.

If you have any questions, please let me know!

VS

Dungeon Crawl like it's 1983!

Last night, whilst coming up with more random table fodder, Glynn Seal of +MonkeyBlood Design sent me some snapshots, or "oblique angle visuals" as he called them, to help promote The S'rulyan Vault.

Pretty damn cool, if I say so myself.  The blue and white old school look of this deluxe dungeon is classic.  Glynn is adding some of his personal touches like cracked tiles and a variety of little symbols for statues, altars, curtains, pools, stalagmites, fungi, tentacles, etc.  Plus, some of Glynn's custom icons for god-knows-what!  It's going to be a lot of fun to look at, let alone explore with your adventuring party.

Originally, the lighter parchment with black ink and darker parchment with black ink were going to be separate files.  I liked them both and asked Glynn if it was possible to do the lighter parchment for interior areas like rooms and corridors with the darker parchment hue for all exterior spaces.  Lo and behold, it's possible!

Also, the 5 - 7 (at minimum) page PDF will have a full color cover and interior black and white illustration by Kort'thalis Publishing's house artist Bojan Sucevic.  You can see a work-in-progress image of the cover on the right.

The PDF file will be updated periodically via DriveThruRPG when I come up with additional GM material for running a dungeon of this magnitude.  Who knows how extensive the final document will eventually become?

For those who haven't read the mega-dungeon's history, here it is.

Once The S'rulyan Vault kickstarter has reached its first stretch goal of $1,000, the parchment version of the mega-dungeon will be unlocked and available to all backers on June 1st.

That's it.  Have a great week!  Don't be shy about commenting, sharing, blogging, re-posting, and mentioning The S'rulyan Vault on social media.  That's how we'll get to 1K and beyond.  ;)

VS

The S'rulyan Vault

Here is my latest Kickstarter campaign.

I want to create a huge, old school "blue" map like all those late 70's and early 80's modules I ran or played as a kid.  Big enough to dominate my gaming table, where all the players (and myself) can quickly and easily understand where the party is and what's going on.

It'll also include a slew of random tables for spontaneously appointing and populating your new mega-dungeon.  Basically, that's it.

Check out the stretch goals for bonus stuff I'd love to add.  Also, be sure to spread the word around.  The more funding this project gets, the bigger and better The S'rulyan Vault is for everyone!

Thanks,

VS

p.s.  The picture on the right is a sketch by Glynn Seal of +MonkeyBlood Design.