I suppose, in hindsight, I was bound to stumble into an area where I was ill-equipped to tread. I must admit, however, that the possibility seemed always remote, and I was little prepared for it when it happened thanks to my own lack of foresight. I’m surprised to find myself saying as much, but were it not for Ferguson I believe my project would have come to an end this week.

However, I can present you with no more concrete proof that the dungeons on this world are not random generations than by exploring a dungeon that was built by government employees.

As we wound down from our previous adventure, I with my notes and Ferguson with an ale and an eye for barmaids, a rather boisterous group came barging into the common room of the inn. They threw their travelling gear in random directions and dropped into the chairs, heaving their mud-encrusted boots onto the tables and barking orders at the inn-keep.

I would’ve brushed them off as boorish louts if Ferguson’s attention hadn’t clearly been pulled in their direction. I wondered if he intended to relieve them of the bulging coin purses they careless dropped onto the table, having seen Ferguson’s light fingers in action on more than one occasion already, but I soon realized that it was their conversation that he was studying.

And they were not shy nor quiet about it.

They were adventurers. The money was payment for a job they had just completed in the neighboring city just across the river (I had already planned on making that my next stop. One could say that these two cities were actually one, cleaved in twain by the river that they shared). From what I could gather from their loud, increasingly intoxicated conversation, some of the nobles there had paid them handsomely to remove some creatures that had moved into the rain cistern below their section of the city. Seems their pumps had stopped working and the city workers refused to attempt repairs because they kept getting eaten when they did.

I caught Ferguson’s eye and saw it roll incredulously.

“In the morning we find one of the city workers,” I said to him. “I must see this cistern.”

Ferguson sighed deeply and it occurred to me that perhaps his eye roll was not directed at the adventurers.

In the morning, we crossed the bridge to the other side and sought out a municipal office. We found one, and in the fashion of municipalities the world over found it staffed with lazy lounge-abouts who were “on break”. Eventually we found a worker who was on the clock, and he directed us to another office. Where we were redirected to yet another office.

Eventually, we were directed to a warehouse where the sewer workers reclined in various poses.

“I need to hire I guide,” I said. My words echoed through the warehouse ineffectually.

“I’m willing to pay top coin”, I added. There was still no response.

“Please?”

“Time-and-a-half for and afternoon walk-about and you get to go home early,” Ferguson yelled. “Who wants it?”

They practically trampled each other crossing the warehouse space and forming a circle around Ferguson and I, shoving each other out of the way as they raised their hands and yelled “me! me!”

“You,” Ferguson said, pointing to one at random and walking out. I watched him go, then looked back and saw the disappointment in the crowd. After checking that I was being followed, I ran after Ferguson.

Our guide ended up being a man named Manny who, fortunately for us, was one of the very workers responsible for maintaining the pumps in the cistern and who had refused to do his job simply because his life was threatened. We asked Manny if he knew about the adventurers cleaning out the dangerous creatures. Not only did he know about it, but he drew the map the party used.

“So how did they get in?” I asked.

“There’s a rain catcher at the edge of town,” Manny told me, “which leads to a half-mile tunnel into the cistern.”
I was processing the possibility of a half-mile walk through a sewer tunnel when Ferguson spoke up.

“How much for the shortcut?” he asked.

“Three stags,” Manny replied without missing a beat.

And soon we found ourselves at the back alley behind a bar where we found a locked shed. Manny produced a key and led us down a staircase to a cement-lined hallway. The passage was surprisingly dry, until we emerged into the cistern proper.

I must admit I was not prepared for the beauty of the structure. The room was huge. A series of glass inserts, similar to deck prisms, brought down an orange sunlight from the skies above, giving the whole chamber a fiery glow as if lit by a giant torch. Ornate columns lined the room, holding up the magnificent rib vault ceiling.

The entire room was covered in a layer of gently rippling water, although I couldn’t discern the depth because the orange light gave the water an almost black appearance. A network of rough wood plank walkways, hung from the columns with random chains. The walkways hubbed on a raised stone platform in the center.

“It’s beautiful”, I said.

“The pumps are that way,” Manny said, pointing across the room to a smaller area.

We dropped down onto the first walkway, finding it surprisingly sturdy for such haphazard construction but extremely slick from a layer of slimy mold. Manny went first, then myself, and Ferguson who had drawn his sword.
“It’s been cleared,” I said to him with a smile.

“Maybe,” he added in a way that troubled me.

We travelled, I would guess, another ten freebs before he was proven correct. I paused for a moment to look at the swirling ripples gathering under the walkway, but Ferguson shoved me on rudely. As I turned to complain, the first of the fish jumped into the air, and I had a glimpse of its fearsome teeth before Ferguson’s flashing blade knocked it aside.

“Run!” Ferguson yelled.

I did.

In moments, we were on the stone platform in the middle, surrounded by churning water. We scarcely had a moment to catch our breath before two scaly hands grabbed the stone behind us and a shaggy, mossy figure lurched onto the platform with us. It hissed and started making its way toward us. Other hands reached up the walkway which we had just vacated. How close had we come to being knocked off?

“It’s the beasts!” Manny yelled, falling into a squat with his hands over his head.

“You mean the adventurers didn’t kill them all?” I asked.

“It happens”, Ferguson said.

“What do you mean it happens?” I shouted.

“Only a truly neurotic party takes the time to kill every monster in the dungeon”, Ferguson said. He looked over his shoulder and pointed at another walkway. It lead toward the smaller area, but a large section of it had broken away.
“The pumps are that way?” he asked.

“Yes,” Manny said.

“Move!”

Manny looked confused, but Ferguson shouted his command again and the sewer worker jumped to his feet. We ran as a group toward the broken walkway and I wondered if I would be able to make the leap across the span. I didn’t get to find out.

Manny skidded to a halt at the edge of the walkway – or, at least, tried to. He paused for a moment, waving his arms like a baby bird read to make its first leap from the nest. Then he leapt. Or, rather, fell. I started to look around for something that I could use to pull him back, but Ferguson shoved past me. With a graceful stride, he landed his foot on Manny’s face, then hopped over to the far side of the gap as if skipping over a stone in a river.
“Come on!” he yelled at me.

I looked from Ferguson to Manny, then back to Ferguson. My mind was made up by a deep hissing that seemed to emit from directly behind my right ear – I ran the short distance to the edge and jumped. Manny saw me coming and raised hands defensively, creating a natural platform for my boot. I kicked off and realized quickly that I would not clear the distance. I collided with the other side at speed, taking the broken plank at the end of the walkway directly along the bottom of my ribs. The wind left me and I started to slip backwards into the water.

Ferguson was there immediately, pulling me onto the stone workman’s platform that lined this smaller area. Behind me, I could hear Manny calling for help, each call more watery than the last. And then they were on the walkway with us and Ferguson was fighting his way to one of the access doors. The next few minutes are a blur in my memory as I fought to keep up with Ferguson while barely able to catch a breath.

But soon we were through the heavy iron door, which Ferguson immediately shut and locked behind us.

The room was dark, no glass carried light in here. Fortunately, my companion had a pair of torches in oil-soaked leather. I squinted as he lit one. By the torchlight I could see the massive metal body of the pump.

“They lied,” I said.

“Probably killed the first one they came across and brought its head back for payment,” Ferguson said. He was working his way around the pump, tugging at various points.

“But they lied,” I repeated, feebly.

“Adventurers do that,” Ferguson said. He first tugged, then shoved his knife behind a panel on a great metal pipe and quickly had it off. He stuck his torch in the hole, then waved me over. “Let’s go.”

“Up there?”

“Up there.”

An hour or so later, we emerged in the basement of a rather large house on the edge of the city. The house staff looked at us quizzically, but Ferguson simply waved and said, “sewer inspectors”.

As we sat in the common room of the inn later that night, after the longest bath I have ever taken, I pondered the events of the day and what they meant for the future of my quest. I have now gathered notes on two dungeons that I can absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, prove were the design of man. That I would continue my quest was not in question, but how I would continue from this point remained to be seen.

“Perhaps,” I said, over my book, “I will buy a sword tomorrow.”

Ferguson nodded thoughtfully, then left his seat to pursue a barmaid.

Well, Nephew. Perhaps after reading my latest adventure, you’ll begin to believe me that the dungeons are more than simply constructs doodled onto the paper of our world by all-seeing gods who play games with dice and men’s lives. I’ve been to a dungeon that was created by the hands of men and, this time, I have a witness to prove it.

Ferguson has been bored with our questing lately, but my coin keeps his loyalty. As we entered the town of Shireton, we were confronted by the statue of a mighty party. A great warrior stood in the center, her sword point on the ground as she held the handle lazily. A mage and a man with a crossbow flanked her, and a roguish figure in a cloak stood at their back. The statue was exquisitely rendered. The cost had not been spared in its preparation.
I approached one of the silly townsfolk and asked about the statue. I was then regaled with the kind of over-enthusiastic tale of heroism reserved for the mythical sword swingers of ancient fairy tales. From what I was able to gather, a cult had taken up residence in a cave system not far from the town. When the daughter of a local noble vanished into the cult’s hive, a party of adventurers risked life and limb to bring her back. As I said, it was all very bland stuff, until the townie mentioned that the surviving cult members are still heavily taxed by the local government for their folly.

Ah. Now that had my interest. How long ago had this event taken place? Less than ten years, apparently. The events would be very fresh in the minds of any survivors, so if I could question them about the dungeon’s origin I knew I could have the evidence I wanted.

I began asking around for one of the survivors, which annoyed Ferguson. He claimed that the best way to find information was to just sit in the inn until someone burst through the front door in hysterics. I stared at Ferguson to detect any sign of sarcasm in his face, but there was none.

Eventually, I was directed to a poor house on the far edge of town. There, I found a man named Eugene who was working at the house as a cook. When I broached the subject of the cult, Eugene flinched as if he expected to be accosted. When no violence came, he relaxed and asked what it was I wanted. I asked him to sit down and talk with me about the experience. He was hesitant until I offered to pay for drinks, then he asked me to wait for him at a grubby bar nearby until he was finished with his work.

Several hours later, Eugene was savoring a warm ale and gradually warming up his voice.

He insisted on being refered to as Baba Eugene, his title in the cult. Nu Chi was a loose commune of believers who followed the teachings of Doug the Supreme, a holy man who traveled the land for many years, gathering followers, before settling down in the cave nearby. He said the cave had called to him for years and that it was their rightful home. It took them nearly two years to build the complex that was found there now.

Every time the name of the cult was mentioned, Baba Eugene traced a V above an X on his palm. Apparently his faith was still strong, despite the near erradication of his faith. The alcohol had its effect, however, and I convinced Baba Eugene to accompany us to the site. He was hesitant, saying that he’d not been there since the cult was broken, but I promised to bring him on the road with us and he agreed.

The next morning we set out, skirting a large lake not farm from the town. In the old days, Baba Eugene told us, a skiff piloted by a cult member would be available to take people across to the compound, but these days the only way to get there was on foot.

I was surprised that the main cave entrance was not the entrance to the compound. Instead, one approached along the side of an underground ravine. A cunningly built stone bridge spanned the gulf between the approach side and the door to the compound. Baba Eugene told me that he helped carry in the stones used to make it, and that the entire structure was held up by Doug the Supreme’s mighty will until the span was complete and could support its own weight. Ferguson rolled his eyes, but surely the gods would not create a dungeon with no way to get in, therefore it all had to be built by men.

The edifice was simple and, were it not for the square angles of the entry way, could be mistaken for just part of the stone wall. The door was ornate metal, decorated with the same V over X symbol that Baba Eugene had been tracing the day before. Inside, we found a large, rectangular room. Baba Eugene walked over to a shelf and pulled down two pictures – one was filled with oil, one with water. He poured both into cisterns on either side of the room, then dipped our torch toward them. The cisterns were designed in such a way that a small amount of oil was pushed up through the water which had separated on top of it, and when lit the oil wicked up through the water like a lamp.
On the opposite side of the room were two sets of doors and Baba Eugene immediately walked through one of them. Ferguson and I followed and found a simple chapel with wooden pews. Baba Eugene headed toward a dais on one wall and fell to his knees. While he prayed, I continued to explore. A door on the far side of the chapel lead into the compound proper. To the left was a large room, like a gymnasium, but empty so that I had no clue as to its purpose. To the right was a series of rooms occupied by bunk beds.

“This is where the women stayed,” Baba Eugene said. “Males were never allowed back here, not even to assemble the furniture. We dropped the wood in the chapel and the women carried it in and assembled it themselves.”

“I bet you dropped your wood,” Ferguson muttered. I elbowed him.

Further down, Baba Eugene started at a collapsed section of hallway.

“We’ll have to go around,” he said, “through the men’s dorms.

We took a door to the left and found a large room with wooden tables. This was their cafeteria. Baba Eugene continued through the cafeteria to a kitchen and pantry area, then into another hallway on the opposite side of the complex. We passed an armory, which Baba Eugene said was well stocked at the time of the assault, but the cult members were not fighters. Through another door, we found a wall with slits in the wall. Through the slits, we could see the ravine and the path we took up to the bridge. This surprised me as I’d not seen these slits as we approached, and an archer with only a modest talent would be able to target anyone making their way toward the bridge.

I suddenly realized I was alone, and by “alone” I mean that Ferguson was standing by smirking silently but Baba Eugene was nowhere to be found. Ferguson nodded his head toward a door at the far end of the hallway.

I moved with speed through the door and found another room filled with bunk beds. A door on the far side of the room was opened and I headed across. I was now in the hallway with the collapsed ceiling, but on the opposite side of the rubble. A twinkling blue light came from a doorway about halfway down.

There was a small, underground lake here, and Baba Eugene was standing on its shore. In his hand, he held a skull which he raised toward me as I entered the cavern.

“Here she is!” he said. “Here is the Baron’s daughter!”

“She went home,” I said.

“No!” Baba Eugene yelled. “We replaced her with one of THEM!”

He pointed toward the lake and the water began to ripple. After a moment, several greyish shapes became visible. As they marched up the slope of the beach I could see that they were massive albino crabs with arched backs. I involuntarily gasped when I realized that the natural markings on their shells formed a V over an X.

“That’s Doug’s greatest joke!” Baba Eugene laughed. “And now, I go to join my brothers and sisters in Nu Chi.”

He walked backwards into the water until he was hip deep. Then, with vicious speed, one of the crabs took his arm off. Baba Eugene laughed even harder. Another crab snipped off his remainig hand, then two more grabbed him by his hip and chest and pulled him down, into the water.

Soon, both the crabs and Baba Eugene were gone and the water was still again.

Once Ferguson’s laughter subsided, we returned to the bridge to head back to town.

Perhaps Baba Eugene wasn’t the most sane person, but I have no reason to believe his information about the construction of the compound was wrong.

Ferguson told me that even if the cult did build the furniture, the dungeon was obviously here before them and that the crab monsters proved that. When I told him that you can have monsters without a dungeon, he laughed and said cryptically, “only when you’re wandering.”

So I started looking at other dice mechanics and decided what I really wanted was not just a old school dungeon crawler, but something with an insane dice mechanic. And then it hit me – Yahtzee, aka Yacht, aka Generala.

Thus was born GENERALA, the diciest game on earth. Although I’ve run three games using it now, I have yet to create a bestiary. If anyone is interested in playing, I’ll dig up my notes on the monsters I used and post them.

GENERALA rule book
GENERALA printable rule booklet file

V’tor’s Altar

A short, one-session puzzle room for fantasy campaigns.

1. The Altar Room The party wake here. They are scattered around the room, lying in various uncomfortable positions, stripped of their gear.

On the left side of the room are two columns with fearsome looking angular runes carved into their surfaces. The columns are made of the same stone the room is built out of.

At the far side of the room is an altar made of carved stone, there are smudges of blood on its surface. A panel of polished gold rises up from the rear of the altar (think a mirror on a bureau). A fist of pure gold extends from the center of a raised star motif on the panel, parallel to the altar and pointing toward the door. Gripped in the center of the fist is a large key of wood and tin.

There are grooves at the ends of each of the star’s six points, about two inches long, an inch wide at the center, about half an inch deep.

2. Central Hall In the center of this area is the body of an old man. Unlike the party, he is dressed. A quick search of his gear reveals a few simple items – a dagger, a healing potion, and a pouch of holding containing several gold coins and various jewelry in it (in fact, if any of the party members came into the scenario with a particularly expensive-looking article of jewelry it will be in here). He is wearing a necklace with a small, flame bladed sword pendant on it, its curves greatly exaggerated. There is a purple gem in his hand about two inches long.

While the party are examining the old man, the door to room #3 opens and another party file into the hall. The other party are similarly stripped of gear, but otherwise have a comparable level and composition to the player party. Like the players, they have no idea how they got here.

3. Storage Room This is where the second party wake up. It is a plain, rectangular room. There is a wooden chest here. It is empty except for a small jewelry box which is open and empty.

4. Office At first, this room seems incongruous with the rest of the structure. There are four wooden barrels in one corner, filed with old, rancid ale.

A simple wooden desk is placed in the opposite corner. On the desk is a candle and a small flint lighting tool. There is also a quill, a small knife for sharpening the quill, and a dried out inkwell. There’s a small pile of ledgers written in an unknown language, but their columnar layout gives the impression of inventory control.

There is a decorated shield on the wall to the left of the door. It can be used in combat, but it’s not sturdy in construction, it is clearly meant as decoration. If the shield is moved, there is a small alcove behind it. Inside the alcove are six metal boxes just a few inches in size. The boxes are fastened to the inside of the alcove, and gears are visible coming out of the backs of the boxes and going into the wall of the alcove. The left-most box is opened. It is empty except for a black velvet lining. The other boxes can be smashed open with great difficulty, revealing small gems similar to the one found on the old man.

On the wall to the right is an old painting. It is fastened to the wall with heavy iron clamps. The painting shows what is obviously a wizard, with cliche pointed hat, robes, curly-toed shoes, whatever else spells obvious wizard. He is standing on a hill, looking at the viewer while clouds roil behind him. In his left hand is a flame blade sword with exaggerated curves similar to the pendant. There is a chest on the ground on the right hand side of the painting; it is drawn at a 3/4 turn so that its face is pointed toward the wizard but is still visible to the viewer.

Anyone examining the painting closely may realize that, although the wizard is looking at the viewer, he is pointing the sword at the chest.

A close examination of the chest reveals that the keyhole on the chest is an actual hole.

The sword pendant fits into the hole perfectly, and turning it causes a series of clicks and clacks to sound out from behind the painting. After a second or two, the painting will swing out, revealing a passageway leading to room #5.

5. Gear Room This is a small, dirt-floored cave. The party’s gear is here, as is the gear belonging to the other party. Everything has a ransacked appearance, and everyone’s money bags are empty. As noted earlier, any jewelry of obvious value will also be missing, having been found in the old man’s bag of holding.

6. Vault Door This is a massive stone door made of something much more solid and heavy than the material used to construct the rest of the chamber. In the center of the door, about eye height, is an ornate oval with a key hole. On the other side of the vault door is a magical portal that returns the party to wherever they came from.

Game Master’s Notes

There are several ways this scenario can play out depending on how the party reacts to the other people trapped with them.

Puzzle Room Placing one of the gems in one of the star point holes causes a monster to appear between the two columns. The monster should be leveled appropriate to the party, keeping in mind that the monster’s abilities should be consistent with the old man’s injuries.

Gems will not stay in place in the slots. If a gem falls out, the monster that was summoned vanishes. Someone will have to hold the gem in place until the monster is defeated. Once the monster is defeated, the gem will lock into place and the next alcove box in sequence will open.

Each gem summons a stronger monster, or a multiple of the same monster (1st gem = 1 monster, 2 gem = 2 monsters, etc) depending on what works best for the party. Once all six gems have been locked into place, the hand opens and the vault door can be unlocked.

Survival Trap If the party react badly to the other group, survival could be the object of the trap. Placing a dead body on the altar, such as the old man, causes the body to vanish and the next gem box to open. If the parties do not attack each other, a monster will appear between the columns every hour on the hour.

Psychological Puzzle The other party aren’t real. The entire puzzle is a test by some deity. The other party will try to sabotage the players, up to and including locking themselves inside the office or swallowing gems. The sabotage should start before the gear is found.

Nephew, I received your last letter and must admit that your defense of Dungeon Land dogma is most distubring to me, as I believed you, among all my relatives, to be the most open minded and willing to consider the possibilities. Common wisdom states that dungeons spring forth from the land wholly formed and ready for exploration by adventurers, but surely The Wizard’s Sleeve is the best evidence I’ve presented so far that this is not the case. How could a structure so obviously artificial in form be a randomly generated by nature?

I stand by my belief that dungeons are not the result of the gods doodling shapes and crosshatches on pieces of paper. There is a human element to their design and your rejection of this notion has only inspired me on to greater heights of evidence to save you from ignorance. To that end, I have put Ferguson to task to find me an actual inhabited dungeon. He repeated the doggerel about dungeons appearing only as adventurers need them, but when pressed admitted that he knew of a dungeon that was located directly under an inhabited city and even incorporated parts of the city’s construction into its matrix.

The city of Mondoport is larger than any I have yet scene with my own eyes. Ships come and go at all hours of the day for ports of call the world over (some I know to be land-bound, but when this was pointed out to the captains of the ships bound for these destination, they merely stared blankly at me for a moment before muttering something along the lines of “that must be in the newer version of the handbook” and walking away). The streets are teeming with peoples of all sizes and colors.

My distraction was broken only when Ferguson struck an urchin, sending the dirty faced youth sprawling across the ground. I heard the sound of coins and noted that a purse in the child’s hand had partially dumped its contents on the ground; it was my purse. I looked at Ferguson with rage. This child was attempting to return my dropped purse and got a cuff for his efforts. I was about to give him a piece of my mind for his callousness, but he stopped me by grabbing my cloak roughly and hoisting me to my feet. His other hand was drawing his weapon; seeing this I closed my mouth.

We hurried along wooden alleys and crooked back streets. Once or twice, we were noticed by the wrong sort and I thought there would be trouble, but one glint off of Ferguson’s drawn sword was all the toll we needed to pay.
Soon we found ourselves outside of a run-down, two story inn. A pair of gaudily made-up ladies sat on barrels out front, they ignored us as we went inside. The innkeeper was a grubby, overweight fellow cast from the same mold as all innkeeps the world over. He stared at Ferguson who responded with only one word.

“Shadowhome.”

The innkeep’s eyebrow raised the slightest amount but he didn’t move. Ferguson flipped a silver coin to him. This brought him to life, and he checked the windows before moving us up the hall toward the kitchen. Halfway there, he pushed on a knothole on the crumbling paneling of the hallway and a hatch clicked open. A pair of wooden stairs led down into the darkness.

I lit my lantern. “What’s down there?” I asked.

“Shadowhome,” the innkeep replied. “Crime guild headquarters.”

“So it existed before the adventurers came?”

The innkeep merely shrugged.

“Was there a crime guild before the adventurers came?”

Another shrug. I looked at him for a moment, but his placid bovine expression began to infuriate me, so I headed down the stairs.

The room we came out into was about half the size of the inn’s main hall and similarly decorated with tables and chairs. The furniture was greatly damaged, and I spied broken shards fo mug and gambling tokens among the debris. A heavy wood door on the opposite side of the room lay halfway across the frame, ripped off of its hinges. From the hallway beyond I could hear running water.

There were two rooms beyond this one, both occupied by tables behind walls with curious barred windows. A lower, damper tunnel sloped down to our right and led us to a slowly moving, murky channel. The smell was horriffic, and, although I was convinced the area we were in was completely man-made, I couldn’t help but wonder who would choose to make a dwelling down here, criminal enterprise or no.

We crossed with the convenience of a narrow board bridge which scarcely held our weight above the sludgy stream. As we made our way down the narrow ledges on either side of the tunnel, we passed doors which were heavily fortified except for narrow slots at just about hip height. When I asked Ferguson about them, he simply replied, “crossbows.”
I squatted down with my lantern and squinted through the slots. I could see a darkened hallway, barred cell doors, and a stairwell leading upwards to the street level. It was clear this entrance to the dungeon was restricted, but what purpose it served I couldn’t guess.

Eventually, we came to a larger entryway leading into a wide hall. Holes in the ceiling brought a fresh, welcome breeze into the sewer, all but removing the stench of the channel behind us as we entered the hall. Darkly colored tapestries hung from the walls, and stalls and carts lined the large rooms that branched off of it. There were no goods left to be claimed, but I had no difficulty imagining the large market that once throve here.

At the rear of the hall a large kiosk once stood. It was now broken and burned, exposing the door in the wall behind it. I expected offices, but what I found instead was a large room of the type used for pugilism classes, with reed-lined floors and wooden dummies for weapons practice. Whatever this criminal agency was doing here, it included combat training.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well what?” Ferguson replied with his usual dismissive tone.

“This is a dungeon, right?”

“Aye,” Ferguson agreed. “And a right fighty one too, I imagine.”

“But it was clearly built by the people who were using it.”

“Or, they weren’t real people and they were monsters created along with the dungeon.”

Which lead me to understanding your position, nephew. If everyone believes that dungeons simply appear the week before an adventuring group decides to go adventuring, then no evidence to the contrary will suffice. Still, I will continue on my purpose if for no other reason than to prove myself right in the end.

Nephew, if I’d ever convinced myself that I could take on the professional adventuring life myself, the events of the past two weeks would have convinced me of my error. However, if I had to suffer to get here, then the reward was all the sweeter.

Ferguson has taken me to an ancient dungeon, one that dates into antiquity and beyond, to perhaps the early origins of Dungeon Land. And here I have found conclusive proof of the hand of man in the creation of a dungeon.

Although Ferguson still disagrees.

For the past ten days, Ferguson and I have trudged through a dead, barren land covered with a dry snow that made walking a chore. A crust of evil ice, scarcely a finger’s width thick but as hard against the shins as shale, increased the punishment in the more open areas.

According to Ferguson, the bog across which we fought for the barest minimum distance has been frozen for at least a dozen generations. The people who fight for their existence here live much as they did when the frosts first came – and their diet of roots and mushrooms, grown in deep caves under their huts, has left me feeling heavy and tired and hating the journey all the more.

We were three days out from the ramshackle inn where we spent our last comfortable night, if, indeed, a night spent on a matress of ancient twigs and dried moss covered with an irritating wool blanket could be called comfortable, when we struck our destination. Ferguson spied it first, although how his eyes were able, through the frigid, icy wind, to pick out the small, rectangular cropping of stones at such a distance remains a mystery to me for it was many minutes before I myself saw it.

A roughly rectangular sheet of sandstone sat atop three similar pieces stood upright, making a small, three-walled gazebo of sorts. From its center, where the lash of the wind was greatly lessened, one could see that the area surrounding the structure was raised above the surrounding territory by perhaps five, maybe ten lurngs, suggesting that the structure was built on an ancient island in the middle of the bog.

Not quite centered on the floor, we found a hole barely large enough for my pack, which had already been well thinned of the provisions I carried just less than two weeks ago. Ferguson slid down the hole and lit a lantern before I passed down our gear and then followed.

After stumbling down a short decline, I found myself in a low, wide natural cavern with several branching arms heading in all directions. Ferguson pointed out a skeletal foot in one of the entryways, the rest of the body disappearing into the darkness. We didn’t investigate, but I wondered how difficult it would be to defend oneself in such cramped quarters.

Another short incline brought us into a short hall which had been tooled into a flat, rectangular shape. Two ancient wooden columns created a sort of doorway into the rest of what I can only explain as a mine. Chunks of flint on the ground confirmed my suspicion.

Two side rooms were carved with half of their far walls left untouched, creating natural benches. Their purpose was unclear, since all trace of tool or bedding has long since been looted or rotted away.

Past the open mining area, the hall sloped down again into a darker rock layer. The halls here were carved with much finer tools, implying a later culture. We first came across three cells of roughly equivilent size. Tool rooms? Prisoner cells? Worker housing? Again, the rooms had been cleaned completely, leaving no clue as to their purpose.
And finally, we wandered into the rear chambers, which were deeper, more angular, and much colder than the other chambers. Here we found debris of some conflict, although the still air preserved the items and belied their age. A broken sword was propped against one wall, a crossbow bolt lie on the floor several feet away. A glinting in the dirt proved to be a small section of ring mail.

We found the arm first, then the other parts. Soon, we found more bodies, some in the hallways, some in the alcoves carved into the walls. This deeper section had been used as a mass tomb, with several bodies wrapped in bed clothes. No personal effects had been left with the bodies, so whether this were a family tomb or some way to honor local leaders I couldn’t tell.

At the end of one of the halls, we found a chest-height stone column, it’s purpose, again, completely a mystery.
Ferguson, ever a man of mysteries, ran his fingers along the wall, tracing a line invisible to me until he found what he was looking for. He pulled with his fingertips until a section of the stone slid out of the wall, revealing another even lower passageway. It led to what seemed to be a dead end but which, again, hid a sliding stone entryway which Ferguson quickly discerned.

We were in a high-walled, cleanly chiseled room, triangular in shape. In its center, a column of similar shape but turned against alignment with the room. Strange symbols were carved into the column and, although it merged without seem into the ceiling and floor, it was a completely different stone than the rest of the room. Its deep color was a harsh contrast to the tan stone of the walls and its translucency became increasingly transparent the more I stared at it.

Ferguson pulled me from my hypnosis and led me down a tunnel in the far corner. It led us back to the first chamber we’d found, although I’d seen no such hall when we entered. When I turned around, I saw why – the angles of the tunnel had been so cunningly carved that even knowing its location I was unable to spy it from the surrounding rock faces. I had to approach twice to assure myself that the entrance had not closed behind us.

Although it bore few of the signs of combat we’d encountered in our previous explorations, and fewer of the remnants of found riches, this was, undoubtedly, another of the land’s many dungeons. And the fact that its purpose and creators were both long forgotten, there could be no doubt that this underground structure was made by the hands of man, even if its entryway was created by natural forces.

It’s not conclusive, I agree, but it gives me the drive to continue on in my quest.

I wasn’t surprised that all of my players rated Adventure as the element that they’d most like to see – after all this is a roleplaying game – but I was a bit surprised that Recurring Characters ranked #2 and Combat was #4. Our last long-term campaign had a lot of recurring themes and characters, but only to give me a sense of permanency when I was writing the next adventure in that universe. Having people and places show up more than once made it easier for me to write each game because I could build on what had already happened. I’m surprised that the players identified with it.

Anyway, here’s the compiled results of the questionnaire. I’ll be using it as the campaign template when writing up adventures.

Let me start by saying that I don’t plot my campaigns game-by-game. I write out the major events of the over-arching story, then write each week’s game in the week leading up to game night, deciding then how much of the overall plot will be revealed. So this won’t be another boring breakdown of pacing or combat vs. dialog or any of that overthinking nonsense. This is simply a method to flesh out the over-all storyline of the campaign around which you’ll set your individual games.

What is the Double-Tap
Simply, the double-tap is hitting the players twice, in quick succession, with two huge reveals. Rarely are these reveals back-to-back in the same play session, but they do come back-to-back in terms of the overall story.

In the double-tap structure, the players are given a problem to solve, a singular goal around which the campaign hinges. As they near the end of that goal you hit them with the first shot – the problem is much worse, much bigger, and has a much larger lead on them than they actually thought. In traditional three act formula, this is known as the climax or second turning point, in Jo-ha-kyū it’s the break, where things suddenly accelerate out of control; the heroes, who until now have trudged through ever complication thrown at them, suddenly find themselves against overwhelming odds against which they cannot prevail and the clock is ticking down even faster. This is standard stuff in adventure stories.

In the double-tap, the characters barely overcome their challenge, are victorious over the villain, and pick up their things to walk off into falling action and denouement – only to find that a bigger, meaner, more evil antagonist has been there the whole time and bam they’re hit with another climax. This is terrible in a book, even worse in a movie, but played right in a gaming campaign and you can create a massive oh shit moment.

What follows are the five steps toward running a double-tap campaign.

Step 1 – At the very start of the campaign, give the players a list of everything they need to research before the final battle
A few years ago, I ran a game set in the Stormlands, which is sort of a cross between Shadowrun and RIFTS. Magic and technology collide, but tech still has a huge lead, and most people don’t even have a clue about the magic stuff. The year was 2045. The player characters had a history in this universe (this was actually our third campaign) as troubleshooters. The campaign started off with a fed who’d collected some serious intel on the party and blackmailed them into helping him with a difficult case. Gold was being bought / stolen / collected in massive quantities and moved into the Bay Area where it simply vanished. The party was sent to Oakland 2.0, a brand new arcology running a brand new Mayatsuba computer system that was so powerful it could run all of the city’s services from a single box. The party did some research and found 1). Mayatsuba was one of the secondary zaibatsu which survived dissolution after WWII, and their new, secret-type computer chip could rewrite itself on the fly. 2). the existence of Oakland 2.0 had turned the surrounding area (mostly underwater) into a crime-ridden international pirate haven. 3). the gold was definitely not going into Oakland 2.0.

Step 2 – Feed the party more information while distracting them with other problems
The party’s past began to catch up with them and they soon found themselves on the defensive from attacks by past enemies. At one point, they were attacked in a still under construction area of Oakland 2.0 by a woman with almost supernatural physical abilities. After her hand was cut off, she fled. The hand turned out to be artificial, and they were able to track its design down to a reclusive engineer who at one time was the foremost artificial intelligence expert in the world. Turns out, he’s been building almost sentient female robots using Mayatsuba’s amazing new chips and yes, he’d be happy to give them a chip to play with. The chip was made of an unknown red material, with properties that can only be described by the lab that examined it as “organic ceramic”. The material could be etched with an intense laser, but would heal itself after time. They also discovered that Mayatsuba computer systems phoned home to Mayatsuba headquarters ever quarter of a second, so they couldn’t be unplugged and examined.

Step 3 – Let the party see their goal and set course toward it
After chasing down a shipment of gold which they themselves set up, the party were able to learn that the gold was being moved off the coast to the remnants of San Francisco, which had become something of a modern Tortuga. They investigated and discovered a rugged foundry which was converting the gold into rough coins with no imprinting of any kind. The coins were being picked up nightly by a Japanese pirate vessel and taken out to what the party discovered was the TransAmerica pyramid, which was now mostly underwater. They also found boxes of red objects which resembled large obovate leaves. These, they discovered, were made of the same material as Mayatsuba’s chips.
At this time, the party also learned that Mayatsuba was headed by the reclusive Mayatsuba Shinjiro, the scion of the original Maytasuba family business. Shinjiro was also a survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki, where the rest of this family perished, which made him almost 120 years old. They also got their hands on a Mayatsuba computers brochure which not only gave them some more info about the system but also told them that those computer towers were in almost every major American city as well as the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and several universities. They began to set up a relay system that would mimic the Mayatsuba signal so they could isolate one of the computers.

Step 4 – Hit them with the first reveal
The party now knew where the gold was going, so they formulated a plan to swim, underwater, to TransAmerica and break in from the bottom. They entered the building and made their way up the stairs of the first few floors. On their way, they found a few more of the strange gold coins, which got more numerous as they got further up. One player took a few. About a dozen floors up, they found that the entire building had been hollowed out and reinforced. The resulting empty space was filled with gold coins, and more occasionally rained down from overhead. Amongst the coins were men in fire-retardant suits; they were using claw devices to pick up more of the strange red objects from amidst the coins and place them in insulated packs.
Suddenly, a giant red snake-like shape scurried up the far wall. It was an Asian-style dragon, horns, beard, and all. The Mayatsuba workers were collecting the scales to make computer chips. The gold was being turned into a hoard because the larger the hoard, the larger the dragon, and more scales it dropped.
The party fled.
They didn’t get far before the dragon, realizing part of its hoard had been stolen, burst out of the building and chased them back to Oakland 2.0, where it proceeded to cause all kinds of havoc.

Step 5 – Now Double-Tap
The party did their best to dispatch the dragon (it fled back to its horde to heal), then called in to their fed contact to tell him where the gold was. As they were making that call, their tech, who had been working on a mimic of the Mayatsuba system, discovered that the response signal from Mayatsuba HQ was a countdown. It was counting down to 6:02 pm California time. That was on August 8, 2045. The signal was coming from Japan, and the server time that was being counted down to was 11:02 am, August 9, 2045 – exactly 100 years from the bombing of Nagasaki. Where the Mayatsuba family were killed.
The party caught the next supersonic to Japan before all of the micronukes embedded in every Mayatsuba computer exploded.

Writing a Double-Tap Campaign
I’m not going to cover story writing here; you should already have a grasp of the three act structure, you should probably know the basics of the heroes journey as well. These things will be the basis of your pacing and structure.
Writing a double-tap campaign is done just as you would write any campaign with the one exception that the ending has to have two levels. The second is the penultimate villain plan, just as with any adventure. The first is a symptom of the schemes the villain has put in motion to complete their plan. The first leads directly to the second, but the second never hinges on the first.
A good example would be the traditional stolen tchotchke. If the villain cannot complete their scheme without it, then you have no second level. However, if the tchotchke is one of many being stolen, and one less won’t bring the villain’s scheme to a hault, well, then you’ve got something.

I hope this inspires you in your own campaign writing.

Success, nephew! I have my first proof that dungeons may not be spawned by the Dungeon Land itself for the sole amusement of adventurers!

Now, I know what you’re thinking, one dungeon does not constitute proof of the whole, but nephew! What a dungeon!

Ralimnos the Cobalt is a name not unknown to the inhabitants of our kingdom, so when Ferguson promised to show me where Ralimnos died I immediately assumed we would be entering a dungeon of fearful power; it must be fearful if Ralimnos himself was unable to best it. But no, Ferguson clarified, this dungeon was, in fact, the home of Ralimnos. Not long ago, the dark necromancer Vaneeth secreted his way inside, killed Ralimnos, and proceeded to make use of the mighty wizard’s arcane artifacts to lay siege to the surrounding countryside. Fortunately, a party of adventurers happened to be laid over by weather in a nearby tavern and they entered the great all of Ralimnos and brought down the foul necromancer.

“But,” I asked, “surely if this was the home of Ralimnos, then it was no dungeon.”

Ferguson merely shrugged as if the question had no meaning.

A few days later we were in the town of Sera’chi. While Ferguson secured lodging, I set about questioning the locals about Ralimnos and his fate. I found the inhabitants of Sera’chi superstitious in the extreme. Whenever I mentioned Vaneeth, they touched both ears, both shoulders, and then their stomachs; the sign of the upside down star was meant to ward off evil. I was able to confirm, however, that the triangular fortification on the side of the mountain above the town (which the locals had nicknamed “The Wizard’s Sleeve” because of its shape), had indeed been the home of Ralimnos. Many of the older residents claimed that their parents worked on the building of the castle, although I doubted that any self-respecting wizard would use anything but magically summoned help to build their home.

The road, and there is one, to the front door of Ralimnos’ mountainside retreat was poorly maintained. A few wagon tracks baked into sun-dried mud were all the signs of use we could find. Of course, without Ralimnos, the town would have no reason to approach the gate to sell their wares.

The front of the fortification stuck out from the mountainside and we could see, from far away, that it was indeed triangular, as the villagers had described. The rest of the structure, with the exception of the tops of two turrets, was inside the mountain.

The front doors, which were massive and well banded against intruders, stood open. Ferguson told me that adventurers never close the doors behind them, new doors will appear when the dungeon resets.

The wizard’s great hall was beautiful; hard woods lined the walls and great columns dominated the room. To the left of the hall was a dining room which could comfortably seat a dozen or so, and to the right was a small reception area, decorated in warm colors with a handful of large, comfortable chairs. Both rooms, as beautiful as they were in the past, were devastated by whatever fighting had taken place here. The large fireplace in the room attached to the reception room had been split in twain, and we could see sunlight through its vents to the outside.

The other central rooms fared no better. A guest bedroom, an indoor garden, a library, a private study; they were all smashed and destroyed by careless swords, arrows, and fireballs. The garden in particular was a scorched wreck, and I could only hope it had given back part of the abuse it had received.

The back of the structure featured two large labs, although the purpose of the jars, phials, and cages I found there could only be guessed at. The doings of wizards are beyond the knowings of mortal men. Between the two labs was a large, circular room. Through various glasses and telescopes, one could observe most of the sky, although how this was possible from the center of a mountain was more than I could guess.

Between the kitchen and a storage area filled with boxes, we found a secret passage built into the stone of the wall. Ferguson told me this was only natural, there are always secret passages in the kitchen. Hidden in the storage area, however, was a secret entrance Ferguson did not expect – a hole in the floor leading into the cavern below Ralimnos’ lair. It was through this hole that Vaneeth crept; the wizard’s use of natural defenses ultimately became his downfall.

At the first landing of each tower we found the remains of great stone statues of warriors, fearsome in appearance. They too had been smashed to rubble, although if this happened in combat or of Vaneeth (or possibly the adventurers) opted to destroy them for fun was unknowable.

At the top of the west tower we found Ralimnos’ private chambers, where he reported met his end. Here too were signs of combat, spilling out onto the walkway that crossed between the towers many jopens in the air above the mountain.

Again, I’m left with questions, but this time, nephew, I feel confident in my beliefs that this dungeon did not spontaneously form from the landscape. Ralimnos created this fortification, of that I am certain. But is this an isolated incident? Perhaps this is not a “true” dungeon.

Ferguson and I go in search of cold weather gear for our next stop many days to the north.

It was a stupid idea, but exactly the kind of stupid idea that could eventually lead to something awesome. Somewhere in the back of my head, the part of my brain that stores silly ideas noticed that the plastic brick that contained my idea for a game based on Harry Potter snapped together with the plastic brick of the Gangster Squad idea and made an airplane. The kind of airplane made up of two bricks snapped together crosswise, sure, but with enough imagination it flies.

The spot at which the round bumps of one brick fit into the backside of the other brick was the idea of secret police. Gangster Squad reminded me of The Untouchables with its FBI agents, and Harry Potter has its aurors, a squad of wizard-busting badasses. It wasn’t a great leap to having an American agency responsible for policing magical crimes in the US and bam, I had a synopsis for my next campaign –

American Auror – the PC’s are aurors working for the magical equivalent of the FBI. They’ll deal with magical organized crime, magical terrorism, and the occasional dark wizard. There will be lots of combat.

I’ve been mulling that over for the last few weeks since I came up with the idea. I floated the synopsis out to my regular group and everyone was pretty enthused about the idea. As we talked about it, I came up with a few ideas and worked up a document for the agency based on some stuff I’d found on the FBI’s website. It gave the players some good ideas for their characters and they started rolling them up before I’d even written a word of plot.

So, since I’ve been asked, here’s that original agency document I created, as well as the campaign template I plan on handing out for the next step of setting design.