Ruins of Arbel Monastery

[gusty84]

Hey, everyone. 

Just got my account approved a moment ago and just wanted to share the dungeon I created, and recently made a cleaned up document for.

I posted in on my introduction, but figured not everyone checks there. It's for S&W:WB and set in HEX 1418 on the Blackmarsh map.

drive.google.com/file/d/17LYKkuN3hzgSSCJdWQdUdSzI27bEXDCk/view?usp=sharing

edit: Fixed the link.

[acodispo]

Thanks for this -- at a glance, the design & layout is very appealing! I've printed for later perusal of the content.

[gusty84]

Thanks! Would like to hear what you think, after you have a chance to read it.

[hamurai]

Thanks for sharing!

Skimming the document, I must say I like the presentation! I'll definitely use this in the future.

[doublejig2]

Looks like a great and substantial dungeon. I like the short to the point room descriptions. And of course the maps.

[acodispo]

Gave it a read through last night! I found the key accessible, easy to grasp, and I like how you bolded the important elements in each room. You struck a nice balance between giving a very simple, readable key, and also including brief but helpful details about monster activities and secret doors -- I improvise these details as necessary, but I appreciate when a dungeon author includes them as long as it doesn't add too much "fluff", which you have not.

I noticed that the stairs from level 1 to level 2, and from level 3 to level 4, are not noted on the upper maps. This caused my some confusion. I think inserting the symbol should be easy enough with GIMP or a similar image-editing tool and it would really help me in determining the linkages between levels at a glance.

Speaking of stairs, there *seems* to be only one way to go between levels. My personal preference is for multiple links between levels -- adding stairs, ladders, chutes, climbable pits, some of which go up/down multiple levels -- that sort of thing would give players more options for exploring the levels.

I like the new magic items & creatures!

To conclude, I would certainly run this in my campaign! I think I would give it one more careful read-through before I did so, making notes about the "missing" stairs, and I would probably customize to my taste a bit by adding some linkages between levels, but otherwise it strikes me as being easy to run & a solid dungeon.

Thanks again for putting it together!

[gusty84]

Thanks for the critique. Certain gives me some ideas on how I can improve in the future. And I was just using the maps as I found them, but you're probably right that I could try to add some additional symbols to help make things clearer from just looking at the map.

[acodispo]

Oct 3, 2021 10:16:36 GMT -6 gusty84 said:

Thanks for the critique. Certain gives me some ideas on how I can improve in the future. And I was just using the maps as I found them, but you're probably right that I could try to add some additional symbols to help make things clearer from just looking at the map.

Just to be clear, the adventure is perfectly great as-is with a normal amount of prep -- prep that I would give to any dungeon that I hadn't devised myself! I hope my thoughts came across as constructive -- I wasn't sure where you were at in the development process, and wanted to offer some concrete ideas in case you were planning further revisions, or, as you say, to incorporate into future work.

Thanks again for the dungeon!

[gusty84]

No worries. I thought it was helpful and certainly gives me a couple things to think about for the next one. And this is probably close to, if not, the final draft, since my group is currently on level 4 of this dungeon. 

[acodispo]

How are they doing so far?

[gusty84]

Pretty good. I play with two friends, each playing two characters. No deaths, but lots of close calls.


This game was a bit of a test, so glad it's gone well. For get togethers we normally play mostly board and card games, but this year we've branched out a bit, playing S&W:WB, Cthulhu Dark and another one page game I found on drivethrurpg called Visions Dark & Dreadful.