๐ A Prologue to Dungeon23: Part 3
Dungeon23 has begun and I've been putting pen to paper! I'll be posting weekly updates here, every Sunday, instead of daily. I was going to do this challenge completely digitally but decided to get myself a nice notebook and some pens.
I can't wait to see how these empty pages turn into something at the end of the year! (Not to mention how everyone else's turn out)
Outlining the Dungeon
It is going to be a challenge to keep a dungeon following the same themes and internal logic when you don't quite know what you will be making tomorrow or a month from now. Having a rough outline of things is going to hopefully help maintain a bit of cohesion throughout the challenge. Theme and tone will be very important to my creation process. Each level will be inspired by a piece of ๐ตmusic๐ต that gives me an idea of the overarching vibe. The blocks of rooms therein can be specifically inspired by a section of the music, a particular lyric, or another piece entirely.
The outline includes 12 levels, each with a short description, the factions therein, and the inspirational music.
The Outer Ring
Flesh & All
1. Shimmering Lands |
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The surface of outer ring's inner band. Covered mostly by water, save for a number of islands and some larger landmasses. |
Icarusians (the people from the settlement of Icuras' Landing), Daephons (people that live on floating ocean platforms), Reevers (raiders from a small island chain), Jurgr (people that live under the tallest mountain) |
๐ต One of These Days by Pink Floyd |
2. Nameless Depths |
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The deep waters surrounding all the land, filled with sea creatures and an underwater society. |
The Nameless (a huge leviathan-like water creature), Daephon, Baatho (an underwater society) |
๐ต Echoes by Pink Floyd |
3. Hollowed Halls |
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Underneath the tallest mountain is a vast network of hollowed out caverns and halls. |
Jurgr, Carapsoid ( blind, burrowing insect-like creatures), Frebots (blocky robots without a prime defective) |
๐ต Krigsgaldr by Heilung |
4. Hyper-dimensional Transit Network |
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A railway-like transportation circuit connecting together most of the Errant Star |
Frebots, Autocrats (blocky robots who maintain ring functions through spiritual ritual), Hyperians (beings that exist at lower dimensions) |
๐ต Lost in Introspection by Igorrr |
5. Spaces Between |
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The maintenance tunnels and observation chambers "behind the walls" of the entire outer ring. |
Autocrats |
๐ต The Weaver (Virtual Vacuum remix) by Puscifer |
In general, the section of levels represented on the Outer Ring will be more traditional fantasy-like exploration and dungeon crawling. While not fantasy, it shares similar tropes. There will be a land & sea pointcrawl, an underwater depthcrawl with an underwater dungeon, and a vast cave system under a mountain. There will also be more of a mystical and low tech element with many of the factions at play here. Only once the 4th or 5th levels are penetrated do we reintroduce a lot more of the science fiction.
The Middle Ring
Writhing Minds & Unwanted Bodies
6. Decadent City |
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A labyrinthine metallic city that shifts to meet the needs of its occupants. |
Cull (beings who replaced most of their body with robotic or alien parts), Returnals (Cull who want to return to how they used to be) , Dredge (robot workforce who rebel against the Cull) |
๐ต Dimensions by Devin Townsend |
7. Tower Unyielding |
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An impenetrable spire which acts as a vault, prison, and control center for the ring. |
Cull, Prisoners (peope captured by the Star for study, experiment, or harvest) |
๐ต Polyphonic Rust by Igorrr |
| 8. Thrones of the Neverborn | | -------- | || |Cull, The Synod of Unborn Lords (unborn foetuses incubating in artificial wombs atop multi-limb monstrosities) | |๐ต Pneuma by Tool |
In the Middle Ring we see a society in transition. They are trapped in their physical forms and want nothing but to transition to the next state. In their millenia of bordem they have lost their original selves in the pursuit of pleasure and perfection. They are cruel, weird, and dangerous. But there are those amongst them who think they have gone too far.
The Inner Ring
Liminal Consciousness
9. Forthfold Path |
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An enormous hard light simulation hall that reconstructs 4 important, but deadly, scenarios from the past. |
Reenactors ("ghosts" playing out moments from the past in order to learn something), |
๐ต Ice V by King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard |
10. Moratorium |
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A vast expansive emptiness occupied by projections of strange beings living in a kind of paradise. |
Anticipations ("ghost" spending the eons away in bliss while waiting for some future event) |
๐ต Reflection by Tool |
11. The Pale Yellow |
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A network of chambers all designed to assist in the construction of some kind of artifical deity. |
Neophytes ("ghosts" who are attempting to construct a god) |
๐ต Call of Ktulu (S&M Live Version) by Metallica |
The Inner Ring is difficult to define but it's safe to say it deals with more "out there", weird, and meta topics. It's proximity to the Star means that it experiences strange and unexplainable phenomena. The "ghosts" present in these levels are semi-real projections of conscious beings inside and around the Star, so they can be almost anything.
The Star Itself
The End's End
12. Exotic Matter |
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? |
? |
๐ต ? |
I only have a vague idea what is inside the Star so I'm going to leave it blank for now, but I have a whole year to think about that.
Now that dungeon23 has began I'll be working each day to flesh out each aspect outline here. Having this outline as a guide will be immensely helpful but some things may change or be removed entirely as I see fit.
I'll be posting my weekly progress here on the blog every Sunday. See you then!
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-Eucatastrophic is written by Jason Christopher Burrows