The cover fell off last year. Forty years old in January, the rusty staples slipped through the worn crease. The problem is not uncommon.
To Repair for 40th Anniversary Game.
I thought to just lay the detached cover flat face down, stretch a strip of Scotch tape along the spine, and re-staple it to the interior pages. Some advice from fellow B/X D&D fans warned me about a couple pitfalls.
First, use acid-free book tape. This advice came from a librarian, and I’m embarrassed to admit I hadn’t though of it myself. The usual invisible tape won’t last long. It will dry, crack, and fall apart. It also contains acid, which eats the cover over time, turning it yellow to start.
Second, wrap the strip of tape around the spine with the cover closed on the book. Applied flat, the tape won’t stretch around the book when it’s closed. It will rather tend to flip open.
3M also makes a Scotch brand book tape. I couldn’t find it at any of the few local stores that were open. I had to order it from the States. It arrived four months later.
Use Acid-Free Book Tape.
I applied the tape, half on the front cover, while the back cover was folded in the closed position, then wrapped the other half around.
Fold Tape Around Closed Cover.
Tricky enough. But then I realized that, because the sticky side was exposed through the punched holes and the torn crease, I would have to cover it with another strip of tape on the inside.
Furthermore, it became obvious that any staples would need reinforcement, or they would tear right through the two layers of tape.
For this, I cut two rectangles from an index card. I may have shortened the life of the repair with the card as it was not acid-free.
Reinforce Staple Location.
I cut a length of tape and laid it sticky-side up on a table, holding the ends with stones from a dismantled dwarven city terrain model. To align the rectangles to the staple locations, I laid the interior booklet next to the strip and stuck on each pre-folded rectangle. Then it was just a matter of applying the tape to the inside cover and clipping the tape ends flush to the cover with a blade.
Now to staple the cover. I was happy to discover a local print shop which had a saddle stapler. They didn’t have one the width of the original staples, which wasn’t a problem. But the staples weren’t as long either. Through the interior pages, they bent over the inside only about one millimeter.
This wouldn’t have been such a problem if, rather than two staples at the original locations, I had thought to leave the original staples in place, and use three staples, one at each end and in the middle.
Leave the Original Staples.
After only two weeks of use, the first folio already slipped out. I’m on a quest for long staples.
Repair Tips
Should you encounter a similar problem:
Use book tape (acid-free).
Tape the cover folded around the interior pages.
Reinforce the staple area (also acid-free).
Leave the original staples if serviceable.
Thanks to Jamie Blackman, Jerry Eblin, and other members of the Dungeons & Dragons B/X Facebook group for their advice.
“Viggo Eskilsson, sage of Valormr, does here record the many histories of the underground realm known as Throrgrmir from its primordial origin to its age of dragons so prophesied.”
—Viggo’s Histories
Eskilsson came from the wild northern peninsula, tracking down legends of Throrgrmir’s wyrms and the Wyrm Prophecy. His previous works include Merfolk of the Cimbrian Sea, The Origin of Prophecy, and the four-volume Treatise On The Fabrication and Use of Metallic Alloys Natural and Artificial.
Now supported by the Lords of Valormr, Eskilsson resides in comfortable quarters within the city walls, where he researches his latest work. He gives the title as Histories of Throrgrmir From Great Wyrm to Age of Dragons. Locals call it “Viggo’s Histories.”
The historian divides Throrgrmir’s history to the present into nine ages, I to IX. He speculates that the next will be the prophesied Age of Dragons.
“If you’re going to use your dungeon for role-playing, I recommend you play right up until the start of the Age of Villainy, or possibly 1-2 turns into the Age of Villainy.”
—Tony Dowler, How to Host a Dungeon (2008).
A standard game of How to Host a Dungeon consists of one age each Primordial, Civilization, Monsters, and Villainy. After Wyrm Dawn’s Primordial Age, I drew out the dwarven Civilization across three Ages, played through two full cycles of the Ages of Monsters and Villainy, and when the Second Age of Villainy ended abruptly, a third villain rose to power.
Now, a few turns into the Third Age of Villainy, I pause the game. Events in Wyrm Dawn are prelude to the B/X D&D campaign Wyrmwyrd.
The mob wrecked the Cynosure and the School of Mines and defaced the statue of the former despot. Then they fought over the Magnate’s treasure and eventually disbanded. A few stalwarts formed an adventuring party.
The Free City of Valormr
Gullhofn, now liberated from the Magnate’s dominion, declared itself a free city and changed its name to Valormr, after a battle which took place in the wide, level river valley some long years ago.1
The Red Ogre
With the Magnate’s fall, the ogre mage, whose name was Onaka Kanabo, rose to villainy. Known to surface dwellers as the Red Ogre, Kanabo placed a horned crown upon his head and proclaimed himself Emperor of the Undersun. He built a capital from the ruins of the stone giants’ castle below the Throrgrmir Throne Room, refashioning the structures in the style of his homeland.
Kanabo made overtures to the Sadhakarani nomads to bring them under the Empire’s sway. When they refused, he hunted them down and killed them and took their treasure. Then he built a great wall around his domain.
Claws Versus Manes
Griffon’s Claws built a tower on a butte across the river from Valormr. It’s name was Isolde’s Tower after their wizard leader.
The adventurers took the name Pegasus Manes and fought the Claws. The fight went badly for the Manes.
Blue Wizard’s Omphalos
The Blue Wizard achieved its purpose: it built the Omphalos, the World Naval. It is unknown whether the Blue Wizard went through the wormhole—that was the Omphalos—and disappeared into the void beyond, or whether the Blue Wizard became the Omphalos. In either case, only the Omphalos remains, guarded by statues of living crystal.
A cult grew up around the Omphalos. The Blue Wizard Cult, unable to get by the living statues to worship the Omphalos directly, built a representation of the World Naval. They made sacrifice to the idol, which they claimed whispered to them in the voice of the Blue Wizard. Then they were hunted to extinction by blink dogs.
The Ghoul of Tower Mill
More recently, unusual events began to occur. More frequent rat infestations went unremarked at first. Then hunters and travelers reported wolves prowling the countryside in daylight hours. At night, they howled from hilltops near villages. Then came reports of folk in towns, villages, and in the city itself suffering from weakness after waking in the night with strange marks on their necks.
Suspecting a vampire, the Lords of Valormr requested the aid of the Ghouling Gauntlet. The ancient order of undead slayers responded to the call. Tracking the predator, they followed it to the tower mill. They confronted the “ghoul”—all undead to these slayers were ghouls—but they failed to rout it.
In his report, Ghouling Gauntlet leader Bishop Acacius Mar confirmed: “A vampire, no doubt. It sleeps on a bed of dirt in an old mining cart at the top of Tower Mill. It’s figure is pale and emaciated, but the ghoul is strong. It is male, middle-aged at death with a receding hairline, large forehead, small eyes, and a hawk-billed nose…”
Notes
1 Valormr: val (war or slain) + ormr (wyrm), pronounced Val-ORM-r. During the Throrgrmir Renaissance, when the new-hatched wyrmlings prowled the dungeon, already dragons came to hasten the prophesied Age of Dragons. The dwarves called to their neighbors, who responded in force. Dragons recruited forces of Chaos to oppose them.
The Undersun Emperor’s Initial Territory (marked in orange), the Red Ogre’s Wall (red), and Present Territory (purple).
Now we enter into what—for adventurers in the Wyrmwyrd campaign—will be recent history.
The mining mogul was a middle-aged man of wide girth and overbearing stature. He carried extra weight like a cudgel. Thinning dark hair receded from a large forehead. Beady eyes sat too close either side of a hawk-billed nose.
If his name was ever known, it was not recorded. The miners called him “the Magnate.”1 They did their jobs and steered clear of his presence. With meager wages they purchased necessities from the Magnate’s store and saved any extra. There was never any extra. Such was a miner’s existence.
Monuments to the Magnate
The Magnate built the Cynosure,2 his office and home, across the valley facing the old dwarven citadel. In the valley, he established the School of Mines. Between the Cynosure and the School’s campus, he erected a statue of himself for posterity. On the other side of the hill, out of sight, he set up a mining camp, and after miners were hunted by underworld predators, he built a mausoleum at the foot of the limestone hills.
Gullhofn
The influx of gold into the region necessitated a port on the surface river. A city sprang up there, called Gullhofn.3 The citizens built walls to keep predators at bay. They also built a temple complex. Gullhofn was always a good trading partner with its mining neighbor, and after extended negotiations, the city finally joined the Magnate.
Sadhakarani
Often called Runefolk, Sadhakarani4 were nomads and renowned traders, and they manifested an innate ability for magic. They set up a bazaar in the ruins of Troelsvollr. From the “Old City Bazaar,” they traded with Gullhofn and the Magnate, as well as others, including Faerunduine.
Blink Dogs
A pack of blink dogs moved into the region and began to hunt the miners. The Magnate built a kennel and lured the blink dogs into a pact. After which, the dogs turned to hunting nomads.
Stone Giants
Learning of their cousins’ earlier demise, more stone giants moved into the dungeon. From the Doom Weapon chamber, they fought with fungaliths and hunted them until the fungaliths died out. The stone giants continued to exploit the old gem mines, hunted gnolls, and built an extensive castle below the Throne Room.
Blue Wizard
An enigmatic figure known as the Blue Wizard explored the crumbling remains of Stardark University. In dusty tomes, it found reference to the Stone of Living Statues. It sought the Hall and, after some searching, found the artifact. Then it traded for wealth and knowledge, harvested crystal from the nearby Crystal Caverns, and built living statues. All this it accomplished with perfect economy and single-minded determination. To what purpose, no one knew.
Griffon’s Claws
Then adventurers arrived. These were veterans of many adventures in distant lands beyond the western mountains. They called themselves Griffon’s Claws, and they sought not glory nor fame nor the doing of good deeds. It was wealth they wanted, and they got it through trade, extortion, theft, and force.
Ogre From the East
An ogre mage came down the Old Highway from the east. He would have passed through but tarried at the western exit long enough to encounter miners, whom he hunted for a time.
When he was finally routed by the Magnate, the ogre mage relocated to the Throrgrmir Bridge. There, he hunted gnolls and stone giants until both populations were decimated. He took over the stone giants’ castle as well as their considerable fortune. The ogre mage then began trading, first with the Blue Wizard, and expanded his territory to the old dwarven gate above the Deepmost Cavern, wherein lay Faerunduine, undisturbed.
An Ignominious End
Disgruntlement grew in the mining camp until one day the miners had enough. An angry mob stormed the Cynosure and threw the Magnate down the shaft of the tower mill.
Notes
1 The area and period of his dominance are also called “the Magnate.”
2 The Magnate, being an unusual empire, uses different names for common constructions: the Cynosure is the capital, the School of Mines a university, and the mining camp a slum.
3 Gullhofn: gull (gold) + hofn (harbor).
4 Sadhakarani: The origin of the people and their name for themselves is obscure. Their own myths indicate an otherworldly provenance, an idea fostered by the unfamiliar iconography of their accoutrements and the unusual runes they draw on their skin.
Situation at the End of the Masked Boar Mining Magnate.
The green dragon Faerunduine made her lair in the Deepmost Cavern. On a ledge above the underground lake, she slept and dreamt of the coming Age of Dragons.
The Last Wyrm Spawn
Wyrmling Alpha woke from her slumber in what once was the Great Wyrm’s lair in Throrgardr. The wyrmling crept into the Deepmost Cavern by well-worn ways and stole treasure from the sleeping dragon, who was thereby touched.1 The last of the wyrm spawn returned to the lair, deposited the treasure as was her long habit, and curled up in the cold, damp nest.
Miners
A mining concern came up the valley from distant lands. Having heard the legends of the Throrgrmir Civilization and of the rich vein of gold ore, the prospectors found the old dwarven mine. They set up a base of operations on the ground floor of the Throrgrmir Citadel and set about their work, harassed only by an ogre, who demanded gold in exchange for protection from unseen dangers.
Ogre
When the miners chased the ogre from the mines, it retreated deeper into the dungeon and hunted Wyrmling Alpha. Faerunduine also hunted the wyrmling, so together, the ogre and the dragon killed the last wyrm spawn. Her bones turned to stone in the ogre’s pot.
The Magnate
Meanwhile, the miners continued to exploit the gold vein. They built a tower mill to extract the precious metal from the ore, and became rich. Thus was established the Masked Boar Mining Magnate.
Notes
1 The last wyrmling bequeathed to Faerunduine a +1 bonus on all dice rolls.
No one knows how long was the reign of Dagrun Stardark or how her empire ended. Few clues remain, and while these are much debated in scholarly circles, no consensus has been reached.
Sages refer to the period as “Stardark’s End.” Among them, it is generally accepted that the dungeon was abandoned until its reinvestment by Faerunduine, and that, as of the beginning of the Wyrmwyrd campaign, no treasures from the age have yet been recovered.
For the mysterious end to the Stardark Empire, I am inspired by the Bronze Age Collapse of our own world’s ancient history. Around 1200 BC, we find in the archaeological record, eastern Mediterranean cities deserted and destroyed, most by fire or other violent means. Trade was disrupted and few written works were produced for a couple hundred years. During this period, called the Greek Dark Age, Mediterranean civilization seems to have taken a break.
Historians and archaeologists have proposed many theories for the cause of the disruption, among them earthquake, famine, war, or invasion by the otherwise unknown “Sea Peoples.” Some are more likely than others. None proved.
So for the moment, we let Stardark’s End remain a mystery. Clues may offer themselves as we play out the wider history of DONJON LANDS.
While she was strong in magic, Dagrun Stardark knew she was outnumbered in the dungeon, and her treasury was spare. The Empress, therefore, cultivated the former glory of the dwarven empire to instill a sense of unity and pride in the citizens.
To that end, she founded a university and expanded it with numerous colleges and faculties over the years. It came to be renowned for its elite professors and fine collections of magical texts and knowledge of the Throrgrmir empire.
Wyrmwyrd
The Empress explored much of her domain, seeking knowledge of the dwarves’ culture and objects of their making. It is known, for example, that she learned the art of creating living statues from the Stone of Living Statues and that she wielded a dwarven artifact called the Wyrmwyrd, with which she subdued Ormr and made the Great Wyrm to pay homage.
Ixmundyr Slain
Kobolds made a lair in the dwarves’ old power plant above the magma chamber. They riddled the areas west of the Deepmost Cavern with tunnels and harassed Ixmundyr. They stole from him, he extorted them, and the wyrm-touched dragon was killed in a fight with the kobolds.
Shadow Hulk
The shadow hulk hunted the denizens of Legendary Throrgardr to extinction. The hulk then made its lair in the city’s wizard’s quarter, and, tunneling into the Hall of Living Statues, hunted its guardians.
Stone Giants
Stone giants moved into an old gem mine. They routed the shadow hulk and began to exploit the gem deposits on the stratum. They built a castle in the gem caves, opened a tunnel behind the Hall of Statues to the gem deposit, amassed great wealth, and fell under the Empire’s sway.
Adventurers
A party of adventurers went looking for the dwarven city of Throrgardr. They discovered the wizard’s quarter of Legendary Throrgardr and the stone giant. They inhabited the tower, slew the stone giant, and took his rich treasure.
The adventurers had a number of encounters with wyrmlings, who stole their treasure, and on one occasion they ventured into the Great Wyrm’s lair to steal their treasure back. The adventurers eventually swore fealty to the Empress.
Troelsvollr
Following rumors spread by adventurers of rich treasure and a law-keeping empire in the dungeon below, humans moved in. Farmers tilled the fertile soil on the flood plain, and built a keep to protect themselves and a silo to store grain. Good harvests brought wealth. The farmers swore fealty to the Empress and established a city called Troelsvollr.1
Gullhringr
The next dragon who came to the dungeon hoping to fulfill the Wyrm Prophecy was named Gullhringr. The gold dragon made her lair in an eastern branch of the gold vein. There, she slept and hoarded her treasure.
Dagrun Stardark learned that Wyrmling Beta, the weakest wyrm spawn, made her way toward the dragon’s lair. Understanding the consequences of the weak wyrm’s touch,2 the Empress built walls to trap the creature. Henceforth, the enclosed section of the gold mine was called Wyrmgardr.
Later, Wyrmlings Gamma and Epsilon approached the dragon’s lair. Preferring to be touched by the more powerful of the two, Gullhringr hunted Epsilon and so was touched.3
Although Gullhringr and Dagrun Stardark were often allied, the former never paid homage to the latter.
Decline of Wyrms
While collecting treasure from various inhabitants, the wyrmlings were wounded in failed thieving attempts and hunted by predators until only one survived. When one of her clutch died, the Great Wyrm was wounded and so lost much life force.
Murtax
The fiend Murtax, vassal to the Empress, was a frequent target of the wyrmlings thievery. He killed them when he could and expanded his territory to surround the Wyrm’s Lair. He made plans to slay the Great Wyrm and, thereby, recover his own treasure and lots more.4
Notes
1 Troelsvollr: Troels (Thor’s arrow) + vollr (field). Troels is a given name, but that did not prevent in later periods the bastardization of the now-ruined city’s name to Trollsfeld.
2 The wyrmling’s touch grants her bonus, if any, to a dragon. Lowest in the wyrmling hierarchy, Beta had no bonus. Since a dragon cannot be touched twice, Beta’s touch would be a curse to any dragon hoping to reign during the Age of Dragons.
3 Epsilon, high in the hierarchy, was one of the most powerful of the sister serpents. Gullhringr adds 2 to all dice rolls.
4 Murtax kept copious notes of his activities and purposes and recorded much of his infernal magic. He wrote in a demonic script on sheets of wyrmling hide, which he sewed together into large volumes, using long tendons from wyrmling wings.
Stardark Empire Overlay and CompositeStardark Empire Tokens and Cards
The following text describes events in Wyrm Dawn’s First Age of Monsters. In this age, “A Wizard” (How to Host a Dungeon, Dowler, 2019) rose so quickly to “villainy” that I have determined to run a second Age of Monsters following the empire’s demise.
Throrgrmir Legacy
A long, dark silence followed the dwarves’ departure. No more was heard the din of the miner’s pick nor the clank of the smith’s hammer. In workshops, tools were carefully arranged, ready to be taken up again to finish abandoned work. Furnaces and smelteries were dead cold. Drinking halls were still. Walls of fine-hewn granite blocks no longer held the memory of the last echoes of raucous folk ballads nor of solemn dirges. The slow drip of water from cavern ceilings kept time on quiet dwarf-carved stones.
The subterranean river continued its winding way through smooth-worn channels. It flowed by the now dry aqueduct, under the crumbling bridge, through empty dormitories and treasure vaults, past life-like statues of rock, iron, and crystal—indeed living yet unmoving, and rippled between the feet of the Throrgardr Colossus, which still stood, keeping watch over the forsaken realm. The river’s dark water twisted around former graffhellar into the great cavern that once housed a thriving city of proud dwarves.
Now there slept the primordial wyrm atop a pile of treasures collected by her offspring. Between crystal urns and bronze chests, spilling coins and jewels, wyrmlings nestled. In turns, the serpent sisters yawned and tasted the air with darting tongues between long bouts of fitful slumber.
And so, the Throrgrmir Civilization passed into legend, its history and culture preserved on engraved friezes and monuments hidden in gloomy depths and in fables and epic tales. The tales told of fabulous treasures: hoards of gold, precious gems, and objects of dwarven craft, and of the Great Wyrm Ormr and her treasure-seeking spawn.
Ixmundyr
When dragons heard these tales, they were reminded of the Wyrm Prophecy, according to which at such place an Age of Dragons would dawn. Thus did Ixmundyr follow the tales to the broad river valley below the western mountains, to the crumbling citadel of the masked boar, and down into the old dwarven mine tunnels. In the magma chamber at the dungeon’s bottom, the red dragon made its lair.
Legendary Throrgardr
Subterranean denizens from neighboring realms came after treasures. In the old Throne Room, they found the Throrgrmir Scepter. Thinking to have discovered the legendary city, they settled there and in old graffhellar across the bridge. They called the settlement Legendary Throrgardr and, for a time, prospered.
In a treasure vault, Throrgardr denizens built a wizard’s quarter. Not having the dwarves’ skill in construction, their arches and doorways were not hexagonal but triangular. They also built a stepwell, used to capture river water, and when a shadow hulk hunted them from a nearby lair, they built tombs in abandoned gem mines. Exploring deeper, they discovered an incomprehensible thing. It was the dwarves’ Doom Weapon, and they found the Inordinate, its fetish.
Dagrun, a Wizard
Also in those days, an ambitious wizard named Dagrun installed herself in the former drinking hall. From dwarven inscriptions, she learned the place was called Sixth Cairn. Above it, she built a loft, where she set up a laboratory, and so, attracted apprentices. In the neighboring tomb, she learned of Lyngheid’s Prize and the monument called Sigrenormr, which recounted the Battle of Throrgardr between the dwarves and the Great Wyrm Ormr.
Wyrmlings Wake
Even as Dagrun learned of its existence, the golden monument was being defaced. For with activity renewed in the dungeon, the serpent sisters, waking, tasted treasure on the air and began to stir. The wyrmlings could not remove Sigrenormr intact, so they broke what parts of golden limbs as they could carry.
Ixmundyr Touched
Exploring the dungeon, the wyrmlings brought treasure back to their mother’s lair. Among which was the Throrgrmir Scepter, stolen from Legendary Throrgardr. They found also the lair of Ixmundyr, who was not spared their touch.1
The Star of Darkness
Meanwhile, the wizard Dagrun explored the Dead Caverns and the dwarven barracks and treasure rooms. She opened tunnels to the old gold vein and exploited its ore. With the spoils, she made a cyst, with which she captured malign energy. Then she made a diadem.2 It shone by its own bright light. The wizard called it Stjornumyrkur, the Star of Darkness, and with it, she crowned herself Dagrun Stardark, Empress of All Old Throrgrmir.3
Upon a stele commemorating the coronation are inscribed the words of Empress Dagrun Stardark: “We shall rebuild the Throrgrmir Empire for the good of all law-abiding citizens.”
Notes
1 Ixmundyr, touched by Wyrmling Gamma, adds 1 to all dice rolls.
2 The diadem serves the same purpose as the wizard’s phylactery (How to Host a Dungeon).
3 Texts of the era preserve the domain’s name as “Ganz Elt Throrgrim.” In the heroic age in which the Wyrmwyrd campaign takes place, scholars refer to Dagrun’s reign and domain as “Throrgrmir Eld.”
The initial impetus, to run an impromptu pick-up game or a solo game in The Deep Halls, prompted me to make two conceits: One, we use random methods to stock the dungeon, thereby avoiding any preparation. Two, it is a “closed” dungeon campaign. That is, one in which we haven’t need to explore outside the dungeon, as all the experience points necessary to gain levels and meet the dungeon’s challenges can be found within it.
If awarding four times the treasure or experience points—or a combination thereof, turns your grognard stomach, you may of course abandon the second conceit and open the campaign.
In an open dungeon campaign, we are not obliged to chock The Deep Halls so full of treasure. We can use the default treasure sequence from the Flying Dungeon Stocking Table without fear of falling. Characters lacking XP for the next deeper level can find them in neighboring dungeons or in the surrounding wilderness.
In keeping with the campaign’s first conceit (random generation, minimum preparation), we assemble geomorphs as the party explores these other dungeons, and for the wilderness in which they are set, we use the original map board suggested for “off-hand adventures in the wilderness” (OD&D Vol. 3, 15).
While rumors and legends lead to other dungeons in the wilderness environment, the dreaming priests and their machinations in The Deep Halls remain central to the campaign. To accomplish that, we might adhere, however loosely, to the following guidelines:
Secondary adventure sites are small. Outside The Deep Halls, the party explores one-, two-, or rarely three-level dungeons. They follow up on the rumor or retrieve the MacGuffin and get back into the primary venue.
Most secondary adventures are tied to the campaign thread. The party might indulge in occasional adventures outside the focus for any number of reasons, to break the monotony not the least. Most often though, the adventurers achieve some goal related to Amon-Gorloth or fail in the endeavor.
The surrounding wilderness is not vast. By limiting the area, we keep the party within a few days’ travel back to the primary adventure site.
There are consequences to neglect. The dreaming priests are relentless in pursuit of their goal. If the player characters ignore them, the priests succeed.
One Deep Dungeon
What attracts me about opening The Halls is that we can stretch them back out to the seven levels as the cartographer conceived. We are, furthermore, not bound to Levels 1 to 7. Depending on party advancement as the campaign unfolds, we might skip levels. Monster & Treasure Assortments provide tables down to Level 9.
Geomorphs
Dungeon Geomorphs
The original “geomorphic dungeon levels,” Holmes notes, “contain many suggestions and will prove very useful” (39). Dungeon Geomorphs Sets One, Two, and Three (TSR Hobbies, 1976-77) provide tiles for Basic and Lower Dungeons as well as Caves & Caverns. Room density and lack of embellishment render the tiles unattractive to my eye. Yet these geomorphs have a particular feel to them1 unlike anything I myself would come up with and much different from The Deep Halls.
By my rough count of a few tiles, I get the following average numbers of rooms by set.
Set
Subtitle
Rooms per Tile
One
Basic Dungeon
40
Two
Caves & Caverns
10
Three
Lower Dungeons
20
Using the Flying Table made for Holmes (33% of rooms contain monsters) and the Strict (per the sources) treasure sequence: 2-1-0 (where there is no chance for treasure in an empty room) on a dungeon level of 80 rooms (two Basic Dungeon tiles), the Deadly Dungeon Ratio is exactly 1:1. By “exactly,” I mean only 10 XP more than a 1st-level party of three needs to gain 2nd-level.
In the case where one purpose of a secondary dungeon is to earn experience, we may adjust the number of tiles, keeping in mind 80 rooms per character level.
Other Dungeon Generation Options
Walled City Geomorphs: For town and city adventures, consider also Outdoor Geomorphs Set One: Walled City (TSR Hobbies, 1977).
Dyson’s Geomorphs: The map god himself did a monstrous set of dungeon geomorphs. Available from Dyson’s blog, the PDF contains 102 ten-by-ten-square geomorphs. The size accommodates the smaller secondary dungeons, and the hand-drawn tiles have a delightful old-school feel.
Dave’s Mapper: Other interesting links on Dyson’s page above include Dave Millar’s Morph Mapper. Dungeons, caverns, dungeons and caverns, villages, cities, everything—Dave’s Mapper draws from a selectable database of geomorphs from a diverse array of map artists, including Dyson Logos, to create a whole dungeon level in a couple clicks.
AD&D DMG Appendix A: First published under the title “Solo Dungeon Adventures” in The Strategic Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 1975), these tables (contemporary with our sources) provide the solo explorer a means to generate a map on the fly. The system involves quite a lot of dice rolling, however—not advised when running a group.
Draw As You Go: This solo explorer has had much success making it up as he goes along. Draw the entrance and the first room, add doors and pose the question: “What do you do?”
Outdoor Survival Map Board
La pièce de résistance—Having a chance to use this old-school icon, one does not hesitate. Outdoor Survival, designed by Jim Dunnigan and published by Avalon Hill for Stockpole Books (1972) included a six-panel board depicting a map of a wilderness area with a hexagon-grid overlay.
In his “Campaign Map Notes,” D&D co-creator Dave Arneson writes that, after the “old bunch” was exiled from Blackmoor, “the game moved south and we then used the Outdoor Survival map for this phase of the campaign…” (First Fantasy Campaign, Judges Guild, 1977). The game’s usefulness warranted its mention under the heading RECOMMENDED EQUIPMENT in D&D’s original edition (Vol. 1, 5).
Legend
As per the co-creators’ suggestions, “catch basins are castles, buildings [bases] are towns, and the balance of the terrain is as indicated” (OD&D Vol. 3, 15). I would add that food hexes (animal symbols) are monster lairs.
Scale
While Outdoor Survival’s five basic scenarios specify a scale of five kilometers or three miles, OD&D suggests five miles to the hex. At this scale, which matches OD&D movement rates, bases might be small towns. We have license to play with the scale. An obvious adjustment is to make hexes six miles across if you’re using movement rates in multiples of six, as in B/X.
If you’d like larger towns and a city or two, you might up the scale to 12 miles per hex. Careful that the area doesn’t lose its “wilderness” feel.
At 24 miles per hex the area covered approaches that of the corner of the continent presented in Dungeon Module X1 The Isle of Dread. The bases may well be capital cities. This scale is appropriate if you imagine The Deep Halls as only the beginning of a series of campaigns in the same setting.
At any scale, especially those above six miles, trails (through woods, mountains, and swamps) might be roads, and fords become bridges in various states of repair. We might assume other tracks through clear terrain to connect settlements via the depicted mountain passes, swampland causeways, forest trails, and fords. Note, not all settlements need be connected by a single road network. Further, I see Base No. 5 (center), surrounded by woods, is not accessible by any thoroughfare and, therefore, must be long abandoned…
Portown
Using Holmes Basic, we might imagine the Northern Sea off the board’s upper side and assign Base No. 8 as the “busy city linking the caravan routes from the south…” (41). In that case, the campaign might begin beneath the ruins of Zenopus’s tower. A scale of 12 miles per hex is suggested unless you scale down the settlement to town-size.
The Curious Array of Settlements
It might bother some of us that the towns are arrayed in symmetrical fashion around the map’s center. If so, generate your own version of the map or, more simply, ignore it and assume the settlements are positioned on the map in a schematic relationship to each other. Alternatively, you might create some reason why the settlements are so aligned—best if the reason has to do with Amon-Gorloth.
Place the Dungeon and the Base Town
Between the two options for “the convoluted mausoleums,” I would chose the middle desert for the location where “Amon-Gorloth sleeps and dreams.” Placing The Deep Halls in any hex at the southern edge of the northern mountains puts it within a couple hours walk from Base No. 2, which becomes Base Town.
A 1st- to 9th-Level Campaign Using Holmes Basic, Monster & Treasure Assortments, Dungeon Geomorphs, the Outdoor Survival Map Board, and The Deep Halls.
