Mapmaking: Open Air Dungeons

One adventure hook in A Journey To Aldercliffe has the Adventurers being asked to go to try and buy something special from some vagrants in an isolated forest.

Most of this scenario playtested very well.

To give a broad summary: the Adventurers decided early on that they would keep the money that was given to them to purchase the special object with, so they buried it beneath a tree. 

Then they did some espionage on the vagrants, determined they weren't worth talking to, and then stole the special something right out from under them. They also slightly vandalized the thing, neutralizing a potential curse they weren't aware of. There was a perilous cave that I had mapped out that they could have explored too, but they decided not to go inside it (this was the smarter thing to do, but still: darn).

They killed the leader of the vagrants (by accident), then killed two dozen of them with a carefully timed combination of spells (Wall of Force combined with Reverse Gravity is hideously effective if a lot of people are angry at you, and running).

A tagalong hireling of theirs was also traumatized with hallucinogens early on, and someone else was mauled by a delirious stag. The apocalypse was simulated with skinned bodies (this was the players idea, not mine).

To cap it off, once they got back to Aldercliffe they sent some mercenaries they had recently met out into those same woods under false pretenses in the hope of causing a massacre to clear the place out.

I loved how it all turned out. The players interacted with all the moving parts in this situation in ways I never would have predicted, and it produced a very memorable outcome for everyone. Why are you here? What more do you want from this hobby?

What didn't work for me was the whole "exploring a forest" bit. It just felt like a big room with some distractions on the way, like opening the door to a mansion and immediately seeing the high backed chair before the fireplace, with the weird lord seated within. You trip on an umbrella walking over. That's it though, you go and meet him. Ho-hum, too quick too easy.

The woods were far too small, too close to civilization, and too simple to get through. The Adventurers couldn't help but run into a situation and take it from there, and they basically got back in time for dinner too. It was fun to play through, but that part wasn't really special.

I'm revising it to make the forest much farther so it's more of a journey. The forest is larger too, large enough that there's a chance the Adventurers might think "fuck it, there's nobody here" after a couple days of wandering.

I'd like it so there's the chance they might get mauled by a badger and call it all off on day three, or maybe they might find a half-trapped fox and think they should keep looking. They might see smoke from a bonfire, another long day away. Maybe they'll run into someone in the woods that makes them want to reconsider everything just as they get near the edge of discovery. There's also a non-zero chance they'll just find the treasure on accident. How did it get there? They can keep looking for an answer for that if they want to know.

That's way better than a day trip to the stupid woods, right? Watching people actually stock up and plan for a camping excursion in-game, with rations and water and mules and carts and tents and all is actually kind of fun too. "oh no we didn't buy tents" and all that.

So yes, version 2: if they decide to go there's a longish journey, maybe there's an encounter on the road. It's distant and lonely though, isolated no matter what. They reach the woods, and they go inside them. And they look. They find some things, maybe the thing, maybe others. Maybe nothing at all. 

The old version was basically just two encounter tables. This version of things needs more of a map, I think. I've been hammering out a couple ways to make maps that are mostly easy and quick to make, but still create interesting results, and should be fun to use at the table. I thought of name for this method first, so here that is.

Open Air Dungeons

A dungeon is a closed environment with an entrance, a place with rooms followed by other rooms with hallways connecting all of them. Your options for movement and destination are finite and limited.

Much of the uninhabited and untamed world is like this. There are only a few ways you can actually "go" in a lot of natural environments.

Ground that's too steep to go up without climbing gear (and hours of labor) is functionally the same as a stone wall. Trees too dense to walk through and narrow paths on mountainsides are the same. There is natural light, sure, and maybe a source of food, but it's not too different than being trapped. Missing people die in the woods all the time. Even being able to bypass these kinds of obstacles with flight is only marginally easier than being able to escape a place with teleportation, after all.

The idea of an open-air dungeon is that it should be about as hard to not use the defined paths it provides as it would be to tunnel out of the more usual stone dungeon with mining tools. Not technically impossible, but a real piece of shit to actually do.

In nature, the pathway is the "hall" that lead to the "room". The "room" is an event or landmark. A mountainside path leading to a wider plateau, a rocky band of cliffside coast leading to a larger cove, a narrow canyon eventually widening to a proper valley, a hike in dense woodlands to a roaring waterfall. These are all Open Air Dungeons.

Wandering encounters make as much sense as those in a dungeon, think of hikers getting mauled by a bear. There are traps too, a landslide is natures spike-filled pit trap.

The natural world is a dungeon whenever you can't go in any direction you want.

Making an Open Air Dungeon

You'll need an environment, some random encounters for that environment, and a bunch of things you want to be discoverable in that environment. Tables of content.

Give your environment a name. It's not just "a canyon by a beach", it's "The Throat of the Ocean". Make it special.

There should be some plain old random encounters on a table, things there that will be run into by accident on the way from one room to another, or even in a room if one hangs out too long. In the Black Heart of the Southern Wood: there are Elk that went carnivorous, paralytic slugs the size of baseball bats, and hopelessly lost mushroom-pickers who will be very grateful that you found them.

And there are things there besides the pathways and random encounters, the special parts. Imagine a vast tidepool canyon, walkable in the low tides. If you go that way there's a stinging anemone the size of a house. It has the face of a maiden and will teach you enchantment. If you go the other way you'll find an immense band of gold in the walls of the rocks. Beyond that, they say there's the wreckage of a ship sent by the church, filled with relics now lost to the saltwater. If you go too far there's a bunch of sharp rocks though, watch your knees. This will be a table as well.

Once you have all those things you get a sheet of paper and a marker or something. 

• Draw a square near and edge of the page (I prefer using corners, but do whatever feels right).
  
  This is a landmark, a signpost, the signal that there's something to explore. It's like the bit of  a lost monolith you see distant in the jungle.
• Draw a line out from the square, and add a triangle.
  
  This is the door to the dungeon. All movement beyond this is constrained. Imagine a tiny opening between two big mountains.
• Beyond the triangle draw at least as many circles throughout the rest of the page as you want there to be "rooms" in the open air dungeon, extra ones will be "intersections" that act as empty rooms. These shouldn't touch, or be evenly spaced.

The circles will be connected by paths. Paths are just a way you can choose to go without a tremendous amount of extra work, like taking the 6 flights of stairs to the rooftop instead of free-climbing the facade.

You'll have to decide how spacious a path actually is, but the aesthetic of your Open Air Dungeon will help with this. If the OAD is a mountain the paths can all be narrow with dense pines on either side, maybe just a a few meters at most. If it's an arid canyon it could be an ancient riverbed spanning more than 30 meters in either direction with nearly vertical walls on both sides. You get the idea.

Paths are drawn quickly using arbitrary rules, with as little thinking as possible beyond obeying the rules. You want to create something using a process instead of trying to design something conciously.

The basic rules are:

• the number of paths drawn at each step is randomly chosen. (e.g 1d4, 1d8 where 1=1, 2-3=2, 3-5= 3, 7-8=1, whatever)
• there is a limit on how many paths any circle or triangle may have to it.
• paths do not cross, but do not have to be straight, and can be any length.
• Path drawing is finished once all the circles are connected to at least one other circle, and are reachable from the entrance, but adding some extra paths beyond this is recommended.

You can use small numbers and still get interesting results. Besides that most dungeon rooms aren't 4 door situations anyway.
The last step is to create a grid by folding the paper you've been drawing on. In "game time" the time it takes to travel across one square, from one line to the next, is enough for one encounter roll. It can be a half hour across one square if you want, or a whole day. 

Some lines will be a weird length, but the idea here is just to use a quick (but fair) estimation with the grid. Don't get out a flexible ruler or anything. If a path is really short just treat the "rooms" as connected.

Here's two examples. The formula was 10 circles, rolling 1d6 to vary the paths. 1-4 was 1 path, and 5-6 was 2 paths. Each circle could only have 3 paths at most. After everything was connected there was one additional roll. 

So there you go, this gives you a map with some various paths leading to various places where things will be. Once you decide the scale of the grid and travel time and decide how you'll fill the squares it's basically ready for play.
When it comes to stocking the locations you can key the whole map in advance, just use randomness to stock it. Roll dice, throw darts, whatever.

You can set it up so you can roll to reveal things as the map is explored during play, which is way more fun.

You can just roll off your table of content from earlier at each location. If there are some things that have to be present you can just make a "loaded" table to use during play. That means a few of the entries get written in, but the rest are "roll on this other table"

So, if this was The Forest of the Bitter Fruits and you definitely have to have the Red Tree of Bitter Fruits be there no matter what, you can make a table like this (for a map with 12 circles):

1. The Red Tree of Bitter Fruit
2-12. (roll on that d30 table of other things, don't repeat any of them)

and so on. If you added intersections to your map just choose them at random before play, of it all fits on a die load them into the table too. You can just fill in those circles on the map instead of numbering them.

You can make a whole Adventure around a map like this by thematically unifying your tables of content and giving them a way to play off each other and create a narrative. As Referee you'll have a notion of what might happen and you'll know a few concrete things, but you won't know how it'll all fits together until you explore it with the players. 

So here's an example of that, some tables of content and two example maps at the end to show you how it go.

Malculmus Forest & The Witchery Stone

PREMISE
The Adventurers have heard about a gang of thieves planning to retrieve a cache of peppercorns and other exotic spices worth 2500SP buried deep in Malculmus Forest. They're trying to get it instead.
Malculmus is a wild tangle of dense woody valleys between a series of steep hillsides. It is rumored to be home to faeries and other malicious woodland spirits. Folktales even mention a great "fae rock" in these woods, and that it should be avoided. Most who live near here do.
The only entrance and exit that doesn't require climbing over a treacherous hill is found in a small gorge a good ways off a poorly maintained backroad.

Inside the entrance is a clearing at the base of a few hills, where the valley paths lead deeper inwards. One notices right away that there are no sounds of life in this forest, none whatsoever. Convey this before the first random encounter is rolled, so there's a chance for minds to be changed.

The paths here are woodlands between very steep hills, a couple hundred feet wide. 

While the Foliated Men exist nature is not giving, the woodland has become a kind of predatory, digestive place. Bushcraft rolls to find food do not receive the usual +2 here.

The two essential places in Malculmus are the Ruined Encampment and Witchery Stone.

https://bit.ly/2wzPiJZ

⚪ The Witchery Stone
A large boulder in the off-center of this clearing. It stands out from the rest of the landscape, almost like it was spotlit without being any brighter. There's an irritating humming feeling in the air.

It seems to be covered with very faint carvings. This is noticeable from a good distance away, but these can only be examined when very close. There are 3 small sinkholes near the front as well, each like the opening for a gutter. You have to stand very near the sinkholes to look at the carvings, leaning over them. The sinkholes, if probed, go very deep. They seem too narrow to fit through.

Anyone who looks at the carvings must Save vs. Magic.

If this Save is successful they can see that they're a surrealistic blend of men and weaponry and skulls entangled by foliage. They feel like they'll develop a migraine if they continue looking (and this is true).



If this Save is failed the person examining them becomes Entangled, and is then attacked by one of the Foliated Men (also explained below). The Foliated Men will try to tackle or shove them down into a sinkhole, which widens just enough to fit them. If an Adventurer goes down a sinkhole they are consumed by the Forest, and soon appear as an additional Foliated Man.

A successful Language roll by a Magic-User reveals ideas of enchantment, protection, and sacrifice from the carvings.

A Search roll reveals an area of recently dug earth underneath a round river stone a few yards away. 3 feet underground is a hefty vessel (Oversized) filled with valuable peppercorns and spices worth 2500SP

⚪ Ruined Encampment
Perhaps 9 people or so were encamped in this clearing, but now it's ruined and completely empty. It's a mess, and blood was spilled. There was chaos, a battle, and panic. Some rudimentary camping supplies can be found here if one wants to dig around, and maybe a tent and a few bedrolls are salvageable too. There is a backpack with some correspondence in it. A letter that says that the "items" are buried near the "Witchery Stone" under a "round river rock". It adds as a post-script "and don't go looking at the stone, it surely won't do you good".

Twenty Locations & Events

1. Island

A lake with an island in the center, the island 50 feet or so across, about 100 feet from shore. A figure can be seen on the island, watching the Adventurers. It looks almost like a Foliated Man, but it carries no weapon. It will cross it’s arms at long distance communication, and beckon them over instead. They'll have to swim.

This is the last druid of Malculmus, and they have come here to die. There are other bones on the island, Druids leave no other traces. They have not spoken to another person in dozens of years, so their speech abilities are minimal, but they are approachable if you are not violent towards them.

They cough and wheeze, and are visibly unwell. They refuse all medicine, all aid. They have lived an unfortunately long time and are thankful that they are about to end. It shall be a day or two.

They have sense like an animal, and can tell if you are lying to them 4 times out of 6. If you lie to them they’ll become silent, and turn away from you. They will not fight back if attacked, and will never speak to you again.

“Why here?” they ask you. “Touched stone?” they’ll ask too, laughing at the answer. “All will die”. They imitate gnawing.

They know that those who carry no arms will not be harmed by the Foliated Men.

If you promise to "protect this home" they will tell you how to "not be eaten". They swear you will die if you break your oath, but that's not true at all. The magic of the druids has been long forgotten. (perhaps you could close off the entrance with a landslide or something.)

The druids of Malculmus created the "Witchery Stone" centuries ago as a means for defending against invaders, and attempts to clear or otherwise exploit the forest. A druid or two would sacrifice themselves to the stone, while the rest would wait out the carnage unarmed and isolated.

2. Witness

Randomly choose which Adventurers hear the sound of a snapping twig. The other Adventurers are Surprised.

A figure can be barely seen in the brush, along with the glint of metal. Roll for initiative.

On the figures turn they’ll stammer out “wait!”

This is Burtold (Level 1 Fighter, 8 HP, Dirk 1d6, Armor 13, Morale 7).  He is armed with a sword (1d8).

He was with Nirnus, Golfawn, and Rodolf when they examined the Witchery Stone, and he saw them vanish into the sinkholes. He hasn't seen the Foliated Men yet, but he's seen what happened to the camp. He's trying to find the others. He has digging equipment too.

3. Fingers

Two bodies lying in a clearing, surrounded by thick brush.

One body is missing fingers that have been enthusiastically hatcheted off, in addition to its other wounds.

The body near it is nude and face down and almost covered in twigs and vines, they're even entwined in its hair (it is an instance of Golfawn). It has the missing fingers in its mouth, all chewed up. It’s been chopped across the spine with a few sword blows.

One non-Entangled Adventurer who examines this body will see the same face peering out at them from the distant brush when they look up, and then must Save vs. Magic or become Entangled. If successful they only see leaves rustling, just as if something were there, but nothing can be found.

4. Larder
A gorge with dozens of very old skeletons in it, all have been gnawed clean by human teeth. There is a tree growing through them. There are very old and rusted weapons near them too. Two bodies are fresh, one a wet skeleton with ragged bits left on it, the other still flesh but clearly chewed on.

If any bodies were seen and not destroyed in some other way in other locations they will now be here, atop the pile, also gnawed almost clean (but with enough left so they're recognizable).

The Foliated Men return here to feed periodically, but this will never be seen by the Adventurers, just the after-effects. If they are encountered they might be seen standing before a body transported with them.

5. Cavern
A hole in a cliff face leads to a habitable cavern, the size of a small cabin. As the odd rules of enchantment dictate: this place is not part of the forest, it is in the realm of the underground. It acts like a safe pocket from the mayhem outside, and the Foliated Men cannot enter it. It contains no food or water, but may lead deeper into the underworld.

6. Ravine
There is a large fallen tree overhead. A randomly determined Adventurer who is not Entangled sees a leaf fall in front of them, and they glance up. They must Save against Magic. If they Succeed they see movement, like figure turning away, fleeing atop the log. There sounds of footfalls, the bending of it under a weight. Nothing is up there.

If this is failed they are staring into the Face of Nirnus, a drop of blood falling from his leafy mouth onto their face. They must Save vs. Magic or become Entangled. Roll for surprise and initiative, Nirnus Charges them by dropping on top of them with a sword blow.

7. Berries
A thicket of bright green berries. They are bitter but edible. There are 1d4 rations worth to be found. They curl away from being picked, very subtly but visibly.

8. Mushrooms
A large and ancient oak tree, with a large cluster of thick-stemmed yellow mushrooms with brown caps growing beneath it between the roots.

There are 1d6+1 edible rations worth, but those who eat them have a 1 in 6 chance of being afflicted with diarrhea and ending up both starving and dehydrated afterwards, unless they make a Save.

If there is a random encounter Rodolf is up in the branches, and if he gets surprise he will drop down while swing, which counts as Charging.

9. Pond
A small pond. There are fish in it, but they all swim directly down and away from the Adventurers to the bottom, and will not take any bait if fished for. It will take an extremely long time to catch any.

10. Hollow
A randomly determined Adventurer looks towards a grove of trees and sees a tall hollow stump.

They must Save vs. Magic.

If Failed they see a leaf covered figure crawl out from inside the stump and begin bounding towards them, only to vanish between two trees. Roll for suprise. If failed they are attacked from behind. If successful they hear this instance of Rodolf just a few yards behind before he strikes. They must Save vs. Magic or become Entangled.

If Successful they feel like the hollow of the tree is gazing at them, but there's nothing inside it.

11. Boulders
There are many very large boulders to walk between in this area. Unless someone makes the effort to climb over them to watch for an ambush one of them has Nirnus behind it, and the first Adventurer in line will be attacked with surprise 5 out of 6 times. Those who look for an ambush will see Nirnus, and if not Entangled will lock eyes with it and have to Save.

12. Duel
Seen in profile, a man staring into the brush. He is holding an axe, as if waiting for something to charge at him. Leaves are piled around and on his feet, he is Entangled. If spoken to he’ll flip around startled, and once realizing the Adventurers are human will look back at the brush. “It’s fucking gone!” he’ll shout. It was Golfawn. Roll for Surprise again.
Tymus, Level 2 Fighter. Armor 15, Axe 1d8. Morale 8.

13. Poachers
Have the Adventurers roll their Search. If successful, they notice two figures trying to hide in the brush up ahead. If none are successful they’ll hear a loud whisper from that brush as they walk by, two poachers who have heard distant screams. Birk claims to have seen a "wild nude", and is entangled. Dola has not seen any nudes at all. They will travel with the Adventurers for safety. They are level 0, carry crossbows, and have morale 6.

14. Tree
A mighty tree in the very middle of the narrow trail. If it is walked by one at a time Nirnus is behind it, with sword ready to swing. The first in line sees his sword tip just before he swings around the other direction, to strike the person behind the lead. Roll for Surprise, if the first in line acts first they are able to warn the potential victim, giving them a chance to roll initiative instead.

If two walk around each way they see the branches above sort of rustle, but there is nothing else.

15.  Snare
The sound of a trap being sprung up ahead. The first in line, if not Entangled, must Save vs. Magic as they continue onward.

If failed they see Rodolf caught in a snare and hanging upside down in the branches. He makes eye contact, they must Save or be Entangled. He can’t attack, but can sort of swing himself into the branches to Vanish.

If successful the sprung trap is swinging empty in the branches.

16. Slope
Going down a slope one is eye level with some of the tree branches.

The last in line must Save vs. Magic if they are not Entangled. If failed they are eye level with Golfawns face in a tree and must Save or become Entangled. If they pass they see bending branches, as if something heavy were just there and had sprung away.

17. Flowers
A field of wildflowers that are all directly turned away from the Adventurers whenever they are there, turning as needed.

In this wide open area the Foliated men will not be close enough to get real Surprise, so when encountered it's always a stand off.

18. Birds
All the birds of the forest are gathered here in the branches, silent and distant. If the Foliated Men are encountered some of them begin to fly in the Adventurers face, causing a -2 to hit and making it all but impossible to watch the Foliated Men to prevent attack.

19. Insects

All the insects of the forest that can fly are in a great low cloud, buzzing and drifting. Beetles and grubs are crushed and squished underfoot while writhing in spiral flows. Passing through place conceals the Foliated Men, giving them a 5 in 6 chance of having Surprise if they are encountered.

20. Lake
A narrow path near the edge of a lake, if the Foliated Men attack they attempt to tackle an Adventurer into the water and drown them. Foliated Men won't die from drowning. ENCOUNTERS

There is a 1 in 3 chance of an encounter through every square, and every 3 turns or so while in a location. If 5 or 6 are rolled more than once use a Foliated Man instead.

1-4. One of the Foliated Men.

5. A man, named Byrll is found unconcious or appears and then passes out. He was gouged in his guts by a sword, and finding him saves his life. He lost his sword in the fracas, and he's too weak to fight now. He just wants to escape, he claims to know of "other treasures" if they get him out alive.

6. A man with a crossbow, Dalkirk, appears or is seen looking around wildly and stammering. His right arm has been badly cut by a sword blow. He has been Entangled. He has Morale 5, and will do something idiotic if he fails his roll.

The Foliated Men

Four of the group who had intended to retrieve the spices drew the short lots, and so were sent to do the digging. The rest had agreed they would do the hauling. These were Burtold, Rodolf, Nirnus, and Golfawn. Rodolf, Nirnus, and Golfwan had heard rumors that looking closely at the “witchery stone” hidden in these woods would grant them a boon of luck, or strength, or something like that. Burtold would have none of it. Burtold witness as it claimed their bodies, and ran off in terror. The three were transformed them into anthropophagic guardians against violent invasion, part of a druidic enchantment they had activated.

They are all dead now, wholly unretrievable. These are just something that has their form, a paranormal phenomenon that looks like their skin: Foliated Men.

They are all nude now, dirty and bloodied and foliated in various ways. They appear and disappear throughout the woods, hunting down anything with a weapon. They must eat human flesh and viscera to avoid starvation, nothing else can nourish them, and they need no other nourishment. They don't sleep, get tired or thirsty, and they do not feel pain in any way that matters. They are also always silent, they never make a vocal or verbal sound. (though they seem to breathe). They sometimes  have a smirk, a grimace, or a gaping wide expression.

If they are killed they’ll appear again, identical. The body will remain, at least for some time. (their bodies are very real, but the Foliated Men cannot eat them for nourishment). Their bodies become rotten, then vegetated skeletons, then simply plantlike silhouettes within a day. They have some blood, some gore, some guts, but are also stuffed with leaves and twigs and flowers and vines too.

The only things that exist in the forest for them are humans (or other sapient beings) that possess weapons. Their only goal is to kill and eat those beings. They appear according to unknowable and sadistic whimsy. (something perfectly simulated by die rolls).

They can vanish whenever they aren’t seen by something, and in the dense forest this is very easily done. Treat this like casting a spell: on the round a Foliated Man attempts to vanish it succeeds on its turn if nothing strikes it first.

The three of them:

Rodolf
covered in mud, blood and leaves, they are plastered all over it. It is unclear how it is able to see, as there’s large leaves all covering it's face. You can tell that it was Rodolf from the wide shoulders, lean frame, and big strong hands.  Some freckles are still visible through the dirt.

16 HP

3 HD

Armor 12 Morale 12

It uses a sword that does 1d8 damage.

It tends to strike once and then vanish, preferring to attack the weakest. If all run away it will chase after to try and get one strike in. It appears from logs and up in branches, from leaves and trees.

Nirnus
There are leaves and vines and twigs disgorging from its open mouth, as if they were stuffed in there, all bloody now from devouring. The rest of it is all dirty and mossy, with the occasional branch bent across it, sometimes a tangle of thicker fronds across an arm, or on the torso. A mop of hair hangs in its eyes still, and it has a bushy beard, and the strength of it's body is very visible though it stands shorter than most men.

20 HP

4 HD

Armor 14 Morale 12

It carries a Zweihander that does 1d10 damage

It only attacks with Defensive Fighting (+2 Armor, -4 to Hit). It prefers to attack the least damaged of those available.

It does not try to vanish unless nearly dead, but will allow everyone to run away. It appears from behind stones, and tree-trunks.

Golfawn
Blonde, short cropped, with a long face and full lips. There are small blossoms, buds, leaves, and tiny vines squeezing out from between its teeth, out its ears and nostrils, around its eyeballs, through its hair. When it is seen it is just a face barely concealed by the brush. When it attacks this is glimpsed before he lunges out, all tall and thick-built with a hatchet swinging and its hairy body all covered in pollen and grassy debris.

3 HD

14 HP

Armor 12 Morale 12

He carries a Hatchet that does 1d6 damage

He only attacks as a Press (+2 to Hit, -4 Armor)

It will chase anyone who tries to run away, and will only vanish after it has killed someone.

Encounters There is a 4 in 6 chance the Foliated Men will have surprise, and if so they Attack in Melee Range. If they do not have Surprise roll for Encounter Distance, and then randomly determine which Adventurer saw them.

When spotted like this they will only Attack if the one who is looking at them is Entangled and then fails a Magic Save. Other than that they stand still there, stopping dead in their tracks. Up in a tree, near a shrub, standing on a boulder, and so on. If an unwavering unentangled eye is kept on them they will not move closer on their own. They stare back. If gotten close to, or shot with an arrow or whatever, they will try to Vanish.

If the Adventurers watch a Foliated Man while moving away there is a 1 in 3 chance another one of them is encountered, possibly all 3 could be seen at once. If all are watched carefully the Adventurers can leave the area without any chance of attack. The Foliated Men then vanish once out of view, until called forth by randomness again.

If killed they are simply dead, their weapon can even be taken. If rolled as an encounter again they appear as if nothing had ever happened.

During Overnight Watch roll to see if there is an encounter once during each watch shift. If watched unwavering and unmoving for a longish time (say an hour or so), a Foliated Man will suddenly try to Vanish. Sleep deprivation is one of their intuitive tactics. If no one takes watch one Adventurer (or Hireling) will be killed in their sleep if there is a random encounter.

Entanglement

Anyone who is Entangled cannot leave the forest. If you try to walk out of it you'll simply not ever reach the edge. If someone tries to drag you out their hands will always slip, and you’ll get something caught, and you’ll never make it out. Something will get in your eyes, you’ll stumble, and then there you are a dozen yards back into it.

While you are entangled leaves seem to catch you on you more easily, mosses stick to you, twigs get caught on your jacket, and you become muddy and covered in thistles with ease. If you stand very still any little soft branches or vines will very delicately start to wrap around you very slowly. If you manage to sleep you’ll awake with plants all over you, holding onto you.

Any Adventurer attacked and injured by a Foliated Man must save against Magic, if this is failed they are Entangled. Any Adventurer that gazes on a Foliated Man, and has their gaze returned, must also save or become Entangled after they have stopped gazing on them Foliated Man.

Survival

You cannot directly kill the foliated men, but there are ways to escape. If you are not Entangled you can simply leave Malculmus, they cannot follow you. If everyone leaves at once have all three Foliated Men watch them go.

If the Foliated Men run out of bodies to eat they will starve. They each need one full body per day, or they lose half of their maximum HP. They vanish forever after the last one is lost. Since there are a finite number of bodies in the woods a war of attrition is possible.

Those who carry no weapons are invisible to them. If one abandons all their weapons (as in: discards them with no intention of getting them back, actually loses them, or willfully ruins or destroys them), they cease to exist to the Foliated Men, and are no longer Entangled if they were before.

(Note this is a matter of true intention, not pedantry. If someone discards their weaponry and has someone else pick it up for them they haven't actually abandoned their arms.)

Acquiring weaponry when one had none before, or re-acquiring weaponry after abandoning it, causes one to become visible to them again.

Any implement used to harm others is a “weapon” forever, but a tool is not a “weapon” until used as one. (if you ever hit someone with the shovel it’s a war shovel now) Things intended to be a weapon always already are one (no calling a new sword a letter opener, as it were).

If someone is really insistent on beating up the Foliated Men with their bare hands they will be visible to that Foliated Man after attacking them, until that Foliated Man is killed.
If the Witchery Rock was completely defaced or destroyed the Foliated Men would vanish, but this would require hours and hours of chiseling or a large cannon.

And here are two maps, premade using the content from above. 10 Locations, 4 Intersections, and two extra rolls for paths. Rolls were 1d6, 1-4 for one path and 5-6 for two. The intersections were chosen at random, those are the black dots. Each room could have four connecting paths at most.

The table had the Witchery Stone as 1 and the Ruined Encampment as 10. Each square is a half-day of hiking. 

1. Encampment

2. Cavern (5)

3. Hollow Tree (10)

4. Slope (16)

5. Ravine (6)

6. Stingy Pond (9)
7. Mushrooms (8)

8. Berries (7)

9. Island (1)

10. Witchery Stone

This one has the mercy of the Cavern and the Island, and a good amount of free food instead of brutal ambushes.

1. Encampment
2. Cavern
3. Tree (14)
4. Lakeside (5)
5. Berries (7)
6. Flowers (17)
7. Pond (9)
8. Birds (18)
9. Insects (19)
10. Witchery Stone

This one showcases more of the hostile fauna, of which the other map had none, but it still includes the Cavern. There's no Druid to give them a hint, either.

This method and these maps aren't playtests, at least yet, but let me know if you think it's neat or just use it and have fun.

I'll post the other method once I have a name for it.

Notes From A Playtest

After moving a thousand miles from where I started writing the damn thing I finally had a few players go through a playtest of Deformation in Subterranea/A Journey to Aldercliffe

But yes, what the hell is that anyway:

A couple of years ago I read a couple G+ posts about how it would be really hard to run an adventure in an actual cave and got sort of fixated on that idea. I read a bit about monasteries and leprosy, caving, gemstones, made a map. I never got to finish that game, for one reason or another.

So the ideas from that sat in the back of my head, and I kept adding to it. The cave really needed a town near it, so I made one. It needed some more hooks, but more mundane ones than a cave of monsters, so I added a few here and there: painters, old monasteries, people with too much money, illegal mining and puritan social law enforcement. Details, details. It turned into a campaign framework sort of thing, and like most unplayed campaigns it sort of just grew, got tumorous. Might as well make it useful, right?

Fuck it, I thought: let's publish something too. I was writing the kind of thing I was going and would want to use, along the lines of a very good piece of advice from dndwithpornstars. So yeah, it's a book I'm publishing. Here's how the playtest went.

SOME GENERAL IDEAS 

I wanted all the parts of DIS to hang together but function separately, so if you needed a campaign with a fresh start it gave you that but if you wanted a nice roadside diversion or a cave to have things die in it gave you that too. You could repaint the various elements and file off the serial numbers as needed. It's not clear how any of it will resolve, but everything has pieces in motion that can be interfered with, or left alone.

THE FRESH START

The fresh campaign start is that the Adventurers are all vagrants, poor and desperate people, who've spent their last pennies to go to Aldercliffe, a city in southwest England, due to a job offer.

The world is "real enough", a few details are changed to keep things unusual or make them more entertaining but the overall setting is still "17th century England".

Adventurers are randomly generated with randomly determined equipment from some tables, to make things quick and easy and flavorful. The Adventurers are Charles the Fighter (with an arquebus), Samantha the Magic-User (who has barber-surgeons tools), and the Viscount of Vascony (a Nagic-User with fancy clothes and a rapier). They have no money.

ALDERCLIFFE

A city of 2500 or so, surrounded by farms. The center of economic acitivty in the region. Out in the middle of nowhere, roughly.

The general "town guards" cliche is that they're there to see you try and steal from the apple cart and then arrest you, right? It's a bit different in Aldercliffe. The guards are much more proactive.

Aldercliffe is run by religious reformers (Puritans, but called everything but that). The "cops" are busybodies wandering about the town punishing bad haircuts and general disorderliness, Adventurers get in trouble for just being there, sometimes.

The town is also full of provincial lumpenproletariat who are constantly being disorderly, meaning the guards are always everywhere. In game terms it's street encounters and a 1 in 3 chance of seeing a guard, something like a dungeon.

When the Adventurers first walked in they were accosted by an out-of-towner. He was too drunk to speak clearly. He tried to put his fingers in the mouth of the Fighter, who managed to detain him. They dragged him off to the blue-coated Constable, who thanked them and locked him in some nearby stocks. This established the overall feel quite nicely.

They found the place they were looking for: The Ballard Estate. A repurposed monastery on the poor side of the city. There were some children outside, daring each other to run through the gates.

The Adventurers met the majordomo, who told them the master of the house was dead. So with that went their employment. But! They could stay for now, and help around the estate: it needed to be cleaned up before the inheritors arrived.

There was also a large and fearsome looking dog, but they made friends with it.

THE BALLARD ESTATE

The Adventurers are each given rooms: repurposed monks cells that have become wunderkammern with simple beds. One was full of replica guns, another is all stuffed birds, the last a series of conch shells and abalone all over the walls.

There is an old stone church too, repurposed as a library. They find poetry about love and death and a book of drawings of anthropomorphic flowers (all quite graphic). The magic-user casts Animate Artwork, and the flowers are very embarassed.

There is also another tenant: a painter who had the dead Lord Ballard as a patron. He invites the Adventurers into his room (a converted storage cellar) for wine. He gives them a painting of apples (very garish and not of the contemporary style), and he tells them that he is out of pigments.

THE FIRST HOOK

This painter tells them about another painter at this Inn called the Goldfinch. He has pigments that he needs, and some obnoxious guardsmen, and could the Adventurers get ahold of some of it for him? So it's a heist, maybe.

They walk over to the Goldfinch, one of them carrying the gifted painting. While waiting outside with it, one Adventurer is accosted by a Constable: he asks why he carries this painting around.

The poor Adventurer, he says he bought it. The Constable begins to lecture him: this is wanton commercialism! such activity is only permitted on market day.

He received a dozen lashes in front of the inn.

Meanwhile, indoors: The Fighter Charles and the Magic-User Samantha meet the entourage of the painter: a gang of teutonic mercenaries dressed as Landsknechte. They won't let them see the Painter, but his work is incredible: like photographs.

After some banter Charles persuades one of the mercenaries to go and wrestle him outside the city gates, to win Samanthas honor, while the Viscount crept into the painters chambers. He knocked him unconcious with a blow to the head, and stole a mysterious ring from his finger.

When they later put it on they found it turned one into a sort of painting machine until it was removed, but this was only one of the six possible causes of the painters talent. 

Their painter paid them, and while they waited a few days for market they more of the hooks.

ADDITIONAL HOOKS

Back at the Ballard Estate there was an obviously wealthy buffoon clearing some books from the church, bought from the estate to be added to his own. There was also a priest, who was interested in offering them some work. He had heard rumors of some band of vagrants carrying what must have been a distinct holy relic off into some distant woods. Would they go look for them, and perhaps buy that relic from them?

THE FOREST

He gave them a backpack of silver. Upon reaching the woods they decided this would be kept, and the relic would be stolen.

They encounter a hallucinating and poisoned eschatological cult, and by the end of a few bodies have been skinned (by Samantha), and innocent tagalong was given hallucinogenic mushrooms, and a would-be nudist prophet was accidentally clubbed to death.

It was fascinating to watch this all play out, but after seeing They Remain I'm rescaling the forest. It needs to be larger, more sprawling. It needs a different feel, and a couple additional potential punchlines.

The Relic was near a deep and perilous cave too, but none dared go inside. They recovered the Relic and managed to dismantle it's magic before it could harm them. (not that it's necessarily always magical anyway). The priest, very happy, paid them well.

GNOMUS AND AMBUSHES

Back at the estate, they met a woman who ran a weaving operation. She was buying geodes from another old collection. She needed the Adventurers to tail a courier, to see why her smuggling operation had been delivering so much less as of late.

They walked right into an ambush, turned the tables on the Ambusher, and impressed him so much with their Magic that he became their companion. This led to them finally exploring one of the damp dark caves, and encountering the Gnomus in the middle of a 900-foot long hallway passage. One Gnomus nearly bonded with the body and soul of an Adventurer, but they just barely avoided it. It stuck to them like diaphanous gum. Another belched stones at them, but they didn't fall for the bait. They just ran.

THE KIDNAPPING

At some point after that, a bull got loose in the city streets and Charles was gored by it. They also witnessed a bear-baiting and prevented a slaughter of the bear-handlers when those broke loose as well. They saw a dulcimer player be arrested, and stood idly by as a theatre troupe lost their purse (the Adventurers kept it, 38 Silver).

As the final books were cleared from the Church at the Ballard Estate the bellowing rich bastard spoke to them again: his student had been kidnapped, and he needed them to deliver the ransom. The Viscount found a book about a mysterious ship, one that only comes to distant shores every half-decade. He left to find to find it (as he could no longer play, unfortunately). They were joined by Agnes, the stagehand.

In the forest where the ransom note led them they lost a foundling to an accursed thicket, part of a pair of guilty idiots from a charging boar, and although they missed the burial mound of a witch-cult they stumbled onto the hut of an old woman they helped with a cremation, and narrowly avoided the perils of some rutting red deer.

They found the kidnappers and realized this kidnapping was a part of a (shoddy and obvious) conspiracy. When cornered, the Adventurers executed one of their remaining found idiots in a demonstration of power and superiority. They took charge of this conspiracy to rob the noble who all this revolved around.

The boy they had been sent to retrieve ran off into a nearby cave, panicking. They followed him in. They crept down a passage they found near him, and in this tiny chamber Charles saw a pillbug the size of a potato. He smashed it, it made a smell like acetone or kerosene. He crawled back out. It seemed like a terrible place.

They would not return to this place, but this was that same fucking cave I wrote two or so years ago. It's buried in the margins now, full of a completely bad situation. They were smart to avoid it, probably. But there is a lot down there.

They returned the whining boy to the estate of Devereaux, the man who had hired them.

DESPITE EVERYTHING, ARSON

The estate was two identical buildings side by side: one for the guards and one for the master of the house and his beloved student. They got to know the guardsmen, lusty cosmopolitans with military training. After dinner with the boorish host, Charles would wrestle one of the guards in the Roman style (nude) and retire to the bedchamber with him after a few rounds, later.

While this happened Agnes stalked the halls of the master's house, and found the one they had rescued preparing to start an arson near his master's bedroom. She dragged him back to Samantha, who attempted to Charm him with a spell as punishment for his impulsive and idiotic behavior.

This failed, and she cast it again. This failed extremely, and so (per the VAM rules) a maw of blood and translucent teeth surrounded by neon mandibles appeared. This pursued Aldwin (the one they had rescued) down the stairs. It covered him in a sticky web of phelgm and devoured him, as he screamed. A nude Charles blasted it with an Arquebus to no effect. Another manservant attacked it, but was coated in web as well, and gnawed on. Samantha then flung embers onto the noxious web, and it caught aflame. Charles, still nude, then ran back to the bedchamber, then Agnes and Samantha fled as the fire spread.

The Bloodmaw then nearly snapped into Charles' arm, instead striking the banister. He flung all his gunpowder at it as he ran past, shouting for the rest to leap out the window. The resulting blast and rapidly spreading flames were enough to destroy this Bloodmaw, though they watched the wreckage smolder through most of the night to be sure it was truly gone.

They revealed Aldwins' betrayal to Devereaux and blamed the destruction of the manor on his secret practice of magic (which had heard Devereaux blather about fairly often). Devereaux was glad to hear Aldwin was dead, the ungrateful swine.

The next morning Devereaux proposed an expedition to the half-decade ship the Adventurers had told him about, and that the Viscount was en route to. 

So ended the playest, since that journey will take them to the next thing I'm working on.

IN CONCLUSION

I'll run another playtest of this because I really want to see how other people play with the parts, and what happens to them (and the parts). There's still little things no one did or saw that they could have, like exploring those fucking caves (I spent so long writing this that the incredibly impressive Veins of the Earth came out before I even got to see a playtest walk past them).

There's also, funnily enough, all the really Weird content that I deliberately hid in the corners. The mundane world was a stumbling diasterpiece, sure, but the like Monsters and whatever were barely seen (besides the Gnomus).

Come to think, when I first ran a really preliminary embryo version of this whole thing a couple of years ago a Gnomus did manage to bond with someone, it cracked open their skull like a blooming cauliflower and ushered in the race of Gob, and the players then were just about to summon the Angel they had been told about by the Brotherhood of Monks, leprous and pale, that they met deep in the darkness underground.

That'll happen again in the next test, I hope.

SO NOW WHAT

I'm commissioning some illustrations that I'll start sharing soon, along with snippets of the text, and hopefully, I'll write more coherent and sequential blog entries about this and other things in the future.

That, dear reader, is that. I hope you enjoyed it!

Until next time.

Spell: A Wonderful Solvent

This spell creates a wonderful solvent. It requires a vessel to be cast, which is chosen by the caster. The caster must be touching the vessel as they cast the spell.

The solvent is clear and colorless and appears instantly. It has no smell and has the same viscosity as water. The summoned volume is enough to exactly fill the provided vessel to the lip (or no more than could currently fit inside the body of the caster, whichever volume is smaller*)

This solvent will dissolve any solid thing of a different material than the provided vessel the instant it contacts it, releasing a warm mist into the air as it vanishes. It has no effect on liquids or gases of any kind. Vulnerable materials are destroyed in an instant, there is no splashing or resistance.

"material" is defined broadly e.g. if summoned into a wooden bowl the solvent will dissolve anything not made of any wood (not just the exact same wood as the bowl), and if summoned into the caster's mouth it will not harm any human flesh or body parts (not just the casters).

The damage caused by the solvent is smooth like polished stone, marbles, or the holes in cheese. Any bodies harmed are left like the missing parts were long ago amputated, or never even there.**

The solvent exists for one turn for every level of the caster, or until it contacts a vulnerable material. When the solvent contacts a vulnerable material it will destroy an amount of those materials exactly equal to the volume of solvent. The solvent vanishes as it dissolves a material.
A fine dust is left, a volume equal to what was dissolved. This dust weighs about as much as flour and is a dull mix of the colors of what was ruined. The dust has no value on its own.

The dust, if saved, can be later formed into a paste that can restore the damage done by the solvent.

To form this paste one must mix the dust with a solution. The amount of solution required is equal to the volume of acid that first created the dust. The solution is made of distilled water and a fingernail-sized portion of the same kind of material the solvent originally dissolved.

The solution is created by submerging the sample portion of the material in the water for one full day.

If the dust is mixed with any other liquid it forms an ugly mud that soon crumbles into nothing. If too much water is used a useless slurry is formed, which dries to a dull powder. If the solution is allowed to steep for too long the restored portions will be brittle (and break into fragments easily), and if steeped for too short the restored portions will be soft (and will slowly melt).

The paste is inert until applied (like cake frosting or brick mortar) to where the damage was done. The paste then bubbles and froths for one turn, enlarging like a loaf of bread. The form then shrinks and settles, the object restored to as it was before. (whole objects begin to reconstitute as soon as the paste is correctly made)

Any once living things are whole and alive, and once missing parts of creatures are reattached and fully functional without scarring. All is left as if the solvent never touched it.***

*the human stomach can hold at most about four liters, for what that's worth

**this causes no damage or pain, at least directly. it could leave something very uncomfortable, or even biologically unviable****. whole creatures consumed by it are not killed, only suspended.

***If a significant amount of the dust was lost the restoration of the paste is similarly lessened. If the incorrect paste is applied to something damaged by the solvent these once discrete things are then united as one, but a non-functional melange is created.

****if the particular damage caused by the solvent would be enough to instantly kill a living thing too large to be fully dissolved (e.g. dissolving the heart or brain), the remaining body is neither dead or alive. It is left somewhat incorruptible until restored, remaining tepid and whole unless directly attacked by another or harmed by the environment. Parts of whole things "cut off" by the solvent are also preserved this way, and must be properly reattached by hand when the paste is applied.

A Journey To Aldercliffe, Playtest Highlights: Three Vagrants

Deformation in Subterranea is something I'm publishing. It's meant to be something you can easily create a campaign from, with minimal preparation or heavy reading. An initial sandbox for things to happen in, and for players to have clever ideas.  It has a description of a difficult city, a simple premise to tie Adventurers together, a method for quickly creating those Adventurers, and several "adventure" situations without obvious or forced resolutions. It is set in an almost-historical 17th century England, with plenty of mundane strangeness. Supernatural danger and disaster potentially lurks in the far margins. Things are designed to be easily used in other campaigns, or expanded on with your own ideas.

After a very long time writing it I'm now running playtests. Here's what the first group has done so far.

The Adventurers are three vagrants: an Arquebusier named Charles (Fighter), a Magic-User called Samantha (who has the tools of a Barber-Surgeon), and the so-called “Viscount of Vascony”, who dresses fancy and carries a rapier (a Magic-User as well). All were desperately poor, each having only a Silver. They were traveling to an estate in the city of Aldercliffe where they had been hired as laborers.

After arriving in Aldercliffe the Adventurers encountered a man with a ridiculous beard wandering the streets. He tried to grab their faces, but they restrained him. After he fell asleep, reeking of beer, they helped a constable take him to the stocks and lock him up as punishment.

They arrived at the ground of the estate (a dusty, sprawling place) only to receive bad news. Their employer had died while they were en route, but the majordomo said they could still stay (as somewhat legitimate employees).

Each of them was given rooms in a long hallway (a former cloister). These rooms housed collections: one filled with seashells, the other butterflies and moths. The last was filled with beetles, but another was available that was filled with guns. This is where each would sleep. Charles befriended the tremendous dog that stalked the grounds.

They dug through stacks of old books, in a chapel that was meant to become a library, finding a book of anthropomorphic flowers that became shockingly pornographic as the pages turned. They kept this, and a bible, for later use.

They met a painter named Oswyn who lived on the estate, the dead master of the place was his patron. His work was unusual: very sloppy and very colorful. He had a request of them: another visiting painter in the city had some pigments he dearly needed, but he could not buy them. Could they perhaps get those for him, somehow? He would pay them for the trouble, as he seemed to mean he wanted them to steal. He also gave them one of his own paintings, as a token of goodwill.

They set off for the Goldfinch Inn where this painter was staying, carrying their painting with them, but on the way helped the constables once again: a woman resisted detainment, she was to be punished for swearing. Charles caught her when she escaped, and after he handed her over said he’d gladly meet her for a beer after her public shaming was complete.

At the Inn they met a spokesman of this mysterious painter, called Meinhardt: a large man from Leuchtenberg with a hideous fencing scar. He insulted their painting, and began a lengthy sales pitch to Samantha, who sat with him. Charles and the Viscount went outside, to snoop and spy. They peered into a sort of showroom when Samantha went there with Meinhard, then around to the back near the stables.

Samantha saw that the paintings were indeed quite remarkable (like photographs, were those to exist). Meinhardt seemed to be warming up to her. When she suggested meeting the painter he agreed, saying she might be able to sit for a portrait that could be finished later.

Meanwhile, Charles scaled the outside of the Inn to peek into the windows, and after some climbing saw a man sitting behind an easel. The Viscount went to the front, after meeting the perplexed innkeeper, he had set their painting and his hat there.

As Meinhardt took Samantha towards the painter's chambers a constable took notice of the Viscount, and questioned his behavior, and why he carried a painting. The Viscount said he had bought this painting. The constable became quite incensed: it is not permissible to buy things on off-market days. He whipped the Viscount in the streets for his wanton commercialism. This caused quite a commotion. He confiscated the painting, also.

This caused Meinhardt and Samantha to leave the painters chambers before she had a chance to even see his face. He said she should return tomorrow to meet him. Then entered Charles, and after some discussion about Meinhardt's fencing scars, it seemed as if they two might soon spar, in a contest of manliness.

They planned a wrestling match outside the city walls on the coming Monday. Meanwhile, the Viscount burgled the stagecoach out behind the inn, leaving with two excellent pistols and an ornate dagger.

The Sabbath night was rapidly approaching, they decided it was best to return to the manor. After attending a boorish Sermon with the majordomo and Oswyn (to avoid a fine), they returned to the estate grounds. They dug through the library, finding a textbook on engineering (written in Italian), and a musty tome filled with worms. They cast a spell to Animate Artwork on the pornographic flowers, briefly embarrassingg them. They made their way into a room of sharpened stones and stole small obsidian blades. They allowed the dog to damage a stuffed pigeon, which Samantha vivisected and then filled with a worm. They went to bed somewhat early.

On Monday they awoke and departed for the Goldfinch. En route they met a young man called Adam who wanted to travel with them, seeking Adventure. When they reached the Goldfinch the Viscount convinced him to trade hats with him, and join Charles and Samantha at the wrestling match. The Viscount said he would be elsewhere during this event.

While a small crowd left for the city gates the Viscount went to work. He climbed up into the window where Charles had seen the painter. He drew his pistol. He cautiously approached the easel.

The painter behind did not stir and had not seen him. The Viscount stepped closer.

He raised his pistol and clobbered the Painter on the head, knocking him unconscious with a single blow. He never made a peep.

The Viscount saw an eye-catching ring on the painter's finger, made of whirly white gold. It had an inscription on it in ancient Greek: "memory and skill". He took it, and after some rummaging found a few tubes of paint matching what Oswyn had requested. He lowered himself from the window, his face still covered.

Meanwhile, outside the city, Charles had absolutely demolished Meinhard in a shirtless bout of wrestling and won 12 pieces of silver. Meinhard said Charles would be the type of man he would hire for his "former business", and invited them back to the Inn.

Once there Meinhard took Samantha up to see the painter, as he had intended to before. A great commotion arose once they discovered the unconscious body of the painter, and evidence of a burglary. Samantha feigned fainting, and Charles carried her home. Several more severe and scarred Germans were speaking with Meinhard as they left.

Back at the Manor, with Adam, they hid the stolen pistols and paints.