#245

May 28, 2023

Books

This week I read:

Roleplaying Games

The Halls of Arden Vul

No dungeoneering this week: the party went to the nearby town to sell a gem and some scrolls they found in their previous delve, and then spent the rest of the session searching around in the ruined city for that other entrance they think they’ve found.

They didn’t exactly find what they were looking for, but they did find a couple of other interesting features, which could lead them deeper into the dungeon more quickly than I expected, so I’m reading up on levels 5 and 6 in preparation.

This is great, I really like how interconnected Arden Vul is: the main entrance everyone knows about actually takes you straight down from the surface to level 3 of the dungeon, the surface entrance to level 1 is harder to find. And from level 3 there are passages leading to the surface, to several different dungeon levels, and to various sub-levels. Some passages are easier to find, and so fairly well known to the adventuring community; others are less well known (or even totally unknown) and so knowing where they are gives you some advantage. But that advantage comes with risk, because the less well known (and less well-travelled) parts of the dungeon are more likely to have wandering unintelligent monsters!

Despite being a dungeon, one of the most constrained environments imaginable, sessions are still really unpredictable. And that’s fun.