Skull Mountain Design

The Old Workshop has been getting lighter posting lately.  I guess part of that is I'm less involved in theory and long-term rule and setting type work, the kind of work that gets reflected in the workshop, and more on getting things squared away for the game in progress.

It's killing me not to blog more about Skull Mountain, but since the party is actually going through the mountain right now, I can't really discuss what's in it and why it's there.

I suppose I can say that it was obviously inspired by the dungeon-level cross-section "mountain with carved skull face" from the Holmes Basic D&D set from 1977.  The levels don't really correspond to the levels on that map, so there are no spoilers that come from looking at that illustration

Like I said, you will gain nothing from looking for "the Pit" and you should not expect to find a domed city, but the picture was the inspiration.

I can say that I'm very pleased that the party is actually exploring the dungeon.   I've designed 3-4 other old school megadungeons like this in the past, and people have perversely decided to avoid them, or poke their heads in once and wander off.

I tried to make it easy this time, putting it less than a day from a safe location (Wigred's house), and 2 days or so from town.  but then they had to get themselves outlawed. Now there's nowhere to buy anything more expensive than a bag of cheese sandwiches and sailor sausage.

There are a few other features in the neighbourhood of the mountain that the players haven't yet explored, which may be of help for some of their needs, unless they think that Spunky's is the only safe place they need.

I hadn't ever considered the party might decide to move into the dungeon.  I suppose if it worked for Presfen, it would work for them.  Although, Presfen did just get wiped out by a band of particularly persistent "wandering monsters", so perhaps they ought to be on their guard.