There’s a new idea whirling around in the virtual rpg community. Here’s the original post by Sean McCoy: https://seanmccoy.substack.com/p/dungeon23.
The basic idea is to develop a Megadungeon, and create one room for each day of 2023. An area for every week, and a level for every month, so 52 themed areas on 12 levels. While I have a few doubts, like “will I really do a room every day”, or “will this ever be played”, I have come to like the idea. I’m curious, how it will feel to have done the first twenty or so rooms? what ideas will come up, once the first half has been done? What will it feel like, to do the very last room by the end of next year? I guess, there’s no other way, then to just do it.
I think, I’ll call my dungeon23 The Nexus. I like the crossover of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and I’m very fond of weird, multiplanar, n-dimensional, dream-like adventures, so I already have an idea what the first area will look like. Probably something like a stone circle … a circle of seven monoliths that’s been there as long as anyone could remember. No one knows why it’s there or who put it there. Individuals with a profound want for knowledge seem to disappear into nothingness, when they enter the stone circle at certain times. They enter the Nexus.
Depending on the observers point of view the Nexus will look like said circle of monoliths, a space station, a decaying industrial complex, a chaotic system of caves deep down in the underworld, a perfect sphere, or an underwater vulcano. Maybe the number of possible morphologies of the Nexus is infinite.
While experienced travellers commonly state the nexus is somewhere in the astral sphere, some scholars discuss, whether it’s all a microcosmos on the back of a camel. Still others believe the Nexus to be beyond all known galaxies, and even larger then our universe. But let’s wait until January 1st before I let it settle to paper.
I like the idea of 52 weekly prompts as inspiration for each area, but I guess, it’s a good idea to come up with my own set of prompts. This morning had me brainstorming about those prompts, so here’s my list:
- portals
- planes
- hospitality
- crystallization
- spheres
- stars
- enmity
- friendship
- light
- darkness
- gravity
- hunger
- water
- liquid metals
- atomicity
- atmosphere
- population
- decay
- life
- nebula
- perception
- purple
- teeth
- blood
- ooze
- alabaster
- moons
- conduits
- mirrors
- verticality
- heat
- death
- marbles
- green
- vacuum
- currents
- aggregation
- horror
- polyhedrons
- time
- finitude
- reversal
- geometry
- planets
- sublimation
- sound
- earth
- radiation
- love
- safety
- cognition
- infinity
Since I feel, that play is important, I’m thinking of ways, to embed it into my ongoing campaign. Also, I think I’d like something system agnostic, or maybe even something having it’s very own system. So I’ll keep that open for now. In fact everything about this project is open for change.
Also I’m still not settled which medium to use. These days I do most of my writing in some version controlled, plain text format on my computer. The paper calendar notebook is more charming in any case. An infinite multidimensional dungeon nexus in my pocket?! Who wouldn’t want to have that?! 😀