#dungeon23: The Nexus

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.

Dungeon23 Logo, CC BY 4.0 by Lone Archivist

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:

  1. portals
  2. planes
  3. hospitality
  4. crystallization
  5. spheres
  6. stars
  7. enmity
  8. friendship
  9. light
  10. darkness
  11. gravity
  12. hunger
  13. water
  14. liquid metals
  15. atomicity
  16. atmosphere
  17. population
  18. decay
  19. life
  20. nebula
  21. perception
  22. purple
  23. teeth
  24. blood
  25. ooze
  26. alabaster
  27. moons
  28. conduits
  29. mirrors
  30. verticality
  31. heat
  32. death
  33. marbles
  34. green
  35. vacuum
  36. currents
  37. aggregation
  38. horror
  39. polyhedrons
  40. time
  41. finitude
  42. reversal
  43. geometry
  44. planets
  45. sublimation
  46. sound
  47. earth
  48. radiation
  49. love
  50. safety
  51. cognition
  52. 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?! 😀