Crowd sourced holiday dungeon?

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Necrozius

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Let’s just do it. Let’s build a RPGPub collaborative dungeon in time for the holidays. Assemble it and put it up on drivethru as PWYW to gather money to donate to a charity in the name of the Pub.

We could do it as an evil Krampus dungeon or something . Everyone donates a single square piece of the map (with some consistent connectors, or abstract it as node-based, perhaps).

Horror-comedy? Must have a Giga-Dire Goose boss monster somewhere.

Maybe we could “Mork Borg” it a bit and have each “section” have its own distinct visual style? Frees up any desktop publishers. We’d just need to sort out the page size for consistency.

What say you?
 
The Lair of Krampus. I'm in.

Not that I can desktop publish my way out of a paper bag mind...
 
The Lair of Krampus. I'm in.

Not that I can desktop publish my way out of a paper bag mind...
I can help, thanks to work I have a Creative Cloud license so I can use InDesign... well, amateurishly, but better than nothing!

Only a few logistics to sort out:

- What system? Or system Agnostic? As much as it grosses me out, 5e would generate more clicks and sales for the charity.
- classic dungeon map tiles? Or more abstract, node-based?
- tone: I like comedy horror, myself (eg. movies like Krampus, Evil Dead 2, Gremlins, Slither etc...)
 
My first thought was to go system agnostic OSR, but there's room to present multiple stat lines to support multiple systems too (like 5E).

If it's going to be 5E/OSR then we probably should have maps as people kind of expect them. Maybe something simple like a village and surrounding countryside plus a dungeon location of some kind. It doesn't have to be a village of course, but I'm think of a standard outside/inside approach that's the same as a lot of classic D&D modules. Death, Frost, Doom for LotFP came to mind.

Comedy/Horror is fine by me. :thumbsup:
 
After giving it some thought I'd probably do a lot of the design work in a node-based way and layer on maps when things start to come into focus. The end result of the node-based connections will probably help specify what maps will be needed and at what scale.
 
Yeah dual-stat is cool with me. I really like Old School Essentials right now, but there are other options too.
 
Yeah dual-stat is cool with me. I really like Old School Essentials right now, but there are other options too.
OSE/5E would a good mix in terms of potential sales. If the design is done to make the stats easily swappable it should be a breeze.
 
How about a Fae angle? Make Krampus a Redcap in charge of a horde of ugly little hobgoblin-y 'elves' who are terrorizing a village at Yule. Perhaps they are stealing something more interesting, like memories, or children. You that get home-invasion Gremlins feel there in spades. They could have a lair that's under the village, maybe connecting root cellars and whatnot through cleverly concealed tunnels. I'm almost thinking evil Fraggle Rock here.
 
Holy shit yes.

A nightmare world of evil little fae creatures. Easy enough to plop into any existing setting (or even historical period).
Perhaps more than one variety, each with its own schtick. Some bigger ones that tunnel, some smaller stealthy creep-down-the-chimney ones, and maybe even some neat shit like using mirrors and reflections like doors.
 
OK, I have a slightly more fleshed out idea. The Redcap (or whomever) is trying to free his master Krampus who was imprisoned a millennia ago by the goddess of life. We could take an advent calendar approach here - the Redcap needs to hang a specific set of things (awful things!) on a particular tree in a particular order in order to summon Krampus. Each new ornament breaks a seal on Krampus' prison, and perhaps also frees a new kind of fae minion. IF the Redcap can gather all the ingredients he will shatter Krampus' prison and summon him into the material plane.

So the players would need to figure out the spell and how to stop it. I also think it would be cool if the fae had some traditional fae weaknesses, like not being able to criss salt (or whatever) - that way we could put hordes of the things in play without the PCs having to deal with them all in boring rounds of combat. Figuring out those weaknesses is another adventure vector.
 
traditional fae weaknesses, like not being able to criss salt (or whatever)
I've heard one about being bound by hospitality not to harm a household where you've accepted food or drink, which puts the plate of cookies for Santa in a new light.
 
Each submission could have a unique fey creature in it (ideally holiday-themed somehow). Like the “elves” in the Krampus movie, for instance.

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And evil toys and decorations! Some more whimsical than others, of course.
 
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