Our Dungeon23 Saga Week 2: Poetry & Despair

These themes can come at you fast!

Death. Impermanence. Change.

What if you already died, but your consciousness didn’t notice the change?

What if aeons of time passed before your eyes, and you didn’t even notice?

These were all questions my dungeon23 entries wrestled with during week 2.

Some Context: For my dungeon23 challenge, I’m making a “d365” tunnel/cavern segment inside my interdimensional underworld setting, “The World Without Skies”.

Week Two: Poetry And Despair

For Week 2 of my dungeon23 excursion, we tossed out all the random procedures we explored in Week 1, and went as far in the opposite direction as possible.

Ok, I did roll some procedures, but just enough to give me some spatial understanding.

The week started off with a sizzling glimmer in my eye.

The pen hit the page, I knew what general direction we were going, but I didn’t know how anything would end.

For my 8th entry, I wanted to feature only beneficial things, with opportunity for chaos and conflict in the details. A good change of pace for a cosmic hellscape where anything can happen.

Both of these motifs - the living giant, buried in the dirt, whose evergrowing body is broken and feasted upon by many, and the faerie agent for-hire - are very central and recurring images in this setting.

By day 13, the end of that week, this poetic style crystallized into “The Dark";

My favorite part about this room is that you could just read it aloud as a room description, and then roll “death saves”.

In our World Without Skies playtest booklet, we have a character death mechanic “That You You Lost”, that guides player characters through their deaths as a transformation process, instead of the end of a characters’ story.

What roughly-resembling being walks out of that darkness, however, is an entirely different story (Looking at you, Ian).

Best Room Week 2: One Orphan Lone

Full Disclosure: my favorite room from week 2 was actually the start of the theme of week 3, so I’m gonna save that one for next Friday ;).

But don’t worry - narrowing down these entries to which single one excited me the most (that’s the sole criteria for ‘best room’ btw) is extremely hard for me to do.

But yes, the poetry and despair culminated in one small tunnel, oddly untouched by any beings and atrocities… save for One Orphan Lone.

I’ve never been a “hell is other people” type, but this room really twists that knife.

Unfortunately, orphans are perhaps the most ubiquitous motif in the World Without Skies. The full force of cruelty and human suffering thrust upon the most undeserving, vulnerable, and needy.

Obviously, one’s reaction to this encounter could create many possible outcomes, but in such a small space, there is no avoiding the lonely orphan.

It looks into your eyes, ever-pleading. It watches you walk away, and there is no silence loud enough to erase its cries as it is left alone, yet again.

There’s some painful themes in this setting, but there’s a lot more beyond that to explore too, I promise!

Discord Highlight: Procrastimancer’s Rotting Floorboards

In week 2, the soldiering reality started to set in - rest assured, we’re in this for the long haul.

Procrastimancer also shared some rooms with us. My favorite part of their design is this “rotting floor” mechanic;

Their dungeon is this gigantic haunted mansion, and at any point, one could step on the wrong floorboard, and have it fall out from under you, down to the next level!

Stay up to date with Procrastimancer’s Horror23 challenge here!

How is Dungeon23 going for you?

Please let us know in the comments or join our Discord server, where we’re posting about #dungeon23 every day!

Discovery Of The Week: It’s the Guts!

It turns out the Dungeon23 dungeon journalling challenge is also actually a journalling challenge!

Although my entries from week 2 were some of the darkest thus far, I also found them to be cathartic, in the classic journalling sense.

I also think intentionally channeling those real emotions will actually empower your ‘art’ as well.

Lean into the emotions you experienced during the day, you never know what sort of art will manifest by following that vein.

“People pay for the guts”, so if you find yourself spilling some of yours out on the page, it’ll probably resonate well with your players and friends!

Join Us for Dungeon23!

The best part about dungeon23 is that there’s no real way to lose. It’s for fun!

Interact with it as much or as little as you’d like. If you’re looking for a fun place to geek out about dungeon23, come on down to The Cult of The Muse Discord Server!

We’d love to see what you’ve come up with!

Next Friday, we’ll go over Week 3, where All God Monsters showed up to play…

P. S.

Fulfillment for The Epic of Dreams: Basilisk Edition is coming very soon, and we’re planning on releasing probably 2 zines this year for Zinequest! Stay tuned, and see you next week!