HYPERBOREA / Foolsgrave (development, spoilers)

**Posted by Chainsaw** 3/24/2017 9:46 am

Druvas wrote:
The more I go back and look through this whole thread, the more impressed I am by it. Great work with the dungeon dressing and maps.

Thanks again, man!

Druvas wrote:
If I find some time, I may try and reproduce the maps in GIMP. If I do, I'll happily send you the files. Makes them more immortal and portable. I did this for a hand drawn map I made a few years ago and then took it to FedEx-Kinkos and had it printed. If I can find the file, I'll post it here.

That would be really cool. As I keyed the first level, I ended up changing little things here and there. Give me a few weeks, when I get back from Gary Con, I'll post an update Level 1 of the individual maps and the combination map.

**Posted by Chainsaw** 3/24/2017 10:52 am

Second expedition took place from 9PM-130AM last night, with JoeMac (assassin), his two friends Dave (warlock) and Dave (ranger), and Josh (playing his same necromancer from Weds night). These guys really kicked ass! Smaller group than Weds, and very efficient (despite much liquor!). They explored maybe two dozen rooms, avoiding/fleeing several wandering monster encounters along the way (yellow moths, metal monitoring sphere, green slime, evil adventuring party, Thaumagorgan cultists, giant vampire bats), found two chests of gold and ultimately made their way into the overgrown tunnels to the north, where they killed the damn shambling mound that guards the portal to the insectoid dimension! I rolled for crap for the mound's hit points (21/80 possible), then lost initiative almost every time, whereas Dave's warlock rolled two natural 20s, Dave's ranger had a few arrow hits, JoeMac's assassin had two backstabs and Josh's necromancer's skeletons had a couple hits. Of course, the best part was warlock Dave mocking JoeMac and ranger Dave the whole time for not doing as much damage. Might have been the booze talking! Hahaha!

They recovered about 4,000GP worth of loot and 2,000XP. Pretty badass for three Level 1 and one Level 2 adventurers! I totally keyed that room with a "too tough" monster thinking it would slaughter whoever found it. Never know what can happen!

Sadly, no pics. Too engrossed in drinking and throwing dice.

**Posted by Druvas** 3/24/2017 1:10 pm

Chainsaw wrote:
Druvas wrote:
The more I go back and look through this whole thread, the more impressed I am by it. Great work with the dungeon dressing and maps.
Thanks again, man!

Druvas wrote:
If I find some time, I may try and reproduce the maps in GIMP. If I do, I'll happily send you the files. Makes them more immortal and portable. I did this for a hand drawn map I made a few years ago and then took it to FedEx-Kinkos and had it printed. If I can find the file, I'll post it here.
That would be really cool. As I keyed the first level, I ended up changing little things here and there. Give me a few weeks, when I get back from Gary Con, I'll post an update Level 1 of the individual maps and the combination map.

Sounds good to me. This should be a good, challenging mapping for me in GIMP. I haven't done any maps in a while and need to stay sharp!

**Posted by Chainsaw** 3/26/2017 9:45 am

Quick recaps from Friday and Saturday night...

Friday night, ligedog, Ernesto, gizmo, Jeff, Josh, Del and francisca played from 830PM-130AM, with Ernesto again quickly setting the tone by barrelling through a door and into room with 24 big-handed zombies that pummeled him dead in one round (everyone else watched from the hall, laughed, shut the door and left!). They soon found three adjacent teleportation rooms: one returned Josh to the entrance, one sent them all into the 24 zombie room (luckily they pushed through the corpses, fleeing unharmed) and one teleported them onto the meathooks in the pentagram room (their draining blood created some valuable rubies). They happened upon a walking treasure chest, but it fled after too much damage and was too fast for even ligedog's barbarian. We ended in a high note, with Ernesto defacing a demonic idol, which invoked a powerful demon with two pincers, two claws, a wolf head and a tentacle zapper - it slaughtered Ernesto, gizmo and francisca almost immediately - everyone else fled back to the surface, happy for the bigger shares.

Saturday night, Noah, Noah's Son, Kevin, Kevin's Son, grodog, Guy, Scott and Tom, all new to the dungeon, played from 830PM-1AM. Lots of carnage (Guy 1 sundered in two by the iron statue [-24 HP]; Guy 2 and Tom 1 obliterated by a floating metal monitoring sphere's green energy ray [Mike's berserker killed it, grodog found some crystals inside]; grodog's skeletal servants Guy 1 and Jeff 1 incinerated by trapped chests) and a couple fun rooms (they found the teleportation rooms [ended up on the meat hooks over the pentagram, but got the rubies]; a room with a multi-faced floating object asking them "GUILTY or INNOCENT?" [scared, they left]). They also found gold in two chests (killed some dark blue giant beetles guarding one), destroyed a walking treasure chest (lots of gold inside!) and found two potion bottles (one filled with white mist, the other heart-shaped with red liquid). Again, finished on a high note, with Kevin topside in the Laughing Skull tavern, opening the mist-filled bottle - a ghost emerged and the patrons all fled in terror!

**Posted by Chainsaw** 3/26/2017 10:33 am

Again, thanks to everyone (23!) who volunteered to explore Foolsgrave. You gave me a ton of great ideas to improve the content and presentation. Should be even better next year! Remember, if you lived, keep your character sheet (and any maps). We'll pick up next March, so long as the NTRPG crew doesn't take everything that's left.

**Posted by Druvas** 3/26/2017 12:45 pm

24 "Big-handed Zombies".

Undead circle jerk?

**Posted by Chainsaw** 3/26/2017 1:16 pm

Druvas wrote:
24 "Big-handed Zombies".

Undead circle jerk?

Haha! Yeah, during one encounter Weds night, I think a zombie punched someone for a bunch of damage, over-dramatically described as "a big zombie hand knocks your guy in the face!" Well, that led "So they all have over-sized hands?", which stuck of course. From then on, people were getting teeth slapped out by big-handed zombies!

**Posted by mavfire** 3/27/2017 8:35 am

Awesome time playing in "Foolsgrave" on Friday. My ineffective listening led directly to Ernesto's death at the Big Hands of those zombies. Great stuff cant wait for next year.

**Posted by Chainsaw** 3/31/2017 4:01 pm

mavfire wrote:
Awesome time playing in "Foolsgrave" on Friday. My ineffective listening led directly to Ernesto's death at the Big Hands of those zombies. Great stuff cant wait for next year.

Thanks for playing, Del! Pleasure's all mine. I hope you can find time to play next year, when this dungeon will be even more fun and more Hyperborean. I already have a ton of new ideas for content and presentation. Make sure to save your character sheet!

Here are some pics Ernesto took that Friday evening, after we drank all of gizmo's bourbon. If only I had a third hand to show some metal horns!

**Posted by Druvas** 4/13/2017 7:40 am

You've inspired me to develop my own mega-dungeon in Hyperboria. I was listening to Bran Mak Morn, Worms of the Earth on audiobook the other day and the name hit me. Dagon's Barrow. And since my players are on the coast of Dagon Bay now, it's apropos. Rather than flood your thread with stuff, I'll start my own though! :-)

**Posted by Chainsaw** 4/13/2017 8:08 am

Druvas wrote:
You've inspired me to develop my own mega-dungeon in Hyperboria. I was listening to Bran Mak Morn, Worms of the Earth on audiobook the other day and the name hit me. Dagon's Barrow. And since my players are on the coast of Dagon Bay now, it's apropos.

Sweet - and great name!

With my efforts, the first step was the toughest, so my initial advice would be not to get too bogged down thinking about the possible enormity of the project, like "ZOMG, I have to do 13 levels of nine pages each and it needs this overarching 10k word ancient history background and five dozen factions all logically coexisting and every room's unique and fascinating and..." Just start mapping! When you get tired, put it down for a bit.

Also, start an email chain to yourself and every time you get a room idea, email it to yourself. When you feel like keying some rooms, browse the list. Don't try to write-up every room like it's going to be published. Just enough to jog your memory.

You may find this Foolsgrave thread at K&KA interesting, where I ask a lot of questions and get a lot of answers, all in a practical, play-driven context (i.e., not as a thought experiment or academic exercise or something).

Druvas wrote:
Rather than flood your thread with stuff, I'll start my own though! :-)

Looking forward to seeing it develop!

**Posted by Handy Haversack** 4/13/2017 9:01 am

Chainsaw wrote:
Also, start an email chain to yourself and every time you get a room idea, email it to yourself. When you feel like keying some rooms, browse the list. Don't try to write-up every room like it's going to be published. Just enough to jog your memory.

I do this with gaming ideas constantly. Works really well.

**Posted by Ar'Pharazon** 4/13/2017 7:30 pm

Handy Haversack wrote:
I do this with gaming ideas constantly. Works really well.

+1. I've actually taken to putting all of my ideas that I want and/or email myself into a master OneNote page. While running a campaign, I actually write out each session on a new OneNote page, along with necessary tables, screenshots, etc. I then have each session archived as a subpage.

**Posted by Bowser** 11/26/2018 9:25 pm

Oh my God! No updates for this fantastic dungeon in over a year and a half?? Seriously??

I'm no longer an active gamer (live in the country, no players available, maybe this will change when I retire). I'm 62 and besides being very interested in megadungeons, I am also very interested in old pulp fiction. A lot of these stories were collected in book form in the late '60s and early '70s, right when I was really getting into fiction (11 to 15 yrs old). I've read all of Howard and Burroughs and most of Lovecraft, Smith, Merritt, Vance, Carter, Kuttner, Moore, Tolkien, etc., etc. Appendix N held little surprises for me when the DMG came out my senior year in college. By the time we were playing OD&D at the end of my sophomore year in college, my literary tastes had improved, but I never left my love of the pulps behind.

Jumping ahead 40-50 yrs, I now like to browse the net, reading blogs and buying some products that I find interesting. Rappan Athuk, Barrowmaze, Stonehell, Dwimmermount, etc., etc. I like to look for products for Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord because I'm still an OD&D, AD&D (both 1st & 2nd Ed.) kind of guy. Never made the transition to 3rd edition or d20 or Pathfinder or 4th edition, etc.

So two days ago I once again put "megadungeon" into the slot on Google to see what would float to the top. There were a few new finds where people were listing out their opinions on megadungeons and on one post Grodog posted quite a list of what he had played, what he had run and some that he wasn't sure of yet. (I've read a lot of posts by Grodog and read a lot of his blog posts as well and I have a very high degree of respect for his opinions.) So when he listed "Foolsgrave", which I had never heard mentioned before, I took notice.

A short Google search later and here I am.

This thread is a wonderful thread! A love of maps led me to D&D in the first place way back when, so by the time I got thru the first page of posts on this thread, I was hooked. All of you who have played in this dungeon have my envy! Geez!

But the reason I'm writing this post is because of the wandering monster lists and monster descriptions. Wow, right out of the pulps! Some sound like they're right out of one of Burroughs' Mars novels. And the "scientific" (sort of) items, etc, etc. Pulpy! Great!

So now I have to find out what monsters Chainsaw is coming up with himself and what monsters are from the AS&SH rules/setting. The only way to do that is to buy it, of course. I haven't yet, but I will this weekend. AND of course there's a Kickstarter going on, so I'll have to do that before this weekend . . .

Sigh.

I've got the feeling that I won't be sorry. Now we need to convince Chainsaw to post more maps, monsters, factions, updates, etc.

Chainsaw, are you holding back because you're planning on publishing this?? (Hint, hint)

Bowser
Sedetary Somewhere in East Central Nebraska

**Posted by Chainsaw** 11/27/2018 8:27 pm

Welcome to the forum, Bowser! I'm truly flattered by your interest in Foolsgrave, man.

Bowser wrote:
Oh my God! No updates for this fantastic dungeon in over a year and a half?? Seriously??

Haha! Yes, admittedly, I have fallen way behind. Worked heated up in late 2016, then I took it on the road, offering it at Gary Con, NTRPG Con and GameHole in 2017 and then some other projects needed attention in 2018 (The Losts Treasure of Atlantis and The Brazen Bull). Plus, to be honest, I burnt out on it a little bit too.

Bowser wrote:
I'm no longer an active gamer (live in the country, no players available, maybe this will change when I retire). I'm 62 and besides being very interested in megadungeons, I am also very interested in old pulp fiction. A lot of these stories were collected in book form in the late '60s and early '70s, right when I was really getting into fiction (11 to 15 yrs old). I've read all of Howard and Burroughs and most of Lovecraft, Smith, Merritt, Vance, Carter, Kuttner, Moore, Tolkien, etc., etc. Appendix N held little surprises for me when the DMG came out my senior year in college. By the time we were playing OD&D at the end of my sophomore year in college, my literary tastes had improved, but I never left my love of the pulps behind.

Awesome! I think you're in the right place, my friend.

Bowser wrote:
Jumping ahead 40-50 yrs, I now like to browse the net, reading blogs and buying some products that I find interesting. Rappan Athuk, Barrowmaze, Stonehell, Dwimmermount, etc., etc. I like to look for products for Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord because I'm still an OD&D, AD&D (both 1st & 2nd Ed.) kind of guy. Never made the transition to 3rd edition or d20 or Pathfinder or 4th edition, etc.

Again, you are in the right place!

Bowser wrote:
So two days ago I once again put "megadungeon" into the slot on Google to see what would float to the top. There were a few new finds where people were listing out their opinions on megadungeons and on one post Grodog posted quite a list of what he had played, what he had run and some that he wasn't sure of yet. (I've read a lot of posts by Grodog and read a lot of his blog posts as well and I have a very high degree of respect for his opinions.) So when he listed "Foolsgrave", which I had never heard mentioned before, I took notice.

A short Google search later and here I am.

Good old grodog! Super fellow, very kind of him to mention Foolsgrave.

Bowser wrote:
This thread is a wonderful thread! A love of maps led me to D&D in the first place way back when, so by the time I got thru the first page of posts on this thread, I was hooked. All of you who have played in this dungeon have my envy! Geez!

So nice of you to say, Bowser. Again, I'm flattered that you enjoyed it. And lots of Foolsgrave explorers troll these very boards.

Bowser wrote:
But the reason I'm writing this post is because of the wandering monster lists and monster descriptions. Wow, right out of the pulps! Some sound like they're right out of one of Burroughs' Mars novels. And the "scientific" (sort of) items, etc, etc. Pulpy! Great!

Thanks man! My goal was to ensure fear and wonder by using more unknown elements. Sometimes it works, but many times my efforts usually wind up feeling more comedic in person. I'm not very scary I guess! Haha!

Bowser wrote:
So now I have to find out what monsters Chainsaw is coming up with himself and what monsters are from the AS&SH rules/setting. The only way to do that is to buy it, of course. I haven't yet, but I will this weekend. AND of course there's a Kickstarter going on, so I'll have to do that before this weekend . . .

Sigh.

I've got the feeling that I won't be sorry.

You arrived at the right time, no doubt. Based on your background, I think you'll especially love the gazetteer (found in the main hardback volume). I'm personally pumped about having the shorter Players' Manual for players at my convention games and the long-awaited referee's screen.

Bowser wrote:
Now we need to convince Chainsaw to post more maps, monsters, factions, updates, etc.

I'd love to find the time, my friend, but I'm running an online game now and have a few other projects up my sleeve as well.

Bowser wrote:
Chainsaw, are you holding back because you're planning on publishing this?? (Hint, hint)

I'm flattered, man, and I envision myself working on it more eventually, but anything coming close to publication quality would require years of effort based on my other obligations (family, work, sleep) and interests. All I can say is that I have not given up and I would love to add more. Never know when the inspiration will hit!

**Posted by grodog** 12/05/2018 12:26 am

Bowser wrote:
So two days ago I once again put "megadungeon" into the slot on Google to see what would float to the top. There were a few new finds where people were listing out their opinions on megadungeons and on one post Grodog posted quite a list of what he had played, what he had run and some that he wasn't sure of yet. (I've read a lot of posts by Grodog and read a lot of his blog posts as well and I have a very high degree of respect for his opinions.)

Thank you for the kind words, Bowser.

Bowser wrote:
So when he listed "Foolsgrave", which I had never heard mentioned before, I took notice.

And well you should!: Foolsgrave is a wonderfully-designed and -run mega-dungeon! :D If you want to explore more of Chainsaw's creative process, there's a much-longer discussion thread at http://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=14028 that's well-worth checking out.

Bowser wrote:
Sedetary Somewhere in East Central Nebraska

Hmmm, you may not be too far away to attend TsunamiCon next year (in Wichita), or NukeCon (in Omaha)?

Allan.

**Posted by Chainsaw** 12/05/2018 7:07 pm

grodog wrote:
Bowser wrote:
So when he listed "Foolsgrave", which I had never heard mentioned before, I took notice.
And well you should!: Foolsgrave is a wonderfully-designed and -run mega-dungeon! :D If you want to explore more of Chainsaw's creative process, there's a much-longer discussion thread at http://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=14028 that's well-worth checking out.

Thanks man, that means a lot coming from the master!

**Posted by Spider of Leng** 12/05/2018 8:54 pm

Bowser wrote:
Jumping ahead 40-50 yrs, I now like to browse the net, reading blogs and buying some products that I find interesting. Rappan Athuk, Barrowmaze, Stonehell, Dwimmermount, etc., etc. I like to look for products for Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord because I'm still an OD&D, AD&D (both 1st & 2nd Ed.) kind of guy. Never made the transition to 3rd edition or d20 or Pathfinder or 4th edition, etc.

Have you seen Anomalous Subsurface Environment? It's pretty gonzo and while I don't like it quite as much as the other mega-dungeons you reference, it's not bad. Cyclopean Deeps, by Matthew Finch, while not quite a mega-dungeon, is a great pulpy take on the Underdark. Getting ready to run Barrowmaze myself, in the Labyrinth Lord version of my campaign. A different party is preparing to tackle Xambaala in Hyperborea using AS&SH.

Welcome to the boards; didn't mean to hijack the thread...

**Posted by Caveman** 4/05/2019 7:19 am

Hi Chainsaw, any advancement on Foolsgrave?

Was thinking that it would be good too, if one day a kickstarter was done to develop it, perhaps as an AS&SH project with Jeff and the team? I would surely support it and I am sure the rest would be glad to have it on their shelves.

I got the old AD&D Undermountain Mega-dungeon boxsets I and II, and there is so much missing, Levels, etc. But the theory is, not every room was keyed (coded, numbered), so it not as if every room needs to be done, this allows GM to fill in the blanks, which I think is a good idea., Makes the dungeon more personal to each individual GM and saves a lot of time structuring it, which helps creator.

Q: So what is the history of the tower, foolsgave is under? (I might have missed that post, not sure).

Q: What is the dungeon under 'Diamond Jims,' tavern like also?

**Posted by Brock Savage** 4/05/2019 11:47 pm

Caveman wrote:
Was thinking that it would be good too, if one day a kickstarter was done to develop it, perhaps as an AS&SH project with Jeff and the team? I would surely support it and I am sure the rest would be glad to have it on their shelves.

I would support this project.

Caveman wrote:
the theory is, not every room was keyed (coded, numbered), so it not as if every room needs to be done, this allows GM to fill in the blanks, which I think is a good idea., Makes the dungeon more personal to each individual GM and saves a lot of time structuring it, which helps creator.

I find that many of the better RPG settings work this way (including AS&SH); supply enough evocative detail to prime the DM's creative pump but leave the minutiae blank for a DM to make it his own.