As my Caverns of Thracia trundled on and the players explored more and more of the dungeon, I could see a crossroads off in the distance; expand the Caverns, add or make a new dungeon, or do something else.
I had already tried expanding the Caverns, but it was a half hearted attempt. I also thought of starting something completely new, but in the end decided to add a new dungeon to the current game, to not annihilate the progress the long timers have already made.
The next question was what. Stonehell was a strong candidate, but I felt for d&d 5e it wasn't enough. While I'm planning on using a new host of house rules to make things less of a cake walk, Stonehell just wasn't enough I felt. I could expand it though.
The dungeon I eventually decided upon is Arden Vul. Arden Vul is ginormous. 10 levels, that many and more sublevels, some of these levels have over a hundred rooms. It's intruiged me for a while and, given the success of several plotting factions in the Caverns of Thracia, Arden Vul with a host of competing groups is right up my alley (down my dungeon corridor?).
The issue is, Arden Vul is ginormous. And unfortunately, I would argue the key isn't all that great. Full of details and nuggets of history and details on who this skeleton was 200 years ago.
But I don't need that when the party enters, looking for gold, and I only discover after half a page of details that goblins were lying in ambush and should have attacked by now.
I can see the good in there, it's just under a lot of... stuff. I feel like it needs a severe pruning before I could use it at the table.
Before I get into my process, I noted down some oddities I found. Maybe I was missing something after trawling through the key for hours on end, but I'll leave them as I wrote them as an archaeological nugget.
- Carving has piercing eyes & empty eye sockets. Understand the idea, but seems a bit off.
- Way too much info on history of some places. Can see a lot of work went into it, but neigh impossible to use at the table (imo).
- Splitting it up into areas, each with own monsters, magic items, and random encounter tables, rather than front loading a lot.
- A ghost appears in a key, then it mentions "if not found in the room before, they are found here". Would be nice if he appeared in the room before, even a "x chance the ghost from the next room appears here".
- Maybe nit-picking, but why 3-18 instead of 3d6?
To be able to run it, I needed something smaller. Enter once again Stonehell.
I think most people have an idea what Stonehell is and how the key is laid out; map and random tables on one page, key on the other page. There's also a double spread before with larger room entries, magic items and new monsters found there. It's great, I love it, and I needed something similar for Arden Vul.
A sample of the 1st level key. Using excel, there's not really an exact template to it for the time being. In general, monsters/NPCs are noted first, dressing next, and and puzzles/treasure after that.
At the time of writing, I have keyed up levels 1, half of level 3, and starting on level 2. The plan isn't to key the whole thing right off the bat. Any place that a party can enter from the surface, I want that area keyed. As the games continue, I can add to the key over time. Saying that, Arden Vul has so many connections and ways to access levels. While great for gameplay, it's a lot of work up front.
I somewhat feel that, when this is all done, it would be a shame to keep this key hidden. But at the same time, I have no idea about the legalities of sharing a fan key to a dungeon. I'm in no danger of finishing any sort of key for a while though, so that can can be kicked down the road.
