The Maze of Darkness is an experiment, one I'm hoping will catch on with the 1e AD&D community. We talk a lot, we do, about writing things and creating adventures and modules but as someone who spent years trying to crank out the handful that I have, I can tell you directly it is a heck of a lot easier to talk than it is to do. Some folks may well have the same creative block difficulties as I (or, also like myself, just not have the time) to do a whole dungeon prep.
So this is what I'm going to try out: a dungeon, written collaboratively, by us. By you. Rooms, levels, sublevels, chambers, corridors - it's all you. Now, I say "let your creative flag fly" when it comes to whatever you want to stock the room with. There's a few guidelines though, and I'd like you to read them before jumping in:
- First and foremost, don't retcon someone else's work. If they have a tribe of kobolds, don't make your encounter later a lich who had that section as a mere illusion. You might want to do that for your home game, but don't do that to other contributors. If you can't get on without something like that, work it out with the author.
Along those same lines, don't use pre-published material as far as maps and encounters go. Be inspired by them, sure, but don't scan and post, say, a section of G1 and say "This is my map contribution" because...uh, no.
Number your sections as you need to but be aware of the order. If someone posted area #23, don't post area #22. You can sub-number, though. You can use "23a."
You can design a room, chamber, hall, cave, whatever. Any number of areas or sub areas, to your heart's content. Populate it with whatever, from the Monster Manual, the Monster Manual II, the Fiend Folio. The scale of the rooms is up to you but if you're not going to post a map of it, please describe the size of the room for us! (e.g., 30' x 40', 15' vaulted ceiling, etc.)
This is for AD&D 1e. For the 1e ruleset. Don't drop in kensai, warforged, blad-de-blah-de-blah. Don't. I will mercilessly nuke posts that do that to try and get my goat. I will give OD&D a pass as long as it's compatible.
Regarding the rules, you can be as stats-light or as stats-heavy as you like. Me, I tend towards monster type, number, HPs and treasure/items. What the DM needs is in the DMG and monster manual.
Read up on the rooms and areas preceding yours before you post. If you've got this cool area you want to have ice para-elementals living in, and the general vibe up to that point has been efreet and lava, maybe hold off on the ice room for a bit, or alternately, describe a shaft leading to a new level.
On maps: you can absolutely map out your area, scan it, and attach it to the section. Show where it enters in from previous areas (or if you're not showing a map, make sure you describe how it connects to previous areas), and where it goes from there.
Keep it in good taste. No walls of boobs, torture chambers full of mutilated children, that sort of thing. If you can't get by without that then...don't post.
This is not a contest. Not in any way shape or form. Not in entries to me, and you're not competing against each other. Yes, make your areas cool. If you post a single room, even if it's a 10x10x10 chamber with one orc guarding a chest, make it cool, but don't think you're not contributing if that's all you can come up with.
This is a 100% free and open project. If you contribute to it, your ideas become community. Don't come back next year and say "I want the cave swamp sublevel posts deleted, I'm going to put them in a for-sale OSRIC module" because...no.
My legal stance is: I will never, ever bundle any part of this dungeon project for sale, period. It belongs to everybody. Open source if you will.
Have fun!
Public discussion is in the Z1 - Discussion thread here.
