Sewers of Siltmire - prepless dungeon ecology
Added 2020-10-03 21:43:14 +0000 UTCThe vast network of sewer canals underneath the seaport city of Siltmire has grown infamous over the years. Not only because of the constant sewer flooding during bad weather but also because of the horrid dangers lurking in its dismal passages.
Dead sailors and other discarded remains float uneasily through the black sludge underneath the seaport. Bloated animated forms shamble in the dark, brought back to unlife by necromantic spells...
Heya, everyone,
Hope you all had fun generating loot-filled lost cities in Spires of Hydraxis!
This week's upload was inspired by Jim's very interesting suggestion: 'Keep on the Borderlands'. Which was/is a great early D&D starting adventure with a great home base and some nice adventure opportunities in the area.
Btw. I also love the Basic Fantasy version of this module's style: Morgan's Fort. Which you can download here for free.
Keep on the Borderlands got me thinking about how much I enjoyed it, but one of the criticisms people have of the module is that the dungeon ecology is kinda wonky and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
I took that as inspiration and decided it might be fun to make a write-up of the way I often establish dungeon ecologies by first drawing spheres of influences and then establishing dungeon relations between the different creature types.
I find it is a fun way to both make your dungeons 'realistic', but also to just quickly come up with the basic idea behind a new dungeon adventure. Just take a random dungeon map, plop down some creatures, generate an ecology and you're about ready to play!
Anyway, I also included a little example micro-setting background to illustrate the random generation of the ecology. Have fun creating your own dungeon ecologies!
Cheerio,
John
