Version 1.0. Session 1, Feb. 10, 2024
Session 1 was ran impromptu for an open table on the OSR Pick-Up Games Discord server. After calling for players, I generated a map on donjon, but generated the dungeon's content live by rolling on the Dungeon Stocking Table on page 52 of the 1981 edition of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set.
Room 1 was rolled as "Special, Treasure," so I pulled out my trusty ol' "water weird in a fountain with coins" encounter. I blacked out the door in the top left and bottom left of the Enchanted Fountain room, so that strange downward dead-end passage right after the entrance stairs has always had a secret door there.
The area below it, the Statuary was "Special, No Treasure," and I put a bugbear "assassin" in it that hid on the ceiling and waited for players to pass by before pouncing on the back rank. Players were quick to examine all the statues, but never mentioned looking up. It's the second room of a beginner dungeon, so it's a good time to get this kind of procedural conduct out of the way. It's just a normal bugbear surprise roll if players don't say "I look up." It's good to establish how the table handles these common situations like crab spiders crawling on the ceiling.
The area with the sarcophagus on the dais and the burial niches in the walls would later become the Pyramid. I rolled "Monster, Treasure" on the stocking table and then rolled 12 skeletons. Players rolled their own treasure (Type D) live for the last area of the night—and they rolled a stunning, spectacular 11,800 gp total, a Sword +1, a Scroll of Light and Hold Portal, and a Potion of Healing!!!
Before the game, I made one of the skeletons a wight able to cast Darkness. Not knowing how awesome the player's live treasure roll was going to be, I gave it a Staff of Snakes and a healing potion. I called it a Spellwight.
Version 2.0. Session 2, Feb. 20
Sessions 2-7 used what's now the odd duck of the map versions. That area with the 70'-wide round pit at the top with the floating platforms was going to be a vertical battle map. Still an idea I want to use. The octagonal room in the center was what it is today—a lever/door puzzle—but for some reason I didn't use gate/portcullis doors. Session 3 used map version 2.1, and it had gates.
Players during these early open-table sessions were much more investigative and experimental. They would always try diplomacy first, or to look for a way to circumvent dangerous encounters. Players of the group that formed from the open-table sessions are much more aggressive.
Version 3.0. Session 8, April 2
Version 3.1
Version 3.9. Session 26, Sept. 24
Version 3 was a real workhorse for the first half of the campaign. I was never happy with that awkward space on the bottom-right (Area 20/23)—never did figure out exactly how I wanted to use it. It was where I debuted my Pitslither monsters: Sarlacc-like maw-pits with lamprey teeth and a tentacle for a tongue. Players never went back after that, so it never did really matter.
Through 26 sessions of play-testing, it was clear what areas were the most popular, and some of those areas needed more room—a lot more room in the case of the Arcane Library (Area 4) and the so-called "Orc Prison" (Area 29).
I knew I needed more room, so I increased the size of the map from 390' × 390' to 500' × 500' for Version 4.0 . . .
Version 4.0. Session 27, Oct. 1
