And Lo, The Dungeon Breathes

 It is my intention to publish a review of the Perry Afghans soon, as I have come into possession of a box as of late. In the meantime, I will detail an idea I had one night. I do not wish to claim it as my own, it has the feeling of something half-remembered from someone else's mind. I will edit this post if ever I should find out where it originated.

John Laporte - Night - River Landscape with a Ruined Abbey

The classic conception of how a hexcrawl should start is that of the town, the wilderness hex, and the dungeon. The party starts by hearing a rumour in the town and getting a quest hook if one is needed, they travel through the wilderness and have an encounter or two, and then reach the dungeon. That starting dungeon could be a Megadungeon which takes the focus of the entire game, or it could be a five-room affair meant for a single session.

Caspar David Friedrich - Ruinen in der Abenddämmerung

But what if it was both?

Calendar play is something I have not experimented too much with in my games. They exist either in a state of temporal limbo or take place across a fairly narrow timeframe, a season at most. Nonetheless I find myself very interested in how a set schedule of events can affect player engagement and immersion. Imagining a party taking a shortcut to get their treasures to town before the end of a fair, or stranding themselves during winter in inhospitable terrain, or even just having to give their hirelings Sundays off is very tantalizing, if only I could be bothered to write up a premade calendar for my games.

One interaction of calendar gameplay I have been toying with is the breathing dungeon. Imagine a game which starts around the summer solstice in some far-off village. The peasants all stream out of their homes with lanterns at sunset, making it to a hilltop outside the settlement shortly before midnight. The wooded hill is shaded by ancient trees, and at the very peak is a stone-paved circle and several low crumbled walls. The people eat and drink and sing the old songs they don't sing anywhere else. Maybe they make costumes or wear masks, maybe even the woodsfolk show up, calling off their ancient feud with the charcoal-burners for a night. Perhaps a wickerman is burnt, but only a small one. Then, between the fireflies and the warm summer breezes, they filter back down to resume their lives and forget their midsummer fugue.

Midsummer Eve Bonfires by Nikolai Astrup

The next night, or the night before, the players explore the hilltop. Maybe they wander briefly down a staircase hidden amongst the roots of the great trees and trade riddles with the woodsfolk. Perhaps they drive off a few cheerfully drunk bandits from that same hilltop. The players have had their fun and so they go on to bigger and better things. There are other strange places in the region to explore and they do so. The weather gets colder, the dungeon begins to grow.

David Friedrich - Winter – Night – Old Age and Death

One day in Autumn the players find themselves at the hill again. Except this time the walls seem taller, and they reach down from the top of the hill to the bottom. What once seemed like a ruined little shrine now looks more like a fallen Abbey or a decrepit fort. The tunnels beneath travel further too, and the woodsfolk have left for places unknown. This time they might face goblins and ghosts, and if there are bandits they will carry grimaces and guns.

Franz Ludwig Catel - Das Kolosseum in einer Mondnacht

By the eve of Winter the dungeon has grown beyond titles such as "castle" or "temple." It reaches to the very edges of the village, where their wooden palisade now butts up against crumbling walls of giant stone bricks. The facade of purpose has been cast off by the thing, chambers connect more like the veins in a body than rooms in a building. It is inhabited by devils now, and on the coldest day of the year even worse things from above may twist their way down, able to briefly thrive in a climate closer to their frozen homeworld. The village is either abandoned or locked tightly now as they wait for a hero, or amoral group of mercenaries, to save them.

Jacob Grimmer (attr) Ruine in Waldlandschaft

The dungeon does not contract all at once. Without the meddling of the players it will shrink again, but only after it has taken a great toll from the locals. Even with their assistance the structure does not disappear overnight. Spring is the time for the players to explore the dungeon in a more relaxed sense as the woodsfolk begin to re-emerge and a few devils linger, while new bandits enter the region. Every few days another room is reclaimed by the roots of the great trees and another stone wall sinks into the earth. The villagers begin to prepare their masks and wicker men.

Roelant Savery - Landscape with animals and ruins

I do not believe it is an especially revolutionary idea to have a dungeon change with each visit, but I do like the idea of it changing drastically in both size and inhabitants, and doing so according to a seasonal pattern. In Summer it is a festival event and faction interaction location, in Fall it is a smaller dungeon, in Winter a larger one, and then Spring provides a chance to come back after healing up to check out any last chambers. Having it be something the villagers aren't only afraid of is an interesting twist too, I think. I would not go so far as to say they worship the thing, but revering a dungeon instead of what lives within does throw the concept on its head a little. The trick to making this an enjoyable tidbit rather than a mandatory gameplay timer is definitely giving the players plenty of other things to do in the meantime. This dungeon works best as a unique regional thing rather than something to be emulated by every other hole in the ground.

Mostly I just like the image of the thing.

Lluís Rigalt - Night Landscape with Ruined Monastery