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Monday, March 19, 2012

Zenopus Tower Cut-away

Even though our Swords & Wizardry campaign has been on hold for quite a while while we delve into some other games (plus giving the trusty GM, me, a break) I thought I'd share this with the Warlock's loyal readers.

Note to players....Stop reading NOW! The wrathful campaign gods will not take kindly to mortals prying into their dark mysteries!

Since I love side-view maps of dungeons I created this map of the Tower of Zenopus levels a while ago and just ran across it today. I've altered the dungeon to make it a mega-dungeon campaign. With a few side-quests the campaign had gone on for over two years now.
Click to enlarge

I started with Holmes' original dungeon as a starting point and added deeper levels to it, some being borrowed and some being created by yours truly. I've highlighted the explored areas in purple so you can see that they players have fought their way quite deep into the Underworld but there's still much more to explore.

Zenopus' mega-dungeon was created using the following:
  1. Graveyard & Crypt (created 1 page dungeon)
  2. Main dungeon level Holmes blue book
  3. Rat tunnels (made up on the fly)
  4. Tomb Level (forgotten tomb of the warrior King 1 page dungeon)
  5. Crotch-goblin and Mushroom-men level (created 1 page dungeon)
  6. Purple worm level (1st level of R. C. Pinnell's Holmes' dungeon sequel In Search of the Forgotten City)
  7. Weird giant eye-ball sub-level (Forgotten Chambers by Ramsey Dow which exited into the level 1 of The Darkness Beneath mega-dungeon from Fight On! magazine)
  8. Lowest Levels (R. C. Pinnell's Holmes' dungeon sequel)
As you can see, this mishmash of dungeon adventures has served quite well. The players still haven't gotten to Zenopus' lair though they have rebuilt and claimed the tower for themselves. We'll get back to this campaign probably sometime this summer and see what happens.

Updated with In Search of the Forgotten City module links.
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9 comments:

  1. TreyMarch 19, 2012 at 9:38 AM

    Cool. I dig these side dungeon maps, as well.

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  2. Black VulmeaMarch 19, 2012 at 12:06 PM

    I like to do a cut-away view of my dungeons as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Joe BardalesMarch 19, 2012 at 5:30 PM

    I like how you've pieced together various dungeon areas from several products and customized them for your campaign. And well done on the cutaway dungeon map. I especially like the use of a third color (purple) as well as the gray shading to represent submerged areas to break up the black and white map.

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  4. Zenopus ArchivesMarch 20, 2012 at 4:40 AM

    Nice cross-section, very Holmesian.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Rhonin84March 21, 2012 at 11:51 AM

    Which sequel by RC did you use?

    ReplyDelete
  6. bliss_infinteMarch 21, 2012 at 2:21 PM

    Rhonin84, it's his In Search Of The Forgotten City mod. You can find it over here on Dragonsfoot: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/php4/archive.php?sectioninit=CD&fileid=251

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rhonin84March 21, 2012 at 7:14 PM

    Thanks, downloaded for review...

    ReplyDelete
  8. LumMarch 21, 2012 at 9:41 PM

    This is inspirational. The fact that you've pulled together what looks to be a pretty sweet dungeon and an extensive one, mostly from found sources and those mostly one page dungeons!

    ReplyDelete
  9. bliss_infinteMarch 22, 2012 at 8:36 AM

    My whole campaign has been a cut and paste creation from many of the sources floating around the OSR. I always found it easier that sitting down and creating a bunch of stuff the the players will inevitably avoid.

    ReplyDelete