Friday, September 4, 2009

Fever Dreams

I put together a load of Insect Shrine maps to send to a new guy. If his work on these maps is half as good as the samples he sent me, then the map quality in the next release will blow the previous LotFP maps out of the water. Which is good, because that's been bothering me and I'm only capable of what I'm capable of. My ambition is to present something a bit higher class than "functional," so I hope this works out.

I've sent five different international distributors pitches, but have received no replies as of yet.

Laura's working on filler art for the ol' Shrine that I can use at the end of individual sections, plus is coloring the cover. We'll see how that goes.

Today's creative development is I had a really weird dream last night. I was in the Insect Shrine, and I ended up in the Hidden Level. Only it wasn't the hidden level I had written. It was something else. Scary. Strange. The gossamer borealis effect on the cavern walls and ceiling swept me away to the silent shore where I saw... it. And it saw me. The end.

So I've thrown out the hidden level that I had, and am inserting my dream in there. Before it was a "screw you, players!" level. Now it will be far worse. Smart players will heed the warnings and avoid the place, and its main use in the module will be as context and atmosphere informing the rest of the complex. Rash players will cry, "unfair!" because if they've gotten that far, they'll be losing characters they've already invested a good amount of time into.

Are there published TSR or Judges Guild examples of areas which aren't meant to be explored by judicious parties?

3 comments:

  1. I'm glad I'm not the only one that does that (use dreams as inspiration)

    In answer to your question - S1?

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  2. This is great news, James. I think our non-analytical dreaming mind is the best source for fantasy.

    And I thought I was already looking forward to Insect Shrine. My anticipation just went up a notch. :)

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  3. T1 Village of Hommlet has a ghoul burrow that, if explored too far, results in the adventurers being unrecoverably "lost."

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