Back to Tony Dowler’s excellent solo dungeon game “How to Host a Dungeon” (link leads to his website where you can download a free version of the game).

Last month I posted my house rules for using Kuo-Toa and other water-based bad-guy races as the primary civilization race for the first stage of dungeon development as well as adding more water to the dungeon environment. In playtesting the game repeatedly to test out my new rules, however, I had to play the game a significant number of times.

Most of the tables for creatures include a “make your own” entry which I tend to ignore and reroll while playing the game – but playing it six times in six days for playtesting had me decide to actually try my hand at making new critters and civilizations without the depth of work involved in the Kuo-Toa home expansion.

New Civilizations

Svirfneblin
Treat as dwarves, but start from the bottom of the map, and build towards the top of the map. The Svirfneblin age ends if they tunnel to the surface.

Fungal Empire
Treat as Kuo-Toa (from the Muck Dwellers expansion) but without water. Immediately add new caverns to the map as if having rolled “Natural Caverns” on the Primordial Events table. Roll a die and start the Fungal Empire in the cavern closest to the die. Instead of digging towards water, the Fungal Empire expands towards other uninhabited caverns. Otherwise it is treated as the Kuo-Toa.

Order of the Ebon Hand
Remember these guys from Magic the Gathering, Fallen Empires? They are an evil human group / religion that created and was eventually destroyed by their own thrulls. Treat the Order as Dark Elves and instead of Slaves, the white beads represent Thrulls (their genetically engineered monster servitors). Instead of servants of chaos, they are servants of law, and thus prefer straight square construction, but the slave pits of the thrulls are rounded with curving corridors. If you don’t have mithral deposits or gold on the top half of the page, add new mithral deposits now. They start with a single shaft leading down from the surface to the deposit closest to the surface instead of a corridor along the lower edge of the page. Exploratory tunnels lead down into the depths instead of up to the surface.

New Great Disasters

Sinkhole Lake
At a random point at the top of the map, draw a lake about two thumbrints in size. Select a direction at random and generate an underground river from this point towards that side of the map.

Next time (around this time next week) I’ll be posting some new critters for the Age of Monsters and I’m also working on a new villain for the end-game.