Creating a Sandbox for B1: In Search of the Unknown

B1: In Search of the Unknown is a very self-contained dungeon module. That is, the dungeon is the module. There is a hint of civilization nearby, but it isn't made explicit how far the dungeon is, how long it takes to get there, what the surrounding terrain is like, or if there are monster lairs or other noteworthy locations in the area.

Since I've been spending a lot of time with B1 and would like to run it myself sometime, I thought it might be fun to come up with a small region to place the dungeon in a larger context. 

It's perfectly fine to just plop the party down in front of the dungeon entrance and run the module as is, but I also take a lot of joy from the journey to and from a place. Quasqueton is supposed to be remote, so I don't want the journey there and back to be trivial or handwaved.

I also think it would be neat to see if B1 could be a starting point for a larger game - the low-level dungeon which launches the player characters into a larger sandbox with which to engage.

The only clue B1 gives as to Quasqueton's surroundings is this:

Quasqueton is built upon a heavily forested hill. We also know that the region borders some barbarian lands to the north:

So let's say that Quasqueton is situated atop a hill in a heavily forested sub-arctic-ish region bordering barbarian lands to the north.

I use a version of the Welsh Piper's Hex-Based Campaign Design to generate terrain and the AD&D DMG's wilderness stocking procedure to add settlements, strongholds, ruins, and monster lairs. Here is what I got (scale: 1 hex = 6 miles):

The text makes it a bit crowded, so here's the version with grid numbers along with a key:

• 01.05: Adventurer Camp
• 02.02: Town
• 02.05: Giant Eagle Nest
• 03.01: Brigand Castle
• 03.02: Thorp
• 03.04: Ogre Den
• 03.05: Quasqueton
• 04.03: Owlbear Den
• 04.04: Leprechaun Burrow

Many of these locations are too far in the wilderness to be known to the players at the start of play, so here's the player-facing version of the map with just the locations they would know of:

The players will of course know about the town and the thorp, as well as the castle ruled by brigands (who likely prey upon the people of the thorp below). The ogre den is close enough that the ogres might emerge from the forest and cross the river to prey upon the farms south of the town, and a wandering homesteader may have ventured into the wilderness and stumbled upon the cave's location. Quasqueton's location is not generally known, but B1 tells us that the player characters have acquired a map to its location, so it should be known to them:

It might make sense for the players to know about the adventurers' camp as well, but let's say the adventurers have only recently moved into the area, so their exact location is not yet common knowledge.

Based on the map, the fastest way to Quasqueton is to head south from town, then through the forest hex to the south or southeast (but likely through the former, since the latter is the lair of at least one ogre) and then up into the hills. 

Based on the overland movement rates I use (from AD&D 2e), it takes 1 hour on foot to enter a plains or farmland hex (2 hours to cross from edge to edge), 2 hours to enter a forest hex (4 hours to cross), and 3 hours to enter a hills hex (6 hours to cross). It also takes 1 hour to cross a river unless traveling on a road (where there would presumably be a bridge or other crossing). It isn't relevant for traveling to Quasqueton, but it takes 4 hours to enter a heavily forested hex (8 hours to cross).

Normally I would advocate for there being a road to the dungeon, which would negate the movement modifier imposed by difficult terrain, but because Quasqueton is intended to be remote and unknown, I will omit one in this case.

So if the party departs from town, it will take 11 hours to reach Quasqueton: 3 hours to cross the farmlands (assuming there is a river crossing immediately south of town, since that is all inhabited land), an hour to cross the river a bit further south, 4 hours to cross the forest, and 3 hours to climb into the hills. 

Since the party can only travel 8 hours per day before forcing a march and risking exhaustion, they will likely have to rest at some point during the journey. Because the farmland is safer than the forest, I would recommend having a short first day and camping on the north side of the river, then crossing and venturing into the forest the following day (this however, would necessitate resting at or near Quasqueton at the end of the day, which can also be dangerous).

Here is a more detailed description of each location on the map:

01.05 Zerelda's Company: This adventuring company is led by Zerelda, a human magic-user. The members of the party and their henchmen are as follows (although B1 is written for B/X, I would want to run it in AD&D, so these NPCs are generated using that edition's guidelines and rules):

• Triphina Springwaddle, LG gnome fighter 6/illusionist 7
• Windemuth, N human fighter 3
• Omarion, LN human illusionist 4
• Tharmus Trollreach, LN dwarf cleric 8
• Farmund Burrowhorn, LG dwarf cleric 4
• Thurmond, N human cleric 9
• Carsten, N human cleric 5
• Alvaro, N human thief 5
• Zerelda, NG human magic-user 10

Zerelda's company has recently moved into the area in search of a site on which to establish a religious stronghold for Thurmond. They have settled on this forested hilltop and seek laborers to aid in clearing the trees around the site. Lambrecht, the ruler of Timbershore (02.02) has been cooperative to a point, but will only lend the aid of tree cutters for a significant tithe of magic items or the delivery of eggs from the Giant Eagle Nest (02.05), both of which Zerelda's company has balked at, leading to tension between the groups.

02.02 Timbershore: A walled town of 5,500 people. They are mostly human, with small enclaves of dwarves, elves, half-elves, gnomes, halflings, and half-orcs.

Using the demographics outlined in my post on henchmen, I determine there are 9 henchmen in town and 58 non-henchmen character-type NPCs. The players will only be able to recruit 1st-level henchmen at the start, of which there are only two, so those are the only ones that need detailing. 

B1 already provides ready-made henchmen to use, but - while I am sad to part with the likes of Grampal of the Secret Church, Glendor the Fourth, and Trebbelos, boy Magician - since I am doing this with an eye towards AD&D, I'll make my own henchmen. 

The 1st-level henchmen here are Othmar, a LN human fighter, and Zelmae, a NG half-elf thief. B1 recommends that the party might need as many as four henchmen (if there are only two player characters), but in that case they could simply hire men-at-arms to round out their numbers.

I'm not going to detail all 58 non-henchmen in town, but I've determined there are four high-level and two very high-level character-types among them, so those should be fleshed out:

• Manolito, LN human fighter 7
• Sigismund, N human magic-user 7
• Pia-Marie, LG human ranger 8
• Albertyna, LN human magic-user 11
• Blanchefleur, CE human cleric 13. Rules a large shell keep.
• Lambrecht, NE human illusionist 16. Rules a large walled castle with a keep.

It's a bit troubling that the two highest-level NPCs in the town are evil, but it's probably fine. I'm sure they won't complicate things at all. Surprisingly, there is no conflict between Lambrecht and Blanchefleur. They are not working together, but have an uneasy truce.

You may be wondering why there should be such high-level NPCs in a settlement tied to such a low-level adventure. Why don't they simply solve all the problems themselves? Well, for one, these ones are evil. But also remember that high-level NPCs must live somewhere, and they are assumed to have little interest in engaging in adventuring activities themselves and make a habit of using player characters to do their dirty work.

Lambrecht has four henchmen of up to 10th-level, whereas Blanchefleur has 3 henchmen of up to 8th-level. If I really wanted to get into the nitty gritty, I could detail all of the character-type NPCs in the town and assign them as henchmen to the higher-level NPCs (if their alignments aren't in opposition). This is certainly too much work to do up front, so I won't. But, for example, Manolito and Sigismund are likely henchmen of Lambrecht. Albertyna is too high-level to be a henchman of either, and Pia-Marie's alignment does not agree with either, so they are independent.

Lambrecht is in a standoff with Zerelda's Company (01.05) over the construction of a religious stronghold, a magic item tax, and the acquisition of eggs from the Giant Eagle Nest (02.05). While no one knows where the giant eagle nest is, the eagles have enough range to fly over the entire area, so everyone knows of their presence in the region. Lambrecht is an evil wizard, so of course he wants to kill them and take their babies for evil magic reasons.

Lambrecht is in conflict with the brigands of Fayette's Hold (03.01) and is courting the ogres in Okorg's Den (03.04) to do his bidding.

02.05 Giant Eagle Nest: This is the lair of four giant eagles which routinely fly over the entire region. There are actually no young or eggs present in the nest at this time, so Lambrecht's predations (02.02) are for naught. They generally shun the other creatures in the region, but have taken an interest in the dwarf cleric Tharmus Trollreach and are monitoring the activities of Zerelda's Company (01.05).

03.01 Fayette's Hold: This castle was ruled by Fayette, a LN human fighter who had established an uneasy truce with Lambrecht (02.02). Lambrecht schemed to infiltrate Fayette's Hold by sending a band of brigands led by Ulrika (8th-level fighter) to enlist as men-at-arms. With aid from Lambrecht, the brigands slew those loyal to Fayette and imprisoned the fighter in the castle dungeons. Ulrika's brigands have since had a falling out with Lambrecht over missed payments and have seized control of Ebongrove (03.02).

There are 40 brigands, including six 2nd-level fighters, two 3rd-level fighters, a 4th-level fighter, a 5th-level fighter, and Krimhild, Ulrika's 7th-level fighter lieutenant.

03.02 Ebongrove: A thorp of 30 people, caught between the tyranny of Lambrecht (02.02) and the predations of Ulrika's gang (03.01). With a small militia and no character-types to protect them, they're at the mercy of both. When she still ruled the castle, Fayette would protect them. The people of Ebongrove have little to offer, but would be eternally grateful to any who could overthrow the brigands and free Fayette from her cell.

03.04 Okorg's Den: A clan of 16 ogres lairs in this forested cavern, making forays out of the forest and across the river to plunder homesteads south of Timbershore (02.02). The ogres believe that the people of Timbershore have been sneaking into their lair and stealing their treasure.

The ogres are led by Okorg, a 37 hp chieftain, and two 31 hp leaders. There are six female ogres and four young ogres who remain in the lair (in addition to the aforementioned 16). They have captured and keep six humans and one dwarf as prisoners and slaves.

Lambrecht has made overtures towards the ogres, attempting to bribe them with trade goods, coins, and gems to turn their ire from Timbershore's farmers and towards Zerelda's Company (01.05), with the promise of plundering Fayette's Hold (03.01) if they prove themselves useful. Lambrecht's gestures have proved insufficient, as the ogres have captured, killed, or eaten all messengers and their escorts.

Blubazar, one of Okorg's lieutenants, is lobbying Okorg to take a band of ogres into the deep forest to hunt down the Owlbear Den (04.03). The ogres have not located the den, but have had the misfortune of encountering the owlbears when venturing into the wood's depths.

03.05 Quasqueton: See Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown.

04.03 Owlbear Den: This deep forest cave is the lair of three adult owlbears. They are fiercely territorial and ravenous, running off or devouring any who venture into their domain. They bear injuries from past encounters with the ogres of Okorg's Den (03.04), and have only become more irritable as a result.

04.04 Jinglepuff's Burrow: This idyllic forest glade is home to Jinglepuff, a mischievous leprechaun who wanders the woods stealing things, especially from Okorg's Den (03.04). 

He knows the location of Quasqueton (03.05) and visits on occasion, and may invisibly watch adventurers going to and from the place, using ventriloquism to frighten and trick them into surrendering any treasure acquired inside (pretending to be the ghost of Zelligar).

He knows of the owlbears in the deep forest but has not located the Owlbear Den (04.03). He is sure that there's great treasure to steal there, but avoids going in search of it because he knows the owlbears will smell him.

Here's a quick summary of the elements I've added:

• A company of medium-to-high-level adventurers in conflict with the local ruler over constructing a stronghold
• A town ruled by an evil illusionist with multiple nefarious schemes in motion
• Giant eagles who watch over the region and closely monitor the activities of good-aligned adventurers
• A band of brigands who have usurped a castle and imprisoned its ruler, and who are in conflict with the local ruler over a scheme gone awry
• A humble thorp caught between two unrelenting masters, who have little to offer but gratitude for the liberation of their former protector
• A clan of ogres who plague the locals due to a misunderstanding and resist attempts to be reasoned with
• A den of belligerent owlbears who prey upon everyone without discrimination
• A mischievous leprechaun with lots of information who loves to steal

One problem I'm noticing is that I've simply plopped Quasqueton down in a sandbox environment which is otherwise totally unrelated to B1. Quasqueton is inhabited by orcs, troglodytes, kobolds, gnolls, hobgoblins, goblins, and gnomes, among other things - yet none of those are represented here. There's still nothing here to suggest where those creatures are coming from. Would it be better to replace the ogres with orcs? The leprechaun with kobolds, goblins, or gnomes? Or is it enough to simply say that those creatures make their home only in the dungeon?

I could instead try to tie these new elements in. Perhaps Lambrecht was Zelligar's apprentice - he's a wizard after all, and he's certainly evil enough. Perhaps the brigands were once used by Rogahn and Zelligar as mercenaries in their campaign against the barbarians to the north - when the war was lost, they headed back south and flooded this region, which allowed Lambrecht to use them for his own purposes. Perhaps the ogres were once among the slaves used in Quasqueton's construction. Perhaps the owlbears are escaped creations of the mad Zelligar. That all sounds fun.

B1 already includes a legend/rumor table, but many of the entries are misleading or outright false. The party might waste tons of time searching fruitlessly for the powerful magic of Zelligar or Rogahn's 100,000 gold piece gem (neither of which exist) or avoid Quasqueton altogether because of the curse upon those entering it or stealing its treasure (which isn't real), the guards that still patrol its halls, or the rumor than Rogahn and Zelligar have in fact returned (neither of which is true). False rumors are fun to an extent, but not so much when they end in frustration or disappointment or when they discourage players from undertaking the adventure entirely.

Instead, we could replace the problematic rumors about Quasqueton with information about the surrounding region:

1. A band of adventurers has made camp on a hill to the southwest. Perhaps they seek Rogahn and Zelligar's treasure. Maybe they're here to rid us of these brigands, or of Lambrecht himself?
2. The truce between Lambrecht and Blanchefleur is shaky, but Blanchefleur would be an even crueler mistress than Lambrecht. It is said she consorts with demons!
3. Lambrecht has offered a reward of 700 gold pieces for any giant eagle eggs delivered to him. If only we could find the nest!
4. The brigands of Fayette's Hold claim to hold the Lady for ransom, but they're utterly ruthless - former soldiers of fortune under the banner of Rogahn and Zelligar. She's surely dead, right?
5. The people of Ebonshire seek to liberate the Lady Fayette from the dungeons of Fayette's Hold. They have little to offer, but are kindly.
6. The ogres plaguing the lands south of Timbershore accused the homesteaders of stealing their treasure. Could it be true?
7. A horrible beast lurks deep in the forest where the three rivers meet. It's said to be one of mad Zelligar's escaped experiments.
8. A fearsome spirit haunts the ruin of Rogahn and Zelligar's hold, wherever it is. It is the ghost of Zelligar, demanding intruders surrender his stolen treasure!

Another potential issue is that, aside from Quasqueton itself, I'm not sure there's enough here for low-level characters to actually do. Completing B1's content alone is probably not enough to graduate new player characters to a level at which they can begin exploring the wilderness and knocking off monster lairs in earnest.

Let's figure out roughly what level each of the monsters and powerful NPCs in our sandbox are, calculating average XP values using Appendix E of the DMG for monsters and the rough calculations on page 85 of the DMG for our character-types:

I cross-reference the rough XP values with this section from Appendix C:

Here's what I ended up with:

• Level III: Jinglepuff (85 xp)
• Level IV: Giant eagles (average 168 xp)
• Level V: Owlbears (average 421 xp)
• Level VI: Okorg (521 xp) and Ulrika (~815 xp)
• Level VII: Zerelda (~2,300 xp)
• Level IX: Lambrecht (~5,870 xp)

Now we can use the DUNGEON RANDOM MONSTER LEVEL DETERMINATION MATRIX to get a feel for at what level the player characters might be able to take on each of these factions:

For example, Lambrecht is a level IX "monster", but the party could maybe challenge him as early as 7th-level. They could maybe take Okorg or Ulrika at 4th-level, and the owlbears at 2nd- or 3rd-level, though it might be a tall order in any case.

This is, of course, just a rough estimation of what level the party should be if they intend to fight these creatures. There's nothing but (potentially deadly) random encounters preventing the party from venturing into the forest to track down the giant eagle nest or investigate the nature of the monster in the deep woods, and they could always sneak into these creatures' lairs to steal their treasure for XP while avoiding a direct confrontation.

Similarly, there's nothing but their reputation, social acumen, and reaction rolls preventing them from treating with Okorg (and from there, perhaps finding a way to track down Jinglepuff), Ulrika, Zerelda, or Lambrecht.

The player characters will be small fish in a big pond, but if they're savvy, they can definitely make some moves. The point of this is not to create a "balanced" play environment where the party is herded from one level-appropriate challenge to the next in the "adventure path" style, but rather to simply get an idea as to whether there's enough that the party can reasonably accomplish to feel like they're making progress in the game. 

The most important thing is that the environment feels lifelike, is engaging, and provides the players with choices. What they choose to do with it is entirely up to them.

B1 and Toyetic Dungeon Rooms

Over on Bluesky, I did a walkthrough of B1: In Search of the Unknown. I already wrote about how B1 tells the story of Rogahn and Zelligar, two adventurers motivated "by greed and vague evil" who in their retirement became dungeon sickos and built Quasqueton, a labyrinthine dungeon stronghold, as a monument to their own egos and sadism, and as a middle finger to the upstart adventurers who would one day surely come to plunder its riches.

But how, exactly, does the module tell that story? Well, it's largely through its room descriptions.

By default, most of the rooms in Quasqueton are empty. A few contain incidental or major treasures, tricks, or traps. But, being a teaching/introductory module, the intention is for the DM to manually stock each of the rooms (excepting a few) with monsters or treasure from a provided list.

When I stocked my version of B1, I treated a roll of 1 or 2 on d6 as a monster. If there was no monster, a roll of 1 on d6 would indicate a treasure should be placed. This is based on OSE's stocking procedure, minus special rooms because those are already written into the module:

That still leaves something like 56% of rooms empty. My version of B1 ended up with 33 empty rooms out of 56 total rooms - that's 59% (here I'm counting traps and special rooms already written into the module as "empty" in the sense that I'm not adding anything that isn't already there - these are not strictly-speaking empty rooms, so the numbers aren't wholly accurate).

That number is fairly consistent with AD&D, where 60% of dungeon rooms are empty:

Overall, I was impressed by the quality of B1's rooms. Even without monsters, tricks, traps, or treasure, few of them are ever actually truly empty. This is consistent with modern OSR design philosophies, wherein empty rooms can be actionable, containing mundane items to use, clues to or warnings about encounters elsewhere in the dungeon, environmental storytelling in the form of artwork and other set dressings, or dangers other than monsters, tricks, and traps, such as hazards or obstacles.

Interestingly, despite what the common wisdom may be regarding empty rooms, there is some evidence to suggest that Gygax (in the earliest days, at least) imagined empty rooms as being truly empty - or at least, not worth detailing. Even so, truly empty space in a dungeon can still serve a purpose by facilitating tension or mystery, or by helping with the pace of the game, providing breathing room between dungeon factions or a safe place for the party to rest or think.

For the most part, B1's rooms, when empty, are of the mundane items and environmental storytelling variety. As my previous post describes, many of the rooms tell the story - by way of carvings, tapestries, paintings, torture devices, and manacled skeletons - of Rogahn and Zelligar's egos, cruelty, and paranoia. Many others are filled with mundane equipment and barrels, bottles, and casks of various unremarkable substances.

One thing that struck me when reading B1 was that even those rooms without prewritten tricks, traps, and treasure, when my stocking method revealed them to have no additional monsters or treasure, still ignited my imagination. Specifically, they made me imagine how these rooms might play if there was some additional element like a monster or treasure. That is, the descriptions made me imagine the rooms' potential.

Take for example Area II, the kitchen. You could easily just describe this room as "An old kitchen. Y'know, there's moldy food and utensils and crap all over, but there's nothing else here." And that's basically what the room is. There are two big cooking pits, a very narrow chimney, moldy food on the tables (including a "particularly noxious" chunk of cheese), hanging utensils, pots and pans, and a large cast iron kettle hanging from the ceiling by a chain.

The room isn't empty. It's got stuff in it. At the same time, none of the stuff here is particularly useful to adventurers (unless they want to cook a monster they kill later), it doesn't provide any clues about the rest of the dungeon, there isn't much in the way of environmental storytelling (besides establishing that people used to eat here a long time ago), and there are no other dangers present.

But I can't help but imagine what if there was something here. What if a huge spider hid in one of the cooking pits? What if giant centipedes nested in the chimney? What if you got into a food fight with some hobgoblins? Is the "particularly noxious" cheese an especially potent weapon? Would it have the same effect if the enemies were instead stinking troglodytes? What if you stabbed a goblin with a fork or smashed it over the head with a cooking pan? Could you use the kettle on a chain as a wrecking ball against a band of kobolds?

Or take Area X, the storeroom. This one contains barrels of stale but still edible foodstuffs. This room falls into the "mundane but useful stuff" category, since the party can provision itself here (albeit with old, nasty food), but the room takes on a different aspect if, for example, giant rats are currently getting their way into the barrels. Or, if the party does plunder the room's contents but isn't careful to avoid spillage or to reseal the barrels, vermin and monsters will be attracted to the place on future delves.

Or Area XXXVII, the recreation room. This is basically Rogahn's gym, complete with archery targets, barbells, a pullup bar, a climbing rope, very heavy weapons, and battered shields. The party might make use of some arrows, lug around a notched sword, or replace a broken shield with one in less than pristine condition. 

But I can't help but imagine if there were orcs in here. Would they challenge the party to some sort of sporting competition? A single player character would get exhausted if they tried to defeat the orcs - who are probably universally quite strong - in every competition themselves, so the whole party would have to get involved. A thief could likely win an archery contest or climb a rope pretty quickly, but what will the magic-user do?

And you might say, "That's all well and good, but the rooms are still 'empty'. They may have potential as the scene of such an encounter, but in the absence of one they're just places for the party to poke around for a bit, maybe pick up one or two useful items, take a breather, and move on. The potential isn't used!"

But that isn't true, because empty rooms might only be empty when the party first encounters them. If you're checking for wandering monsters (which you should), any one of those rooms could suddenly not be empty at the roll of a die. This is doubly true if you're restocking the dungeon or having the monsters that remain in the dungeon react to the party's actions in between delves - both of these practices can result in originally empty rooms becoming occupied.

If a room's dressing is simply barren, there's little creative juice to squeeze when and if a monster ends up being encountered there. The gnolls are simply passing through, camping out, or maybe looking for secret doors - what else could they be doing in a barren environment? But in the kitchen they might be roasting some slain gnomes in the cooking pit, in the storage room they might be reprovisioning, and in the recreation room they might be pumping iron.

What I'm getting at is that empty rooms should be "toyetic" - that is, they should contain lots of little elements that the players can mess around with like knobs and levers. I'm cribbing this particular term from Prismatic Wasteland's Encounter Checklist. That post describes a goblin encounter wherein each of the goblins has a sort of prop that invites interaction or experimentation by the players. The encounter should be designed "like a child’s playset—something with elements the characters can interact with. These can come in many forms: ladders, rope swings, trap doors, greased floors, functional stove tops, round boulders begging to be pushed, things that can be opened or locked or launched, etc., etc." That sounds a lot like a well-designed dungeon room!

The Encounter Checklist is in turn derived from Goblin Punch's Dungeon Checklist, which includes "Something to Experiment With". In the Dungeon Checklist, this role is filled by what we might ordinarily call a trick or special room, but those are relatively rare (1-in-6 rooms in OSE and 1-in-10 rooms in AD&D). 

What I'm arguing for in this post is that every room in your dungeon should have something to play with. That might be something more or less mundane like a bunch of adventurer's corpses to examine, a potentially valuable object like a nude statue of a bodacious babe to leer at, or a magical oddity like a mica formation you can chip pieces off of and eat for various magical effects. 

That might be all that's in the room, but if there does happen to be a monster or a treasure, the set dressing gives you something to riff on. There are kobolds picking over the bodies, orcs leering at the statue, or gnolls sticking pieces of rock in their mouths. One of the adventurer's corpses still has treasure, there's a jeweled pendant hanging from the statue's neck, or one of the pieces of mica transmutes itself into a valuable gemstone when removed.

Because B1 is a teaching module and is intended to be manually stocked with monsters and treasure by the new DM, it's especially important that each and every room has such elements to work with. There are certainly truly empty rooms in B1 - the second level of the dungeon in particular is filled with empty caverns, many of which are barely described - but they are few and far between. 

And that should be the norm. Design all of your dungeon rooms under the assumption that, even if there's no monster, treasure, or whatever there now, there could be something there later. In that case, you'll want there to be some toys with which to play.