Tales from Irminar 3
Understanding ACKS Dungeons
The final ingredient in the encounter system is establishing dungeons. We need to see how they are constructed, the logic behind their placement, and how they fit in with the world.
Points of Interest
On page 235, some crucial expectations are laid out. To summarize:
A region of size 30 × 40 (1200) travel hexes (6-mile) is expected. Irminar is 48 × 48 (2304)—about double that size.
For this region, 45 static points of interest are suggested
15, or one third, of these are expected to be settlements, towns, and strongholds
30, or two thirds, are expected to be dungeons
3 large dungeons (10%)
10 medium dungeons (33%)
17 small “lair” dungeons (57%)
Large dungeons are huge, multi-level megadungeons. Medium dungeons are extensive forays into a dangerous place. Lairs are a few encounters tied together by a theme monster and location. These are different from dynamic lairs which are placed when encountered during travel.
Dividing 45 statics by 1200 hexes gives us about 4% static presence rate per hex. (Inverting that, we have about 25 hexes per encounter.) Thus, 4% × 2304 = 92 statics is about what we should have for Irminar.
Settlements: 92 × 1/3 = 31
Dungeons: 92 × 2/3 = 61
61 × 10% = 6 large dungeons
61 × 33% = 20 medium dungeons
61 × 57% = 35 lairs
That’s a lot but very doable if we only create what we need immediately and slowly add more over time. The rulebook actually has specific recommendations here. Every static point should get a one-paragraph description.
Book Suggestions vs. Gaming Experience
A fresh campaign needs “enough” points of interest to be able to start its engine but not more. Given the scale of Irminar, it seems reasonable to have a smaller number of statics than suggested and increased concentration around the starting city; PC ability to roam long distances will naturally be limited at the outset.
Following the game fiction forces the creation/acknowledgment of locations and highlights/creates important NPCs.
There is a strong tension between running a game in 1:1 time and having expansive megadungeons. Players cannot (for practical reasons) explore the dungeon deeply without risking getting stuck inside at the end of a session. Another negative here for megas is the time/resources spent by the referee to ready them for play.
However, megas can be good bait, opportunities for player creativity, and thematic locations the referee can crutch on; these are all excellent reasons to include a few.
Despite my instinct to diverge from the book, I will follow what I glean as its intent.
Lairs
For the dungeons and mega-dungeons, the Judge should just describe the dungeon briefly, to be fleshed out later, but for the small lairs, he can cover everything he’ll need to use it in play.
(pg. 235)
After rolling a zombie lair, here’s an example entry to go along with it (I’m borrowing heavily from the book’s style):
[5,6](2,3) Defiled Battlefield—A ring of trees surrounds a darkened pit in the grasslands. What once was a blood-soaked battlefield smolders in foul necromancy as 15 zombies roam, shuffling into one another in mock combat. A tree root has forced an opening into a stone stairway descending into complete darkness—an ancient, forgotten tomb. Not yet turned, the bodies of 4 too-brave adventurers lie still and flat on the dank stone below, overlooked by a wight and 7 agitated zombies.
We include the location (Tile [5,6], hex (2,3) ), a name for the lair, a brief description including the number of monsters, and the amount of loot (the 4 adventurer bodies which would be treated as an NPC party). We could have rolled the loot ahead of time, but sometimes it makes more sense to roll the loot later. The wight was added just because it seemed fitting.
Instead of including a precise location, we could add this to a small library of lairs and figure it out later. Keep in mind that the descriptions are not necessarily to be read aloud—their most important function is to remind the referee what’s there.
Medium Dungeons
On page 238, we first roll on the Dungeon Type table: d20 yields 17 → “Tomb” (starting to see a pattern here). This isn’t a megadungeon, so it won’t be a sprawling affair.
The rulebook suggests drawing a map (using 10' squares) as soon as we determine the type of dungeon. When the map is complete, it has us roll up a number of “Contents” results equal to the number of rooms, encouraging us to place the contents in rooms as befits the layout and general logic of the places.
However, it is worth considering stocking each room with contents by letting the dice fall where they may. In this example, that’s what we’ll do.
People that love putting together dungeon maps are probably already excited about having their efforts directed and fleshed out by these mechanisms. But this can seem like a lot of work if it’s not clear what to do.
Here’s a secret for those that need to hear it: you can just do an internet search for “[term] floorplan” and get 80% of the way there. An easy example is “floorplan of a tomb.” If you don’t know where to start or if this process seems intimidating, crutch on this and similar techniques at first!
Creating these medium dungeon maps is very simple if you have a starting point, and their design can be tweaked to taste. If you think this is a bit too linear or small, simply create a second floor and add multiple linkages between the two floors.
We will stick with the one-floor modest example for demonstration.
We’ve labeled the rooms above with numbers, let’s see what we get rolling d100s:
1: Monster
2: Trap
3: Unique
4: Trap
5: Monster
6: Empty
Two Monsters, two Traps, a Unique, and an Empty.
Monsters
For each “monster” result obtained on the above table, the Judge must choose or roll for a monster encounter appropriate for the dungeon level it appears on.
We can always choose monsters if we rule that is appropriate. For this tomb example, let’s roll them instead.
Levels vs. Levels vs. Levels
A classic problem in TTRPGs is calling everything “levels” (Gygax actually addresses this in AD&D Player’s Handbook). Character level is clear. Monster level is a more abstract concept, but the basic idea is “bigger level = bigger threat.” In most classic systems, a monster’s “level” is referred to as his Hit Dice.
But as soon as we get to dungeon level, there is room for an important misunderstanding. If I am in a dungeon and climb up a ladder to discover walkable space up there, I have not climbed to a different dungeon level—I’ve just gone up a “floor” in the stairway/elevator sense. If I find a trapdoor with a ladder leading to a storeroom below the floor, I have not descended further into the dungeon.
Dungeon levels are not merely architectural—they are largely metaphysical. The danger increases, the stakes and possible rewards are higher, and the presence of evil and weirdness is stronger.
Okay, back to making the dungeon.
We can roll two successive d12s to determine our encounter monsters. The first d12 is on this table, detailing in a distributional way what “level” the monster will be.
The second d12 has a column for each monster “level.” It is suggested that we fill out and theme these tables ourselves where appropriate, using some detailed guidelines and patterns provided by the book. But we’ll stick with the table it gives us for this example.
We are on dungeon level 1, the first row on the above table. Two d12 → 11 (a level 2 monster) and 9 (Ghoul on the Monster Level 2 column of Random Monsters by Level on page 243). Our tomb has a group of ghouls!
We already know how to generate monster encounters by this point. We end up with 3 Ghouls clustered at the stairway entrance to the tomb.
For the second “Monster” result (in the burial chamber), we get a level 3 monster—three carcass scavengers. No lairs, but we have some spooky encounters.
Traps
Every time an adventurer takes an action that could trigger a trap, the Judge should roll 1d6. A result of 1-2 indicates that the trap springs. Once triggered, a trap has a specific effect depending on its type.
(pg. 240)
There are 9 example traps suitable for dungeon levels 1-3. The book strongly encourages using these ideas to create other kinds of traps. We roll for our two trap results—scything blade trap and arrow trap.
Traps need to be placed with a purpose. Common uses are for guarding treasure, protecting against intrusion (on entrances/exits), and alerting nearby guarding forces. In the entrance tunnel, our scything blade trap could be protecting the entrance to the next chamber. Any time someone interacts with the door, we would roll d6 to see if it triggers.
Scything blade trap
When triggered, a scything blade swings out from a hidden location. All adventurers in a 10' line must save versus Blast or suffer 1d8 damage.
Simple enough!
The arrow trap is in the “annex” room. I think it makes sense here for it to be guarding a treasure chest or coffin or similar. Anytime someone interacts with the container, we roll d6 to see if the trap triggers.
Arrow Trap
When triggered, an arrow fires from a hidden location, attacking one adventurer as a 1st level fighter for 1d6+1 damage.
A level 1 fighter successfully hits with an Attack Throw of 10+—simple!
Empty
Amusingly, we rolled an “Empty” result in the “treasury” room of our not-King-Tut’s tomb.
Empty is empty. If every room had something in it, the players would squeeze the blood out of every stone. Empty results let the imagination run.
Unique
Unique encounters are special encounters or special areas that stand out from encounters in most other rooms, such as talking statues, pits with slides down to other rooms or dungeon levels, magical illusions, scrying pools, teleporting doorways, and mysterious fountains whose water confers beneficial or baleful effects. The Judge should think out each unique encounter carefully. The special effects of unique encounters might be known to some of the dungeon inhabitants and used for their own ends.
This puts it very concisely. Since the “Unique” encounter is in the antechamber, I like the simple idea of an armored skeletal guardian ordered to keep tomb-robbers at bay.
If we give him 2 Hit Dice, 3 AC, and a cursed flail with a 50% chance to cast Hold Person on a struck target, this has the makings of a memorable (if tame, relatively) Unique encounter. If we have him guarding treasure in the room, he can “activate” when that treasure is handled. Throw in a room effect like cloth wraps grabbing for PCs, and we’re done.
The XP for this encounter can be figured using the Monster Experience Points table on page 114. He’s a skeleton and so comes with immunities, and we might count the grasping cloths as an additional ability. With 2 HD (20xp) and 2 abilities (9xp each), he comes out to 38xp.
Treasure
Lastly, we go through the dungeon and fill it out with treasure. First, as an important general rule, there should be approximately 4gp per 1 XP of encounters in a dungeon. In ACKS, characters receive 1 XP per 1gp recovered:
Characters gain XP from treasure they recover from the dungeon or wilderness and bring back to civilization. For purposes of earning XP, “civilization” is the nearest friendly town or stronghold.
(pg. 113)
Trapped rooms have 30% chance for treasure: two d100s fail to produce (90 and 43). An empty room has 15%—another failure. Our dungeon is empty of treasure so far!
But here’s where the 4gp per 1 XP saves us: we need to factor in all the XP from encounters rolled up in the dungeon and place that much treasure somewhere. Good suggestions about treasure placement are available in the rulebook. For example, unprotected treasure would only very rarely be out in the open—it is most likely hidden away in a crawlspace, corpse, or beneath or behind objects etc.
So far we have:
3 ghouls = 29 × 3 = 87 XP
3 carcass scavengers = 135 × 3 = 405 XP
skeleton guardian = 38 XP
This gives us a total of 530 XP which demands treasure of 2120gp. The flail that can be recovered is probably worth somewhere around that much, but substantial curses can be bring an item’s value down. The book provides a way to turn various currency values into bundles of goods on page 209. If we decided the flail was worth 920gp, we have 1100gp left. With 1000gp, we can roll d20 to get a bundle (15 → 1000 gold pieces). With the remaining 100gp we can decide to leave some jewelry, gems, or other finery worth that value. The key is to place all these in a way that reinforces the environment.
The jewelry would be a great piece to set on the ground in the skeleton guardian room to act as a trigger.
Large Dungeons
Mechanically speaking, coming up with a Large Dungeon needs not be any different than creating a Medium Dungeon. It only requires thinking bigger.
We choose a location (17 on d20 → Tower). Then we need to start with a map. What is this tower like? Maybe it’s a single element in a larger camp or fortress. We would start with outlining the fort itself. The walls, gates, towers—and the things defending them. This way we can have a visually impressive and imposing idea. It’s not just an old building the PCs are entering but an entire fort.
How do we ensure players identify the tower itself as the dungeon proper? We make it visually interesting—a storm cloud gathers above the tower. Or maybe it glows red or evil lights shine from its high floors.
How to make it mega, though? We have to be creative here. Maybe the “tower” is more than just the tower—it’s the endpoint of a larger underground complex. Maybe it’s a wizard’s tower and the upper levels are actually whole areas of other dark planes. Maybe the tower itself is normal, but a magical portal on its top floor leads to the “real” dungeon.
As long as we have the basic concept and can reasonably flesh out one level, it is easy to continue on with the pattern and themes established.
Footmaps vs. TOTM
Even though the game clearly and explicitly suggests accurate-scale “footmaps” with 10' squares, it’s only a suggestion. The main purpose of dungeon maps is to remind us what’s there and to give us the ability to further reason about the place when players inevitably ask questions. Spending too much time on one dungeon (that players may choose not to visit!) is a mistake—by the same token, focusing on specific details of a drawn map is a mistake. The examples provided here are illustrative only—not strong recommendations.
In most cases, theater of the mind (TOTM) treatment of exploration is superior to breaking out a handful of miniatures and shoving them around a footmap. Condensing a terrifying place into an explicit square grid immediately diminishes the feeling of terror.
Armed with these things, we’re ready to crank out a few dungeons. Next up, we’re going to look at settlements.
Nice write up. I always struggle with the size of my dungeons. What makes a good size? How many rooms? I think I usually make them too big (or maybe my players explore slowly).