I’m one of those people who is very fond of Black Cauldron. Where most people find it too dark for Disney, to bleak and weird, I was very much on board.
Re-watching Black Cauldron for this blogpost, I found that I enjoyed the movie just as much as when I was young, but my thoughts on the main villain were altered greatly. I’d remember him as this all powerful tyrant that would be in contention for the topic TTRPG Disney villain, but he’s a little… wimpier than I remember.
That might not necessarily be a bad thing for your campaign though.
It has been a busy six months – moved house, second child was born, family highs and lows, work has been tough – and blogging needed to be put on hold. As did all of my gaming, D&D and video gaming, for a time.
Now that the dust has settled, I’m gaming again. I’ll soon hopefully be blogging about the two very different games I’ve started up: Snowrunner and Bloodborne. I plan to write an idiots guide to Bloodborne at some point, as my experience with it was similar to the one I had with Dark Souls (I never got gud, but I somehow made it through).
I’ll also be picking pack up with the Disney Villains in D&D series I was writing, hopefully next Wednesday. I also plan to do a bit more regarding my teaching side again – now that I’m part time, the love of the job as greatly returned.
I’m also posting some more gaming videos to YouTube. Mainly so I can blog about them here, but the videos have been getting a few views, so we’ll see where that goes. I’ve always had a mind to do some chilled live streaming, but that’s a ways off.
The one thing that will be shelved, for now, is Dungeon23. I had such a good run, even managed to catch up into October despite now blogging about it, but I will need to be a lot more free before I can finally finish that project.
Thank you to everyone who has continued to visit this blog in my absence. Hopefully this is me back for good. Writing is not my biggest skill or my greatest hobby, but it is certainly cathartic. It’s good to be back.
For the first time, I started to feel time being pinched to the point where a daily doodle and description had to be put aside. It’s exam season, and I have signed myself to a shedload of marking. Whilst this will prove rewarding in the long term, the next few weeks will be a grind.
Nevertheless, I stole back a couple of hours today and caught up with where I should be. The pause helped in a way, I was able to give this layer a bit more thought. I knew what I wanted to do, but I was concerned about making it too similar. I think I’ve cracked it now.
The adventure is over. The dragon is defeated. The dungeon is delved. All the storylines are satisfying concluded. The character growth has… grown as much as it needs to.
But then what? Are the players ready to truly finish? Or do they want more? Has the DM got another villain or tougher adventure ready in the wings? If either is true, do the heroes not catch a break before chaos rains anew?
What happens between the epic adventures? I have an answer to that. If you’re one of the first few people reading this post, you can scoop the answer up for free:
There’s a lot of people in my megadungeon. They’ve all been different varieties of weird and dangerous, but they’ve all been something to be negotiated with. In future layers, as we delve deeper, the situation is going to get weirder and the NPCs are going to get less rational.
This layer is the tipping point. The self-righteous Ultores will assume new arrivals to be guilty of something. Anything. They’ll be desperate to get hold of the party and put them on “trial”. Go along with the charade, and the adventurers can get away without incident. It is ten times more likely that they will come to blows with the arrogant, incontestable Ultores.
20 weeks! The time is flowing by, and somehow I’m keeping up with the Dungeon23 expectation. Some rooms are drawn very late in the evening, but so far I’ve managed to keep up the momentum.
This layer continues to be a develop into a work space for an international counter-terrorism group. This week we’re building the crucial living and workspaces for the ‘Magnus Ultores’, many of which are still around with nothing better to do than give the adventurers a hard time.
Sometimes it is okay for a room to be empty. I keep having to remind myself of this fact. In any good dungeon crawl, an empty room is highly likely. That empty space might add some flavour to the complex, offer a safe space or contain a hidden treasure… but it really doesn’t need to. In any structure, there’s a room that doesn’t get used that often.
When I first started on the MegaDungeon, I was fully aware that on busy days I could simply write “empty room” and move on. I’ve been finding this hard to do, however. I feel a compulsion to include at least something in every space.
This week’s rooms (and this layer) are significantly less populated than those previously mentioned. There’s still a little something in every space, but in this case the lack of presence here tells a grim story.
Another Disney movie with a mystery villain. If you’ve seen Big Hero 6, you know who we’re talking about and we can discuss their potential as your Table Top Games big baddy. If you’re not up to speed, go give this cracking movie a watch and come back to us.
Politics at my gaming table isn’t expressly forbidden, but it is discouraged. If someone starts talking about real world issues during our dice-rolling escapism, they will be politely, lovingly (and somewhat jokingly) booed.
Fantasy politics on the other hand, now that’s a different thing. Learning the underhanded espionage and deep-rooted corruption of a pretend place is deeply interesting, and comes with no burdens. So long as the lore is not based on the real world with all the names changed…
With that in mind, Layer 5 of my megadungeon concerns pretend global terrorism.
No one crits like Gaston, no one hits like Gaston, no one falls to their death in a pit like Gaston.
When trying to weigh up the Disney villains, deciding which one would make the best Big Bad in your Roleplaying Game, we will come across a lot of humans. Amongst the liches and dragons, non-magic, unpowered people are vying for a top spot for leader board. It will take something extraordinary for these people to outshine the spellcasters and monsters.
Last week, the villain from Atlantis came close to beating Jafar. A brute in combat and superb henchmen had him scoring high.
Gaston is one of my favourite Disney villains, but we’ll have to see if he come can flex and smirk enough to earn a top spot.
Gamer Peak 