Dungeon Delving -- The Crypt of Mighty Lord Thule

[The Bibliophile]

Home-brew rules and material for my head-to-head dungeon crawl game (mechanics I created that sit atop the base rules for Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes). Entire days have disappeared trying to generate enough material just to start beta test everything, which I finally got to do last weekend with my great friends Jared and Ash.

An example of one of my home-brew designs...The "Room Features" cards are designed for exploring a crypt (the Crypt of Lord Thule, to be precise). When a room is first entered, the active player rolls on a table that determines if there are any special features for the room (more often than not, there are), in addition to things like monsters, traps, etc. These crypt-specific room features run the gamut from intricate murals to family tombs to armories for equipping the Thule's army in the afterlife. (My rule set has been designed so that encounters, treasures, room features, wandering monsters, traps, etc. are all thematic and location-specific. I plan on creating similar material for other settings such as prisons, ruined temples, etc.

Anyway...got everything pulled together and had our first play test yesterday. Turned out surprisingly solid and everybody claimed they had a great time, especially with the dungeon exploration parts of the game. Check out about 60 photos my wife took at the album below (with some explanatory captions). Mixed in this album are some sample cards I've created for the game (about 130 in all).

FULL PHOTO ALBUM:
http://imgur.com/a/JiomU

[Chaos Wolf]

Cool pictures!

This looks very interesting; is there any chance of seeing/getting a copy of your rules?

[The Bibliophile]

Thanks! They still need still need a bit more play testing, but the intention is to make them available eventually. Thanks for the interest!

[The Bibliophile]

...and I'll pass along the compliment to my wife regarding the photos since she took them. She's not a gamer, but she likes shooting pics of this stuff!

[The Bibliophile]

Another successful night play testing "The Ballad of Dungeon Delving," my elaborate rule set for head-to-head dungeon exploration. Two players enter with adventuring warbands from opposite sides of the dungeon, playing the encounters for their opponent until the scenario objectives are complete and/or the warbands cross paths in the darkened underworld chambers.


Okay, greybeard, if I open the door you've got to unleash some deadly mojo on that wandering swarm of spiders on the other side.


My band of intrepid tomb raiders stumble into a room with a bedraggled band of orcs around a makeshift fire, drying out from the storm raging outside the crypts. Once I dispatch them, I'll search that mural along the wall...


This picture is of my opponent chancing upon the open hell portal that keeps the crypt stocked with undead guardians. Can it be closed before more fiends come climbing out and into our world? (And this was only half way through the sprawling underground complex explored tonight.)