Dungeon23/ANOINTED23, March and April roundup (oops)

May 2, 2023

Updating has been pretty spotty for reasons of "I wrote basically 150 pages of Game in these two months"! But as I had time to catch up on Month 4 and finalize it, here's my two.

The Tower of Godfrey

A prison that was originally built to house Godfrey, a rune sorcerer who did something egregious that was lost to time. Over time, it expanded to house other inhabitants. Legend has it that Godfrey knows a long-buried path to enter Volinn, the shadow-torn kingdom where the dead king who calls you to his side lies. But the prison has been untended for years, and its inhabitants and wardens are both twisted beyond recognition.

The Region Clocks here are Time and Alert: as time goes on and as you do things that raise alarms, more enemies swarm. There are two entry points: the "left" side is a jailbroken cell in the new section of the prison (6 on the left, which soon became 13 because oops but I don't feel like updating the picture), while (1) is the main entrance. You can get a key for the Warden area (4-5-6) in that new section by defeating a miniboss (a nasty prisoner) or just pick/kick down the Warden area's lock; you do need a key to get to (10-11-12), however, which is in that Warden area. There's also a second miniboss (the warden) guarding a prison control that makes fighting Godfrey easier.

Godfrey is a very dodge-heavy enemy who sets "trap" inscriptions all over. The prison control decreases the traps' range, and you can set them with an Inscription you get from beating him.

The question asked of you is: What did you learn or do during your life that could inspire someone to lock you away forever if they found out?

The Village of Plainswall

A small village, curiously empty save for a few soldiers and knights. But nightfall betrays a hideous secret...

The Region Clock here is Night. It's a 4-segment clock that, when it fills, doesn't un-fill until you die or rest, and changes encounters and items you can retrieve.

This is intended to be another interstitial region, and one that leads to The Battlefield of Karus - so the soldiers and knights here are deserters from that region's 5th Regiment. This is the first appearance of Captial-SE Shadow Enemies - the villagers here did a ritual to protect themselves that got compromised and got them Shadow-tainted, but the ritual holds enough to keep it contained until night-time.

This one's built to be a lot more "puzzley" - you can escape at (8) in the daytime as soon as you open the gate at (4), which you can get the key for at night at (3), but you can only open the gate during the day. However, there's optional things you can do: a slightly nastier encounter at (7) night reveals what you need to complete the ritual fully and stop the clock finally, which allows you to return to (7) during the day (which is normally not reachable due to the clock being 4 segments) and get a new weapon.

The question asked of you is: What have you done for power or protection that you regret?

I'll settle on one for this month sometime today.

(Read the original on cohost here!)