Chapter Four
THE DOUGHNUT OF DEATH

Now, armed with a fairly good idea of how not to run Fantasy RolePlaying Games, I decided to try and get my friends involved one last time. I asked my friend Robbie in college, who had originally gamed with his brother’s group. I hinted he would really be welcome to join us for a session. He laughed a lot at the idea, but agreed to give it a go. I also pressed my very reluctant buddy Steve into it. Steve seemed determined to make me feel that he was doing me a HUGE favour by agreeing to come to the session. His actual words were along the lines of “At least I can tell people I’ve played a game of D&D!”  I couldn’t understand this motivation for doing it. Surely you do things to enjoy them not to add them to a sort of life C.V. to tell other people about. I mentally scratched my head, but figured whatever got him around the dining room table was okay by me.
With two players confirmed I set about planning my first dungeon hack. I designed a tiny village called Ching on the river Ford. A short distance away from there I created an ancient warren of caves and passageways. I spent an equal amount of time on both the dungeon system and the village. The village was fully realised with a population of around 40 people the players could meet and talk to. I intended the village to look a look real, and wanted the players to be able to stop and questioned anyone, initially it would be one of the 40 NPC (Non-Player Characters, ie anyone not belonging to the group of players), but I planned on expanding the population.
Each of my villagers had some clues to the dangers of the caverns and hints that would help the players in the depths of the maze system. They also all had future plot directions and suggestions. After about 20 ideas that would launch a mini-adventure in themselves I began to struggle for ideas. It wasn’t that I’d run out of plot possibilities, I had hundreds begging for their moment in the spotlight. It was just my initial 20 plots were modest village sized ones. Thefts of prize cattle by local bandits, missing semi-magical rings, spurned lovers that had run off into the local hills and not returned. After I hit 20 my ideas got grander and more epic. I didn’t think a hill farmer would be the proper person to launch the players on a quest to return a jewel that unfroze a legendary king in the Volcanic Mountains of the Northlands. I finished my final 20 plot possibilities with a struggle to keep them homespun and rural … but also exciting and challenging.
My attention then turned to my dungeon design. I built the initial structure in a huge ring shape. The Doughnut of Death was my private name for this torus of doom. The players would be faced with an east or west bound passageways that would eventually meet up on the far side of the mountains. It was a long loop, infested with side tunnels and blocked staircases leading up and down (I slowly unblocked these as I added upper and lower chambers.) But the main action was in the central doughnut. There were three main boss creatures,
1) A Polychromatic dragon (of my own creation, it was the size of a Shetland pony) with a hypnotic gaze and a small group of zombie minions. I didn’t feel it proper to put a full sized dragon in on the group’s first outing. The ones in the rulebook could eat a party of 10 players. My two friends would be mince meat. They would be disappointed though if I didn’t include one dragon in the game .. Thus my crafty compromise.
2) An Ancient Statue with jewelled eyes that granted dreams, but in each dream the players would have to fight each other in various historical settings to unlock keys. The keys would open the portal for the creature who created the statue to travel through to our realm. The players would have to discover a route out of the dream worlds and back to their bodies. This was my favourite idea and I’d planned each of the historical settings out in fantastic detail.
3) An Orc guardroom. The doughnut of death connected via a huge locked stone door to a larger dungeon complex controlled by the Orc King Thargus. This could take the players through the mountains to the sunbaked lands on the other side. A small prison of captured adventurers was attached to the guardroom, and if freed they could combine their strength and vanquish the Orcs squad and the Captain of the Guard, Demos the Fetid.
Alongside all of these large challenges I’d filled the dungeon with a variety of smaller and easier to solve traps, creatures and prizes. I didn’t know it, but the amount of work I’d lavished on this one night dungeon could have sustained an average group of adventurers for months. It hadn’t put me off that both players had only said they would do one night. I’d put serious man-hours into my first creation as a true labour of love.