This blog post is the first in a series where I will use a game’s random creation procedure (mostly dungeons) to do a quick map with denizens to see what it sparks for me and provide my personal experience of using the tool.

The Rules

1. Six room dungeon
2. Use the tables and given procedure
3. No more than an hour of real world time
4. Make a blog post to document the dungeon created and my insights.

Why am I doing this?

I tend to research exhaustively when I write adventures which is great but time consuming. Not everything has to be publishable to spark joy. I want to make my process faster which means making more things more often and being less precious.

On The Black Hack 2E

The Black Hack 2E was developed by David Black. It has a dungeon generator on pages 63-74. The section is a series of mostly d6 and d12 tables with a guide page on 63 explaining where everything is located and providing guidance for use. The Black Hack has some of my favorite information design of any OSR game.

What I generated using the procedure

Rolling through the tables, the following concept emerged:

Concealed in the forest underbrush lies the remains of the Ferrumvirum, an automaton created by a king fallen to despair, consuming the lives of thousands in its dread creation. Lost by time, the remains hum with energy powered by a giant perfect silver sphere containing a fission reactor chamber.

Recently, the wizard Galanthus and his demonic henchlings discovered the Ferrumvirum and seek to unlock the arcane knowledge contained within the orb and strange whirring mainframe computers locked within through demonic rituals.

I ended up with six rooms:

1. Chrome sphere room with patinated brass braziers burning in all four corners. Locked door to South with security device.

2. Reception area covered in hundreds of guttering candles. Desk contains a safety manual and diagram of the dungeon with secret safety exists in 3 and 6 revealed. Shadow monster concealed in the room grows in strength as more candles gutter.

3. Atrium with dim light and water feature at center. Monster concealed within water feature. Secret passage to the mainframe room via a vent concealed behind a bookshelf on the east wall.

4. Makeshift prison with local villagers trapped within cages held by two bored petty demon henchlings who seek to return to hotter lands below. One villager knows a useful secret.

5. Demon tech shrine chamber where many failed rituals have occurred attempting to unlock the arcane mysteries of the mainframe.

6. The server room which contains the wizard wired to the mainframe, able to control the sphere and unaware of the safety dangers of that action. Hazards include electrocution. Mainframe can print up to three one-time use arcane scrolls onto dot matrix paper but each spell takes an hour to print.

My thoughts on how it turned out

I tend to not mix technology into my forest-type adventures and vice versa, so it was interesting to roll on the tables and attempt to create logic out of the random generation. I think the big concepts contained within the tables are interesting but could be more focused on curation toward specific tonal experiences. I think the tables provide enough variety and interest to generate a fun random delve.