The Sewers, First Level for #dungeon23

Well, January is behind us, and February is all over us. Had some time to lay out The Sewers (from January, #dungeon23), and thought maybe you'd like to get lost in them! The dungeon is system neutral, so I'd love to hear from you if you happen to use these maps, events, situations, etc. in your own game.

The first month of #dungeon23 was really about finding what worked for me. I've certainly not followed the "room-a-day" format, in regards to creation. I tend to do things in batches, instead. It fits my workstyle better.

The general flow has been: 

• Outline: Think up a rough list of rooms, things that make sense for the level.
• Draft map: Usually digital, so I can move stuff around, play with composition, etc. Rough boxes and hallways to get an idea for the layout of the area, nothing permanent. I’ll add keywords too, to remind myself what’s what. Not every room in my outline makes the cut, and sometimes new rooms spring into being that I didn't even know I wanted. I’ll usually put this on the grid paper that I print and tape to the back of the “real map”. 
• Real map: I'm working on paper, so each sheet usually ends up with 2-6 rooms on it. I'll ink all the rooms and hallways, then pencil in any details (furniture, landmarks, things that are large, or won't move around much). Then I'll ink those, too. Shadows are last, where I use an alcohol marker to give the rooms some depth. 
• Room descriptions: I'll revisit my original list and any notes I've made along the way, then start writing descriptions for each room. This gets spread out week to week for each area/sheet. Sometimes things I didn't intend to be in the room get added. Sometimes I scrap stuff.
• Repeat!

"Art" takes me a long time, writing comes much easier to me, but this extra time is often a good thing. Drawing time is also thinking time. It's where I have some of my best ideas and will note them down to expand on later when I begin writing.

As for the dungeon itself, it's taken on an interesting medley of themes, which I'm happy to let grow organically over the next few months. A sort of medieval-tech-fantasy setting which presents a lot of weird  combinations. Probably a good thing if I have to come up with over 300 "things" to put in the dungeon by the end of the year. 

I will say, this challenge has been good practice in social media for me (for better or worse). I rarely like to talk about my work, promoting it is always a mental struggle. But working on a dungeon alongside everyone has made it much less awkward when sharing daily progress. 

I appreciate all the kind words from everyone who has taken the time to post them! I'm always excited to see what everyone else is doing out there each day. Keep those rooms coming! Interested to hear others' thoughts on how their first month of #dungeon23 went.

That's all for now.

Steve