Though many folks seem to assume that COVID-19 awards others with newfound free time, I've experienced the opposite effect. Though I think I've gotten off relatively easily (so far), the chaos and unpredictability that's recently entered my life has presented challenges I never could have anticipated. I feel more overwhelmed than ever.
Compound the issue of a pandemic with the volatile political situation of the United States, the economic recession, and the emerging issues of racial injustice, and it seems like a good time to take momentary respite in elf-games before returning to the "real world."
This post includes the one-page dungeon I submitted to the One-Page Dungeon Contest, titled Sunnalee Cavern.
The dungeon is loosely based on the Linville Caverns of North Carolina, which I visited as a child. It owes a significant debt to the work of Dr. Cato Holler, Susan G. Holler, and Oliver Holler. The Holler family wrote a digest-sized book titled "Hollow Hills of Sunnalee," which details the history and folklore of the Caverns. I even used some of the illustrations from their book as inspiration for illustrations on this dungeon.
Their book contains part of Henry Colton's account of visiting the caverns, which provide a really evocative description of spelunking in the mid-19th century. I've included an excerpt below:
"Stooping through a low passage, in which the coldest of water ran rippling and singing a merry song, which was echoed back a thousand times from the dark dismal arched roof of the unmeasured space which stretched itself before, behind, and above us, we emerged into an immense passage, whose roof was far beyond the reach of the glare of our torches, except where the fantastic festoons of stalactites hang down within our touch. It looked like the arch of some grand old cathedral, yet it was too sublime, too perfect in all its beautiful proportions, to be anything of human, but a model which man might attempt to imitate. Passing along we would come to a huge figure, so horridly like the petrified skeleton of a human being, that as the fitful glimmering light cast a shade upon it one would start back in horror. But a steadier shade exhibits it truly to our sight - naught but the working of nature, yet so perfect in its lineaments that it would take no great stretch of the imagination to think it a petrified remnant of the body of one of that departed race of giants, which fables tell us once strode over the land."
I submitted this dungeon with full knowledge that I will likely not win. I had so many ideas that the text became cramped. My work is also perhaps more "grounded" and less imaginative or creative than other entries. And I have some big names to contend with, such as the illustrious Skerples of the Coins and Scrolls blog (whom I've mentioned several times, already).
However, my whole intention with starting this blog was to challenge myself as a writer. And the One Page Dungeon Contest embodies that sort of challenge, I think. It's a friendly contest, but imposes constraints on the work of the dungeon author, forcing them to work creatively within the confines of a single page.
With that spirit in mind, I pushed myself to submit an entry into my first-ever dungeon contest. And that's a "win" in itself, regardless of the outcome of the competition 🙂
If you're interested in the dungeon, I've included it as an image below.
P.S. A special thanks to Aaron from the One Page Dungeon Contest, who accepted my re-submission with grace and patience!
Edit: I just had the idea to include a stripped down map of the dungeon, provided below. It might be easier to read than the one above. Basically, the dungeon is a set of "figure 8's," with several intertwining passages and a submerged tunnel between #4 and #9. I tried to stick rather close to the actual layout of the caverns.
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