Another month, another section of Alhamra put to bed. But before February gets too far behind us, I wanted to post my thoughts on the month that was.

I’m not exactly sure why I was determined to feature an “underwater level” in the ruins. Probably because when you look at the history of Petra, the inspiration behind Alhamra, water and cisterns play such a big role in its history and success. Or maybe its just because I’ve never devoted the time and effort into creating an underwater dungeon. Well, no time like the present. Consider the time devoted.

The verdict: I now see why there are so few underwater dungeons written. Building this level was painful. Before I started work on it, I didn’t realize how little support there was for something like this. Now it’s done and while I feel it will be a fun addition to the dungeons of Alhamra, I’ve no interest in repeating the experience.

So what makes building an underwater dungeon so damn hard?

• Very few freshwater aquatic monsters. Even making freshwater variants of marine creatures, there just isn’t much to play with.
• Its harder to incorporate faction play
• because of the inherent difficulties of exploring underwater zones (spell/magic resources), you have to include strong, clear incentives to explore those zones.

This month was also the first month were scheduling interfered with my journaling. Fortunately, these were things I could plan ahead for, and thus work ahead a few days. What I didn’t expect was that it would be harder to get back into the routine after the issue had passed. So in hindsight, maybe it would be better to push through and make the time rather than give myself the time off. Food for though, anyway.

So what is next? I’m going to take on some low hanging fruit for March. The Arena. AKA the Theater of Pain. Equal parts WWE, Gladiator (the Movie), and Caves of Chaos (B2). Here, a menagerie of horrors perform and do battle for the pleasure of the Sultan and Sultana of Alhamra, and their court. Imagine what bands of different humanoids would do if you gave them a gladiator arena to play with. The unexpected benefit here was a proliferation of factions (patrons and their adherents) that suddenly could populate various nooks and crannies of the city ruins. Each week, I’ll be detailing a new faction.

• the leader
• their champion
• their standard
• a prize (a special monster this faction has contributed to the menagerie)
• something else (maybe a secret, or their horde, or some info on the faction’s domicile)

In the end, that will give me 5 factions in addition to the Sultan and Sultana. Plenty of roleplaying opportunities for the PCs to take on.

So until next time: just say no to underwater dungeons!