I'm working hard at wrapping up Level 8. I really badly want Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels to be finished. I had planned, after that, to start working on Ruins of Undermountain II: The Mid Levels, which would detail Level 4 - The Farms Level, Level 5 - Muiral's Gauntlet, and Level 6 - Trobriand's Sanctum. After that, the big finale - Ruins of Undermountain IV: The Lair of the Mad Mage.
But...
It's exhausting writing so much material. It really is. Level 8 is the hardest thing I've ever done or tried writing. After creating dozens of new spells, new magic items, new NPCs, new monsters, etc and after writing hundreds of rooms, I'm feeling the strain. I have no intention of putting out less than 100% for the rest of Level 8. It's just slow because we're under 20 rooms away and even though many of them are planned, the writing alone is time consuming - having to detail every part of every room, etc. and still make each unique, interesting, fun and challenging after having done 165+ rooms already (in total). For those of you who've written adventures with a dozen or so rooms or more, you know how hard that is. Now imagine doing 165+ rooms on top of all that other material. It's taxing on the mind and spirit.
When I feel burned out on writing Level 8 I get my juices flowing, strange as it may seem, not by taking a break but by writing something else. Lately I've been wrapping up the final writing on our latest adventure I'm playing (with one player currently), I'm planning another for an old friend and a few new players, and I'm also working on my re-make of Temple of Elemental Evil.
I've been pretty stoked by my version of Temple of Elemental Evil so far. I feel it's some of my best writing, alongside Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels. The descriptions are some of the finest I've ever done. I've re-read it and I feel very proud of it.
SO!...
After I finish and release Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels, I'll take a short break from Undermountain and wrap up Temple of Elemental Evil and release that next. The reason is, I want to wrap that up as well because it's a lot less writing than Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels, plus I have much of it in final format already. I'm part of the way through it, in final format (meaning rooms are fully detailed, etc). It will be a lot less work to wrap that up because by the time I finish Level 8 for Undermountain, the Temple of Elemental Evil will be damned near complete as well.
That will give me a short breather before diving into Ruins of Undermountain II: The Mid Levels. I do have a LOT of material already planned and designed for that project, though no solid map work as yet. So it'll make more sense to have something else (Temple of Elemental Evil) put out relatively quickly after RoU III before starting the long process of doing RoU II. It's another huge project. Level 4 is a double sized map, Levels 5 & 6 are normal sized, but will be quite dense and detailed - especially Trobriand's level!
But I think people will appreciate something a little different with Temple of Elemental Evil, and it's quite different than the original - much more related to "elemental" evil.
So, I feel good about that. Now I hope in this coming week or two to knock off a few more rooms for Level 8 (for RoU III). It's both refreshing and intimidating at the same time as I get closer and closer to finishing. Pretty intense!
