LEVEL 7 IS FINISHED!!!

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Whew! I finally completed it! Over 41,000 words and 42 pages of room descriptions for the 42 core rooms and 26 areas of interest on Level 7! Considering that many of the core rooms consist of complexes of multiple rooms (ie 35A, 35B, 35C, etc), there is actually a total of 97 fully developed areas/room on Level 7 alone!

I've sent the manuscript to the proofers just now and I am diving into Level 8.

The maps for Level 7, Level 8, and the sub-level are done. The dungeon dressing cards are done. And we have several dozen new magic items, several dozen new or variant monsters, tons of new spells, etc done. And that's not counting the new spells, monsters, and magic items being devised for the other two levels!

It's gonna be loaded folks!

Well, off to bed and a rest before I start the massive, double-sized Level 8!

Oh, I calculate that the final product will be roughly 150+ pages, and that's before we insert the art, so the actual page number for the Campaign Guide for the Deadly Levels will probably hit near or above 200. Just unreal.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Also, once the proofers finish proofing and I ok it all, I'll be posting a sample room or two here on the forum to whet your appetites.

[Beowulf]

Cool! You're making some pretty good progress.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Yep, finally progress!

I'll tell ya...Level 7 was a bitch because:

1. It has taken so long, with so many setbacks, that it was hard to get excited about it anymore.

2. There were lots of setbacks!

3. There were a lot of labs and personal quarters for Halaster, Arcturia, and Arcturia's apprentices on this level. And I get bored doing labs. Laboratories are probably my least favorite thing to detail, next to taverns. How can you be creative with a lab?

I'm very excited about Level 8 and the sub-level. With Level 8 I can really let my imagination run wild. Hell, there a caverns on that level that can hold entire towns! One particular cavern is a quarter mile long by a fifth of a mile wide (1,300' x 1,000' roughly). I mean, you really could fit a village or small town in there! So I have next to no monster restrictions due to size (which can be an issue in smaller areas).

I've got reams of notes on stuff to develop for Level 8, so I'll be starting tomorrow night, even as the proofers are proofing Level 7. It would be nice to get this thing done before the end of the year, and it's just a matter of keeping the flow going.

By the way, I think you're people are gonna need a change of underwear when they see the map for Level 8. Doirche has converted by pencils into a work of art and it's just...mind-boggling! I look at it sometimes and say "OMG! I DREW ALL THAT?!?". It's hard to believe how many rooms and caverns I crammed into a double-sized map. I'm even afraid to take credit for it because honestly (and I know it sounds goofy but...), it was as if the map was drawing itself. It just flowed, and flowed, and flowed and kept flowing and suddenly I had to add more and more graph paper. I have no idea what that was about, but it just sorta drew itself.

Just totally inspired.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Well, right before jumping into Level 8, I had to catalog everything from Level 7 to make sure nothing was overlooked or duplicated. I found I'd placed an identical new major magical item in two different rooms. Ooops!

So I swapped one out for something else, problem solved. Anyway, the point I'm getting to is that, for Level 7 alone, we have the following new material:

42 fully developed Core Rooms (70 if you count sub-rooms such as 33A, 33B, 33C as individual rooms, which they are)
26 fully developed Areas of Interest
19 new magic items (including 6 new tomes)
14 new monsters
12 new spells
5 new NPCs

Level 8 likewise will have:

42 Core Rooms (59 if you count Rooms #5A, 5B, 5C, etc as individual rooms)
26 Areas of Interest

I have no idea how many new monsters, spells, magic items, etc will appear on Level 8, but assume at least as many as on Level 7.

Of course, all the new spells and monsters from the entire 3-level box set will be grouped together in one chapter (or in the case of monsters, on MC monster sheets) as they were in the original box set.

So far, the plan for the sub-level included in this set is going to be just 21 developed rooms and 26 areas of interest (since it's a sub-level, not a full level). If we go with that, then here is how it looks:

Level 1 = 42 core/26 areas of interest (68 total)
Level 2 = 42 core/26 areas of interest (68 total)
Level 3 = 21 core/26 areas of interest (47 total)

Total: 183 fully developed rooms.

If we count sub-rooms, which we should because technically they are developed enough to count as individual rooms on their own (ie Room #5A, 5B, 5C, etc), then we end up with (and keep in mind that I have not yet assigned/numbered the rooms on the sub-level map, so there may be even more rooms) a whopping 228 fully developed rooms for Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels!

It boggles the mind, it really does!

[Tawnos76]

Is there a larger image of this map? I would like to have it printed out.

[Doirche]

You'll have to wait for the finished product I'm afraid.