Castle Kelpsprot is my Dungeon25-ish project: a science-fantasy capsule game megadungeon designed for HUDless play. For background, see my first post on the project.
Last week I posted the Player’s Guide, which includes a two-page spread listing 20 origins and 20 habitué origins. Many include information that players should discover through play or by playing a castaway of a particular origin, so they’re not included in the guide. However, I’ve included a few in this post.
Design
Castle Kelpsprot is a classless game, but I want each castaway to have an identity beyond their equipment. The failed careers of Electric Bastionland were my inspiration. Each origin begins with a paragraph written in the second person. My aim was for each to do some of the following:
- Explain how the castaway became stranded at the castle
- Provide a bit of personal history
- Suggest what sort of person the castaway might be
- Tie the castaway to some of the setting’s themes, factions, or locations
- Establish setting and tone
Next comes the castaway’s rank in swords and sorcery, favor they’ve earned, any unique abilities they possess, and their starting equipment and spells. These provide the castaway with some intial tools and signal to the player how they might expect to advance.
Finally, each origin includes three questions for the player. These prompt the player to make the origin their own and flesh out their castaway. These questions are also intended to get the player thinking about their castaway’s point of view, opinions, and goals.
Here are a few examples:
Acquisitions Librarian
The chief librarian dispatched you to Castle Kelpsprot to obtain rare texts. Now, with your map whisked away by a gale and your sailboat at the bottom of the Glutted Sea, your chances of returning to the library seem slim.
Your rank in swords is squire. Your rank in sorcery is novice.
You have:
- One standard-issue librarian’s uniform.
- One standard-issue librarian’s saber.
- One acquisition librarian’s gambeson.
- One extra large waxed canvass book tote (waterproof).
- Your acquisition librarian’s badge.
- [Redacted]
You know two spells.
Which library employed you and what is its uniform?
What are the tenets of the librarian’s code?
What will you do with any rare texts that you obtain?
Discarded Reconstruction
A dabbler in sword and sorcery, you lived an adventurous life—that is, until your terrible misfortune. You lost an eye, an ear, a hand, and a considerable portion of your innards. You may have died. Then someone put you back together again. Dissatisfied with the results, however, they cast you away—chum for the Glutted Sea. But once again, you survived.
Your rank in swords is squire. Your rank in sorcery is apprentice.
Your new eye, ear, and hand are synthetic, though whether they were produced via sorcery or the Architects’ lost arts, you do not know. You can painlessly detach and reattach them. While detached, they can crawl (or roll) around at your direction and still transmit sensation. In addition, thanks to your synthetic innards, it takes ten times the normal dosage to poison you.
You have:
- A scrap of sailcloth to preserve your modesty.
What happened?
Who reconstructed you?
What will it take for you to feel whole again?
Scorned Suitor
You thought you had it all: wealth, charm, striking features, a respectable family, a good education—you even dabbled in sorcery. The object of your heart’s desire, however, required a suitor in possession of a castle. No matter; you heard that Castle Kelpsprot was in want of a ruler and mostly empty. Sailing there in your great uncle’s caravel would prove no great difficulty, you thought. Oh, how naïve you were.
Your rank in swords is soldier. Your rank in sorcery is apprentice.
You have:
- Foppish or frou-frou garments.
- An engraved arming sword.
- A shield bearing the family crest.
- An embroidered and perfumed handkerchief.
- A diamond ring.
You know one spell.
How would you describe your beloved?
What does your family crest depict?
What would father think?
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