The Hall of Space - Pointcrawl Attempt #1

Here's a further update on my Dungeon23 megadungeon, called MYR REGATH, the City of Sortilege! Last post I talked about coming back around to my cultural roots, transitioning my project into taking heavy inspo from Jewish Mythology, and now I get to share how I've been putting that into practice.

In Concept

So, looking into Jewish mythology / mysticism, I came across this map. 

These are the Sefirot (sing. Sefirah). They are not a physical map so much as a metaphorical, spiritual and esoteric map. These ten spheres are realms or emanations. A basic breakdown being that God cannot appear in the physical world - because He is all powerful - but he must be felt. God's power filters down through these sefirot, compacting and filtering from the power-level of Ein Sof - literally The Infinite - down to the physical realm that humans exist in and can perceive. 

Kind of like a beam of sunlight, when refracted in a prism, splays out all of its interior colors, only to be sent back through another prism back into daylight.

The Infinite is all of it. At the top is Keter כֶּתֶר‎, filtering through the sefirot down to Malkhut מַלְכוּת. 

That's a crude explanation, for more in-depth understanding of The Sefirot and Kabbalah, check out Ezra Rose's zine on antisemitism in esoterica: FYMA: A Lesser Key
(It's a great read on its own, but the explanation of Kabbalah vs Qabbalah vs Cabbalah was invaluable!)

Follow me? Okay. In early September, looking at the sefirot, my brain thought of one thing: this ttrpg map for Queen of the Demonweb Pits:

Courtesy of Dungeons of Klang

This map is bonkers. None of its rooms are labeled, for one. But there's a brilliant madness: to simulate a demonic spider's web, the levels of the map are literally entwined. One can walk aside the other tunnels of the map without ever reaching them, you have to use teleportation gates to descend from one layer of Lolth's web to the next (which also defeats the point of them being overlapped?).

I love this. I also love how brain-broken I am that I see the Tree of Life in Kabbalah and think of The Demonweb Pits. But, such is life!

What if my idea for a weird space-time-distorted map took inspiration from both? 

The sefirah could be rooms (or small collections of rooms, to keep with the system of 1 room / day = 30 rooms...) and rather than being physically connected, teleporters hop from one to the next. These teleporters - while confusing at first - would allow for some dramatic uncertainty. "we've cleared this room. Are we ready for what comes next? Where will we end up?"

In Practice

Behold, the Hall of Space! Level 10, labeled J, which is my attempt to make a more abstract level, reflecting that we're so deep down below that we're stretching into space/time distortions.

You enter this place at the very bottom, through a magical doorway from the Sewer level above (on this map it's labeled with a green Aleph). Entering it, the stone rooms are connected by glowing blue curtains of light, rather than traditional doors. In the first room there's no rolls involved: push your way through the light, appear on the other side. There's a tingling sensation, and something like nostalgia, and you have traveled forth.

Stepping onto one of the teleporters - labeled with orange alephs in the map, א 1 - א10 players are presented with the same curtains of blue light. Push forward, and they find themselves on the next step of the journey. 

This gets trickier once you've gone beyond Yesod (depicted as a womb above, which we'll get to), where there are multiple connections. Here is the GM's key:

 

I regret going this hard in the Hashem sauce, since while keeping with the authenticity of the material, this isn't a good map. It's a sefirotic map, but as I was designing all these rooms and points I constantly had to refer back to it to try and make accurate descriptions. Which is a sign of a bad map, imo.

Yet the colors are what's most important! By venturing into one point (which is both a sefirot and a collection of three-ish rooms) you can progress along the next level of The Tree of Life when you've explored the sefirot fully. It's not exactly a puzzle, you just have to experience what's in all three rooms. This is to deliberately prevent "speedrunning", even as that's never a real concern at the table. 

Then the intrepid heroes can teleport along the red paths, then the blue, then the purple...and make their way up to Keter and beyond! This will later reward exploration. The fifth connection are the orange lines, and a party that has explored the whole place can easily, quickly traverse the whole tree with that connection opened up. 

But not TOO quickly either...it will still be about 3 turns (in Errant speak) which means traveling through will proc at least one roll for a random encounter.

In Body

I liked the man-metaphor of the sefirot, so when I started drawing Keter I ended up making a vague face. Then when I went on to Binah and Chochmah, I did the left and right halves of a brain. 

Myr Regath was destroyed by ancient magic, but its last Queen - The Queen In Lilac - was able to divine that the end was coming. She used up all her powers to try and ward off the destruction, but even with all her sorcerous might she could only deflect and not stop ruination. The result of that is the stratification of the city's ruins. What wasn't obliterated survives in strange pockets, buried at different depths in the rocky mountains. 

Go down far enough, and things get even weirder. Where space and time folded to try and save the Queen's personage, it acts as a prism to refract the light of Ein Sof: it is not the literal body of God, but a body nonetheless: sefirah repeatedly in a fractal pattern. Those who explore Myr Regath walk one path, while the road of the path continues ever on, backwards and forwards in time. As one traverses the strange, light-curtained halls, you may encounter creatures of the ancient past in conflict with creatures from the far future.

In this case, dinosaurs and mind flayers.

J30 Skull & Crown: The angel KHEREBEL guards the exit from Level 10 to Level 11 (The Queen's Ziggurat). Deep feminine voice, loves talking about fire, God's love, and you leaving back where you came from. LOOT: 4 Legendary Hordes + Kherebel shrinks, and you can take the talking sword with you!

J29 The Eye of Knowledge: Stairs leading up to wooden room. On left wall, hard-light resembling weeping eye. In the iris one can see visual flashes of the whole dungeon. Touch it to go anywhere you've already explored. LOOT: 4 LH + Rune of Power

J28 The Eye Torn Out: Earthy fishy smell, bio-luminescent fungus provides dim light. 4 Minflayers (called Brainsquatters in Errant) sit at a technical control panel, discussing how to divide-up and devour the brain of God. LOOT: 4 LH in a nearby chest, activate the control panel to open a gateway to their secret seashell spaceship (clearing that out prevents further Brainsquatters on the random encounter / restock table!)

J25 Mirror Palace: Shining reflects from mirror-crystal panels. Spend a TURN exploring and make a MIND Test: undo one curse, malady or affliction. Fail and find yourself navel-gazing in your own reflection, adding a NEGATIVE DIE to your next Event Die.

J26 Golem Graveyard Smell of woodsmoke, oil, sound of whirring. Machinery is unusable save for The Golems (and those with 18+ Mind). Consulting the machines for 1 TURN lets you ask one lore question to the GM, who answers honestly.

6 golems words for 'death' upon their brow. Add an aleph to make it Truth, and Create in far-less than 7 days.

J27 Mother Understanding: Trickling water, hum, beastly grunts. D8 Triceratops have wandered into this room, lost and confused. They cannot get out. In this room is a statue of The Shekhinah, for understanding is a Mother. Light incense at her alter to receive her blessing.

Shekhinah's Blessing: the next you would be consigned to the reaper, instead you are taken out of action. 

J24 Library Smell of incense, tall cedar shelves line with books on wisdom and miracles. They contain the true stories of Myr Regath, her Queen, her Fall. Teleporter to Keter & Binah.

Home of a sheydim turned angel, Saint Jacquays, hangs out here. LOOT: 8 LH

J23 Skeleton Code Machine Beep boop, braying goat. Giant skull with a living serpent entwined within. Wires just out from the head into a table full of knobs and levers. On the other side of the room, a goat is tied to a wooden stake. The goat is a primordial archetype; it returns to its place roped to the pole, even if taken as a sacrifice onto the machine table (after 1 EXPLORATION TURN). 

Make sacrifice to the skeleton machine: Roll a D6

1-2: Gain a random spell! This is not a scroll, the character just knows it and can cast it for free before the end of this dungeon expedition.

3-4: The player gains the Wolf's Boon: if they move at least 30' in an INITIATIVE TURN, they become hidden and unseen until the start of their next turn.

5-6: The player learns the True Name of one of The Planetary Angels. (and D6 psychic damage)

J22 Not In Heaven Smell of incense, crackling flames, sparse save for a large wooden table in the back. On the table is a book burning in white and black flame, over which a great Angel and King of Hell argue over scripture.

They are having an argument mirroring the Oven of Akhnai debacle, the King of Hell arguing for a literalist interpretation of scripture, while the Angel argues for a human covenant for The Word of God. Help Nitzachonal win and receive his blessing, help King Pursan and receive his magical trumpet!

Some Thoughts

I am really glad I did this, but I'm going to have to go to the drawing-board before the rubber can meet the road. For the future:

• I'm happy with the actual content of the rooms, but I have to rethink how they're connected.
• I always try and keep the size of the images the same, when laying them all out. I may increase/decrease some of the points in order to actually fit the rooms on The Tree of Life rather than having a separate key. That should be a far easier map to use!
  
• Contrary to the actual progression of The Tree in Kabbalah, I may change the connections (or just what connections are available when) for the purpose of the dungeon level.
  
• A map needs to be useful. I also have to understand what I'm doing in the first place to make a useful guide! :P

I should've had a clearer idea of what I was getting into, but that's part of the process of working on 1 room every single day. It's important to keep up the momentum! Yet I can't help but feel like I'll have to redraft this whole map to actually execute my vision...

I'll update more pics as I change them! For the month of October, I'll be working on the next level of Myr Regath, SHEOL! Sheol means "the grave", and is an Underworld pairing to the divine space-time stuff I had going on in September.