About the Dungeon

The Game

The primary focus of this campaign is around a long abandoned Dwarven mine known as Shipslayers.  This is a megadungeon, currently over 15 floors deep, plus sublevels.

What is a megadungeon?

A megadungeon is huge.  It's designed to be explored over and over again, because it's just not practical to get all the way to the bottom in one or even many sessions.  Every time they go into the dungeon, more monsters have filtered into previously cleared areas, bringing more loot with them.  As they go deeper, the monsters get badder and the treasure gets grander.  The goal? Bring back the treasure, by whatever means necessary.  How Mega Is My Dungeon? summarizes megadungeons nicely, and served as a guideline during the creation of my dungeon.

The Campaign

This game is being played in the GURPS system, specifically Dungeon Fantasy.

The primary objective of each session is to enter the dungeon, and come out with enough treasure to pay for living costs: innkeeper, bar tab, equipment maintenance, etc...  For the party to gain any experience, they need to delve the dungeon, not die, and bring back the loot by the end of game session.  Failure on any count imposes xp penalties.

I was at PolyCon explaining this to a friend, and he responded "What are they doing, mugging the dungeon for beer money?"  Hence the name of this blog.

House Rules

Any "Create" spell lasts 24 hours at most.
The defender must choose their active defense before they know if their attacker hit.
The Shape Stone spells simply does not work on construction, masonry, bricks, etc...
Coins weigh .05 lb/each (20 coins/lb)

Experience

The base xp is 5 character points per session.
If the party gets a particularly fantastic treasure, +1 xp.
If the party kills a monster designated as a boss, +1 xp.
If the party finds an area designated as a secret bonus area, +1 xp.
If the whole party doesn't have enough to pay their tab, -1 xp per character.
If any party members die, -1 xp per character.
If any henchmen die, -1 xp.
If the party doesn't leave the dungeon by the end of session, they get nothing.