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Thread: March 2014 Entry - Behold the Cliches

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    Guild Artisan madcowchef's Avatar
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    Default March 2014 Entry - Behold the Cliches

    I already had a one page dungeon laid out for the contest by the same name, but am going to go ahead and make a separate one for the guide challenge. This is for two reasons: 1. I don't feel right having additional preparation time 2. the one page dungeon contest usually has very little to do with the map. So I'll be designing a fairly cliche narrative involving a necromancer's undead experiments, with four side rooms and one main one with the mighty beast in it. The main critter which already killed its master (who clearly meddled in god's domain and paid the price *cliche*) is a take on Frankenstein's monster in as much as it is exceptionally bad at staying dead. I'll put up some more crude notes when I have them. And as a final note one man's cliche is another man's classic!

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    Guild Member Facebook Connected The_Buce's Avatar
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    You can always have fun with a cliche - and you can always turn it on it's head! Maybe your necromancer is a lady necromancer who only became a necromancer to bring her long lost love back from the dead!
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    Guild Expert Guild Supporter Lingon's Avatar
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    @The_Buce: So if the necromancer is a woman, her motivation must be love, which would be less cliché? I know you didn't say "must", but… it didn't feel like a great example of turning a cliché on it's head

    But anyway, clichés can be fun if done right! Looking forward to your map, Madcowchef

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    Guild Member Facebook Connected The_Buce's Avatar
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    In that case, before he died he squirrelled away her dowry (we're going fantasy, so I'm assuming there's a dowry - and she has access to knowledge, so she's from an upper-class sort of family) alongside much of the rest of his little fortune, and she wants to get her hands on it! Love be damned lol!

    Or she hated the guy (or gal/beast/alien/demon from the nether-hells) so much that she brought him (/it) back to life again so she could kill him (/it) over and over and over again until she felt better about the whole thing
    Last edited by - Max -; 03-15-2014 at 06:33 AM.
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    Guild Artisan madcowchef's Avatar
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    TLDR writing (for the values of the word writing where my abilities spelling and sentence structure wise count):
    This is the outline I'm going for.

    Sotry Hooks:
    1. Creature killed or badly injured a NPC beloved by the party.
    2. Characters come into town after creature attacked and there is a reward.
    3. Characters are in town when the creature attacks and are the vengeful sorts.
    4. Characters are involved in a larger plot involving a undead god figure and the necromancer in the story clearly recieved divine inspiration from them.

    Location: A mostly burried tower that was part of a fort destroyed in a landslide. It has since been cleared and added to by its current inhabitant a necromancer.

    Back "story": Necromancer (possibly influenced my higher powers) fearing his own mortality was running experiments on seeking immortality through a process by which there would be no way to lay him to rest. Not wanting to experiment on themselves they made a test subject from some spare parts. They created 4 seals that represent the four main forms of attack and 4 common ways of laying something to rest that act as protections. The process worked but the creature in turn destroyed his creator and has been violently doing as it pleases ever since. Having discovered the town and all the wonderful things there its come several times and proved immune to all harm, and strong enough that all attempts to capture or hold it have failed miserably and with the loss of life. It needs to go back to its lair to rest so presumably if there is a way to destroy it the answers lay there.

    Basic mechanics:
    Big heavy seals representing common attack forms are stashed in four rooms. Breaking any one of them would allow the creature to be harmed, but its on the outside of the parties ability so presumably if they are to succeed they will need to break at least a couple. The four attack forms are:
    1 Metal, naturally occurring acids, etc.
    2 Magic
    3 Natural weapons (wood tooth and claw)
    4 Divine magic or classical rituals

    The creature is resting in the lab but will awaken if many of the seals are broken, it takes strong notice of the party, or its harassed in any way.

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    Guild Artisan madcowchef's Avatar
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    Does anyone have any suggestions for the ideal font size to pack as much info as possible without getting so small as to be unreadable? I'm one to write two rows to a line of notebook paper so I'm not sure I trust my own judgement.

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    I would say between 10 and 12 depending on the font (I used 12 on mine and was still able to fit in a lot of text). I also switched my orientation to landscape which somehow illogically seemed to give me more space. I think anything smaller and you run the chance of annoying people because they have to squint.
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    Guild Grand Master Azélor's Avatar
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    Working at 300 dpi you will have a hard time to find a readable font at 10 or 12 of size. It's not impossible but it's much more limited. In my last map I used the size 16 or 18 for the smallest labels and it was a pretty simple font : Babylon 5 Credits Font | Free fonts on fontsy.com

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    The rules on the OnePageDungeon site say the font size is up to you, but if it can't be read when printed on normal paper it won't get judged favorably. That being said, I've seen some pretty small print on some of the winners.

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    Guild Artisan madcowchef's Avatar
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    Thanks for the answers on the font size they give me something to go off of beside my love of tiny lettering. My "writing" awaits editing by my wife before I subject any of you to my spelling in its raw dueling banjos form. Here are the initial map elements, I decided to go with a line illustration style for them for clear printing in keeping with the theme of the challenge. I need the internal details still, as well as the labeling when the writing is closer to complete. Then some doodles around the edge and it will be dungolicious.

    ### LATEST WIP ###
    ChallengeTower2.jpg

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