Ye Olde Fantasy Itch

I've been watching Lord of the Rings, built the LEGO Rivendell set, started on the LEGO Medieval Village set (all fun), and have been doing a lot of cancer-treatment related stuff (generally less fun). I ended up in the ER for something of a false alarm over the last two days, but better safe than sorry and all of that. I'm feeling pretty well considering I'm two rounds into chemotherapy - although I am well aware it is likely to get more challenging the further I go.

I also got the vast majority of the Stalwart '85 books sent out (I am missing maybe three addresses still), and have the KS somewhere around 90% fulfilled. I still need to finish the adventure I am writing, the comic pages I am putting together, the web site, and (ideally) some online support. Those are all relatively significant things, but the physical books being out in the wild was the BIG thing (and what people were paying for). The stretch goals I feel okay if they take a little longer to get done. I'll get there, and they'll be better if I wait for inspiration to drive them forward. I tried working on them after shipping lots of books, and it felt like work. That's never good. So, back burner for the moment, but on simmer.

However, I took out the rules for Hack'D and Slash'D, but felt like playing something a little meatier and more 'classic D+D' - which is fortunate, because I have one of THOSE games, too. I started to think about a dungeon crawl campaign for Tales of the Splintered Realm, and decided I wanted to create a classic cleric class for that game (which will be easy enough to do), and then put together a team to explore Moridis Halls, which I am placing beneath Stalwart Keep to unify things a bit. I managed to figure out how the existing map fits under the keep, and it's going to require some revisions of existing concepts, but it's all pretty doable. Here's the Stalwart Keep map with the overlay of the Halls. It's not very pretty (the blue dungeon overlay is a bit awakward), but it gives a sense of how the two fit together... and provides a scale for the upper keep in reference.

I can see a few ways into it... 

• There is going to be a secret door connected to the western well.
• The northern well descends directly into a pool. This will be blocked from the rest of the dungeon by a heavy portcullis.
• There is a stairway down into the dark temple from an unnumbered building towards the east (north of building 4) that is going to be a secret society of dark friars that worship Moridis.
• The northern exit will go outside of the keep, to a secret entrance used by goblins (I think) that is further down the side of the hill. Moridis has been calling the goblins to her.
• The northern section also has an entrance used by a dwarven clan of brewers who use the mushroom halls to get the mushrooms used in their strange but potent ales. Their connection to the earth has also allowed them to hear the whisperings of Moridis from the deep. They would have motivation to get some adventurers to go down there and figure out what's going on.

I have quite a bit of free time on my hands, so starting a long-term fantasy solo campaign is not a bad way to use that time. If I end up with some publishable content out of it, all the better.