D1: A beginning and some moral philosophy. Room 1-01: Collapsed Entrance

 And we're off! Good luck to everyone, and I hope you get lots of value out of this exercise. 

The First Room

Here it is

1-01: Collapsed Entrance

Not much, and it's not super clear what's going on, since I haven't figured out how to fill out all the nice details (I'm using dungeonscrawl, based on a recommendation from someone on r/dungeon23. Hopefully it works for me, since after a certain point it will be really difficult to switch to something else.

One mistake I've made, as a result of not knowing dungeonscrawl: to the south (along the curved wall), that's an exterior wall, leading to the central courtyard. The other three directions lead further into the tower.

I wanted the constructed portions to look clearly ruined and ancient, so this room is full of rubble collapsed onto the floor (mostly cave-ins of the floor above and the walls). The main door would have been in the center of the south wall, but it's been collapsed; the door on the left of the rubble represents a narrow squeeze through the rubble which the party can use to enter. The door in the north leads into room 1-02, tomorrow's goal. It's not clear since I haven't carved that room out yet, but there is a heavy portcullis in the north wall, which is probably not openable anymore; the door is another squeeze-through. And the door to the left is locked and/or barred from the other side, requiring expert lockpicking or breaking (DC 20 [expert]). Running from the south entrance to the portcullis is a recessed channel; once upon a time, it guided wagons of supplies into the depths of the fortress.

The room is shadowed, with light flowing in through the collapsed entrance to the south and the remains of arrow-slits and/or windows; the light level is one darker than whatever is outside (bright > low > dark), if no one has artificial light.

Denizens

The room is patrolled by two ruffians/bandits, part of the gang which has taken the McGuffin the party is looking for.

Encounter: Medium (1)

2x Ruffian thugCreature 1

NE Medium  Humanoid 

Perception +5
Languages Common
Skills Crafting +6, Deception +2, Intimidation +2, Society +6, Stealth +5, Underworld Lore +6
Str +1, Dex +2, Con +2, Int +3, Wis +2, Cha -1
Items club, studded leather armor, sling (10 bullets)
AC 17; Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +5
HP 18
Speed 25 feet
Melee club +6 [+1/-4], Damage 1d6+1 bludgeoning
Ranged sling +7 [+2/-3] (propulsive, range increment 50 feet, reload 1), Damage 1d6+1 bludgeoning

Innate spontaneous spells DC 14, attack +4

Cantrips (1st) One has chill touch, the other has gale blast.

Who are the denizens?

D&D, Pathfinder 2e, and all the other combat-based TTRPGs have run into a problem in the last few years: no more 'evil' species (I'm engaging in hyperbole here, warning). I totally get why it's happened, but it's a problem for the conventions of tabletop games. Basically, we need enemies we can fight and kill without moral qualm and without spending all the time to exhaust all other options; the conventions of the game assume a fight to the death is a possible and morally reasonable response (to be clear: in real life, resorting to lethal violence should always be the absolutely last resort and needs to otherwise be fully justified as well).

Historically, D&D has lots of monsters which a literal servant of the concepts of justice or mercy or healing or what-have-you, who lose their powers if they commit a sin, can murder straight up with very little explanation needed. And D&D (take PF as being in exactly the same boat, I just don't want to repeat it a million times) still has lots of those. But understandably, as a society we're getting increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that it's ok to kill someone because of who they are (even in the context of a game), or with the idea that some creatures are inherently and irredeemably evil as a race/species/ancestry/whatever. And that is totally fair and reasonable (I've got a discussion in me I may share this year about how I think people are conflating different types of "otherness" in fantasy, and that orcs have more to do with medieval folktales about fairies and goblins than they do with colonialism or human-on-human racism, but that's way too big a topic for here, and it doesn't actually change the discussion I've had above).

So this problem about baddies its ok to kill centers particularly on intelligent, mundane species. I don't think anyone who buys into a genre where violence is an acceptable solution has a problem with killing physical embodiments of pure evil, like demons or devils, or genre mainstays like evil dragons. Undead, aberations, many magical beasts, are all perfectly fair game--as are animals, although sometimes you get some humanity from your players, who need a good reason to kill the animal, preferring to avoid it or scare if off.

But at low-levels, you're rather limited in level-appropriate foes who are also social, organized, and planning enemies. Anything intelligent and obviously justifiable to kill is either going to be powerful enough that it is too high a level threat if I want the party to have a fair chance (intelligent undead, outsiders, dragons, aberations), kind of pathetic (low level outsiders, baby dragons), or too easy to empathize with, especially given the changes in how they're presented (orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc.)

This is a long way to preface the problem I have to wrestle with: how to have a roster of low-level intelligent enemies the players can choose to murder without opprobrium? Two solutions are to either have something alien enough that the empathy response is dampened (in this case, I'm thinking lizardfolk), or to have the baddies be bad as a result of their actions and choices: cultists, bandits, occupying troops, etc. Honestly, both might work. I remember when my Pathfinder 2e group was first starting out, discovering the contours of this morality. (minor spoilers for a 3-year old book) In the first Age of Ashes book, they have to quickly discover that (a) they really aren't supposed to kill goblins unless it's justified, and (b) they can kill charau-ka and boggards (baboon- and medium frog-people) on sight. It's further complicated in the second book, when the published adventure adds grippli (small frog-people) on the roster of don't-kill-on-sight, which I had to telegraph well in advance.

What I'm doing

As shown by the length of the section above, I haven't made a decision yet. I'm leaning either towards a force of lizardfolk or a cosmopolitan troop of bandits occupying the site. They're clearly evil because they stole the McGuffin. Another way to make it clear that they're irredeemably evil is to have them be about to commit some further evil (murder hostages, raid a town, conduct a ritual, etc.), but to be meaningful, that threat has to have a deadline. Because I want these guys to be a threat at least through level 3, and I can't expect the group to level up more than every 3-4 days in-game at a fast pace, no deadline is going to plausibly feel threatening if it's far enough out. That said, maybe a deadline can emerge further into the adventure. We'll see in February or March, I suppose.

Another thing I threw in that I think is interesting: I like the idea that the magic which is leaking out in this site (maybe centered on the wizard's tower) is affecting or changing the occupiers, to the point that they can do magic. Low-level mooks who are spellcasters seem like the kind of thing which will through a party for a loop. I don't want it to turn into a "super-heroes" thing, though, so I'll need to be careful not to overdo it. And I probably should think about how the site might start impacting the heroes, too.

Ok, 1 day down. I don't think I'll need to go into a huge essay before the next room, at least. Congratulations to everyone for finishing Day 1, and we'll see you on Day 2.