Sector 23 Challenge

 

A new writing challenge is spreading like wildfire in online TTRPG spheres: the Dungeon 23 Challenge. Create a 365-room megadungeon (or other TTRPG location) in 2023, one room a day. Sean McCoy, who initiated this challenge, wrote it, urges the creators taking up this challenge to not overthink things, and use generators whenever possible.

I initially thought about creating a post-apocalyptic Bunker 23, but I had trouble choosing a post-apocalyptic dungeon crawl ruleset (I have certain reservations with using Mutant Future, and Other Dust is sometimes a bit too weird for my tastes). I did consider hacking Swords & Wizardry: Core to suit my needs, but that defeats part of the simplicity inherent in this setting.

So, back to my usual haunts! A Proto-Traveller sector rolled one world a day, with me writing at least one paragraph of descriptive text for each such world. Approx. 30 worlds per subsector. As a Traveller sector has 16 subsectors and a Terran year only has 12 months, I decided to add a rift - a (mostly) empty region of space to this sector, encompassing subsectors D, H, L, and P.

For the rest, before each month, I will prepare a "dot map" of star locations in the subsector, with a number of stars equal to the number of days in that month, then fill it in with actual worlds, one day at a time.

I'll write this up digitally, and gradually post here on my blog what I came up with.

Here is the "dot map" of Subsector A:

A few initial setting notes before I start rolling up worlds tomorrow:

• The Star Empire collapsed. Two centuries passed. There is no central government controlling the entire sector, but local multi-world governments may exist, depending on my rolls.
• Many worlds regressed following the Collapse. A few retained advanced technology (the Star Empire was TL15, with TL16 in R&D stages). Fewer may have even advanced. This explains the varied technologies and societies on the various worlds. Some worlds lost their population but were re-colonized by their neighbors.
• There may be alien species, both local, at various technological levels, and interstellar. Potentially even some of the Star Empire's many foes invading its badly defended former territory.
• There are alien ruins. At least of one (group of?) ancient species - the Antediluvians - left behind ruins. Additional waves of civilization may exist.
• Technology is Proto-Traveller, that is, having a 1980's flavor to it, with some more "modern" information technologies (and even AIs) at the (rare) high TLs.
• No empty-hex jumps. You need gravity wells on both sides of the jump trajectory. This gives space an interesting "topography".
• Small-ship universe. This means that invading high-tech, high-population star systems is near-impossible without inside help, as it is easier to set up interplanetary defenses than create an interstellar fleet to counter them. The Star Empire may have had big High Guard ships; but they are (mostly?) gone by now.
• This leads to the next point - without vast invasion fleets, interfering with neighboring worlds requires gunboat diplomacy, infiltration, manipulation, covert operations, and other things which may be easy to involve PCs in at prominent roles.

Sources of Inspiration:

• Proto-Traveller; think of how Classic Traveller looked with only Books 1-4, Supplements 1-4, and Adventures 1-4.
• Crying Suns, a video game where you control a former Imperial battlecruiser and move through the remnants of a collapsed interstellar empire. Highly recommended!
• Dune, at least for the Star Empire's former politics.
• A little bit of inspiration from Fading Suns, a semi-apocalyptic interstellar sci-fi TTRPG.