The Fractal Dungeon: Introduction

I've been thinking about this for a very long time.  So much so that I'm sure if I looked, I'd find earlier failed starts on the blog somewhere.  But this time I'm going to see how far this can take me.

I have owned Central Casting: Dungeons for over a decade, a rare-as-hens-teeth book that is dedicated to the creation of random dungeon maps.  See, unlike some people, I frankly struggle conceptualizing what a dungeon should look like.  But Central Casting: Dungeons is a book that gives a method for creating random dungeons with hallways and rooms.  And "random" is a pretty good word for it.  The few times I've made one-page dungeons from the book's many charts the result has been completely without sense.

But I've often wondered what a truly expansive random dungeon would look like.  Would the chaos event yield into patterns, like a fractal?  Or would it come out as some delightfully bizarre?

So, I decided to just go with it.  I would start building and stop when all the many different branches had come to their end.  Even if there were hundreds of rooms.  I decided to keep the implementation simple: Central Casting: Dungeons, a composition book, and graph paper.  Spare enough to carry around in my carrying case/clipboard I got for Christmas.

My graph paper, composition notebook, Central Casting: Dungeons, and carrying case/clipboard

I'd eventually flesh it out using one of the gazillion fantasy RPG's I have laying about on a word processing program, and dress up the maps with pens and/or colored pencils.

And so it begins

I'll update the blog with my progress.  Wish me luck, and let's see how it goes!