The Story So Far

It  never fails - no plan survives first contact with the enemy adulting. 

I was doing fairly well keeping up with the Dungeon Year first month until last week. Layoffs at work, rush jobs and a whole lot of unplanned work made a ruin of my schedule and left me no energy for this project. 

But that is okay! Because I knew things like this happen in life and I had allotted some slack in the design for "blank space". In addition, the design of the Capricorn half of January was meant to be more of a sandbox. 

The game is meant to open with the PCs 'awakening' to a strange twilight realm of tinkling glass and gloaming, directionless light. There they quickly discover themselves to be silvery, glass-like simulacra with incomplete memories. They will immediately get a brief lore dump from an NPC, setting the stage for them and setting a few imperative goals: 

1. Collect something called "living shards" (hereafter just "shards"), which they will use to reassemble themselves. 
2. The longer it takes to collect the shards, the more likely your shards will be taken from you by monsters. 
3. Also, after some time the PC will start to transform into one of the local monsters of this quasi-world, forever. 
4. Once each person has "enough" shards, they may transit through the Gates of Janus (1-19) to exit the dungeon, a complete person. 

The party will have three days (or Long Rests) to collect all the shards they can, usually by harvesting them from local monsters, all of whom need these shards to survive. In the meantime, the monsters will also be attempting to take THEIR shards, and after each period of rest the PC will begin to feel "less attached". 

In order to keep the players moving and seeking out shards, they will have to roam throughout this twilit realm and collect shards (I'm thinking 6-8 per character; this is a minigame which I will detail below). Thus many areas are simply open, and the players will be sweeping each area for shards. As far as unique locations, I have front-loaded them into the early days (except for 1-19: The Temple of Janus). The Lens of Oroboros(1-1), the goblin hunting den (1-3), the Onion Fort (1-11), the Silver Lake (1-6), the New Moon area (1-18) and the Shrine to Hecate. 

I will probably redistribute these features to other areas. I don't want to have set-piece areas clustered too closely together.... but maybe I'll add another goblin hunting den. I haven't decided yet. But the empty spaces between them will be key for random encounters which will provide those precious shards. 

Anyway, I will need to get a wiggle on to catch up with January. Fingers crossed - things seem to be normalizing at work! 

1-12: Treacherous Roads

 1-12: This area has more traffic than some of the other empty quarters, primarily because of its location between the Onion Fort and the Temple of Janus. You are far more likely to encounter Janussaries here than other regions, and as a result, oddly less likely to encounter goblins, who avoid the Janussaries like the plague. 

Janussaries will absolutely stop to investigate any activity they see or hear, unless they are on some urgent task (like returning to the Temple with more "recruits"). 

1-12 accesses the four surrounding territories; 1-5, 1-11, 1-13 and 1-19. 

1-11: The Onion Fort

 1-11: The Onion Fort. 

Standing alone on this broad plane of glass dunes, an enormous, onion-shaped edifice, with slits and cracks and firing ports, and a single, always-closed gate. This is the town of the goblins, where they bring all their loot. 

Within the fort, goblin town is 'organized' by competing gangs, ruled by goblin thugs and bosses, with King Boss at the center. The goblin leaders are stronger, each with individual “mutations” they’ve gained from consuming shards. But none are so mighty as King Boss Goblin. Outside of the High Priest of Janus, King Boss is the most individually powerful creature in the Mirrorverse.

The goblins make maximum use of death architecture; traps, pits, murder holes, imprisoned creatures let loose into controlled locations. The town is separated into individual, fortified complexes shaped from the glass-goo. They are as fearful of each other as they are of outsiders. 

King Boss Goblin is crafty and wise, there’s no point in letting people wander in and risk his personal safety when he could throw many goblins at the problem and escape in the chaos. 

1-10: Southern Bank of the Great Plateau

 1-10: Southern Bank of the Great Plateau

The three southern tunnels from 1-3 exit here along a long smooth slope. A faint road or path crossing this territory seems to get more use on the eastern side of the territory (the route most goblins take to get to their town and their Boss. Another path leads due south, but it seems less used as well. 

This area accesses 1-3 via the tunnels, or areas 1-9, 1-11 and 1-17 via roads. 

1-9: More Open territory

 1-9: More Open Ground

Much like area 1-7, the only features here of note are the roads which cross the territory in each cardinal direction. Random encounters! 

The road extends north to 1-2, east to 1-10, south to 1-16 and west to 1-8. 

Note that the northern and easter routes take you back to areas that can access the goblin hunting den and/or the vast plateau, area 1-3, depending on whether one takes toe overland or underground route. 

1-8: Goddess of the Crossroads

 1-8: The Crossroads

Much like 1-7 and 1-9, there is little of note in this broad expanse of glass dunes besides a road that runs East-West. Another road extends from the north to the south. Where the two meet is a shrine; a three headed goddess whose faces point in each cardinal direction except north. 

This statue represents the Threefold Goddess Hecate, goddess of magic, travelers, the Moon, and the crossroads. Since most travelers here are either devotees of Janus or insensate creatures, there's very little need for Hecate to have an active presence here, but given that *some* travelers are like you, the party, and may have incomplete personas, it is possible to gain some small boon here. It may be a point in the right direction, a cryptic clue, or possibly even a shard, but it will be granted only once. 

Random encounters do not occur near the shrine; it is a safe place to camp... assuming you have the time. 

The roads extend north to 1-1, south to 1-15, west to 1-7 and east to 1-9. 

1-7: Open Road

 1-7: The Open Road

A worn path snakes its way across this expanse of glass dunes, extending from relative east to west. Towards the middle of this stretch there is a fork in the path leading south (to 1-14). 

Other than random encounters, there is nothing of interest in this area.