THE TROPICS OF CANCER
A Gygax 75 Minute Challenge
Preamble
Recently, I wanted to create a low-prep, dungeon-focused, easy-to-grok campaign to run online with my friends and family who've been asking to play some D&D. This is because my local Nightwick Abbey campaign, Where Hell Comes to Prey, is on hold due to one of the players having a new baby. But also because I've got an itch to play some OD&D versus my normal BX tendencies.
I was bouncing an idea off Gus L. of a strange island with weird dungeon entrances that has an active port ruled by an island lord sending out adventurers (I think in part because I rewatching Duneon Meshi). I comment that perhaps it would be best for me to build this out by doing a 2025 Gygax 75 Challenge which I did back in 2022 yielding V'COSA. But Gus suggested a good twist: Instead of doing a section in a week, do a section in 1 hour, then revise later.
Why spend weeks doing something when you can do it in minutes? I find this especially attractive because often I've had RPG ideas grind to a halt because too much energy is poured in worrying about details the players might not (ever) see.
The Gygax 75 (Minute) Challenge: The First 75 Minutes
Obtain a Notebook & Pick a System
I decided to use Google Docs because that would be easiest to share with people. In terms of system, I started to go with Delving Deeper or use some straight OD&D. But I settled for White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game. The simple reason being that if the campaign really got going it would be simple to send to everyone.
Bullet-point Pitch
Selenia is an island that appeared ages ago on all the maps across the Atlantean Archipelago, regardless of age. This new land caused a rush of settlement from the low ranks of Atlantean nobility and higher ranks of the Atlantean guild class. For 100 years, the island was powerful, but calamity struck and the island was wiped clean by typhoons and earthquakes.
Galleon is a city built by the descendants of gladiators, oarsmen, artisans, pirates, foreign dignitaries, and slaves who arrived on deserted Selenia not by choice but via a wrecked pleasure ship commissioned for Hecuba, the last citrinic queen. From its battered hull, ruined by a scylla which was defeated, the city of Galleon has arisen. The city has established itself as a distant, but resourceful and lucrative port in the Saphhire Sea through trading, privateering, and fishing
The palace ship of Hecuba
Galleon is not alone, for another city was founded in the island’s interior from those who sought to escape their lot in life by the freedom the wreck brought- This is the Silent City. They are guided by the Amber Muse, a self-described voice of the island’s former queen Circe who studied the Atlantean ruins that dot the island. While smaller than Galleon, the city is made strong by the sorcery taught to the founders by the Muse. And like Galleon, the Silent City also has its share of distant travelers: lotus-nectared dreamers, traders from Leng, and a colony of cats from Ulthur.
However, the sea has not remained neutral, and despite Galleon’s fleet and the Silent City’s sorcery, something is slipping forth from the dark waves and oceans of dream to wreak havoc. Bodies are left in displays of public augury, nightmares of a dark, cold, crushing benthic hell roll into Galleon in waves, and rumors speak of strange heirs born to the noble families
This is an OD&D campaign set in a swords & sorcery realm where player classes are reinterpreted through a Greek-inspired lens in a low-metal, benthic-encoded world: gladiators (fighters), pirates (thieves), sorcerers (magic-users), augurites (clerics) of either the foreign, terrestrial god AZLN (sun, harvest, order, growth) or the cult of Circe (moon, sea, sky, chaos), or washed shore as sea-born (as elf)
Sources of Inspiration
In Brief: Clash of the Titans + Tortuga + Dagon
TV/Film: Clash of the Titans & a little bit of Dungeon Meshi (and a bit of Black Flag)
Writing: The essay The Putrescent Principle by Jonathan Newell & the Appendix N The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons and Dragons by Peter Bebergel
Art: Nicole Duennebier & of the many famous paintings of myth
Other OD&D Games: Hagfish Hall from Alice of Dungeon Dolls, Through Ultan’s Door by Ben L., Tomb Robbers of The Crystal Frontier by Gus L., "Classic" Nightwick by Miranda Elkins
Misc: Curiosity Cabinets
Mood Board
Nicole Duennebier
The prophet of Azln the Lion of Light defeats the scylla
Various Arenarii (as Fighter)
Circe, the first after the fall of the Atlanteans
I have completed all 5 parts in the past week so I'll be posting each 75-minute effort in the coming days.
I like the mood board idea! Great post.