THE SHATTERED LABYRINTHS OF ILLITH VARN (megadungeon summary, overview, and backstory)

 My players are nearly done with this, so I feel like I can do a lot of unveiling.

This is a 400+ room mega-dungeon with multiple levels and sub-levels, built around a direct goal: retrieve the SKOROS ORB, the mysterious artifact used by the evil wizard ILLITH VARN to wage war upon the KINGDOM OF OROSTRANTHY. It is meant for mid- to high-level play: my players started around level 13 or 14, and are now between levels 20 and 22. Each main level has 60-70 rooms and each sub-level has 30-50 rooms, heavily themed around classic Dungeons and Dragons tropes: traps, treasure, exploration, secrets, vivid NPCs, factions, difficult boss fights, and open-ended puzzles and problems. At the same time, a number of factions are vying simultaneously to retrieve the Skoros Orb, including a rival party, THE DEADBOYZ. This campaign has provided us maybe three or four years of play, and my players are nearing the conclusion.

My campaign also featured a lengthy prelude adventure as the party and their caravan traveled to the dungeon, but I don't think I'll discuss that here, as my main interest is in describing the megadungeon and providing the maps and room list.

WHAT'S THE BACKSTORY?

There is a deep history backstory, but I will start about a hundred years ago. The Kingdom of Orostranthy was having a golden age, ruled by King Gregor and Queen Ursula, who had just after great difficulty borne their first son, Prince Roderick. Think a fairy tale kingdom, enjoying freedom and prosperity, full of knightly orders, kindly political intrigue, and success after success in beating back the monsters on their doorstep. The king's cousin, Illith Varn, a jealous man who felt he had been denied the rights to the throne, sought to secretly assassinate the infant prince, in order to bring himself back into the line of succession. The assassination attempt failed, and King Blood could not bring himself to execute his own cousin, and so exiled him to the Goblin Wastes. 

Illith Varn's jealousy grew, and in his exile increased his already considerable magical talent to incredible levels. He built an army of beastmen and monsters and recruited a number of discontents and former friends to his side. Most crucially, his magic guided him to an ancient complex within a cracked canyon, and in its depths discovered a magic orb, as if it had been waiting for him. He made the complex his headquarters, and from it, waged war on Orostranthy, hoping to overthrow the king and install himself as its wizard ruler. With the power of the Skoros Orb, he was able to carve a path toward the capital. 

His military and magical might were not sufficient against the united power of Orostranthy. His army was scattered and the remnants were driven back into his headquarters. Illith Varn hid himself in the complex's depths as his remaining generals attempted to fight off the armies of Orostranthy, but assassins crept inside and surprised him in his sanctum. They defeated and decapitated him, but in the ensuing chaos the Skoros Orb was lost, and the assassins fled empty handed. The complex was sealed up, and Orostranthy declared victory.

In truth, however, Illith Varn had hatched a contingency plan, in case of his demise. He had carefully studied the orb and determined that its nature was three-part: it held a physical body and two souls, one of which belonged to Hell, and one of which belonged to the Astral Plane. In secret, he discovered a suitable sanctum in the Astral Plane, and made contact with suitable allies in Hell, and prepared a spell tying his life-force to the Skoros Orb: if he were to die, the Skoros Orb would split. Its Hell Soul would be caught by his allies in Hell, and its Astral Soul would be deposited in his secret sanctum, along with his own soul, to prevent him from passing entirely to the afterlife. In this way, he planned to have his remaining generals gather the pieces of the Skoros Orb and use its power to resurrect him, so he could continue his mad plan.

This did not work out either. His remaining generals--VEXX THE ARCHER, MALAGON OF THE CRUELEST EYE, KAVIEL THE STRANGE, and SER SENEDAR THE WHITE-- became dead-locked in their final schemes. The physical body of the Skoros Orb was found by chance by a vampire queen and jealously guarded in her sunken castle, and the souls of the Skoros Orb remained deposited in their extradimensional vaults. The soul of Illith Varn, trapped in the timeless Astral Plane, turned insane, while his headless body and his bodiless head took on an un-life of their own, and became terrors of the deep.

And nearly a hundred years later, restless, the Skoros Orb has revealed itself again. It has appeared in the dreams and magical scrying methods of dozens of entities across the land, and one by one they converge upon the SHATTERED LABYRINTHS OF ILLITH VARN, to descend into its depths, and vye to retrieve the ultimate prize...

WHAT IS THE DEEPER BACKSTORY, AND WHAT IS THIS PLACE EXACTLY?

Millennia ago, a continent spanning empire known only as Uldru arose. They grew to dominance and then fell apart, leaving the continent covered in ruins. What few know but many suspect is that they achieved their power through magical cunning. Emperor Haxus' six-hundred and sixty-six wizards saw in their scrying glasses the possibility of creating an artifact capable of granting the wish of whoever held it, and advised him to construct a great temple to Sefve, the White Goddess of Violence, and use its architecture itself to cast a mighty spell and imprison the malign SKYCANCER within a magic orb, concentrating its horrific power into a single point. Four princesses and four hundred forty-four virgins were sacrificed in the depths of the temple to consecrate the ritual, but soon after, something happened the emperor did not expect: while excavating their temple, they found another temple, deep underground, empty and abandoned, and dedicated to an unknown god.

Through dreams and portents, Demogorgon made himself known to the emperor, and promised greater power, and the pursuit of the Skoros Orb was abandoned, as the ritual governing its creation would take many years to come to fruition. The empty temple to Demogorgon was once again filled with priests and high mass was conducted, and the cult of Demogorgon grew. Worship of the White Goddess of Violence was abandoned in the highest ranks all across Uldru, to be replaced with worship of Demogorgon. With his power, the kingdom of Uldru grew to its greatest heights. 

At some point during this period, Uldru crossed the ocean and waged war upon the pharaohs of the Psychodesert, and bore the Black Pyramid of the Grinning Pharaoh across the seas as a war trophy.

Upon death, every soul of the kingdom of Uldru was consigned to Hell. Long afterward, the Skoros Orb successfully accreted in the depths of Sefve's great temple, but no one was present to gather it. The Temple to Sefve was abandoned until Illith Varn discovered it much, much later.

WHAT IS THE DEEPEST HISTORY OF THIS PLACE?

Demogorgon, one of the great gods of Hell and self-proclaimed ruler of reality (this claim is disputed), decided to join Hell and Reality together in unity, just as his two heads, Hethradiah and Aameul, are joined. He bade his adherents construct him a temple dedicated to his left head, Hethradiah, far from Castle Satan (Hell's center of civilization), and there to make contact with the proto-civilizations stirring in Reality. This was long before the time of Uldru, and long before most relevant geographical and geological formulations occurred. The human proto-civilizations heeded the call of the mysterious beings they saw in their dreams. They constructed a grand temple to a god called Aameul, and build a great archway within the temple, and bathed it in sacrificial blood and magic materials, and their prayers were answered: the way to Hell opened.

Hell then marched through and performed a total genocide on the surrounding land. Demons slaughtered everyone for miles around. Hell and Reality intermingled. The Dead marched under the living sun. A reigning demon lord was crowned to rule Reality, who reported directly to the Archbishop of Hethradiah in Hell, who incidentally was named Gorgrudoch. (For personal reasons, Demogorgon prefers not to be named, and at some point decided to strike his name from the record, instead preferring to be referred to only by the names of his heads) 

This continued for a really long time, but as all things change, so too does the power of Hell. The invasion was eventually beaten back by the surrounding powers, and gate to Hell closed, and the temple to Aameul in Reality burned. But they could not tear it down entirely, and over the years, it became buried by the passage of mountains, to be hidden deep underground like a poison geode. The Archbishop Gorgrudoch in Hell retired, passing his title to the Archbishop Aggreal, formerly of the Council of Satan.

A long time passed. The Kingdom of Visigardia, a human kingdom, found itself saddled with an unusual curse: its bloodthirsty and cruel monarch, developed a taste for blood, as well as a distinct distaste for sunlight, and discovered that he was immortal and invincible, and could share this power with those who drank his blood. They had a good run for a few generations, but eventually the power landed on a particularly brutal father-daughter pair: King Alexander Draculesti Pelioth and Princess Tetranoska Vorgunel Pelioth. They and their family blotted out the sun and turned to mass slaughter. Eventually the king died of plague and the new Queen Tetranoska and her remaining family ate everyone in their kingdom, and when the neighboring powers came with vampire hunters to kill them, sank their castle with magic deep within the earth, and upside down, to be as far from the sun as possible. By coincidence, this was not far from the empty Temple of Aameul.

Some time later, the Purple Archdragon Terrifex came from the West and declared a barren mountain range his territory. He slew the Titan Iat who dwelled there and burrowed deep underground with all the titan's wealth. By coincidence (?), this was near to the Blood Queen's Turned Castle. 

Then all the stuff with Uldru and Demogorgon happened, and all these characters suddenly found themselves wary neighbors.

Maybe about five hundred years ago, in the lofty Mountains of Hunger, a ruthless Witch Queen faced rebellion at the hands of her subjects. Queen Jupiter Volaris, the self proclaimed Sky Witch, was overthrown. After her humiliating defeat, she packed up her fortress and flew it into the sky, never to be seen again, except for an occasional raid upon the surface world. Many years passed. Upon learning that the Skoros Orb had been found again in the Canyons of Pain and Misfortune, she determined to find it for herself and restore herself to power. She entered the Shattered Labyrinths and was quickly caught by General Malagon of the Cruellest Eye, leaving her fortress abandoned in the sky above the canyons. 

These wary factions are now dead-locked in a cold war. Queen Tetranoska possesses the physical body of the Skoros Orb, but does not understand why its power is diminished. The Hell Gate in the Temple of Aameul has reopened, and though the Archbishop Aggreal has sent his dead scouts and assassins to seek the other components of the Skoros Orb, he cannot penetrate the Turned Castle, and his scouts do not return from the Astral Plane. Kaviel the Strange and Ser Senedar scheme to steal the Skoros Orb from Queen Tetranoska, and Kaviel has embedded himself in the Queen's courts, but she is too paranoid and powerful for him to make a successful move. General Malagon of the Cruellest Eye has managed to create a small headquarters for himself, guarded by elementals and an insane biomechanist and trained crane-men, but no longer has interest in Illith Varn or the Skoros Orb or really even life itself, and instead plans to find a means to exit Reality for good. And the Black Pyramid of the Grinning Pharaoh sleeps undisturbed, though none are aware that the pharaoh lives on within, and his Golden Dragon, sealed inside by the armies of Uldru, has been awake inside these long millennia.

That's it for now. Got it? :)

WHAT DO THE PLAYERS KNOW AT THE START?

Pretty much none of the above. Provide them only with the legend of Illith Varn, though no one really knows the powers of the Skoros Orb, except that it is said to be mighty, and to be able to grant wishes. As lay-people, they would probably know that "A mad wizard once made war upon the kingdom, but he failed and was beheaded in his own headquarters. His orb was lost, but it is said to have been found again! Many now seek it." His generals are not common knowledge, though a historian would know their identities. Illith Varn's relation to the king is not common knowledge, as it is distasteful.

The three part nature of the Skoros Orb is another strict secret, only to be begun to be hinted at as the players near coming into possession of whatever piece they happen to pursue first. Each holder of the Skoros Orb knows its power is broken or diminished, but very select few know why. However, if the players complete an optional and very difficult challenge on the first floor, they will be rewarded this knowledge early.

Uldru and their war on the Psychodesert is common knowledge to the educated, but no one knows they worshipped Demogorgon. The name of Demogorgon is strictly secret, and should never be mentioned (I accidentally had a NPC reveal it a little too early, but I think it worked out)--in fact, it's possible the emperor himself did not know who he worshipped. Historians would know of the White Goddess Sefve.

Illith Varn knew about the Skycancer, though in his pride he did not imagine its influence could be corrupting, and was not very curious about its nature or provenance. A keen observer might note that Illith Varn’s wish was granted, though in a corrupted form: Orostranthy’s war with Varn led to its ultimate decline, despite Varn’s death. The Skycancer’s nature is known only to the Emperor Haxus, and even his understanding is incomplete, like what a common person might know about hurricanes. Therefore, this is another strict secret, only to be revealed much later, and at the appropriate time.

The existence of Visigardia is lost to history entirely.

The existence of a Purple Dragon is known to specialists in legend, though his name is not known, and his location is not known. The Titan Iat is maybe known to locals as a legend. The existence of a Golden Dragon is known only to specialized historians, and all records state the Golden Dragon was slain in the war with Uldru. For maximum horror and surprise, the Golden Dragon should only be revealed when the players first gaze upon it, ideally at the moment of its release.

The Psychodesert still exists in common knowledge and the Great Pharaohs as well, though a legendary Grinning Pharaoh is a little bit lost to time. Historians and archaeologists would have heard of him, and I set it up so that the PCs traveled with such a fellow in their caravan.

The existence of Hell is about as widely believed in as it is here in the real world. The existence of demons gives the belief some credit, though in fact, most demons do not originate from Hell, and are instead malicious spirits or monsters or creatures that are called "demons" out of ignorance. All of that about Castle Satan and so on is not known in reality, except to those very unlucky few who have been to Hell and returned alive. Hell's brief reign in reality is a dim memory, a proto-nightmare remembered by some very unlucky few. For the purposes of my game, I made some small references to Hell and established it as another plane of existence, but that's it. Then, to gently encourage my players to overcome their fear and explore this terrifying new plane, I supplied them some exposition before they stepped through the Hellgate. You may decide not to do this, and let them discover for themselves what lies on the other side.

The existence of an Astral Plane is known to wizards, but it is unlike the classic Forgotten Realms Astral Plane in many ways. They might know it as a plane of chaos, a great sea that connects many places together, where little is stable, and many spirits and places of power can be found. The closeness of the Astral Plane may be felt by very keen psychics and savants, though they will likely not be able to explain precisely what it is they feel. As it is a foreign concept with no analog to reality, it might be nice to have an NPC introduce the place directly before they step inside.

The history of the Sky Witch might be known to a historian, though it's mostly treated as legend. It would not be immediately obvious to anyone that the floating castle would be hers, though a historian squinting through a telescope might be reminded of such a legend. Would she really still be alive...?

WHAT ARE THE LEVELS

Here is the level list.

LEVEL ONE

THE TOWER OF SLIME (Sub-Level One)

LEVEL TWO

THE FLYING FORTRESS OF THE SKY WITCH (Sub-Level Two)

THE BLACK PYRAMID OF THE GRINNING PHARAOH (Sub-Level Three)

LEVEL THREE

THE TURNED CASTLE OF THE BLOOD QUEEN (Sub-Level Four)

THE PIT OF TERRIFEX THE PURPLE DRAGON (Sub-Level Five)

THE MANY-PATTERNED HALLS (Sub-Level Six)

 THE TEMPLE OF DEMOGORGON (Sub-Level Seven)

Now I'll describe the main and sub-levels, as well as some of the essential story beats contained within.

THE SURFACE

The Canyons of Pain and Misfortune. They are full of vividly colored fog, which emanates from the broken gates of the labyrinths. The canyon floor is strewn with weaponry and skeletons. A trickle of slime emerges from a crack. Far, far above, a shining fortress is hovering in the sky.

Connections to: Level One. The Flying Fortress of the Sky Witch.

LEVEL ONE

A ruined wizardly headquarters, and the site of a final, brutal battle. Some final soldiers of Illith Varn's armies remain miraculously alive, preserved by the power of the Skoros Orb. The White Chapel to Sefve, where the White Priest Lobis yet sleeps. A river of slime flows through this level.

Bosses:

OROSTRANTHIAN ELF MECHA: A golem built around the flesh of a mutant elf, used by Orostranthy to break down the gates of the labyrinths, and prevent others from entering.

OROSTRANTHIAN WAR GOLEMS: Seven war golems, deployed for the same purpose.

GENERAL VEXX: The first of Illith Varn's four generals, driven to insanity from grief. He wields a bow.

CONNECTIONS TO: Level Two, The Tower of Slime

THE TOWER OF SLIME

Once the quarters of the builders of this ancient complex, now flooded with a river of slime running upwards from its depths. Insectile creatures from another dimension, and bizarre constructs. Poison gas and instant death. 

BOSS:

THE SLAAD TRIUMVIRATE: A trio of slaad who have opened a portal to the PLANE OF SLIME from the stomach of a mutilated and tortured unicorn, which yet lives.

CONNECTION TO: The Pit of Terrifex, The Purple Dragon

LEVEL TWO

Deeper underground. Older parts of Sefve's temple, less disturbed. The Headquarters of Malagon of the Cruellest Eye, a well-guarded base, where the Sky Witch is kept captive. The Biorecombination Lab, an extremely hostile area filled with toxic crystal gas and recombinated mutants. The passage to the Black Pyramid of the Grinning Pharaoh.

BOSS:

GENERAL MALAGON OF THE CRUELLEST EYE. A powerful wizard, who specializes in disintegration.

ILKEN WART, THE BIORECOMBINATOR: An insane guy in a gimp suit with Doc Ock arms, who is also a powerful wizard.

Connections to: The Black Pyramid. Level Three. The Flying Fortress of the Sky Witch.

THE BLACK PYRAMID OF THE GRINNING PHARAOH

At first, a silent tomb. The armies of the Grinning Pharaoh are dead. All paths lead to the treasure chamber of the Golden Dragon. Then, noise and screaming. Noise marines, sonic weaponry, flashing lights, a lethal disco floor. 

BOSSES:

THE GOLDEN DRAGON. A small dragon, all of shining gold, but with the equivalent stats of an ancient dragon, but maybe a little worse. After release, he pursues the PCs throughout the dungeon, setting traps and ambushes, until successfully beaten back, after which he can be challenged within his lair.

THE GRINNING PHARAOH: As my players have declined to challenge the Grinning Pharaoh thus far, I can say no more, except that he sits upon a giant throne which screams and shoots lasers.

THE FLYING FORTRESS OF THE SKY WITCH

A fanciful fairy-tale fortress full of spirits and ensorcelled demons. An enchanted princess and a captured prince. A very annoying jester, Ptim Parie, who disrupts magic cast in his presence. An arrogant green dragon, Corvenon, who is the son of a poison star. Darkened magical gardens, elves who have been doing the same dance for centuries, and an unstoppable Spirit of the West.

BOSS:

None?

LEVEL THREE

Flooded with water, a swamp. Mosquitoes. The site of the summoning ritual which conjured the Skoros Orb, A Demon of Song, formed from the sorrow of one of the sacrifices. Then, a snowy forest. The Headless Body of Illith Varn. The party of Kaviel the Strange, who has not come back. The Temple of Aameul, and the Hellgate. The Golden Tomb of Illith Varn, and Illith Varn's severed head, and peaceful Ser Senedar the White, who holds vigil. The Seat of the Skoros Orb, where it was found, and where it can be recombined.

BOSSES:

THE DEMON OF SONG: A crimson demon whose song enchants all who hear it, surrounded by fey demons. 

THE BODY OF ILLITH VARN: His neck stump spews cursed blood and he shoots lightning and death spells from his outstretched finger-tips.

DEACONS OF AAMEUL: A group of dead priests from Hell, armed with cunning daggers, soul magic, and ambush.

THE HEAD OF ILLITH VARN: A classic Demilich, except he's not a skull, and won't attack on sight. Soul sucking powers, corrosive vision, 9th level spells, and instant death attacks. Chatty, but has a magic mushroom growing out of his head that the players might want.

Connections to: THE TURNED CASTLE, THE MANY PATTERNED HALLS, THE TEMPLE OF DEMOGORGON

THE TURNED CASTLE OF THE BLOOD QUEEN

An upside-down castle sinking into a pool of blood. Inside, an ancient decadent family of vampires might have fun meeting intruders for the first time in centuries. A psychic vampire prince schemes to steal power from the Blood Queen, who hides in a tower filled with anti-magic blood, along with the Skoros Orb. Only her three most trusted family members have the key to get in. A secret path in the basement to Terrifex's pit.

BOSS:

KAVIEL THE STRANGE and THE BLOOD QUEEN, TETRANOSKA: Kaviel may seek to steal the Skoros Orb from the Blood Queen at the very moment the players do, as he understands she is more powerful than he is. Kaviel: a powerful swordsman, wielding powerful elemental magic. Tetranoska: a more powerful swords-woman, who can also command blood, as well as the physical shell of the Skoros Orb.

Connections to: The Pit of Terrifex, The Purple Dragon. Level Three.

THE PIT OF TERRIFEX, THE PURPLE DRAGON

A series of bottomless pits, filled with invisible force webs, in which are suspended the weaponry and regalia of the Titan Iat. Terrifex sleeps in the titan's electric crown, and his skull are nearby. He may talk if you're very nice. Past him, a series of dwarf warrens, of the proto-dwarfs who originally opposed the invasion of Hell. A Holy Avenger spear, but a little less powerful than the classic type.

BOSS: TERRIFEX, THE PURPLE DRAGON: If the players fight him, they're fucked.

Connections to: The Turned Castle of the Blood Queen. The Tower of Slime.

THE MANY-PATTERNED HALLS

Entrance can be found through Illith Varn's Golden Tomb. A shifting, hostile, extradimensional hellscape that traps the players. Incoherent spirits and lost souls. A simple puzzle made complicated by the shifting terrain. At the center, the Soul of Illith Varn, gone insane from eternity trapped inside, and the Astral Soul of the Skoros Orb.

BOSS: ILLITH VARN (SOUL): A classic video-gamey multi-phase boss fight, with adds and a final form and everything, wielding the Astral Soul of the Skoros Orb.

Connection back to: Level Three. Also a back exit to Reality, far away in the Merelunds.

THE TEMPLE OF DEMOGORGON

A multi-floor complex, built into the upper spine of a gigantic hell leviathan. First, a dangerous exploration around the Nave of Hethradiah, where mass is actively conducted by the Archbishop Aggreal. Then, a long puzzle in the lower levels to complete the Pilgrimage of Voyceps Moth and meet the Archbishop Gorgrudoch, who can provide passage to the secret Chapel of Demogorgon, where the Skoros Orb is kept.

BOSSES:

DEACONS OF HETHRADIAH: The mirror image of the Deacons of Aameul, except instead of dead guys, it's horrible fire-throwing demons. They wander the upper section of the cathedral when they're not in mass, posing a pretty severe threat until they're disposed of.

MYSANDER AND DYDAX: The bodyguards of Archbishop Aggreal. Platonically bonded life partners who are also ancient and powerful warrriors. The guard the Occult Screen behind which Aggreal conducts the Red Mass--if defeated, Aggreal retreats to safety.

THE ARCHBISHOP AGGREAL: A two-headed bishop with a lot of magic spells and gaze attacks. Meant to trick the players into thinking they've won.

THE SKOROS ORB BEHOLDER: A spontaneously formed aberration, attracted by the orb's magic, and grown into it, allows Demogorgon to gaze into reality. A lot of weird eye-stalks and anti-magic fields, wielding the Hell Soul of the Skoros Orb as a weapon. A surprise boss after Aggreal is defeated. 

AFTER THE SKOROS ORB IS RECOMBINED:

Well we will just have to find out!

here's some new spells

 MASSIVE SERPENT BITE: A coiling hydra of serpents bursts from the ground, all in the 10’ area must Dex save DC 18 or 4d10 dmg, then serpents make three bite attacks +12 at 3 targets within 30 feet for an additional 6d10 dmg. 

STEAL SPELL: when cast as a counterspell, success cancels the caster’s spell, and allows you to cast it once.

SLEEP WALL — Cast sleep in a 60’ long, 10’ high, 2” thick wall, any who passes through it must Wisdom save or fall asleep

DEVOUR: swallow a L or smaller target whole, provided they have 100 hitpoints or less. Attack roll, then swallows target, they take 10d10 damage immediately, then take 3d20 dmg per round. 

GREAT CHAOS FIREBALL, a level 7 10’ radius scintillating purple fireball spell that leaves a burning hazard behind for TWO ROUNDS. d6 warp damage and then 3d6 ticking fire damage at the start of every round, and when you go into it. no concentration required,

SOUL ARROW once per day: Make a spell attack roll to deal 6d6 damage.

They can do a dance which causes you to dance too, Wisdom DC 16 or restrained for one round, and 10d6 damage as your body twists and contorts

Vilia can command the spider to cast a spell on everyone in the room: Wisdom DC 18, on failure your speed is slowed to 10. Next round, your speed is slowed to 0. Next round, you’re paralyzed.

PRISMATIC RAY

1 action

Components: V, S, M

300 range

Duration: Instantaneous

1 target within range, Spell attack roll for 1d10 damage (1. fire 2. acid 3. lightning 4. poison 5. cold 6. force damage and target is petrified until the end of their next turn 7. radiant and blinded until the end of their next turn 8. roll twice). Damage increases according to normal cantrip conventions.

9th level spell ALMAGEST

1 action

Components: V, S

Range: Self

Duration: Instantaneous

The power of the stars is summoned to provide balance to the universe.  Everyone within a cube 240’ on a side is affected, but one point on a cube must touch you, and the cube may only extend to your left. Basically, this is everyone to your left. You are not affected. Everyone within the area of the spell must make a Constitution saving throw as blazing stars streak from the heavens and explode. On a failure, they take 2d8+20 radiant damage and 2d8+20 force damage. On success they take half that.

Magic Missiles deal d4+1 randomly 10 times to everyone within 5’, including self

Create portal 6’ wide between two sources in sight, Portal style for 1 minute, but you’re paralysed for duration

Surfaces within 20’ becomes covered in eyes (Permanent)

Lightning Ball (Like fireball, except lightning and radiates outwards from you, passes through metal)

Slime Form (Reduce All Incoming Dmg to 0, Touching Slaad deals 4d10 dmg, lasts 2 rounds

VOMIT POISON SLIME (Level 7): 40’ cone, deals 6d10 dmg (or half), and on failed save, an additional 3d10dmg for next 1d4 rounds, and also poisoned for 1 minute. Leaves poison patch on floor, if go into, take 1d10 poison dmg and poisoned for 1 round.

IMMUNE TO ACID, BUT VULNERABLE TO ALL OTHER DAMAGE, ALSO BODY IS MALLEABLE AND JELLY-LIKE, CAN GO THROUGH NARROW OPENINGS AND CRACKS, Concentration 1 hour (Level 3)

Envenom (Cause a held object to become covered in contact poison, Con save DC 18 or 6d10 poison damage, and the object remains poisoned for 1 minute)

Bite (An invisible creature from another dimension takes a massive bite, Attack +12 for 6d10 damage)

COMBINE TWO ADJACENT FOES (Their hit-points are combined, their AC becomes average of the 2, they have all the powers each one would have, but together they only have 1 combined action)

Oh shit it's been months, anyway they're in Hell

 

Here's what the players have been up to...

After polishing off the Astral Plane and the Turned Castle of the Blood Queen, they went and explored a little bit of the tunnels behind Terrifex the Purple Dragon, an ancient archdragon who, among other things, slew the titan Iat and sleeps in his crown inside a bottomless pit made by Terrifex's reality warping presence. The players found dwarf warrens and corroded broken dwarves and withered gnomes and the throne of the old earth kings, now demolished by an earth demon, which was impaled by the dwarven spear Lamix, The Holy Avenger, which deals an extra +2d10 damage to demons and has a Protection from Good and Evil aura. Maybe now hell is a good idea . . .

The Earth Demon

They knew that the third and final piece of the Skoros Orb was pulled into hell upon the death of Illith Varn. Illith Varn's severed head told them directly that a gate to hell was situated in the back of a temple to a bizarre and violent demon god whose dead adherents claim created reality. This god, Aameul,  has an Archbishop somewhere, who may know the location of the Skoros Orb's Hell Soul. And the players have been curious about Hell. A long time ago they bought a diving bell at a black market auction which can take the occupant straight to hell, and their scribe, the noblewoman Ocean Brack, took a trip one night, and came back claiming to have witnessed Castle Satan, and the great demon sphinx Cazamordias, and other wonders.

This is what the statue of Aameul looks like

So they made their way to the back of Aameul's temple and slew the demon knights guarding the hell gate. A great freestanding gate of black stone, carved with every beast and plant in creation, festooned with the living and the dead and all manner of person and creature, and filled all with smoke, which burned about them as they pushed through, and parted, to show a great cathedral decorated every inch with sculpture, and hung with a horrible icon, and before a great altar where crouched a demon of monstrous size stood a woman wreathed in bone, welcoming a line of grey pilgrims clutching the remnants of their former lives, and the pilgrims in their weary line coming through the front doors up a stair of dizzying height, for this cathedral is perched upon the spikes of a great leviathan, so vast its limits can barely be perceived, its other spikes rising like mountain ranges in the distance, and swimming through clouds of burning fire, where lightning strikes in the far distance and illuminates other leviathans, and columns of stone piercing upwards among them. Luckily there were stairs down.

And found a dungeon. This is a fun mid-sized dungeon with a chapel at its center. Demon boglarites wander its halls, but every few hours the Archbishop Aggreal holds mass, and the boglarites withdraw into the center, leaving the extremities safer to explore. This is my chance to whip out every completely nonsensical demon and hell themed art I've found over the past few years. They fought a guy named Daglaroth with a face in his chest. They fought some guys who were just triangles with knives. They fought a giant rampaging white demon. 

Triangle Guys

Daglaroth

"Boglarites"

Eventually they talked to Ser Bettany of Loigeth, a traveling knight, who told them that the shrine handmaiden above is friendly, and they went and talked to the scary bone woman. 

"Who is that, crawling from the stairs of the temple? I do not remember thee entering. Art thou denizens of the unholy realm? Such a cold, dark place, I shudder to think of it . . . Spare me thy sword, I will not harm thee. You have come by chance to a place most holy, here in the depths of Hell, the Cathedral of Great Hethradiah, Master of All Reality. Even the dark world, where thou hast crawled from.”

The Shrine Handmaiden

She is tasked with caring for all visitors to the Temple of Hethradiah. The demon on the altar is occasionally eating the dead pilgrims. She says it's okay. She tells them there is a bonfire where they can rest and get all their hitpoints back. She offers them healing services. My players are starting to really like hell.

So after taking out the boglarites and finding a few more mysterious NPCs like a melting punished guy who can't speak and a demon smith who can upgrade their weapons and deadending at a couple locked doors and learning about some artifact called The Crown of Golden Death and apparently the existence of another Archbishop somewhere in the depths of the temple who wears the crown, and learning that "He who wears the Crown of Golden Death will learn the deepest secrets of the temple," they decide to take a crack at the Archbishop himself, who's guarded by a pair of platonically bonded bodyguards named Mysander and Dydax. The players almost take them down in one round with a meteor swarm, and destroy the crystalline Occult Screen behind which the Archbishop Aggreal sits, making his pronouncements and leading mass. He's a horrible guy in rotting vestments and he has a big oversized old guy head and a rotting dog head, and he mutters some vague threat like "This cathedral will be your grave!" and his throne which is shaped like a castle sinks into the floor and opens the doors to the dungeons so the demons will come out and kill the players, and the bodyguards do a pretty good job of softening up the players, and the players run away.

Mysander

Dydax

So next they take a crack at level two. This is my chance for a more high level puzzle type dungeon. At the center of the level there's a weird statue of some demon saint and a tablet indicating that anyone who wishes to visit the Archbishop Gorgrudoch must visit the Stations of the Pilgrimage of Voyceps Moth, but the Stations Are Hidden From Sight but May Be Visited In Any Order, and there's just room after room of completely terrifying demons, like a dead dragon infested with some kind of gigantic demon parasite, and a by the book pit fiend, and a giant statue of a colossus with a hundred arms and a note next to it I forgot to delete that says "Statue comes to life," and rumors of a VEIL BEING with a paralytic gaze, and a conjured demon called VILE ANNIHILATION, so basically they're gonna be here for a while.

Veil Being

Pit Fiend

"This statue comes to life" Them: "N-Nate, there's some text there I think you forgot to remove"

But the good news is three of them are level 21 and have taken some hand-crafted epic level feats and the wizard just got access to 10th level spells and their Holy Avenger is just melting demons and we're having a ton of fun. Hell is good.

Year end ranking off all the video games I played this year, including the ones where I only played 4-10 hours and called it (UPDATED WITH SOME OBVIOUS OMISSIONS)

But not the ones I only played like half an hour of because that's not really fair

Death Stranding 1/10 -- I hate this fucking game

Dragon Age: Inquisition 2/10 -- starts strong, completely falls apart. what is up with all the bugs? overly serious, writing is on par with the worst mediocre sci-fi channel movies. terrible game. but i got to kill a couple dragons so it has that going for it.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla 2/10 -- absolutely terrible corporate trash, I wish I hadn't given it a chance. Looks good but that's about it.

Mortal Shell 3/10 -- pretends to have the depth and cruelty of fromsoft but without the precision and originality

Control 3/10 -- bland shooter in a drab office building themed with a shallow coating of house of leaves / SCP

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune 3/10 -- this game really does not hold up well! looks bad, stilted action, leaden gunfighting, trashy story, bad monsters! i remember this being so thrilling when it came out, but in 2020 it's not good!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons 3/10 -- I don't vibe. A dear friend bought me a copy to try to get me into it, but, I don't know. It's relaxing and neat, I guess. I've seen some cool islands, but, I like those people's actual art much more than their ACNH islands, like, their drawings or cakes or whatever. Nothing against it. Just not for me. 

Kentucky Route Zero 4/10 -- Got I think one episode in and stopped. Pretty cool, just not enough gameplay for me.

No Man's Sky 4/10 -- I just don't like procedural games

Outer Wilds 4/10 -- honestly a really cool game but weirdly empty, I don't know. seems cool. 

Final Fantasy 7: Remake 4/10 -- fuck this game, however, I had fun with this

God of War (2018) 4/10 -- fuck this game too. "Father! Father! Father look at this! Father up there!" I hate that kid, he shoulda died

The Witcher 3 4/10 -- seems on the surface like I'd love it but the endless cutscenes, the witcher vision, the way geralt bounces all over the place in combat instead of just doing what I want him to... fuckkk

Horizon Zero Dawn 5/10 -- beautiful, vivid, but boring

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout 5/10 -- funny, vivid, lonely

Spelunky 2 5/10 -- aggressively cruel but fun little puzzle box

Dragon Quest XI 5/10 -- completely empty and stupid plays-itself RPG. I don't regret the time I spent on this game, I guess

New Super Mario Bros. Wii U Deluxe 6/10 -- it's good, but treads too much of the same ground. Lacks the sense of exploration or weirdness of Super Mario World, not as tight as Super Mario 3. I don't know, it's good.

Resident Evil 2: Remake 6/10 -- this game is cool. Creepy and gross and sometimes scary, however, I feel like it falls apart as soon as you leave the mansion, and it's downhill from there. I didn't manage to play the second run. 

Ghost of Tsushima 6/10 -- Jin Sakai is hot, he's good with a sword, fun and beautiful island, it's just so long and monotonous though

Super Mario Sunshine 6/10 -- what is up with this game? I can't get into it but it seems fun. I have a soft spot for Mario...

The Last of Us Part Two 6/10 -- I dragged this game through the mud but in retrospect it was really fun. the story is just vapid, thinking about it makes me stupider, and I have a hunch it's a zionist narrative, which others have also picked up on, and which makes the stupidity of the story even grosser to think about. but it looks so good... I don't know.

Hades 7/10 -- Okay so this game rocks. Slick, fast, looks great, plays great, great writing, great acting. You can skip the story and get straight to the action, or you can get to know all the characters and get immersed in their stories and relationships. Its vivid and iridescent colors look truly new, and the variety of playstyles available in the different weapons are fantastic. However... chance-based rogue-like games like this one arouse a compulsive/addictive tendency in myself I really don't enjoy. Plus, the resolution of the story feels much more limited than I expected, and doesn't really meet the promise it appeared to make near the beginning. And finally, eventually I found the levels to be unpleasantly repetitive, with not nearly enough variation or scope to keep me interested past credits. I don't want to downplay this game's accomplishments though, it's really fantastic.

Red Dead Redemption 2 7/10 -- looks amazing, great writing, fun shooting, slow-paced in a way I have trouble breaking into on a casual weeknight, occasionally gates me out of stuff I want to do, like, just turn in a quest or something, because the game has a story to tell. I'm only on chapter 3, still having fun but its welcome is wearing thin . . . another ride and shoot mission? what's with the forced slow walk? why is there so little to discover out in the world? I could see this one's rating swinging up or down depending on how it goes from here

Doom Eternal 7/10 -- fun, hard, stressful, gross, good game

Disco Elysium 8/10 -- Now here's a good game. An incredibly engaging and original sci fi noir world with a fascinating protagonist. Looks great, amazing writing, amazing acting. Why did I stop playing this game?

Persona 5 8/10 -- got about 8 hours in and bought the Royal Version, haven't touched it since. seems great!!

Super Mario Galaxy 8/10 -- great game, what can I say! fun, exciting, imaginative, but misses the sense of exploration and relaxation of the other 3d mario games, especially Odyssey and 64.

Nioh 2 8/10 -- this game stressed me the fuck out but I beat the first go of it. twitchy, HARD, fun, cool, slick, weird, embraces player freedom, also truly obsessive in a way I admire. good game.

Dark Souls 3 9/10 -- Fromsoft does it again. A massive, beautiful, strange world, full of people and situations and monsters and incredible bosses. Astonishingly the DLC is even better than the main game. Hard, but never too hard. Great game.

Inside 9/10 -- this game fucks. Play it if you haven't.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 9/10 -- Incredible game, the only truly original and fun open world game I've ever played.

The Last of Us (Part One) 9/10 -- Starts so understated, turns into a beautiful, authentic, moving story. Magnificent game.

Final Fantasy VII 10/10 -- Okay honestly this is probably more like 8/10 but I can't break through the diamond-hard shield of nostalgia surrounding this one. Falls apart a little at the end, but really, it's a moving and beautiful story, the fighting is perfect, the world is so cleverly written, Cloud is an icon, and of course, Sephiroth... Sephiroth!!! Tifa! Aeris!! These characters are like old friends etched into the foundations of my psyche. But also it's a great game. Don't fight me on this one I'll cry.

Bloodborne 10/10 -- So strange, dark, fast, gory, and fun. The level design so tight and deliberate, its imagining of different planes of existence so original and terrifying. Always riding just on the edge of overwhelming difficulty, with always a chance for breakthrough. In scope sometimes I feel like this game is less than the Dark Souls games, but it accomplishes such a vivid and original world that I can't help but rank it above. Phenomenal game.

Super Mario 64 10/10 -- The Best. Years later, so tight, so fun, so focused on freedom, and so willing to do something simple as well as possible. Such a joy. And the music! Great game.

Three situations

 BELL TRAP

A big metal bell sitting on the ground in the middle of a room, inscribed with obviously magical dwarven runes which say something like "DANGER! KEEP OUT! NO ONE ALLOWED!" If it senses any movement in the room (with magic blindsight, so invisibility or silence doesn't work), it gongs, automatically dealing a large amount of damage to anyone in the room and in the hallways up to the turns, and inflicting deafness if they fail their save. The bell then has a lingering tone that lasts for a minute, during which it cannot gong. After one minute, it resets.

This distracted my players for about two hours and and inflicted a humongous amount of damage.

BLOOD SHAFT

This one's a little more complicated. Both of these maps are vertical maps, you're looking at a side view. Each square is ten feet, and the rooms are square from the top down, so the top shaft is 30' square and 160' high and the bottom shaft is 50' square and about 25' high. Red squares are doorways. 

Players start in the bottom room.  A red carpet runs along the floor, up the wall, and to the doorway in the ceiling. Blood drips down in a steady rain through the square opening and soaks into the spongy, porous ground, which grows weird pink flowers. The vertical shaft above is smooth stone wall except for the red carpet, which continues to run up the wall to the closed door. The shaft is completely filled with this blood, which is dripping from innumerable small cracks in the ceiling. The dripping blood acts as an anti-magic field--it suppresses anything magical it drips on, cancelling spells, magic items, summoned monsters, and so on, and no spells can be cast into the area of the dripping blood, including teleportation. The blood can be cleaned off an item with an action, as long as it's outside the dripping area. It takes a little longer to clean a whole person, I'd say maybe a minute, unless they can think of something else. The antimagic blood loses its properties after ten minutes.

At the very top of the shaft is a metal guard box. Arrow slits are set in the bottom of the guard box in a square pattern, which can be opened and closed with a simple sliding mechanism. The sides of the guard box are open doorways, though the players probably can't see that from the bottom of the shaft. Inside the guard box are four low level vampires with crossbows and swords. They also have with them four giant spike balls attached to chains, which they can use an action to shove out the guard box, dealing a large amount of damage to anyone in a line underneath them. They can then use a winch to draw the spike ball back up over a minute, or release the chain with a release mechanism, causing the chain to drop to the floor.

This entertained my players for about a session and a half. They were really stumped for a while, but thought to smoke out the vampires by building a fire at the bottom of the shaft, using the smoke for cover, and hauled in a reverse gravity boulder to drop upwards onto the guard box, breaking the arrow slits. From there it was a pretty simple brawl, until they found the very next room where four elite vampire knights camped, but we won't get into that here.

BLOOD RAVE

Oh yeah this one's pretty fun. 

Blood soaked room. This room is filled with sleeping, quiescent vampires, naked and slick, wet with black blood that’s slowly dried into clotted mud. There are over a hundred of them, these are the sleeping reservoir of Queen Tetranoska’s nobility. Every few days they awaken, screaming and shrieking, and begin churning against each other, their eyes open and the clots crack, and the reservoir in the ceiling cracks open, blood comes spraying down, and the vampires, screaming in ecstasy, perform an ecstatic dance of incredible violence for two to four hours, and then turn back to their slumber.

This room is filled with 128 fully statted vampires. However they are sleeping, so their passive perception is 9. If they awaken, it takes them two rounds to shake off sleep, and then 1d4+2 will come searching for the source of the sound. If they’re all awakened into blood lust, then they’ll come surging as a nightmare mass of starved and violent vampires. They only have enough energy to chase for 1d4 minutes, after which they’ll begin to slow and stumble, give up the chase, and return to room 16.

If engaged during a blood rage, they’ll be at full power! and run freely through the entire castle for 2-4 hours.

Scattered on the floor are severed body parts, pulped guts, mashed eyes, and some jewelry worth 3000 gp.

My players did manage to encounter the vampires during a blood rave, and did have to run through the castle ahead of 128 screaming maniac vampires.

Intractibility

So I was playing around in Assassin's Creed Valhallha, I was craving a big medieval open world to roam around in and this one is getting good reviews. Never played an Assassin's Creed game before, they seem bad. 

I speedrun through the tutorial area (too much snow, too many mountains) and come to England, it's really big, the map is vibrant and inviting, there's treasure everywhere, cool towers and ruins, and a lot of hackneyed side quests and boring fully voice-acted cutscenes. This is fine. I realize that I need some more resources to upgrade my town, and the solo quests I've been doing haven't been cutting it. Now the game introduced the concept of raiding to me when I got to England, basically me and all my homies get on a boat and go kill monks and take their stuff, and the game suggested it's a good way to get town upgrades. It's pretty fun but a little clumsy, I just want to explore by myself. 

So I find a monastery. The game is stealth focused, there's a whole stealth upgrade tree, and the monastery is keyed as a "distrust" area, meaning I won't be attacked on sight as long as I'm careful. Maybe I can sneak in and find the golden treasures marked on my map without a raid. 

I quickly find a secret entrance by the river, sneak in, kill the unsuspecting guard with a new sneak attack, and find a new ability book in a crypt. Nice. I climb out of this crypt and find myself in a well populated monastery, there's monks and guards everywhere, but they don't seem to notice or care that I just broke through a locked door. That's fine.

After pinging my search vision tool, I can see the treasures are inside a couple well-guarded buildings. I stalk around the outside of these buildings and find a stained glass window. I remember shooting arrows at windows early on to break in to some buildings, these guards seem pretty credulous so I'll give it a try. The glass shatters, revealing iron bars on the inside preventing my passage.

Okay... so that won't work. That's fine. I circle around to the front door. There's a prompt that says "Force open." Okay, I'll give it a try. My dude then braces against the door with one shoulder and gestures to his comrades WHO AREN'T EVEN THERE and says, "Hey, give me a hand with this." He's leaning there, openly preparing to break down the door, and nobody nearby says or does anything.

I teleported all the way back to my town, grabbed my warriors, sailed our sailboat all the way back through the canals to the monastery, and did the scenario like I was supposed to. It was easy and I didn't have to think for a second about how to succeed.

So that's intractibility.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

 The more open world games I play the more I respect and love this game. On my first play through, when it was released, I was disappointed -- no classic Zelda style dungeons, no massive and epic Zelda style bosses, no triforce, no Ganon as a character, little story-line, few villages, all the things I loved weren't here. I wanted something like Link to the Past in 3d, and got this strange exploration wandering ramble game instead. I smashed through it in about a week, went "Huh," and parted ways. I liked it but was disappointed.

After an additional play-through on master mode, and yet another play-through on normal, and many tries at 3d open-world adventure games (Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, probably others) I can confidently say I adore this game, it's really one of the best, and I have no idea how they pulled it off. It's so good. All those other games simply can't compete, this game is tactile, patient, beautiful, respects the player, respects freedom, and respects PLAY as a concept for its own sake.

FREEDOM AND TRACTABILITY

These are two related concepts. A game that allows freedom of play is improved by posing scenarios and problems that are tractable. In Zelda, this freedom is provided to the player right off the bat, and then increased in ever increasing doses, until the full scope of the game is shown. The player is able to wander anywhere they like, so long as they are willing to endure or solve the many problems the world poses them. And as for the problems, nearly every problem is an environmental puzzle that can be solved from any number of different directions, and can be influenced and chipped away at by the player's many tools, depending on which of them they prefer to use. 

This is truly unique. So many games have a feeling of flatness to them, a sense that the world is made to be approached from one direction of the other. Zelda's willingness to accommodate player ingenuity lets the world be a true exploration. You're never just filling in the blanks. At every moment in the game--literally almost every moment--the player is given the freedom to choose how to move and what to do.

Even combat embraces this. Areas of monsters are bounded but open, they live in vertical tiered areas that give them advantages you can overcome with your many powers, they're surrounded by cliffs and exploding barrels, the grass can burn, lightning can strike and be manipulated, oftentimes you're greatly outnumbered but even this can be exploited with your bombs and wands and spin attacks and rune spells.

This is helped by the game's difficulty. Death happens quickly if you get hit by a powerful monster or fall in a swamp. Even on my third play-through, I find myself dissuaded by areas of higher difficulty. Towers of black moblins, lynels, guardian walkers, and so on, are too much for my measly six hearts one upgrade armor. By knowing the penalty for carelessness, the player is allowed freedom to avoid or mitigate these problems however they like. Climb a mountain to get around it, drink a stealth potion to sneak, drop rocks from above, pick them off with bombs from afar, or whatever. The game never pulls its punches.

My friend Nick, who introduced me to this concept of tractability in games, has this to say on the issue:

"If you've ever played a video game and been frustrated the hero can't try to climb over a fence, you've experienced intractability. A tractable world rewards you for paying attention to what the dm describes. 'Oh wait, i remember there was a big delicious looking ham with a big poker fork jabbed into it two rooms back. I'll bet we could use it to prop this door open." So when the world is tractable, you're rewarded for paying attention to the world, and you're rewarded for being thoughtful and imaginative about how to engage with it, and combine different pieces of it.

When the world is intractable, when the answer is "no, there's nothing you can pick up in the opulent dining room" or "no, you can't pull the curtains loose, they're stuck" or "no, there's no way to knock over the throne even though you have that scroll of 'knock over chair'" it punishes you for paying attention, or for thinking creatively, because you've wasted your own and everyone else's time by trying to do something other than hitting the orc with your axe. Because the energy you spent figuring out how to build a trap out of living room furniture could have been spent on looking at your phone, or just saying "sure, i'll look at that" about whatever the dm points you to. If you tell me it's a crudely constructed raft, don't be mad if i try to saw through the ropes holding it together while the villain is giving his speech

The things players think of to do to your perfect dollhouse world will almost always be dissonant with what you imagined, if what you imagined was a specific kind of story."

LACK OF INTERRUPTIONS

Accompanying this is a wonderful lack of cut-scenes. So many of these fully voiced open-world games feel like a stutter-stop slow-motion tv show. You're wandering, you're exploring, and then you meet a guy who wants to tell you about a quest, and the game turns into very low quality tv. And sometimes these strings of cut scenes last forever. I end up clicking through all the dialogue as fast as i can to get to the gameplay, as these games go on usually the story gets more and more muddled.

So not only are you able to go wherever the fuck you want, but also the game gives you very few interruptions.

Not to mention the tendency in these big AAA open world games to have the "interact vision." In Witcher its Witcher Vision, in Dragon Age its the L3 search scan, in Horizon its the I don't even remember what it's called, but you press a button and it highlights what you need to look at. It turns from a game of freedom into a game of treading the path the game has made for you. Press X to examine the campfire and hear a voiceover say something terse like "Coals are cold, they must have moved on", press X to examine the belongings and hear the voice say, "Blood on the cloth, but its not theirs..." etc etc. It's tedious, and more importantly there's not really anything for the PLAYER to do with this information.

In Zelda, when the game provides the player information, the vast majority of the information is useful and relevant. And what information is not useful or relevant, is beautiful, funny, strange, moving, and always, always brief. You can move on if you want.

IMMEDIACY

Every moment is immediate, your contact with the world and its contents are tactile and direct. You stand on a hill and see a distant landmark, you can immediately strike out for it, your vision reaches all the way across the map, the delay in starting your journey can be none if you want. The controls are quick and responsive, your paraglider snaps out very quickly, Link turns on a dime, his attacks are clean and executed immediately, and you can always tell where he is, somehow. He spins and twirls, he snaps to attention, he hops, he doesn't have the range of movement of Mario but there is still that feeling of smoothness and never having any doubt what he's doing or where he is. Maps open and close with no delay, your magic powers are conjured as fast as you can think them. When you select your weapons and tools, the game is paused or so slowed down as to be nearly paused, paradoxically this makes the game more immediate, there's no fumbling or needing to ready your tools before a fight, everything is at your fingertips the moment you need them.

Gathering resources too. You see a mushroom, it has its glinting spark to denote its status as resource, and as soon as you press the button it moves into your inventory, there is a little tune that plays to let you know it worked. So many of these open world games struggle with this. Some of them, you have to click to open containers, even herbs out in the world, and then move through a little menu to gather the item, even if it's just one item. Zelda avoids containers completely--the only containers in the world are chests, which are their own reward, beautiful little objects that click open, they always give you something pretty good. Everything else is just out in the world to grab. Weapons are lying on logs, propped in places where monsters can quickly grab them, or displayed for you. Sometimes items are hidden inside crates, but these are mostly inconsequential and rare enough that they are little bonuses: an apple that gets roasted by your bomb, an arrow or two, just a bonus really. 

Ambling over the landscape also has that sense of immediacy, I don't know how they capture it. You have a sense that you're really there, moving over the contours of the hills, drenched in rain, the clap of thunder. I guess it's an accumulation of concrete details. The grass parting as you move through it, insects and wildlife darting away from you, the sound of Link's footsteps (I read in an interview that they considered Link footsteps one of the most important sounds in the game, always present and always giving you information about where you are). If you need to get up a cliff, there's no delay in climbing it, vertical movement is just as natural as walking, if a little bit slower. Maybe part of it is the movement of the weather and the movement of the days, there is always movement around you, but there is always a sense of stillness, that you are at the center of something very huge and still and alive, and you are the main actor. It's remarkable.

PLAYER CHOICE AND DESIRE, AND CONNECTION TO SELF

Similar to player freedom. I find that this game works best when I'm connected to my own desires, and encourages me to be connected to myself. Do I want to go THIS direction or THAT direction? It feels like the game wants me to be present, wants me to play the game in the way that I want to play, and wants me to enjoy it. The more present I am with this game, the more pleasurable it is. Many games either ignore this element, or go in the opposite direction. They either guide the player at every moment, or create hard guard-rails to prevent us from moving to the wrong place, or like many games these days, try to hook us into cycles of addiction and gambling, like in Blizzard's games, or other games of chance, like the very excellent and recent Hades, which I loved but found I needed to fight against the impulse or repetition and gambling. There is none of that here, it is a relief.

MORE ON THE DETAILS

There are so many of them, the character models and creatures, the items are so detailed, so carefully rendered. I'm always finding new details. You get the sense that this place has a real history, however, there is also a feeling that this was created by interested, compassionate artists. 

The characters themselves are a little strange and a little credulous, and quite varied. They want specific things, they are on specific missions, they seem to think and have opinions about themselves and the plight they're in, their world and each other. They're quite afraid of things that give you no pause. To Link, monsters are mostly speedbumps or puzzles, but to the people they are terrors. 

The world is full of so many details. Ruined columns, places, garrisons, villages that seem to have history. There's a good chance that someone you meet will comment on these places. I should note that there is not the level of detail in a Dark Souls game, those game builds its world with a level of concrete detail unmatched. I think Zelda is trying to build a somewhat less idiosyncratic world, more of a puzzlebox to crawl through than a harsh and menacing baroque dungeon. 

The landscape itself is varied, it contains a level of detail I have trouble understanding. Its contours are obviously deliberate, it moves to obscure and to suddenly open up, its folds contain secret chests and places (not to mention the shrines), it relaxes and then thrusts upwards into menace. And it's always inviting, even when there are obstacles (cliffs, heat, ice, lava) there is always the invitation to overcome them. 

LETS SEE WHAT ELSE

Hyrule Castle is one of the best open world dungeons ever executed. It embraces Zelda's open world design--it's inviting, large, dangerous, you can approach it from any angle at any time, it's full of secrets, details, and treasure, and you can use any number of your resources and tools to solve it. It has a variety of bosses and unique treasures, and a fascinating vertical design: the point is to get to the top.

The more involved and difficult quests are very fun, especially because there are only a few of them. Stumbling across puzzles out in the world is a surprise, and a good break from the core exploration.

What story there is, is fairly surprising. Zelda's misgivings and doubt are fairly compelling, surprisingly dark for the game you're playing. They don't quite manage to overcome the simplicity of the game world and the lack of detail about Ganon and the Calamity, but they're good, and even better than that, they're brief, and can be avoided or skipped if you don't feel like it.

A FEW QUIBBLES

The Shrines are pretty good but they are too short, for the most part. They don't satisfy my craving for complicated indoor place, for dungeons. I like finding them and stumbling across them but they are brief. They are supposed to be brief of course, and not to be too interrupting. But they are an interruption: the lengthy little cutscenes that play every time you enter and finish a shrine, I skip them every time because they are always the same. Also, every time I find a combat trial, I am disappointed. I've already done this! I don't need to be tested again. If you're giving me a combat trial, give me something new: a difficult string of enemies, a difficult combat situation, even a new boss. Fighting the same robot over and over with very small variations gets old.

Not the mention the Korok Seeds. They are fun to complete, varied enough that it doesn't get really old, easy enough that you don't have to struggle, that I'm never irritated. But... they don't serve enough of a purpose. Expanding inventory is a coveted power, but every time I find a Korok Seed I feel a twinge of disappointment. What else could it be instead? Dark Souls has shown that it could be a strange piece of loot, a new strange weapon, or a scrap of information about the world, or a spell. Ghost of Tsushima has shown us that it could be new customization options. I know the game wants to keep it simple, nevertheless that Korok Seeds have that sense of just filling in the blanks that the rest of the game manages to avoid.

While the sneaking is lots of fun, the stealth missions are trash. The sneaking in Zelda works when there is a soft fail-state -- being found means you have to fight. When failing at sneaking turns into a flat game over, like it does in a couple missions, the game gets bogged down, it turns boring and frustrating. I hate those missions. Luckily, there are very few of them.

The Divine Beast dungeons really seem out of step with the rest of the game, to be honest. Here, the lack of variety in monsters and environments begin to show. They're made of the same material ("stone?") which strips you of one of your core powers--climbing; they all have the same robot monsters and eye-bats and slime and moblins and so on that the rest of the game has, and most egregious, they all have the same boss. Granted the boss' different forms and powers are varied, nevertheless it is the same creature, a personality-less elemental without a face, but bearing Ganon's signature shock of red hair, now so far removed of Ocarina of Time that it's stripped of its meaning. They are fun puzzle boxes, but have more of the feeling of needing to go through the motions to solve the puzzles than the rest of the game. I do like that you need to prepare for them like you do for the rest of the game: must ready potions and food and arrows, and if you run out or aren't prepared, it's going to be an uphill battle or you'll have to leave and come back.

I hoped for more classic Zelda dungeons, and I think they could be completed in a style more in line with Hyrule Castle. Giant lightning struck towers, swamp filled skulls, I don't know what else. A 3d literalization of the promise made by Link to the Past. You don't need to strip Link of the power to climb if the dungeons take place indoors underground, this is the power of dungeons! They could even use and exploit his climbing, I have to do this in Dungeons and Dragons because I know my players can and will climb anything. I get around this with bottomless pits, damaging slime, spike pits, vertical shafts, areas of antimagic, they could have got really creative with this. Hyrule Castle shows that they could have, and I wish they had.

Ganon's lack of personality does seem like a drawback. Hyrule's decline feels sudden and meaningless. What exactly is this ancient evil that it's grappling with? It doesn't have the marks of tragedy or evil, instead the Calamity feels just like something really bad that happened, like a war, or a virus maybe, except war has human meaning built in by the motivations of the people in power, and virus as we have learned has meaning by how humans respond to something truly alien and inhuman. I've always enjoyed Ganon as a person, someone with feelings and desires, and his various depictions in the games, particularly Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, have been a lot of fun. Here, they try to split the difference by depicting Ganon as a prophesied force, but still give him a name and a monstrous face. A game without a villain seems a little reduced. And his form as a robot spider demon is pretty absurd. Why does he take this form? What on earth is going on here? He's pretty fun to fight, I guess, but more silly than truly menacing, like Pennywise's giant spider-clown form. Did he inhabit some piece of machinery that Zelda was working on? Is he another Divine Beast? These details are never filled in. Ganon never does anything -- his victory is complete, so he is a static entity, and the only remaining threat is Zelda's death, which is like, she's been fine for a hundred years, it seems like she can handle a few more years.

Plus there's a lack of concretization to the drama alluded to. We're told early on that Zelda is in Hyrule castle, "battling" Ganon, or keeping him under control. But when you finally get there, there's no struggle really happening. There's no, like, crystal that she's contained in, or Zelda standing in front of a magic seal, or fighting him with her triforce mark, or whatever it could be. What exactly is she trying to accomplish, again, the whole time you're playing the game? Ganon has already won, the bomb went off and everyone died. The time pressure is not convincing. You fight Ganon's minibosses in his throne room, and then you fight his spider form in the dungeons, and then Zelda appears, or something? It doesn't make sense.

BUT WITH ALL THAT

The game is so relaxing, so beautiful, so big and beautiful, so immediate, so detailed, the music so good, the characters so full of personality, the landscape so varied and full of secrets, that simply playing this game is a joy. All you need to do is log in, point yourself in the direction you find most appealing, and you'll find adventure. I don't know any game that manages to capture this feeling of boundless exploration, of an entire world at your fingertips to explore, and to execute it honestly. After countless hours playing this game I'm still finding new secrets and new places and new details, and I'm still enjoying re-exploring the places I've completed twice before simply by virtue of how pleasurable it is to just play. Simply an exceptional game, one of the true best.