Dungeon 25—Pocket Sphere

I'm going to try using Dungeon 25 as a productivity tool this year. 

The first few minutes when I get to my desk are crucial. Will I get to work? Or will I open youtube, reddit, and a thousand other procrastinating tabs? Maybe it's time to invest in some new expensive hobby... Instead, this year, I'm going to work on a better system. Put on some music, and write a room key. I don't want to get too hung up on dungeon ecosystems and realism, so the theme for the year is "inside the archwizard's bag of holding," or Pocket Sphere.

I think this can be a good exercise in restraint. I have a tendency to spend a lot of time messing around with fonts, endlessly editing, and moving into my layout software very early in the writing process. I'm going to try to keep this one in Obsidian as long as possible, and get the ideas out ASAP.  

I'd like to include illustrations, I'm considering shifting from room–key–per–day to  five room keys per week, leaving two days to illustrate a map and do one spot illustration. 

See you soon with updates, and happy new year from the Gravy household!

---

Grand Foyer

The primary entryway to the Wizard's realm, for invited guests. Adventurers should use the mudroom to enter.

1. Mudroom

A normal looking set of doors open into a small room. Benches line the left and right walls, a set of glass paned french doors on the opposite wall. The room is piled with muddy shoes of every possible type—left behind by previous adventurers.

• Benches: two low benches set against the walls. Seats lid open, inside packed with camping gear and cold weather clothes.
• Shoes: every possible type and style, made to fit feet of every size. Muddy, worn-in, with the distinct odor of adventure. Find the matching shoe on 1-in-6.

2. Great Room

Heavy main doors open into a towering entryway. Polished hardwood floors and wainscoting below intricate wallpaper. Dozens of life size portraits feature a diverse cast of eccentrics. Twin staircases curl upwards towards a second floor high overhead. An obsequious doorman stands just inside the door.

• Portraits: uncanny depictions of strange folk. Under scrutiny, it looks like the figures are straining to escape. Naturally, they are trapped souls, encased in paintwork by the wizard at some point in history.
• Staircases: ascend upwards, disappearing in a cigar-smoke haze before reaching the next landing, at least a hundred feet overhead.
• Doorman: A shriveled man in an elaborate suit. He is polite, but will not allow guests to enter wearing soiled or dirty clothing, offering fine vestments of silk and velvet to replace offending garments.

3. Reading Room

Luxuriously appointed reading library. Library ladders roll on well-oiled tracks, climbing dozens of enormous bookshelves. Student style desks with lifting lids contain ridiculous plumed quills, and pungent inks with remarkable colors.

• Books: scribed in a peculiar hand, with a tendency to invent glyphs, deploying novel ligatures and malapropisms. The topics are schizophrenic: alternate histories, science fiction stories, incorrect genealogies, and fantastical taxonomies. On Soonday evenings, the scribe will appear in the reading room——a gentle homunculus crafted by the wizard.

4. Smoking Room

Leather recliners flanked by walnut tables, kept stocked with cigars and cocktails by the house staff. Walls decorated with weapons too ornate to be practical, grainy photographs of alien landscapes, and the taxidermy heads of unrecognizable beasts.

• 1d6 Guests are here, smoking, and chatting about their adventures. Heroes, with many accumulated titles from foreign lands. They decided to retire here.

5. Dining Room

Massive chamber lined with dark wood panelling. An offensively long table is set for dozens of guests. At all times, a handful of servers stand silently in the room's margins. In the evening, guests arrive at the front door for the dinner service, always enough to exactly fill the table. A place for the wizard is kept empty for the wizard. They come to dinner only for Solstice.

• Servers: engage in polite banter, only when addressed directly. Observe all standards of fine dining service. They will take orders to the kitchen at any time of day. Always recommend something fancier or more 'correct': "Monsieur or Madame would not prefer the DuBois Estates 406 vintage? It pairs better with the pork..."

6. Kitchen

Behind a swinging pair of french doors, an unbearably hot, pristine kitchen. Shouts of "service," "behind," and "hot!". A brigade of cooks in spotless whites work day and night: making and reducing stocks and sauces, slowly roasting choice cuts of meat, dry-aging fish and beef, fermenting and pickling exotic greens and roots. The chef insists—there is no food waste in the wizard's kitchen—everything is saved and used.

• Dumbwaiter: at all times, a cook working expo is calling out tickets. Completed orders are placed into a dumbwaiter, and transported to cafeterias throughout the wizard's realm.
• Chef Amelie: classically trained under THE master chef Marko Ravioli. The wizards head chef, she suffers from ennui, there is nothing she hasn't cooked. Her menus become increasingly bizarre, straying towards the insanity of molecular gastronomy.
• Sous Chef Henri: former adventurer, he was hired on the spot for bringing Chef an aromatic vegetable she'd never seen before. He is obsessed with fermentation, every kitchen scrap is transformed into miso, sauces, fizzing drinks, or "flavor blasts."

7. Servant's Quarters

Cavernous dormitory. Metal bunks stacked seven high. Lockers for personal belongings. At any time, around a third of the bunks are occupied with peacefully sleeping staff. A magic hush permeates the space, speaking above a whisper is impossible.

• Bunks: enclosed with curtains, the space within the bunk is magically enlarged. What looks like a single bed is actually a spacious queen when the curtains are shut.
• Lockers: secured with middle-school-grade combination locks, the insides of each is always just big enough to fit everything. Each contains several pairs of work clothes, and personal effects from former lives. Photographs, adventuring gear, old clothes, letters, etc. Each tells an individual story of family, friends, careers, and aspirations left behind.