The Call of the Mines…

Since I was young, I wanted to make a dungeon in the spirit and scale of Tolkien’s Mines of Moria–Khazad-dum. I envisioned a sprawling dungeon with tens of thousands of rooms across miles of underground and descending deep into the depths. An adventure of legend packed with monsters, mysteries, magic, and doom. Nothing less is befitting of the original story, which still inspires me today.

For a long time, it seemed impossible. The logistics of managing such a large project manually were daunting, and without people to experience it, there was no point. It wasn’t until I found the OSR community online and learned about the licensing for First Edition material that my vision was given promise. I reached out to my fellow gamers to gauge interest in such an adventure, and found an audience for my dream. People were astounded at the scale I wanted to create. One commenter told me that if I could write an adventure that large, I would be a god. Thus, on my 53rd birthday in 2024, as a present to myself, I began work on the first level.

A combination of factors made this possible. Online tools like Dungeondraft made managing the massive maps easy and accessible. Spreadsheets organized the scattered puzzle pieces of treasures, experience, monsters, and lore. My gaming group and my friends encouraged my mad quest. The pieces had come together. To this day, my work has not ceased.

I’ve committed to writing at least ten rooms per day to realize my childhood dream. I envision it as a sixteen-book series, one per level, plus a monster tome and one describing the associated town, which will grow with the party. Your support will keep this quest alive. Join our expedition into the Dwarven Dungeon today!

How can you learn more?

Although we can’t publish anything from the dungeon directly, new clues will be released every month in our free Dungeon Almanac, hosted on our Patreon.