Overture

 Sketches are like blurry telescope images you keep having to focus and enhance.  Uncarved stones and splotches of wet paint aren't very helpful when asking what details are in a piece of art.  Sketches might be blurry, but they can give you a nice shape of things to come.  Plan is such a strong word for it.  Maybe more like an overture.  The mood of a piece echoed before it sounds.

  So before we make a mystery, let's spoil the plot to ensure the sounds match the echo.  As such, we'll split the Land of Four Shadows into 3 layers of plot that are kind of happening at the same time.

Layer One

  Players are archeologists.  Basically, Thief Class without the greed for gold.  Fighters welcome for the more Indiana Jones types.  The setting is low magic, roughly on the technology and culture is roughly on the level of the 1900's to 1910's.  There are swords and axes and such barbarian tools of the Southern Continent, but also guns.  Outside of Four Shadows, really, the world can be what you want.  Knowledge of magic IS present, but it's played like illusionist and performance magic.  There's no reason players can't be of other races, but low-to-no magic.  Dwarfs and Halflings and Furries allowed.  Why not?

  The players either have heard rumor of, or found logs and texts about, the Land of Four Shadows, a small country on the Southern Continent.  It's been claimed by the Lord of the Land (yet unnamed) who rules in a small settlement of Middle Pillar.  The Lord is quite rich, so the economy is artificially large.  (He may even be worth robbing, if the country were not so far out of the way. There's no convenient place to pawn stolen items.)

  The Lord of Middle Pillar is offering rewards and salvage rights for artificast and information about the Highmen, and ancient race that lived here long ago.  They have some small understanding of their language, but much is still unknown.

  So the players have motivation, a home camp of Middle Pillar, possible rival archeologists (or friendly competition), and the pursuit of money and, as we'll discover, power of an ancient civilization.

 

Layer Two

  This is what the Highmen were doing here and what we can expect from the dungeons.

  The Highmen were an old race of First Humans, averaging 7-8 feet tall, with bronze skin, and fair to bleached hair.  Eye color depended on the magic they wielded (we'll get to that).  The purpose of their occupation is not yet set in stone, but the gist is they were following lay-lines to this aggregation of power.  They didn't do this for some vague pursuit of knowledge and/or magic.  They did it to discover something they call the Mind of the Soul.  Essentially, they were trying to crack the problem of consciousness or spiritual magic.  But, like the tower of Babel, their civilization fell hard due to some unknown catastrophe.

  As such, the four towers in cardinal directions from Middle Pillar, are actually research labs for the four times of reality the Highmen understood:  Time(Blue), Space(Yellow), Power(Red), and Matter(Green).  What isn't known is that the starting dungeon under Middle Pillar, is actually the tip of the fifth research lab, Soul.  Each of these labs has a top layer and a bottom (hidden) layer.  The Highmen believed that the Soul(White) was either contained or created by the four above elements, so honestly, it should be the last dungeon made.

Layer Three

  The Catastrophe.  What killed the Highmen?  What did they get too close to?  And what are the scars left behind under the settlement of Middel Pillar?

  Dunno yet.

vvv SPOILER ALERT! vvv

  The Highmen are going to need a language and a numbering system.  Light is going to be important, as it will be the unifying factor of the four towers.  We'll say the Highmen thought the Soul WAS light, or something.  The Number System was straight up stolen from another game (can you guess which?) and the cypher shouldn't need a Masters Degree in Linguistics to unlock.  It's actually semi-based on Mores Code, so if some player is wise enough, they could crack it.  The Layout of 4 columns is semi reminiscent of Egyptian Hieroglyphs, without the zig-zag pattern they do with their writing.

  I want as little "My Character Could Do That, but I Can't" as possible.  It's best to take advantage of the OSE system in that manner, and that includes deciphering the language.  Players should be able to handle it.

  The country side is unkempt, with broken bridges and destroyed roads.  Travel should be difficult and each Hex taking at least a day to get through.  Supplies are low.  There's a mountain to the south and sea-access to the north.  I may add a port there, however small.  Also this is meant to be the southern hemisphere, what with the sun casting shadows Southwards.

  So, that's about the set up that I have for now.  As I go through January, I'll be adding and perfecting the town of Middle Pillar.  The first Dungeon Level for Dungeon23 will be the Space Tower to the West.  "What?  Not the starter dungeon under Middle Pillar?"  No.  THAT dungeon requires knowledge from the other dungeons that I don't even know yet?  I'll likely make the top level of the four towers first, then the Top layer of Middle Pillar, then the Bottom Level of the towers, then the Bottom Level of the Middle will be at the end.  Somewhere in there will be a Side-Quest month and a Secret Dungeon month.  I don't know where.

I'm excited!  I can't wait for you all to ignore this!

Stay Tuned.