Megadungeon Book Club 13: Castle Triskelion 10
I'm taking part in Studio315b's Megadungeon Book Club! We're looking at Castle Triskelion by Tim Stypinski for the next couple weeks. Studio315b compiled the rest of the dungeon and we've been reading along with that.
Check out my post from last week here.
Inner Ward Cellars
Important crossroads floor with connections to the Ground Floor of the Inner Ward, the Grounds and the Sewers. A bit unfortunate that a lot of important faction information is isolated to this floor (The leader of the Red Legs, Vicenne's larder and mistress, the cellar dwellers' complex). Rooms could be connected a bit more but otherwise solidly looped map. Floor doesn't overstay it's welcome and has enough to do and explore in the various rooms, it's a good one.
Inner Ward: Rat Warrens
The decision to heavily limit the movement of common PC species like orc, elf and human is a bold choice, and one that I think will cause most groups to skip this floor. I can see the rationale behind cutting it too -- it's an interstitial floor that connects to various others but is mostly self-contained as far as complex interactions.
I think that cutting this floor would be a mistake, the ratkin as a faction have a lot to offer especially because they can move all around the other floors so easily. Politics with the Rat Royals could and should make up a large part of the early part of faction play within the dungeons and Inner Ward. If anything I'd increase the impact of the ratkin and this floor in particular, largely by making it easier for larger characters to be present on the floor and making the ratkin much more likely to appear on the other floors.
Inner Ward Sewers
Another crossroads level, this one less-than-stellar. I predict a lot of elision of this floor, which is fine. It serves its purpose by being a way to connect the other crossroads floors and adding additional loops.