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If you’re anything like me, you can come up with a great idea for a dungeon, but you just don’t really know where to start writing it. One great tool for just this is Sersa Victory’s Cyclic Dungeon Generation system. I used this methodology to build the scaffolding of my new Shadowdark adventure Avenge the White Mare (live on Kickstarter through July 27th!) and today I’m going to walk you through the process with the hope you’ll give it a go for yourself! 

As the name implies, Cyclic Dungeon Generation makes use of cycles to design a given adventure. These circular loops within a dungeon are represented with simple flowcharts and contain four distinct icons: a start, a goal, three-to-four arcs that represent paths through the dungeon, and two insertion point diamonds where additional sub-cycles can be added.

There are 12 types of cycles, the most simple of which is “two alternative paths:”

You can see there are two ways for a party to reach their goal with an insertion point for potential sub-cycles on each path to the goal. It’s important to remember that, as flowcharts, these cycles are abstract representations of an adventure, so one point on it could represent one room or many.

Within Sersa’s wonderful guidelines you’ll find roll tables to generate these cycles for an entire adventure.  

[If you don’t want spoilers for Avenge the White Mare, stop here and just check out Sersa’s documentation on this design method!]

The overarching cycle I rolled to represent the entire dungeon is called a “gambit:”

This cycle gives the adventuring party a short path to their goal with an optional reward after the goal, should they want to pursue it. 

The start of this cycle is just the beginning of the adventure, and the goal is the sárkány dragon’s chamber. The reward, should players choose to brave the danger, is a treasure trove and an epic magical item called “Stonecrublers Gauntlet’s.” (These can help the players defeat the dragon, making traversing the danger even more enticing!) The danger itself is the dragon’s chambers, likely with the dragon within it. You can see two diamonds marking the insertion points for sub-cycles as well.

The first sub-cycle is a “simple lock-and-key:”

This cycle presents the party with a short path to the goal, which they find is locked. Finding the key requires further exploration into the dungeon. There are two types of locks though: hard, which actually requires the key, and soft, which players may be able to circumvent with clever play or at a significant cost. Since I want to encourage clever gameplay in my adventures, I went with a soft lock knowing someone might still outsmart my locked goal.

The start of this cycle is the first insertion point of the overarching cycle. The goal is the sárkány dragon itself, the lock is magical copper tendrils which hold the chamber doors shut, and the key is the magical Copper Orb that hovers above the castle’s peak. Since this is a soft lock, other magic items can repel the copper tendrils, but less effectively.

I did not want to include more sub-cycles within this sub-cycle because I was designing a one-shot, and I didn’t see a need to go too far down that rabbit hole!

For the second sub-cycle, which was placed at the bottom of the overarching dungeon cycle and which would lead to the lucrative reward, I rolled “dangerous route:”

This gives the players the option of taking a very short route to the goal, but only if they are willing to head through something dangerous. Otherwise, they can take a longer route.

The start for this cycle begins at the second insertion point in the overarching dungeon cycle. Players must work past the danger that is the sárkány dragon. This will lead them into the basement level of the castle where they are presented with a floor that drops away into simmering molten copper. Above the liquid metal is a lattice of copper cords. The molten metal + difficult lattice represents the danger needed to reach the goal of the gauntlets.

There is a less-risky way to get to the gauntlets, but it requires more exploring and other risks as well. Again, there were no additional sub-cycles added here.

When you put these all together, you get an overarching cycle diagram that looks like this:

Clockwise from the left you can see the starting point of the gambit-cycle dungeon at 9 o’clock, followed by the simple lock-and-key sub-cycle at 12 o’clock, which leads to the overarching dungeon goal at 3 o’clock, and finally the dangerous route sub-cycle at 6 o’clock.

Of course, the dungeon isn’t complete at this stage. I still needed to figure out what all the rooms would be along with all the monsters, hazards, NPCs, treasures, and other D&D nonsense you’d expect to find in a dungeon. However, the cyclic dungeon generation system gave me a great outline in which to build off of. I’m excited to use it again soon, and I think you should give it a try, too!

Avenge the White Mare is a second-level adventure designed for Shadowdark RPG and is the first full zine in the Attack the Light series. Based on the Hungarian folktale Son of the White Mare, the party must explore the copper castle and stop the sárkány dragon from spreading its terrible copper curse!

The art for the project has all been hand-carved and printed by my pal Nick Holland, and I think it looks great!

I'm really thrilled to be to be getting this project out into the world, and I couldn't have done it without the support of folks like you! Please check out the project and let me know what you think!

Until our next adventure, stay inspired and keep those dice rolling!



Michael Putlack
Night Noon Games