This week’s guest is owner & chief creative at 9th Level Games Chris O’Neill. We talk about his Polymorph system, the engine that runs his games Mazes Fantasy Roleplaying, the new edition of Kobolds Ate My Baby and his latest Return to Dark Tower RPG is available for pre-order, a companion to the board game of the same name by Restoration Games.
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You step into the all wooden interior of a massive slot machine with no other way out. The floor is an unstable pile of 10-foot diameter wooden nickels. In front of you are three massive wheels that spin vertically every time a new nickel is placed in the slot hundreds of feet above you. Roll a DEX save to avoid being hit by the giant wooden nickel.
The wall with the wheels is slightly transparent like stained glass and light shines through. You can barely make out the mountainous figure who’s plunking in a neverending barrage of nickels, but you can make out the rules of the game printed on the glass facing away from you. In reverse it reads, “Three crowns wins the jackpot!”
Roll 1d6 to see what wheel symbols hit: 1) Good-cherries, 2) a crowned tooth, 3) sausage nunchucks, 4) the numeral 9, 5) an eyeball, 6) a crown. Hitting a crown or crowned tooth are partial wins and cause a small earthquake as nickel winnings move out of the machine.
The game: Rig the wheels to hit the three crown jackpot, but remember the winning combination on the wheels are facing away from you. When you hit the jackpot, a magic crown prize materializes (see below), and the floor opens up. You and the nickels spill into the giant casino’s shag carpet floor, that to you is like a forest.
This wooden magic crown is actually a pinky ring for giants. It glows in the presence of buffets, and once a day you may summon four teenage ninja bullywugs or use its luck power to reroll a die after you’ve seen its result.
Gorm Gasher: This poor giant troll has a gambling problem. He wears a green visor and sits on a sad stool putting a nickel in the slot, pulling the lever of the one-armed-bandit (which always gives him a splinter), and watches the spinning wheels with intent. He has a stew pot on either side of him. One contains a plethora of wooden nickels. The other contains a simmering stew with PCs family members in it waiting for someone to help them. He’s ecstatic when he wins.
Art: Tiger Wizard Words: Steve Albertson
Story by: Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, Chris O’Neill
Appendix N: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV, Secret of the Ooze, Mutant Mayhem), The Crown, Game of Thrones, The Weekly World News, Burger King, Wheel of Fortune (TV), Shanghai Knights, Castlevania, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Dungeon Cats is a rules-light, casual TTRPG by our own Tiger Wizard. The pre-launch page is now live on the Epic Level’s Kickstarter! Click the “notify me on launch” button to make sure you don’t miss out!
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We’ll all be partying at Dragon Con in Atlanta Aug 31 – Sep 4. Dragon Warrior will be running games.
Sat 9:00 AM – Old School Essentials: Mad Dungeon Rooms
Sun 1:00 PM – Old School Essentials: Mad Dungeon Rooms
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We’ll be podcasting live at Gamehole Con in Madison on Oct. 19th- 24th. Dragon Warrior will be running games. Sign ups are now available. Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 10:00 AM CST – Old School Essentials: Mad Dungeon Rooms
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Monsters! Mazes! Martinis & Minotaurs! The Epic Levels – Armor Classy CDungeon is now available for purchase at Exalted Funeral. This amazing artifact is both a compact disc of the fantasy RPG hip hop album, and a full-color compact dungeon adventure that’s based on the album’s songs and Wisconsin oddity attraction, The House on the Rock. The included system-agnostic mini-adventure features a fully illustrated 10 room dungeon crawl.
Art & layout: Tiger Wizard
Written by: Steve Albertson
Additional artwork by: Ambrose H. Hoilman & Michael Mauldin
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Thanks for listening to Season Two of the Epic Levels Mad Dungeon podcast, where D&D hip hop group Epic Levels and a guest create a system-neutral, playable dungeon room using improv, comedy, and lifetimes wasted on roleplaying games.
You can support us via Patreon for early episode releases, bonus map content, extra art, access to our discord server, and lots of other exclusive goodies.
Get nerd merch and stay up to date with socials: HERE
Mad Dungeon is hosted by Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, and produced by Zach Cowan.
Theme song by Epic Levels and beat by Mason Grant.
© 2023 Epic Levels. All characters in this adventure–even those based on real people–are entirely fictional.