Pace Pundit, I think Dwimmermount could work really well for a Medieval Authentic Megadungeon campaign. The major conceit of Dwimmermount is "What if Simon Magus, not Jesus Christ, had won the contest and become the monotheistic deity of the late Roman empire?" With some fairly light reskinning, Dwimmermount, Bologna AD 1088, could be a Roman-built ruin concealing the Ultimate Blasphemy - Simon Magus as the Ascended Christ.

PCs as Knights Templar and/or Hospitaller could be assigned to delve into the mountain to find and either recover or destroy the Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Both their sword arms and their faith will be tested to the utmost...

Quote from: RandyB;1057974I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

In all seriousness, this is exactly how it should go.

Milton is not really medieval as he is both very Protestant and had all sorts of political ideas that are quite antithetical to medieval thought.  But i find his central points are pretty much antithetical to modern ideas.  Most people read "Better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven" and think that might actually be the case, when it's actually Satan's self deception.

I've been asking myself how to go about doing it, and I think the solution might be to simply do it directly.  To have the beings of the underworld directly say that their violence against the player characters is the freedom they gain from rebelling against the divine order.  To have monuments and shrines in the underworld celebrating the foul fruits of their crimes.  Perhaps a celebration of vices that we no longer consider that big of a deal?  Perfidy/Oath breaking.  Leisure/Torpor causing society to crumble.  Stuff like that.

And maybe they should be represented in the reverse of how virtues and vices were shown in medieval art.  It was often personified into characters with the virtue slaying the vice.  Humility slaying pride.  But perhaps the tapestries of the underworld need to depict the vices slaying the virtues?  Perhaps the trees of virtue and trees of vice, instead of being juxtaposed, depict the tree of vice standing tall and triumphant but the tree of virtue felled or tumbled?

And maybe pictures of out right tearing down of society.  Of kings being executed.  Bishops and saints tortured and killed. Exultant devils dancing on the corpses of women and infants.  Burning churches, plague ridden cities and so forth.  Pointing and laughing at a pontiff in stocks, naked except for his mitre.

A reversal of the works of mercy?  Taking food away from the hungry, not allowing the thirsty to drink.  Tearing the meager rags off peasants, beggars receiving beatings rather than shelter.  Destroying books, blinding people, celebrating crime.  That sort of thing.

Those that rule are in chains.  Those that work are indolent and drunk.  Those that pray are false and have bags and pockets overflowing with gold and hands covered in blood.

Quote from: S'mon;1057979Ultimate Blasphemy - Simon Magus as the Ascended Christ.

That is a cool idea, but I think it may actually be more shocking if the monotheism in a medieval RPG setting is simply true and good.  That might actually be more blasphemous to a modern audience.

Quote from: NathanIW;1057984That is a cool idea, but I think it may actually be more shocking if the monotheism in a medieval RPG setting is simply true and good.  That might actually be more blasphemous to a modern audience.

I would want to do it as a descent into the Pit being a test of Faith - a moral as well as physical challenge, not a lazy reversal a la His Dark Materials. Like Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness or, of course, Campbell's general Descent into the Underworld.

In the Dwimmermount backstory Tums Turmax (Simon Magus) becomes the One God of the Thulean (Roman) empire. What if something like this had actually happened at one stage, but been later covered up (bit of Da Vinci Code maybe). It might explain why the empire fell. Perhaps the invading Arianist barbarians actually were bringing the True Faith back to the corrupted empire, along with a small number of monks like St Augustine who had kept the faith. Now the opening of the gates of Dwimmermount threatens to see Magus' final ascension - and he & his followers have all sorts of very-modern-sounding reasons why he's right and the Nazarene is wrong...

A descent into a Dante-Milton Underworld is a great idea too, but Dante's vision especially is not threatening to the medieval mindset, so I'm not seeing the existential threat that would necessitate plonking an order of holy knights on top of the hell mouth. In Dante the demons still work for God and everything is according to the Divine Order in the end. You could do more with Milton I think, with Hell representing vice such as the questioning of authority, but presenting it as potentially attractive and the devils as ostensibly gutsy cool rebels against The Man - but with the underlying theme that they are in the end fundamentally vacuous and miserable, seeking to tempt others to share in their eternal misery of separation from God.

I like the concept of attempting to make medieval fantasy more.....medieval.

Why in the world didn't that idea come to the forefront a long time ago?

I mean, that's like saying you want your chocolate cake to be more chocolaty.

Quote from: S'mon;1058034I would want to do it as a descent into the Pit being a test of Faith - a moral as well as physical challenge, not a lazy reversal a la His Dark Materials. Like Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness or, of course, Campbell's general Descent into the Underworld.

That makes a lot more sense.

Quote from: S'mon;1058035A descent into a Dante-Milton Underworld is a great idea too, but Dante's vision especially is not threatening to the medieval mindset, so I'm not seeing the existential threat that would necessitate plonking an order of holy knights on top of the hell mouth.

The more I think about it the Medieval take on the devil was that even in his rebellion he was serving the divine order.  In folk tales where he successfully gets one over on someone, it's always because they sinned.

QuoteIn Dante the demons still work for God and everything is according to the Divine Order in the end. You could do more with Milton I think, with Hell representing vice such as the questioning of authority, but presenting it as potentially attractive and the devils as ostensibly gutsy cool rebels against The Man - but with the underlying theme that they are in the end fundamentally vacuous and miserable, seeking to tempt others to share in their eternal misery of separation from God.

Yeah.  I'm going to have to give this more thought, but perhaps the underworld won't be literally hell or some sort of post-medieval miltonian take on things.

The real evil to a medieval person was another person who sinned.  The devils and demons were certainly evil, but even they were forced to comply and participate in the divine order.  So perhaps the real thing to go after with the underworld is that it is an instrument of human corruption.  Not the devil being allowed to send young boys to hell for breaking the sabbath, but the force of vice that is connected with non-conformity to the social order of the middle ages.

So maybe the reversal of medieval art about virtue and vice is a better starting point than Milton or Dante?

Perhaps something like the idea you mentioned earlier about a blasphemous take on things.  But not in a Divinci code way where the conspiracy is the real truth that would upset the status quo.  The heresy of the underworld is actually wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_movements_declared_heretical_by_the_Catholic_Church#Medieval_heresies

I can probably connect those with the tree of vice.  You don't need the priests, you can know the truth yourself.  You are your own priest!  

There's no reason to toil, you'll be fed by God directly.  Abandon your property and your oaths and responsibility and become free.  Your holy renunciation frees you from any bond or obligation.  

The god of the church isn't the real god, there are two!  An evil god that trapped everyone here and put the church in power and a true god that you can commune with directly.  Undergo our new baptism and be made perfect!

What separation can there be between the perfect soul and the divine?  Sin is only what we think is sin.  Once you are made perfect whatever you think and do can't be sin, can it?  So the priests that teach the people virtues and vices and warn about sins are actually making sin abound!  We can stop them.  A dead man will trap no more souls with his lies.

So like Milton's Satan claiming to stand for freedom against the ultimate tyranny, but instead it's a promise of freedom from the social order of the Church rather than the divine itself.

The underworld as a manifestation and personification of heresy.

Quote from: NathanIW;1058037So maybe the reversal of medieval art about virtue and vice is a better starting point than Milton or Dante?

I think it's a good idea yes. And of course very ripe for any satire/social commentary you're up for.

Quote from: NathanIW;1058037The underworld as a manifestation and personification of heresy.

Yes! The deeper you go, the more extreme (and ancient) the heresy. At the bottom, the temptation (false offer, as are all temptations) of ascension to godhood. "You will be like God."

Quote from: RandyB;1058055Yes! The deeper you go, the more extreme (and ancient) the heresy. At the bottom, the temptation (false offer, as are all temptations) of ascension to godhood. "You will be like God."

Yes! If they ever get to the bottom, it's an offer of immortality.  Of ruling the whole world.  The offer the devil made to Christ in the wilderness.

I think I figured out how I'm going to do this.  I've been reading some Dark Albion Cults of Chaos for some ideas as well, but I think the underworld as the personification of heresy and the vices that lead to it will work.

Would L&D be a good system for running a Dolmenwood game or something set in Vance's Elder Isles (Lyonesse)?

Quote from: NathanIW;1057901So say I like the idea of a Medieval-Authentic campaign, but both myself and my players are totally enamored with megadungeons.  Perhaps a good idea would be to have a Crusade called once entrances to the underworld were discovered?  Perhaps the characters must all be part of the same chivalric order?  Whether they are actual members or their retainers or hangers on?  I think that should map fine to the social class framework presented in the book.

Yeah, sure, there's no reason why you couldn't do that.  

But there are other options too. There were mine complexes all over medieval England, including some that, by the 15th century, had been already been abandoned for thousands of years. Ancient neolithic mines, where the people of the land before the Britons once excavated, and who knew what they had there?

And to say nothing of cave complexes.

What I'd say, at least, is not to use megadungeons that feel and look like normal D&D dungeons. You should make them something very different.

Quote from: S'mon;1057979Pace Pundit, I think Dwimmermount could work really well for a Medieval Authentic Megadungeon campaign. The major conceit of Dwimmermount is "What if Simon Magus, not Jesus Christ, had won the contest and become the monotheistic deity of the late Roman empire?" With some fairly light reskinning, Dwimmermount, Bologna AD 1088, could be a Roman-built ruin concealing the Ultimate Blasphemy - Simon Magus as the Ascended Christ.

PCs as Knights Templar and/or Hospitaller could be assigned to delve into the mountain to find and either recover or destroy the Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Both their sword arms and their faith will be tested to the utmost...

Well, that could definitely be interesting!

Quote from: nightlamp;1058068Would L&D be a good system for running a Dolmenwood game or something set in Vance's Elder Isles (Lyonesse)?

I haven't really looked at Dolmenwood, so it would be hard for me to give a truly objective answer.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1058498I haven't really looked at Dolmenwood, so it would be hard for me to give a truly objective answer.

It's the weird-folklore "mythic forest" setting by Gavin Norman and Greg Gorgonmilk, published in parts in their excellent Wormskin zine.  It has a monotheistic church, lots of fey creatures, ley line magic, and such.  There's a free "Welcome to Dolmenwood" PDF on DTRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/208099/Welcome-to-Dolmenwood

Quote from: nightlamp;1058563It's the weird-folklore "mythic forest" setting by Gavin Norman and Greg Gorgonmilk, published in parts in their excellent Wormskin zine.  It has a monotheistic church, lots of fey creatures, ley line magic, and such.  There's a free "Welcome to Dolmenwood" PDF on DTRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/208099/Welcome-to-Dolmenwood

Certainly sounds like that would work with L&D.

I also have a sourcebook for 'fairy land' in RPGPundit Presents #30: Adventures in the Twilight Realms of the Fae.