The Slumbering Castle Devlog 2: Challenges and Enchantments

Challenges in the Slumbering Castle

There is only 1 enemy to fight in the Slumbering Castle¹.  The place is empty.  Initially I pondered including all kinds of enemies² but these all seemed to dilute the vision I had.  This is a quiet and empty place, a largely peaceful place.  There are no factions or hordes of enemies to overcome.  Despite this, I want the Slumbering Castle to be scary.  I want it to be dangerous and terrifying.  So the somewhat unique challenge is finding ways to create challenge without combat.  This is a problem I'm still working on but here are ideas I have so far:

1. The Death-Sleep (Sleep-Death?): This is a working title for the sleep which overwhelms in this place.  Basically the longer you stay, the closer you come to a sleep that cannot be woken from.
2. The Thorns: Thorns must be actively cut or burned to clear paths and regrow within a few minutes.  Carefully moving through the thorns cuts movement speed by 3/4, and moving at normal speed deals minor damage.
3. The Fog: You can only see clearly within 20ft.  Torches can be seen from 40ft.  Large flames can be seen from 60ft.  The fog also prevents divination magic targeting anything within.
4. Navigational Hazards: Getting lost is the end.  So is getting stuck in a dry moat.  So is a rampart or tunnel entrance collapsing if you are in the wrong place.
5. Dream Illusions: I'm on the fence about this but haven't ruled out the idea that places with large concentrations of sleepers may have distortions where the dreams begin to infect the real world through powerful illusions.  
6. The Dragon: Unlike the Disney version of this fairy tale, the dragon is not an enemy to be slain but one to be avoided and hidden from.  Killing it will not help you.

Wilhelm Jordan

Enchantments in the Slumbering Castle

The Slumbering Castle will be written primarily to be used with Fire Tales RPG, so a secondary goal for this project is to utilize Fire Tales' magic systems³ for the enchantments.  The main enchantments, their current stats, and mechanical effects are as follows:

• Thorns and Fog (Spell - Nature: Shifting; Configuration: Land; Target: All; Duration: Century; Incantations: Mystify (Targets become surrounded by a layer of thick magical mist,
  and cannot be seen or sensed by scrying or detection magic for the duration.), Plant Growth (Plants targeted grow rapidly and regrow constantly for the duration.))
• These effects are part of the same spell and can potentially be dispelled or suppressed with spellcasting.
• Goddess' Curse (Appeal - Offering Magnitude: 10; Appeal Magnitude: 5)
• Mechanically stamina cannot be recovered and is lost over time.  When a character reaches 0 stamina they fall into immediate Death-sleep.
• The Dragon's Curse (Invocation - I want all heavy spoilers and details regarding the Dragon to be in the same post so I'm saving this for now.)

More Inspirations for the Slumbering Castle
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro - This is a very melancholic book with wonderful atmosphere that I was thinking about in relation to the castle recently.  It also has lots of magic fog.
The Eternal Ruins - This is a youtube channel and worldbuilding project with an upcoming RPG I am super excited for.  The artwork for this is excellent and seems to draw from similar sources as The Slumbering Castle but goes in a different direction tonally.

Next Steps
My plan is to start working on the map both for the castle and it's surroundings and brainstorm a large list of locations and points of interest.  I am currently planning to run an early playtest of the castle at a convention next month so I need to have something solid soon.

The Slumbering Castle Devlogs: 1, 2 

¹    The Dragon which I will explore my ideas for in a later devlog
²    thorn monsters, skeletal guardians, animated objects, feral rats, dream spirits
³     Spellcasting in Fire Tales uses targeting similar to Ars Magica with spell effects similar to Cairn and Knave 2E's brief spell descriptions.  Invocations are described in a prior post.  Divine appeals require ritual offerings and have their mechanical effects determined by the Firekeeper (Gamemaster).