Into the Megadungeon Episode 06 "A Malignant Presence"

I’m very excited to present the first of two blood curdling October episodes of the podcast. In this episode I take us into the megadungeon to interview Luke Gearing about his weekly lunchtime megadungeon campaign Rutghast, as well as his published sci-fi horror megadungeon Gradient Descent. We talk about why the dungeon is more fun if every creature is an NPC, how random stocking produces interesting results, and why empty rooms matter. We also talk about how science horror gaming differs other genres at the table, and how Gradient Descent personifies the dungeon itself as a malignant presence that haunts the player and not just their characters.

Without further ado, I present you with Episode 6 “A Malignant Presence” on your platform of Choice

Episode 6 “A Malignant Presence” on Spotify here.

Episode 6 “A Malignant Presence” on Apple Podcasts here.

Episode 6 “A Malignant Presence” on Podcast Addict here.

Episode 6 “A Malignant Presence” on Overcast here.

Episode 6 “A Malignant Presence” on Pocket Casts here.

Episode 6 “A Malignant Presence” on Google Podcasts here.

Reader’s Notes

You can find Luke's blog ⁠here⁠, which is just chock full of useful things and wonderful creations of his remarkable digital pen.

Luke refers to two retro-clones or OSR rulesets. You can find Delving Deeper an(other) OD&D retroclone from which Luke quotes the random stocking procedures ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

He also refers to Zarkov Kowolski's Neo-Classical Greek Revival, which has the innovative rule about increasing XP for each dungeon room explored. You can find it ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

You can pre-order Sean McCoy's Warden's Operation Manual ⁠here⁠, which Luke mentions as the source of the simple but brilliant “ongoing concerns” campaign notebook page.

And, of course, you can find Gradient Descent ⁠here⁠.

You can access a transcript of this episode ⁠here⁠.