One Room At A Time

A daily practice in worldbuilding

by Chris Hill, Scrap Yarn Games

Back when I was 10 (and rocks were still soft), I loved making mazes. My favorites were the ones that stretched across multiple pages, with different exits to the next page. Some of those exits had monsters waiting on the other side and if you turned the page and hit a monster, well... sorry. You were devoured.

I drew a lot of these mazes, and eventually I showed them to some friends who said, “You should be a Dungeon Master!” to which I replied, “Cool! What’s that?”

This was during the early ’80s D&D boom, and since I didn’t have many people telling me I was good at things back then, I jumped in with both feet. The rest, as they say, is history.

All these years (and countless RPGs) later, I still love making maps and building worlds. Toward the end of last year, I stumbled across Sean “Mothership” McCoy’s Dungeon 23 project. The idea is elegant: build one room of a dungeon every day for 365 days. By the end of the year, you’ve got a megadungeon. Since megadungeons are absolute beasts to create, breaking it into daily bites makes the whole thing feel, well, possible.

This project isn’t about being perfect (though Blades of Gixa is wildly inspirational), or even about being especially pretty (though I’ll definitely be leaning on JP Coovert’s tutorials). For me, it’s about taking a little intentional time each day to create. One square at a time. One world unfolding slowly instead of doomscrolling my time away.

If you want to come along and try this yourself, grab a writing implement that speaks to you and some paper in whatever form you like: a notebook, sketchbook, journal, datebook or even loose sheets. I almost went with one of those oversized desk calendars, but since my desk is usually buried in papers and notebooks, another notebook felt safer. At the very least, they tend to float back to the surface eventually.

I'm using a Moleskine Student Cahier XXL Plain Journal (not paid to say that, but I do love me some Moleskine) and planned to divide it up like a calendar. You’ll notice that in January (and, as you’ll see, February too), my “weeks” have eight days instead of seven. But we’re artists here, and as Bob Ross taught us: there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.

I numbered the grid from 1 to 31 and started drawing. Blank spaces that are not "days" are for notes or whatever else I might be inspired to add.

I decided to start easy by mapping what’s on the surface above the megadungeon. That’s what you see here for January: welcome to the Greywater River Valley and the city of Hiemalberg (it's winter here, so I have a theme).

My plan is that each month either goes down a level or expands sideways, and every new section has to connect to the one before it. So next month I’ll be working on the caves, sewers, and basements beneath the valley. When March rolls around, I might keep expanding those near-surface areas or I might dig even deeper and see what lies further down.

Connection points will be clearly marked so I can always find my way around (or back out).

Beyond the mapping itself, I’m following Sean’s advice pretty closely:

• I’m not overthinking things.

• I’m focusing on roughing out one room a day.

• If I can’t think of anything, I’m okay leaving a space blank (see days 3, 21, and 22).

• I’m borrowing ideas from people and things that inspire me.

• If I miss a day, I won’t beat myself up. I’ll either catch up or get creative with empty spaces. Life is busy, and this is supposed to be fun.

I’m also not stressing about clever descriptions for each room. If inspiration strikes, great. If not, an evocative name (or even a boring one) will do. You never know when a named area might become useful later.

Since there isn't really an organized Dungeon 26 that I've found (I trust that someone will let me know if there is), if you’d like to join me on this journey, tag me with #365Dungeon. I'd follow Sean's naming convention, but I don't want anyone to feel like they have to wait a year to begin simply because they didn’t get going on January 1. You can start building anytime you find this and 365 days later, you’ll still have a year’s worth of creation behind you.

I’ll be sharing each month’s dungeon page in my monthly newsletter, Yarns for One, over on Substack (subscriptions are free). If you’d like to see entries more often, let me know. Perhaps I can put them on Scrap Yarn's Instagram every week.

I’m excited to share this adventure with you. Let's get exploring!