AN UNDERMOUNTAIN CON-VENTURE!
Breaking News: Interview with Brando about running your own Megadungeon-themed Conventions on the Dead Games Society Podcast #36!
“You know, you start kicking too much ass with your Color Sprays and stuff…”
- Intro to a Gnome Illusionist’s Testimonial
- Intro to a Gnome Illusionist’s Testimonial
Wall of Dead Player Characters
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Intro to Brandonomicon
"I'm making this [video] to document everything so you can vicariously slay monsters with us. So you can pretend... to pretend... to fight pretend monsters.
- Brando |
Brandonomicon is named after its founder, Good King Brando. Brando was this Website's author’s first long-term Dungeon Master, back in the Lost Lands of Iowa in the early Nineteen-Nineties. Brando comes from the Old Guard of Dungeon Mastery, which involves running players through AD&D Megadungeons and killing them seemingly willy-nilly (but, he assures us, somehow always our own fault). His favorite Megadungeon adventures have always been those in Undermountain, and as such in his later years developed his own annual convention based around that Megadungeon. At Brandonomicon, attendees split up into teams (Iron, Bronze, or Crystal), and participate in various physical challenges (such as skeet shooting or geocaching) for the first two days in order to win treasures their team can use upon entering the dungeon (and these special treasures are represented by individually-printed cards). On the last day of the convention Brando runs a 10-hour game of Undermountain, where each team will send a player to venture into the dungeon through the Yawning Portal (armed with whatever treasure cards they earned through the previous physical challenges), alongside members of the other teams. They will ideally try to get some treasure, get back out of the dungeon, and bank whatever they found. Then another member of their team will enter with the group and so on. Whichever team has the most gold banked at the end of the 10-hour marathon wins the ‘Con, and an actual real-life Magic Dwarven Throwing Hammer! (replica) However, in true old school fashion, it usually ends up that 85% of those who enter Undermountain die in some horrible fashion inside the dungeon, and its more of a “Press your Luck” or “Paranoia” adventure than anything else, because Carrion Crawlers, Ettercaps, pongee stick traps, and backstabbing players from other teams lie around every corner of the dungeon. On one wall of the convention hall the players will pin up their dead character sheets with descriptions written across them of how they died, and by the end of Brandonomicon there’s usually in excess of twenty or more dead characters up on that wall. It’s a brutal dungeon, and not for the faint of heart or weak of constitution. It is a glorious time.
The Vorpal Chainsword could NOT represent at Brandonomicon in 2015, because I was Dungeon Mastering a Wedding on that same weekend for some friends. (Pro-Tip: In Wisconsin, once you reach Level 12 in Dungeon Mastering you are automatically allowed to Officiate Weddings. It’s right there in the state by-laws.)
So Brando recorded bits of the ‘Con for those of us who couldn’t make it, and they are a lot of fun to watch for fellow lovers of the old-school D&D Megadungeon. Check 'em out! (Note: Full-length video from the whole convention weekend at the bottom of the page).
So Brando recorded bits of the ‘Con for those of us who couldn’t make it, and they are a lot of fun to watch for fellow lovers of the old-school D&D Megadungeon. Check 'em out! (Note: Full-length video from the whole convention weekend at the bottom of the page).
Enter the Undermountain!
(With Dead Character Testimonials starting at 1:20)
Pre-Dungeon Physical Challenges!
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Treasure Beyond Measure!
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Everlasting Glory for those who emerge Triumphant!
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