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Challenge Jam Gallery #1: Afterglow

Background

This is a collection of entries for the April 2025 Challenge Jam. For reference, the rules were as follows:

Rules: Write a dungeon room. Must have at least one interactable - a trap, a monster, a Device, w/e. Any system or formatting is fine.

Challenge: the first letter of each word must follow the alphabet. Ex: "A Bat Calls Down Evil Filthy Ghouls". Once you hit Z, circle back to A and keep going. You can start on any letter.

My original plan was to spotlight only one submission, but I got enough entries that I thought it'd be fun to combine them into a sort of exquisite corpse dungeon inspired by The Court of the Shivering Moon. The constraints of the challenge have me treating this more as a gallery wall than a genuinely playable adventure, but I do think there's a lot of vibrant, interesting text here. From the lacunal maggots of the Unctuous Vivarium to the column-deacons of the Ossuary Plunge, the entries trend kaleidoscopic and a little delirious. I'm excited to share them here!

Afterglow

Bright colors, dead embers. Faire grounds hide in just-killed light. Military nightmen on patrol quietly rasp: "still there?" Uttering vile words, Xer Yerrulf's zombies ache, break, collapse. Dirty explorers feebly groan: "Hell. It's just kiddy loot."

Map

1. ZERO ALPHA BREAKPOINT

by Will

Cargo drones engulf filthy graffitioed Humvees. Infantry jostle, kibbitzing. Lunchtime!

Marauding Noncoms - Officers! Pro quid-pro-quoers retching, stinking, trampling underfoot.

Vanquished Warrior - Xanthous youth, zombielike, ailing behind curtains.

Dilapidated Earthen Fortifications - Geological, hexagonal, impoverished. Juts knife-like, multipartite, precipitous.

2. Bog Carnival (Day)

by Jules

  • Everyman Faire - Go ham in Jelly Kamp, lure mackerels near Old Port.

  • Quest River - Sit tight, unavailable.

  • Vamp Waters (X-treme) - You zap a bloodsucker! Careful delving Enema Floodplains.

3. Unctuous Vivarium

by Tim
Where Xyelm's yellow zincifiys and broken chambers drip effluvia from granite hearts.

  • Interior Jaws: Knife Like. Moonless nights of pure quiescent repose see this under-vore wake.

  • X/Y Zoo: All broken coordinates. Dead, elongated, fossilised geometries held in jailing knits.

  • Lacunal Maggots: Narrow osseous perches quicken, releasing swarming things uncountable.

4. Quiescent Ramparts

by Steve

Sussurating thrumming ululations voiced: withering, xylophonic. Your zeal and belligerence can't destroy everything.

  • Fetid Ghosts - Here I jousted, killed. Lamented, mourned now, onerous putrescence quickens ripe slaughter: trespassers undone.

  • Votive Wanderers - Xanadu yet, zenith achieved. Broken candles decorate every finger, gaunt hands indolent, just kibitzing laconically, murderous, nascent. Only provocation quells reticence.

  • Spike Traps - Utter violence waits.

5. Perfumer's Quay

by Taylor

Ruined ships tilt under violet waves. Xanthic yellowfins zip about.

Bilgewater (cold, damp)
Elongated Figures (ghostly humans. immaterial. jealously kill living men [needles 1d6])
Perfumed Quilts (rancid scents: tallow, uncured veal, woad)

6: Beetle-Betrayers's Copse

by Bart

Detritus envelops forms, ghostly heroes in jittering kaleidoscope. Light made narrow on petrified quislings, revenge sears their unloyal visage.

  • Wild Xenomania - (Your zodiac announces betrayal, commands departure. Excessive foreignness glitters here, inspiring jealous kleptomancy.)

  • Horned Imago - (Jealous, Kingly, languishes moonward. Needs only player Queen.)

  • Rustmin - (See ten unborn visions, with X yo-yoing zealously across breasts. Contain/destroy every fumbling growth.)

7. XI: YERRULF'S ZOMBOPORIUM

by Will

Ancient bones, crypts, dead everything. Flowers, gallstones, hemlock, initiations.

Jewelled Kiosk (Lionheaded mechanical necromancer)- Obscene pilgrims queue. Respirators scream. Talismans up!

Verdigrised Walkway (Xenogamites)- Yapping zealots, after bone catalysts. Decay, exaltation.

Five Ghouls - Hauling intracranial jelly kegs. Like meat'n'offal pies.

8. Ossuary Plunge

by Barse

Querents' relics stand their unending vigils. White xenoliths; yellowing zealots; aging bones.

  • Column-Deacons (Eat faith. Gravel-hearted indolents.)
  • Jailed Knights (Liturgy-muttering necrosaints, one per quarantined reliquary-stalactite.)
  • The Underhang (vertiginous, wholly xenic. Yesteryear's zephyrs arc beneath, coiling down endless fathoms.)
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