Laughing Panjandrum's ASCII Dungeons I Want to Explore - The Imminent Church Engine

I have no idea who Imminent Church Engine is, and I can't remember how I initially found a link to their website, but I'm glad I saved a copy. They've created two quite-beautiful dungeon maps using only colorful ASCII text characters, and I'm hopeful that they'll eventually create more.

Church of the Ailing Flower by Imminent Church Engine

Tomb of King Oraine by Imminent Church Engine

The first is the Church of the Ailing Flower. I think it may technically be the larger of the two, though that's in part because of the large exterior space. In all, there's fewer rooms and less going on in here. The small square rooms on the right-hand side are also meant to be stocked using a small random table during play.

The second in the Tomb of King Oraine (also called the Tomb of Cursed Glass on that index page I linked to.) This one has more rooms, more interesting paths and loops, and more going on. There's more treasure and a few different factions for the player characters to interact with. Personally, I also find this one prettier. There's more contrast, and even areas with a lot of similar-colored tiles have a bit of variation that breaks the possible monotone up nicely. The pink numbers also look good against all those cool colors. I think the only way I could like it more would be if the background were dark blue instead of black. I definitely feel an urge to try copying this visual style.

I would categorize both these adventures as "horror," since both involve exploring a creepy abandoned space, piecing together clues about what awful thing happened here in the past, and then potentially fighting a single large and extremely dangerous monster at the climax. Which isn't to say there aren't a number of small monsters in each dungeon, but the "boss" of each area is much more dangerous than anything else in the place. (Although by this argument, Mega Man is also a horror game, so my definition might be flawed.)

The writing here is pretty terse, but manages to pack in a lot of visual detail, and in both cases, the dungeons are fairly tightly themed. The Church has a lot of floral and, well, church imagery, while the Tomb is full of machines and glass. Here's an example that really highlights the visual imagery of the writing, from the entryway to the Tomb:

"1 Entrance - Tomb door is shut but unlocked, overgrown with vines. Hall also overgrown with lichen and flowers. Sunlight shines through cracks in the ceiling."

The monsters and treasures are all unique here. The monsters are written up in a way that's rules-light and is basically universally compatible. You get the number of hit dice, how they attack, and how they defend themselves. A couple monsters have special considerations, like the fact that if a Creeping Thing kills someone, it'll "begin to ravenously devour the victim, ignoring all else." Again, the writing here is brief, but I think gives you enough to work with so you're not grasping at straws. The treasure is similar, brief descriptions of the objects, followed by a price, denominated in silver.

There's something so fascinating seeing something like these two dungeons. The art is an aesthetic I've seen before, but not often, and not recently, outside of roguelike video-gaming. There's a spark of vital creativity, yet the text also has the hallmarks of someone who's well familiar with the evaluative standards that Bryce Lynch of Ten Foot Pole, for example, applies to adventure writing. But who is the author, what are their views, have they used these at the table, do they have a blog? Who knows. Instead they just sit there, deprived of context, not even a diamond in the rough - a diamond in the void.

Be sure to check Imminent Church Engine's page again in the future to see if they post any more of these images.

Update: After posting this, Laughing Panjandrum, the creator of these images, reached out to me and shared their blog link. You can find them at Imminent Demon Engine, where they're currently writing about a Dark Sun -esque setting!