Squirrel Planet / Entry for the One Page Dungeon Contest 2022

Once upon a time a group of friends came across a black squirrel. Since they had nothing else to do, they decided to follow it. After 20 minutes the squirrel disappeared. The group witnessed it going into a tree and because they were curious, they tried entering the tree, which surprisingly worked.

When they opened their eyes, they found themselves on a weird planet, ruled by squirrels. They were soon noticed and brought to the king of the planet. He explained to them that they had to go into a dungeon to either stay on the planet as squirrels or go back to earth with no memory of the planet, if they managed to get out. Otherwise they would all die.

Space Chicken Fighter (1) In this room the group encounters a space chicken fighter whose special weapon is his dangerous lightsaber which can easily be deadly.

Roboteeth Pony (2) In this room the friends encounter a pony whose roboteeth can do a lot of damage, but the pony can only use them every third round.

Turkey-Platypus (3) A turkey-platypus with dangerously long nails awaits the group in this room. One scratch robs you of half your health points, but the turkey-platypus cannot scratch that easily, because his nails are really slim.

Mutant Space Squirrel (4) This three headed space squirrel is the end boss. It has the ability to teleportate itself, read and control minds and control hair. It’s weakness is that it can’t breath without its helmet.

If you finish the dungeon every character who died will be resurrected and you have the choice between going back to earth without memories of this planet or live on the squirrel planet as a squirrel.

[Note] This is a dungeon written by Lina (14), Hendrik (12) and Joaquín (10) for the One Page Dungeon Contest 2022. After reading it, I told them that I thought it was too linear, not giving the players too many options. That it felt more like a film, not like a game.

I suggested a room, room 0, with a large machine looking like a retro arcade, that would show low resolution pictures of the four monsters and had four buttons and could teleport the adventure party to the four rooms. And maybe there could be some spray cans lying around.

My daughter got angry and screamed that they had put a lot of work into this and didn’t want to change anything. I repeated that the jury might find the dungeon too linear. She replied that she didn’t even care about the prizes. Well, I said, but maybe you want to play it with your D&D group and make the dungeon more interesting. Ok, then add a room, if you must, she said.