Deluris Manor

The longest-running D&D Campaign I was a part of was DM'd by my friend Zythia, and ran from Early 2020 to Summer 2022. It took place in Deluris, an entirely homebrew setting that Zyth made from scratch, and included a whole bunch of references and callbacks to our own lives. Our characters started at Level 1, and we ended around Level 17, so we definitely had a lot going on.

Our characters were... ethically dubious, and while we made a few friends, we made a lot more enemies. Eventually, we realized that the towns we were staying at weren't going to put up with our antics much longer, and since we didn't feel like sleeping on the dirt, we decided to spend a small fortune of questionably-acquired gold and gems to have a new home constructed atop a recently-vanquished litch's den in the woods, on account of the teleportation circle that the monster had already established there.

Now, because our friends were all terminal Minecraft nerds, we decided there was no better way to mock-up the appearance and layout of the home than to build it in-game! And so we opened up a superflat world, and got to constructing.

The front entrance is built atop the aforementioned teleportation circle we chose the spot for, and opens into a wide open living-room with a large planning table in the center, across which canonically lies the world-map I'd been painstakingly maintaining. Beyond it was a hallway to the left, and a staircase to the second level.

Down the first-story hallway were a number of PC rooms, as well as an entrance to the basement. The first room belonged to Phrog, our Awoken Raccoon buddy who had actually grown up in the tower before it had been taken by the lich we appropriated it from. In true racoon fashion, despite having an entire room to themselves, they instead made a little cubby-hole by the window to stay in and hoard all their shinies.

The second door on the right was for our dwarf, Farden, and the one at the end of the hall was home to Read, our Silver Kobold buddy who lived up to his heritage by immediately trapping the room to maim any fool who might think to steal his valuables. Lots of trust to go around in our party :)

The room on the left was a bunkroom for our other Kobold... housekeepers? Butlers? They were originally from the construction crew who made the home, but we only found out after they finished constructing it that they didn't realize leaving was part of the agreement. Since we didn't really need all the extra space anyways, we offered them lodging in exchange for them keeping the house well-kept in our absense.

Finally, the stairs at the back lead down into a warren of tunnels and vaults originally owned by the lich we stole it from, complete even with its philactory-turned-hot-tub in the back. Song, our slightly-reclusive Yuan-Ti, immediately took a liking to the place, and made it her personal recluse shortly after moving in.

Most of the rooms in the Minecraft world weren't fully completed, and that trend continues upstairs as you enter into a wide, empty space that was meant to be a dining room, and a secondary living area next to the balcony on the roof of the horse stables. However, through the door near the top of the stairs was my room for my character Naexi, and as you can see, I did bother to furnish it. (Because I get shit done!)

Beyond the upstairs and the unfinished attic leading to a rooftop garden containing an only-slightly garish platinum-plated dragon statue, there was also the dragon roost. Up the spiral staircase of the tower was a nest for our favorite "dragon", Nordoth, whom we true-polymorphed from a rock and subsequently adopted. He seemed fine about it, though. One quarter of the tower's peak was intentionally kept open to the air so that he could fly in and out at his leisure, and his presence was definitely a factor in the Kobolds' decision to squat on our land.

As I look back at this world three years after its creation, I find myself flooded with nostalgic memories. It was a simpler time when we all played together, back when my hometown friend-group was still relatively unfractured, when the biggest concern I had was completing my 1st-year Comp-Sci assignments. I don't think I'd want to go back to those times—I care too much about what I've gained since then—but I definitely feel a tug in my heart when I think back to them.

Outside of the nostalgia though, I also have a few thoughts about using Minecraft as a mock-up tool. Mainly: It's not a good idea. When I first came up with the idea, I had the incredible realism and groundedness of builds by BDoubleO and his fellow Hermits in mind, which use Minecraft more as a canvas for art than as a simplistic world of blocks. The effortlessness they convey in their videos can definitely be misleading, though, because while Minecraft is an incredibly powerful and flexible tool for building detailed, realistic scenes, it takes skill to do so that both I and my friends frankly lack.

So what ended up coming from it was more of a compromise. An idea of a more realistic building, but an actual design firmly grounded in Minecraft. Indeed, if you look through the rooms, you'll see plenty of out-of-place Minecraft concepts, like enchanting tables, dispenser traps, cauldron-held leaves. It takes restraint and a vision to keep oneself from those easy, understood decorations and themes, and I don't think any of us had that foremost in mind while we were building our blocky home.

That's not to say that I think it was a waste of time, though. Sure, the final build might have only been a crude rendition of the much more detailed fantasy home that we had in our minds, but what's far more important to me than the build itself is the experience of creating it. It got me and my friends together to play Minecraft again—even if just for a few days—in a time where we were all busy with our own lives, and beginning to pull apart into our own directions. It had us bickering about material palettes and complaining about the canopy I built over the balcony which I only now can admit is kind-of garish and ugly, and it had us having fun. And when I think back to it now, I remember my best memories of that campaign, of my party and our adventures together. I think I'd take that over an perfectly realistic build any day.