The Otherworldly Weirdness of My Dreamland Florida

I'm not running anything, in terms of RPGs, lately. I am taking part in my buddy Eli's over-the-Zoom Ravenloft game. Is it just me or is Ravenloft lack a little bit o' bite of late? Granted, I haven't really gotten too much into the thing, yet. We're only one session in and we got beat up pretty badly in this haunted house.

The Black Lagoon - pretty near my dad's place, where I took the 3rd oath

For me, the Florida of my Youth borders directly into The Dreamlands. I often have these repetitive dreams of Florida, specifically the little parts called Miami Springs, Hialeah, and Coral Gables. There are the long tracts of nothing between Gainesville and Tallahassee, endless sprawling suburbs of Spanish-tiled rentals outside of Orlando. The dorms at University of Florida and Tallahassee which like in life seemed to me to be deathly quiet at times and spiritually empty. Often, I am in the plaza outside a Biology/Science/Botany building that doesn't really exist but might be an amalgamation of the ones i knew at Colorado State University in my time, there. I frequent simulacra of highways 826 and 836 in Miami where I learned to drive, and when I lean out the window in the howling wind and rain, I can see spiraling crypts dropping away into nothingness, rainwater pouring in. There is a version of Saint Augustine (the city, not the guy) which is stately and somber and very expensive and there I buy cast-off surplus military body-armor and scanning equipment, on my way past tourists bathing in lukewarm inlets, to the palm-coated beaches where trunks of gold coins wash up every night. Let's not tell the tourists, shall we? And don't get me started on the endless weed-choked canals where turtles, snakes, and alligators thrive and maybe we shouldn't inner-tube float down these, but we rarely lose people to the fauna in my dreams? The water is crystal clear and ice cold like the various hidden springs that my dad used to drag us to on summer weekends. Old American "indian" names. Micosoukee. Alachua, Micanopy. Ichetucknee. Apopka. I never really thought about it before. The respect that Floridians have for the indigenous people of the area is not quite reflected in the ubiquity of the names they've stolen.

When I have amassed enough snippets of morning-memory to commit them to "paper" then I have, in the past, made little settings out of them for DnD-alikes. Remind me to insert the links here for the stuff on RPGNow/DTRPG or whatever. There is often a junked-out booze-fueled armada settlement of boats, beaches where space-trash, treasure and pot-bales have washed up, long and crystal-clear swimming pools with very high diving boards, lots of undead, junk shops and spanish moss dangling from sprawling oaks. It's not unpleasant for a Dreamland, and the peninsula stretches out practically forever and there are mountains and caverns that are not filled in with water 

So anyways, Florida Guy is a subrace and there's a couple examples. A sort of mean-spirited drug-abuser type, and another couple of ones which I like better. I haven't tracked down all of them, yet. Of course, memes being what they are Florida Guy is a monster, too, and probably a religion in DnD (Chaotic Neutral, of course). LET THE OUTSIDERS THINK WHAT THEY LIKE. I think one was done by Alice Witchfire, and another by Dungeon Malcontent and another by Eternall Newbie etc etc

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/hyd7ep/oc_florida_man_human_variant/

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/haxd78/the_floridian_a_legendary_race_of_chaostouched/

https://dungeonmalcontent.tumblr.com/post/186748779847/overpowered-and-ridiculous-the-floridian-human

I picked "Florida Guy" as my subrace for "human" in this Ravenloft game, modeled loosely on myself, my family members and this guy Ellis from Left for Dead 2, and the Scout from Team Fortress 2 but not from New York, or Boston or wherever.

Anyways, I ought to codify a little more this lush corner of Dreamland and make some money off'n it. May be best to leave it there, though.

EDIT:

Here, of course, is a link to my DTRPG publisher page where you may find some of these terrible DIY documents

Biltmore Pool, Coral Gables

Venetian Pool, also Coral Gables

The Villas, Miami Springs, frequent childhood haunt of mine long after its prime

my dad's house has an unearthly oak with amazing Spanish Moss but this isn't it

There''s not really any mechanics for tubing in OSR or DnD5e. Hmm.

She overlooks the (incongruous) pits in which the dead are enshrined in Dream-not-St-Augustine of mine

God/Arjuna/Y*Weh/Zeus/Poseidon/Aphrodite/Ba'al/Aar Bless the People of the Gulfcoast, speaking of which.

Generative Music and Dungeons

Man, I really dig setting the lad on overdrive with a loose plan in his head and seeing what comes shaking out. So, like "dungeons" are out, yeah? Meaning: I'm not really feeling it anymore. I mean who knows what I could have accomplished in this life if I hadn't come across Creepy Gary and Pervy Brian in the hallway at Faith Lutheran Elementary School in Hialeah, Miami, circa 1982? What if I hadn't spent 35 years of my life literally daydreaming about finding treasure guarded by dinosaurs in holes in the dirt?

Could I have, say, learned to play the piano? Or the guitar? or fucked around with electronics? Well, I don't know. See: DnD was always a relatively cheap hobby. I was always asthmatic and injured. When I wasn't dissociating from shitty circumstances, retreating into my own Id, I was going to school, doing shitty jobs, drinking, smoking, coffeeing up. Always tired or getting tired and fixing it with stimulants. When it was quiet: Dungeons. Dragons. Dead wizards.

So like, I incorporated my old wargaming blog (The Lasrifle and Crowquill, you may remember! or not!) into this one, and rather than just DnD, and wargames, and etc. gaming stuff, Imma hit you all up with my #DIYsynth #ambientnoise #evilrituals #demonsummoning type thing. I like to build stuff with my hands and frankly groping around in the dark is only fun as a prelude to smooching etc for me.

So far, I got a weird box of Evil Noise. Which is fun. I got a couple of guitar pedals to go with my second hand Fender knockoffs. I got a bunch of #diy electronics supplies like a soldering iron and chips and wires n resistors n potentiometers. I got a DIY pedal en route from Europa, an 8-Bitar from parasit studios

In the works at the moment are a couple of oscillators, and (the star of my personal soul-show) a Circuit-Bent Speak n Spell, otherwise known as an Incantor. Also, I think I got a line to my wife's old Commodore 64 and I will (sacreligiously) plunder it for the noise chip inside it. Probably.

...this all in addition to a great number of toy and real musical instruments and some VST instruments and effects, with the addition of Audition and a copy of Reaper and some other digital audio workstations.

Me n Carl B have been talking about "Dungeonsynth" which many people do not necesssssarily know is a thing. My favorite of the genre is Kobold HDK 07 - Curse of the Ancient Abbey, since it hits me in the C64/Red Box D&D feels

So ask Carl B what his recent foray into DungeonSynth has been maybe he kin release it (I had a taste of the pre-release mix and it's gooood), and I heard Donn Stroud's old album, too, and if making musics like this isn't your cuppa tea, then like: that's cool. Hey man, let's explore our other areas of interest together and if tangentially they hit on Dungeons, or Dragons, or burning Wizards to cinders, then cool. I got a (probably trademark infractioning) home page for my magickal musickal endeavors down the road, too.

Remind me to find the .midi files for Wizards of Wor, btw

Some generative dungeon-sploring music for you (not mine):

If you add "d3 Androids led by 1 3rd Level Android Warrior" to any dungeon generator, you're getting legit, broh. Hold on I'll generate you a cool 10-room dungeon to while away your hours while you listen to these phat tracks, yo.

10 GENERATE DUNGEON

20 INPUT "WHAT DO YOU WISH TO DO NOW?";A$

30 GOTO 10

FREE DUNGEON: THE CRYSTAL OF THE LONELY ANDROID

n.b. map not included but check out Dyson's patreon or #DIY

(interesting side note: this is unedited produced by my Tablesmith file)

the subtypes are additional modifiers to creatures to weird out players and keep them on their toes

1. 7 Stirges subtype Crystal guard Potion of Invulnerability and Cigarette Lighter Functions on 1-4 in 20. The treasure is in aluminum gear crates.

2. This room has a weapon racks that contain 3 ancient mono-scimitars.

3. A matter replicator device, containing antique coins worth 1685 GP . The treasure is loose and safeguarded with spears released from walls when container opened.

4. The room contains Janni subtype Ghoul and a thick spiderwebs.

5. The room contains Ogre subtype Flesh and a Poisoned Arrow Trap. The party sustains d20+5 attacks that do 1d6 damage and a random DC 15 poison.

6. The room contains 1 Drow Elves subtype Frost and a Radiation Field Projector, forcing a DC 14 Constitution save or victim gains random major corruption.

7. This small room includes a Robodoc terminal.

8. A Nanoalchemicobot Infestation will turn all metal items to powdery rust keeps the 1410 GP safeguarded.

9. 1 Androids guard antique coins worth 1773 GP . The treasure is scattered on the floor.

10. There is a force field that constrains Seven-Headed Hydra (Pyro- Or Cryo-) here.