I no longer support Aeldardin Key, and it has known security issues in its vulnerabilities. Do not use this; it is probably insecure, and doesn't work anyway.

Aeldardin Key

(Tools to work with) a YAML format for dungeon keys, designed for use with D&D and similar roleplaying games.

This is a companion project to Aeldardin Rooms. Whereas that app aims to represent dungeon layouts in a machine-readable way, this one models and processes dungeon keys.

Usage:

Convert to a .gv (Graphviz) graph:

bin/aeldardin-to-dot dungeon.yml > output.gv

Convert to a Markdown-formatted dungeon key:

bin/aeldardin-to-key.rb dungeon.yml > output.md

(or pipe output through your favourite Markdown processor to get HTML, etc.)

Calculate dungeon statistics (room counts):

bin/aeldardin-stats dungeon.yml

Rationale

Why is this worth doing? It is, after all, a lot of effort to type up a dungeon key in a strict format like this.

Two things motivate me to build this:

Firstly, Dungeons keys are fundamentally structured data (see Justin Alexander's series on them). Since I'm obsessed with style-and-content separation, I want to work on the structure -- the dungeon itself -- and not worry about formatting (how big should this heading be?) or structure (where should I put stat blocks?) until it comes time to publish the dungeon.

Using a machine-readable format lets me automatically generate the final layout when the time comes, without having to decide on it ahead of time.

Which brings me to my second point: if you can generate multiple layouts, you can pick a layout that emphasises one particular aspect of the dungeon.

For instance (and this is my first goal for the project), a graph showing room connections, which emphasises how the dungeon is structured.

Data Format

This is a rough description of the YAML format I'm using. TODO: write up a formal schema of some kind.

• title (string): The title of the adventure
• blurb (text): Summary of what the adventure is about
• monster: Details of a particular monster. Exact format depends on the particular game you're writing for.
• zone: A region of the dungeon (e.g. level) (TODO: make this the same as region, so we can have a recursive structure):
  • id (id): A machine-readable name for the zone, to allow references from elsewhere in the document.
  • name (string)
  • encounters (array): A random-encounter table for the zone. Could contain monster tags, or just text descriptions.
  • connections: Ways to travel out of this zone (only really useful for wilderness, etc. without distinct rooms):
    • key (id): Machine-readable, unique name for use elsewhere.
    • to (idref): ID of the zone the connection leads to. (Not the exact room, which is determined by the exits list in the zone).
    • description (text)
  • regions (array): An area of the zone with mapped dungeon rooms
    • name (string): Descriptive name of the region
    • rooms (array):
      • key (id): Map key number of the room. Must be unique within a zone (TODO: why this scope?)
      • name (string): Descriptive room name. Optional.
      • exits (array): Exits of the room. Array elements may be bare strings (interpreted as destination keys), or hashes like { to: 22 , type: <type>}, where <type> describes the nature of the passage (door, secret, blocked, concealed, narrow, etc.), and 22 is the key of the destination room.
      • monster (array): Array of monster details.
      • treasure (array): Array of valuable items there for the taking. Items carried by monsters should be sub-keys on the relevant monster entries.
        • item (string): Name of the item.
        • coin (denomination): Denomination of coin. item is unnecessary in this case.
        • quantity (number-or-die-roll): Number of this item in the room/carried by the monster.
        • value (number-or-die-roll): Value of one item (or of the whole lot of no quantity specified -- e.g. for coins).
        • weight (number) weight per individual item.
      • objects (array) -- details of non-item, non-trap things in the room. Can be plain strings, or hashes with keys item (first-glance description) and description (details noticed on investigating).
      • trap (array): Array of trap descriptions.
      • description: Text description of the room, excluding details that would go on one of the above keys.