Let The Work Begin...

The inspiration for White Rabbit Castle, the setting for my Labyrinth Lord "megadungeon" is this creepy old painting which hangs in our stairwell.

It lay in my parents' attic for as long as I can remember and, in my childhood, my mother would joke: "Can you see the rabbit?" The joke being that the "rabbit" is, of course, the shape of the clouds and not an insignificant dark speck on a dark and gloomy painting.

No one seems to know who painted it or even where it came from... as the guide on our recent ghost tour would say: "Ohhh, spooky!"

Rachel hates the battered old painting, but has kindly allowed me to hang it "for sentimental reasons" - on the understanding that one day we'll get it professionally cleaned and in a new frame. I think she's hoping I'll eventually move it upstairs into the gamesroom.

Personally, I love the evocative creepiness of it - conjuring images in my brain as diverse as Sapphire & Steel (people were always getting trapped in paintings!) and the Gothic tales of HP Lovecraft.

Thus, a couple of weeks ago, as I began to contemplate a setting for the dungeon I would design to challenge The Tuesday Knights, my eyes were drawn to the painting and a name for the dungeon immediately sprang to mind.

It may not have the resonance of a Greyhawk, an Arduin or a Blackmoor, but it's a start.