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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AdmiralAwesomeness" data-source="post: 5630688" data-attributes="member: 6677076">For castle sections, check out this guy's blog entry (and the ones that follow it): <a href="http://ravencrowking.blogspot.com/2011/06/m-is-for-megadungeons-part-i.html" target="_blank">Raven Crowking's Nest: M is for Megadungeons (Part I)</a>.  Since Castlevania is basically a megadungeon, the blog entries on building a megadungeon are particularly applicable.  Now, I haven't played SOTN, but I have played all the rest of the series' "metroidvania" offerings.The castle sections strike me more as just cool adventuring locations that generally share a gothic theme than anything resembling verisimilitude.  So, I wouldn't sweat reasonable segues between the sections.  If I remember Castlevania canon correctly, each time the eponymous castle manifests, the sections of which it is composed and how they are arranged are pretty much random.As I'm currently playing through the DS games, here are some staples of the series for your consideration:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Backtracking/Retreading: powers gained, switches toggled, and events unfolded open up previously closed paths in earlier sections.  Another form could be resources in earlier sections that become more useful to higher level characters, like a forge or an alchemical lab.  Also consider resources that remain useful to characters of all levels, like a massive library, which can beckon them back to previous areas.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Some kind of teleportation or transportation network between sections</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Recurring NPCs: In the games, they exist to drop plot on you, sell you stuff, or turn into something you can kill.  Were I running the game, I'd have recurring NPCs tied to the overall, castle-spanning plot and run the castle as a megadungeon with other, even unrelated plots in the sections themselves.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Classic Monsters: tons of references to classic monsters, fishmen, wolfmen, the invisible man, Frankenstein's monster, Dracula himself, and many others.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Classic Castlevania Monsters: There are really too many classic, recurring monsters in the Castlevania series to name.  I wouldn't consider it a Castlevania game without at least some of them.  If you want to run a Castlevania-inspired game, you could toss in some homages to Castlevania with animated suits of armor, some kind of beholder standing in for peeping eyes, and so forth.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Platforming: Of all the aspects of Castlevania, I'd be least inclined to include platforming.  Instead, I'd probably just try to make good use of vertical space when designing the sections.  Plenty of walkways, balconies, chasms, overlapping bridges, pits, stuff like that.</li> </ul>For gothic horror, you wouldn't be remiss to check out whatever Ravenloft material you can get a hold of.  Castlevania, though, lacks the same sense of dread that pervades Ravenloft (from the PCs' perspective, at least.)  Comparatively, the Castlevania setting doesn't take itself too seriously.</blockquote>

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