Theme your dungeons. Don't just have the tomb of the sorcerer-king, but figure out why the sorcerer-king is buried, and tie that in.
A long example from my game:
The Eight-Fold Tomb of the Mad King Steppengard: Steppengard was an Orcish warlord who rules one of the few surface kingdoms of Orcs. Though he was cruel and vicious, his anger was always controlled and calculated, and he was even a pious follower of God. But a subordinant of his tried to kill him, but the ambush instead only killed Steppengard's wife and son. Steppengard had the traitor killed immediately, but then in his grief he began to become paranoid, worried about other attempts on his life.
Two weeks later, he called all of his advisors and feudal lords to meet with him and discuss a possible attack on a neighboring country. They met for three days, Steppengard presenting a convincing charade that he actually intended to go to war, while in truth it was merely a chance for the king's agents to sneak into the lords' Houses and kill their families. The agents were able to move much faster than the lords and their entourages, and so they arrived back to the king before the hapless feudal lords.
For three days, the king and his subordinants feasted and prepared for war, with all news from the outside held off so they could not learn of Steppengard's treachery. For three days, they feasted on stews and flanks of meat, cooked with the flesh of their own families, and drank wine mixed with their blood. When they returned home to prepare their armies for war, they all found a letter from Steppengard, telling them of what he had done.
Their reactions proved that, indeed, even Orcs have a threshold of how much vileness they can endure.
It is part of Orcish tradition that their strength comes from the land. The greatest fears of Orcs involve various dooms, the worst of which involve being cut off from the stone beneath their feet. Because of this, Steppengard was sealed alive in a wooden coffin, kept on the brink of death for months while the Orcs built a huge tomb for him, a monument to his folly. There are Eight Dooms in this tomb, and in its center, in a vast chamber, hangs the coffin of Steppengard, dangling on a chain.
Whenever one of the dooms occurs, all the lights in the tomb are put out, casting the entire complex into darkness. Even magical light is quenched. A booming orcish voice shouts its name, which echoes through the tunnels, and then the lights return, revealing the doom. The dooms consist of:
- The Doom of Hollow Stone: The floor in the entry chamber gives way, dumping tomb robbers into a torrential river that flows through the tomb and powers all the mechanisms inside. As soon as everyone has set foot into the main hallway, all the torches lighting the hall go black for an instant, and a voice shouts in Orcish, "The Doom of Hollow Stone!" Then, as the light comes on, the floor crumbles beneath their feet.
- The Doom of Smoke and Ash: Beyond the main entry hall is the huge central chamber, with various side chambers. It's three hundred feet high, with a narrow staircase that spirals from the the base of the bridge to the floor. In the center of the floor is a huge forge that continually burns. A catwalk goes around the edge, two hundred and fifty feet up, and a long bridge spans the center. In the middle of the bridge is a ring-shaped platform, crowded with the skulls of the murdered families, and a stone statue of a warrior stands guard over them. Hanging above the center of the ring is the coffin, far out of reach. If anyone disturbs one of the skulls, or tries to touch the coffin, the river is diverted to spray into the forge briefly, kicking up steam, dust, and ash that fills the entire chamber. The lights go out, a voice shouts in Orcish "The Doom of Smoke and Ash!", and when the light comes up, searing motes fill the air.
- The Doom of Being Cut to Pieces: Since most people then begin to flee, the lights go dark again, the doom's name is shouted, and the stone statue animates as a golem and attacks, pursuing fleeing tomb robbers. They must first reach the end of the bridge (which they can't see through the smoke and ash), and then find one of the side chambers to go into to be safe.
The side chambers consist of:
- The Doom of Dissolution: As soon as the door behind this room closes, the room goes dark and a voice hisses in Orcish, "The Doom of Dissolution." Then, as the light returns, the entire chamber is sprayed with acid. The only other exit is to follow a sloping walkway that leads down to the next room. A narrow stream of the river flows alongside the walkway.
- The Hanging Doom: Once the door to this room is closed, the lights go black, and an Orcish voice growls, "The Hanging Doom." This chamber is filled with narrow, invisible wires, which can't be seen easily, even when the light comes back on. If touched, mechanisms in the walls trigger and wrap the wires around whoever touched them, pulling them up to the ceiling. The wires tighten, and eventually slice the victim to pieces. The only exit is the same sloping walkway that runs either up to the last doom, or down to the next one.
- The Doom of Blood: The last chamber is lowest, and the river from the previous two flows into here, filling it knee deep with water. As soon as the door closes, however, the typical lights-out-shout-name thing happens, the water turns to blood, and a waves carries everyone inside down a tunnel lined with blades that will draw yet more blood. If victims survive this last room, the current will deposit them far below, at the base of the main chamber, where the ash has now settled. However, as soon as they step foot out of the blood-water, the seventh doom booms out:
- The Doom of Darkness: When this doom is shouted out, the complex goes dark, as usual, but does not become light again. The entire complex remains magically darkened, and not even a 9th level spell can pierce its blackness. And then, undead begin to claw out of the ground and attack. Special undead with tremorsense. They continue to attack, continual hordes of them, the bodies of all the thousands of soldiers who had been loyal to Steppengard. Perhaps the only way to survive is to flee for the staircase that leads up off the floor, back to the catwalk above.
When they get there, the lights return, and the roar of the flames begins to grow deafening, and the sound shakes the hanging casket of the king. At this point, when I ran the game, a foe of the party who had also been in the tomb managed to get past the party and rip open the casket, freeing the undead and thoroughly mad Orc king. This triggered the last doom, which was intended to keep the king from ever escaping by any means.
- The Doom of Torrential Floods: As Steppengard's hand claws out of the coffin, the entire chamber goes black, the fire below dies, and everything is suddenly silent. A voice says quietly, "The Doom of Torrential Floods," and the noise echoes, growing ever louder, until everyone realizes that it is not simply a voice echoing, but the sound of onrushing water. The lights snap back on, just in time for a dam's worth of river water to burst into the tomb from above, sending shards of stone ceiling through the air like shrapnel. Steppengard tried to escape with the aid of his rescuer, but the party realized that he couldn't be allowed to escape, so they risked their own lives to destroy the powerful undead. They never managed to damage him enough to drop him, but one of the PCs was able to knock him off a ledge into the torrent of water below, where they think he was battered to pieces.
Then, they rode his coffin atop the waves, clinging to it and to each other as the torrent dashed them against stone walls, but they eventually pulled through, floating out of the tomb as the entire structure was flooded.
And y'know what? I can still use that tomb again, and this time it'll be even weirder.
