D&D 5E Monster's body as a dungeon

[Demetrios1453]

I remember one of the old SSI/TSR video games had the party go through the comatose body of Moander - basically a giant, godlike shambling mound. If you waited too long, every certain amount of rounds, the heart would pulse and it would push you into rooms. I could see mapping that in a very generic, abstract way - come in through a giant wound on the 'leg' and try to get to the brain.

That was in Pools of Darkness, where you could visit all sorts of locations on/in Moander, although only the heart was a fully developed dungeon.

There is also the 1991 module Nightmare Keep, which has a huge underground labyrinth that the characters will only slowly figure out is within the body of a giant creature.

 

[jgsugden]

Consider a listen to the last few sessions of Campaign 1 of Critical Role. There is a section where the PCs are inside an animated corpse that stands several hundred feet tall that has a small city as a crown at the time.

 

[aco175]

I could see more of a dungeon where it is a metaphor of an animal body. The 'head' room has a logic puzzle, the 'heart' room has another challenge. A few fights and such, maybe you are 'born' on your way out- or pooped out, your choice.

 

[not-so-newguy]

I can envision the look on my players' faces... "The only way you can save your barony is to crawl up the rectum of Talonquake and..." (Followed by the sound of 5 chairs moving away from the table, the patter of feet in full run, and the slam of the front door.)

Except that one guy with the Halflings fighter named "Lemmiwinks."

 

[Fenris-77]

Dead gigantic beings make great dungeons! Even the Guardians of the Galaxy tapped that idea. Unless you want descriptions drenched in bile and stickiness, I might recommend something in a construct though, perhaps something made of stone. An ancient automaton of some kind perhaps? A race against time to prevent it reawakening and carrying out it's ancient programming that will surely destroy the kingdom? IDK, lots of ways to go...

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The Council of Wyrms setting posited that once metallic dragons aged beyond Great Wyrm they would become guardians, which involved merging with the land. Dungeon magazine 48 had an adventure set in one such guardian.

 

[toucanbuzz]

My monster happens to be alive, so I'm hoping they won't decide to crawl up its nether regions for fun.

Since it's a slow behemoth, they'll have a few days to figure something out, but direct combat shouldn't be a viable solution.

 

[RealAlHazred]

This is a classic idea. I think in D&D the first instance was the module Earthshaker! from 1985. There was a Role Aids product with the Great Beasts, where I think one of the "dungeons" had you go into one of them that was buried. There have been a number of One Page Dungeons that use the concept. Just a few that sprang to mind:

Down the Gullet of the Space-God, by Joshua Burnett (2011)
Deep in the Purple Worm, by Luka Rejec (2012)
Slumbering Mu Spore, by Mark Griffin (2015)
Prisoners of the Gelatinous Dome!, by Jeff Call (2016)
Ascent of the Robot God, by Matthew Seagle & John Love (2018)
Rampaging Robot, by Karl Stjernberg (2018)