Sentient dungeon?

[Tarek]

A sentient dungeon would probably have a few low-level effects, like lighting the torches automatically, opening and closing doors when something approaches, that kind of thing.

A sapient dungeon would be much more dangerous, being able to close doors to isolate the party and then herd monsters towards the party, being able to trigger traps that the thief thinks has been disabled, etc.

The difference between sentience and sapience is the ability to reason in an abstract manner... Cats are sentient. Humans are sapient.

 

[Imaro]

There's an Elric story(Sailor on the Seas of Fate...I think) by Michael Moorcock where Elric, Erekose, Corum etc.(the Eternal Champions) are called together to defeat two gods. These gods have taken the shape of towers. The "monsters" in the tower are for all practical purposes the god's immune system reacting to the heroes infiltrating their "bodies".

Thought it was a way cool concept and would be a great read for your idea if you can track it down.

 

[Mycanid]

Similar things have been done in various media - the first episode of ST: the Next Gen had them exploring the inside of a spaceship that was actually a giant energy jellyfish or what not.

A module way back when had an adventure where the party explored the brain of an IMMENSE sleeping giant (wish I could remember what this was ... I had the adventure back in the early 80's).

Wasn't there an episode or some space tv show where there were two sentient asteroids that were brothers, with the wicked one trying to trap the space ship of the heroes and the "brother", who was weakened somehow, was finally able to help free the main characters somehow? (Forget which show that was too.)

 

[blargney the second]

Dungeon #100 has an adventure called Beast of Burden on a really big monster. I've always wanted to run that one...

 

[Goblyn]

The Manual of the Planes(3.0, but as far as crunch goes I see no pertinent differences) has the living plane called Neth.

 

[Mark Hope]

Dungeon #100 has an adventure called Beast of Burden on a really big monster. I've always wanted to run that one...

Me too - I've always thought that was a totally cool adventure. There's another one that takes place inside an enormous golem of some kind (actually, I think that I've seen a couple along those lines - cool concept).