What was your mega-dungeon like?

[kitsune9]

So there's another thread going around about a mega-dungeon. I think in our early years (or maybe still doing it now), we all created some massive dungeon on graph paper, taped it together, and then wanted to run a game.

I remember when I was a kid, I did 9 sheets of graph paper that was some kind of giant complex. The rooms were large, roughly hewned and there were numerous chasms and waterfalls in the complex in that many rooms had wooden bridges to get across the chasms that ripped through the complex. I remember that there were a total of 200+ rooms for the whole complex.

The sad thing is that I never got to run this. Back then, I couldn't find players at all so this was wasted graph paper and pencil graphite for me.

However, I'd like to know if you did what I did AND managed to run your players through it.

Or maybe you didn't create the dungeon, but bought the Ruins to Undermountain from TSR and ran a campaign through it, or maybe bought those Under the Mountain maps from 0One Games and created your own mega-dungeon campaign (something I plan to do since I own four of those maps).

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

I had two.

One was a six-mile long spelljamming vessel shaped like a dragon. I called it the Death Dragon and the whole thing was abandoned, haunted by various undead and other critters, and several sections of the lower levels were flooded. Ran a couple of different groups through various portions of it.

The other one was the inside of a massive golem that got up and started to walk around while the PCs were still in it.

 

[Korgoth]

Back in the day I played in a megadungeon but never ran one.

Nowadays I have a megadungeon set below the city of Jakalla on Tekumel, for Empire of the Petal Throne (OD&D with Barker's house rules, basically).

The dungeon is designed as a series of discrete locations linked by various means. So one section is a 'new' catacombs... that connects to a shrine of the decay god ("The Black Abode of Putrescence Triumphant"), to an undercity, to a grand tomb (the tomb of Kalvar the Cruel), to an older catacombs on a lower level, etc. The grand tomb on the first level has a pit which leads to an interior room of a grand tomb on the second level, etc.

So all the different places are connected in various ways, but each is like a mini-dungeon in itself because each section originally served a distinct purpose.

One interesting thing is the impressive "Fortress of Inexorable Ruin", a functional temple of the fire god on the second level, complete with a moat of lava. It so happened that the party includes two priests of that god and one initiate also (a warrior), so instead of raiding it they used it as a base. That's one thing I like about "sandboxes"... you put something like that in there, and they use it for something totally different from what you originally imagined.

They plumbed down as far as the fourth level before deciding to leave Jakalla for parts unknown... they are barbarians and their people inhabited the foreign quarter as menials because their whole race (what's left of it) are refugees. So when they acquired a suit of magical armor that was desired by a high priest in Jakalla (he had to use barbarians because the thing happened to be located in the tomb of a high priest of a different god... it was basically grave robbing) they were awarded an abandoned temple complex off in a jungle on the border with a foreign land. This has launched them on a wilderness trek with their entire race, and once they get to the temple complex (which is in terrible shape), they'll have to deal with a couple of dungeons at that location, and various other things (like the cannibal lunatic frogmen who live around there, the demonic avatar that the naked fanatics currently living in the temple worship, etc.).

So for my EPT game, the megadungeon served as a long (8 month?) initial focus (and they missed large portions of the levels they explored) and a jumping-off point for other exploits. I doubt that they will go back to it, but to me it has served its purpose and will remain the stuff of legends. Lots of crazy, brutal stuff happened down there!

 

[kitsune9]

I had two.

One was a six-mile long spelljamming vessel shaped like a dragon. I called it the Death Dragon and the whole thing was abandoned, haunted by various undead and other critters, and several sections of the lower levels were flooded. Ran a couple of different groups through various portions of it.

The other one was the inside of a massive golem that got up and started to walk around while the PCs were still in it.

That's cool. I can dig the six mile long dragon vessel. Maybe I'll steal that idea. Thanks!

 

[kitsune9]

Back in the day I played in a megadungeon but never ran one.

Nowadays I have a megadungeon set below the city of Jakalla on Tekumel, for Empire of the Petal Throne (OD&D with Barker's house rules, basically).

The dungeon is designed as a series of discrete locations linked by various means. So one section is a 'new' catacombs... that connects to a shrine of the decay god ("The Black Abode of Putrescence Triumphant"), to an undercity, to a grand tomb (the tomb of Kalvar the Cruel), to an older catacombs on a lower level, etc. The grand tomb on the first level has a pit which leads to an interior room of a grand tomb on the second level, etc.

So all the different places are connected in various ways, but each is like a mini-dungeon in itself because each section originally served a distinct purpose.

One interesting thing is the impressive "Fortress of Inexorable Ruin", a functional temple of the fire god on the second level, complete with a moat of lava. It so happened that the party includes two priests of that god and one initiate also (a warrior), so instead of raiding it they used it as a base. That's one thing I like about "sandboxes"... you put something like that in there, and they use it for something totally different from what you originally imagined.

They plumbed down as far as the fourth level before deciding to leave Jakalla for parts unknown... they are barbarians and their people inhabited the foreign quarter as menials because their whole race (what's left of it) are refugees. So when they acquired a suit of magical armor that was desired by a high priest in Jakalla (he had to use barbarians because the thing happened to be located in the tomb of a high priest of a different god... it was basically grave robbing) they were awarded an abandoned temple complex off in a jungle on the border with a foreign land. This has launched them on a wilderness trek with their entire race, and once they get to the temple complex (which is in terrible shape), they'll have to deal with a couple of dungeons at that location, and various other things (like the cannibal lunatic frogmen who live around there, the demonic avatar that the naked fanatics currently living in the temple worship, etc.).

So for my EPT game, the megadungeon served as a long (8 month?) initial focus (and they missed large portions of the levels they explored) and a jumping-off point for other exploits. I doubt that they will go back to it, but to me it has served its purpose and will remain the stuff of legends. Lots of crazy, brutal stuff happened down there!

This reminds of a module from Necro Games of mini-dungeons connected together. I think the mod is called Vault of Larinn Karr, but it had dungeons all over a region but they were connected together via a series of caves. Going back further was a smaller module used the basic rules called Drums On Thunder Mountain (I think?). This module was written when TSR had an office in England and it was a UK published mod.

I like the concept of mini-dungeons connected together. It allows the DM to really set goals for the PC's to explore, get object/complete quest, go back to town and rest, and then travel on before reaching the next lower or more hidden mini-dungeon.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Steal away. The control helm (spelljammer term for those unfamiliar with it) was located in one of the eyes with a back-up helm in the other eye. There was a vault, a library, and a malfunctioning "holo-deck" that used various illusion magic to create simulations...malfunctioning because the preprogrammed illusions mixed together whenever it turned on.

It also included hangar bays for smaller ships and complex lift (elevator) systems. One of the best scenes from one of the sessions run there was when the PCs were riding a lift and the mechanism broke, sending them rising too fast...and one ring of feather falling and one flying character to get them off the thing before it crashed into the lift shaft's ceiling. Good times.

 

[kitsune9]

Steal away. The control helm (spelljammer term for those unfamiliar with it) was located in one of the eyes with a back-up helm in the other eye. There was a vault, a library, and a malfunctioning "holo-deck" that used various illusion magic to create simulations...malfunctioning because the preprogrammed illusions mixed together whenever it turned on.

It also included hangar bays for smaller ships and complex lift (elevator) systems. One of the best scenes from one of the sessions run there was when the PCs were riding a lift and the mechanism broke, sending them rising too fast...and one ring of feather falling and one flying character to get them off the thing before it crashed into the lift shaft's ceiling. Good times.

What kind of monsters did your players encounter on the ship? Was it the spelljamming fare such as neogi or did have a lot of other stuff going on?

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Various sections had been overrun by a variety of critters, most of which were in conflict with eachother. A beholder controlled most of the ship's functional areas while undead infested the lower levels.

 

[Jack7]

The other one was the inside of a massive golem that got up and started to walk around while the PCs were still in it.

I like that idea. Recently I've been thinking about developing three new ones in my current setting.

A huge Colossus that the giants built called the Titan. Sorta similar to your idea. Except it is partially buried in stone, not mobile.

The other involves the multi-layered partially buried different levels of the city of Kwåhąlk.

The third is this one.

My first real megadungeon was the ruined city of Pesh. It had been destroyed by a meteorite shower, along with the entire nation of Pesh, in my first world setting. There were a lot of outlying ruins before you got there, and some few of the tops of certain buildings were still visible but the rest was buried underground. It required partial excavation to get at some of the buried sections. A lot of relics and artifacts of the Elves, like the parts of the Rod of Seven Parts were buried there. The whole campaign involving it took a couple of years playing time, all told, but led to the resurrection of Pesh and the retirement of the original party.

Another I did a couple of years back moved through time and constantly changed. It wasn't huge but it kept changing in size, design, and content depending on how one was displaced through time.

The dungeon is designed as a series of discrete locations linked by various means.

I think that is a good design principle for large and mega dungeons. Loose association in some cases, but all roughly connected.

 

[Dykstrav]

My very first megadungeon (designed in the transition days between 1E and 2E) is Katearas, the fortress of the setting's very first lich. It's surrounded by haunted, barren mountains and was once a center for necromantic study in the world. The dungeon has approximately twenty levels. I've detailed sixteen of them but left the exact number deliberately vague so I can expand as I like.

In modern times, the fortress is surrounded by a ruined city that is sought by ambitious necromancers, and that city is surrounded by marshlands. Within this region are several distinct "adventure zones" and dungeon complexes besides the main fortress. I've ran some sort of game in this megadungeon in every edition since 1E. I still have the ancient, pencil-etched maps on graph paper and keyed room entries on notebook paper, although I've updated to an electronic format in the 3E days.

In 4E, I'm currently designing a new megadungeon tenatively called the Numtanna Barrows. The idea here is that it's essentially an exotic city setting, complete with its own basic economy and power struggles. It's so old that no one really recalls its original purpose or designers, but over the centuries, various cultures and empires have inhabited or claimed parts of it. There's an enclave of dwarves on the fourth level so that characters can get a base of operations within the dungeon, and I'm making a deliberate effort to seed it with quests and appealing areas to seize and control.