Dungeons Part 6: Layout Plans

Step on in this Mega dungeon project is going to be some general planning. Firstly I'm going to make a plan of the themes and content of each dungeon level, this is just going to be something rough in Ms paint to help me organise my ideas a bit.

Starting with this as my base.

Starting from the top, the Surface level will either be a smaller dungeon of itself or just a general description of the surroundings and the dungeon entrance, I'm going to leave this unplanned for now until I have a good idea of what's in the first level. Thinking about what sort of transitions from level to level and how the levels interact with one another helps tie the dungeon together as a coherent whole, my plan is to have each level have access to different resources each controlled by a different faction. The faction are weary of an all out war for fear of loosing access to a vital resource required for their survival.

After a bit of thinking I ended up with this.

So the different factions I have thought up so far are; The slavers lead by a flesh warping vivimancer, The leather skins lead by a dazzling illusionist, the pickers lead by a cruel necromancer and to round out the factions a slave rebellion lead by a scarred miner.

Though each of the faction leaders will have a lair on a different level to one another, their agents should be found on all levels in some way as well as being on each levels random encounter table. Though the factions are stuck in a cold war skirmishes and sabotage between factions should be common. Wearing the clothes  and symbols of a faction will be enough to pass by their guards and most workers, some orderlies will spot a slave or guard out of place though.

The first level of the dungeon will have a central market surrounded by other areas serving different functions.

My current mock up of the lvl 1 layout

Each of the areas shown on the mock up can be expanded to be around 2-4 rooms each, which will quickly fill out into an expansive complex. to traverse from one area to another there will be a network of corridors, aqueducts and ventilation shafts.

Most corridors and rooms in this dungeon will be unlit except for those that see frequent use, those lit will be illuminated by oil lanterns or candles produced elsewhere in the dungeon. I'm planning on having some fire beetles or oil beetles on the second level.

Let me know what you think of the plans so far, i will begin work on mapping and stocking the first level fairly soon so should have something to show by the end of the week.

M.C.

Dungeon part 5: Mega Dungeon Initial Idea.

So over the month of March, I am planning on creating a mega dungeon and writing out my design process here on this blog. This is largely what the last dungeon posts have been building towards, as I wanted to talk about the more theoretical side of dungeon making, to show what basis I am coming from when building a dungeon. I will upload the full keyed dungeon at the end of the month and I will be trying to make most of the maps on Dungeon Scrawl https://probabletrain.itch.io/dungeon-scrawl, so its pretty to look at.

I'm going to aim to do at least 3 level with 20-40 rooms per level. In terms of inspiration I wanted to do something based off the adventure The Lost City as well as the story "The Lords of Quarmall" by Frits Leiber, both of theses focuses heavily on human factions in a subterranean city and I feel is a great basis for faction play and role play.

For the system I'm going to be using Swords and Wizardry complete, and I will be levelling to around character levels 1-5. Since I am using a system that uses gold for XP, there will be a conscious effort to include more than enough gold and treasure items to appropriately level up over the Course of the dungeon.

I will be using the basic structure of the B/X dungeon stocking tables to determine the main content of a room, this table could be summarised as 1/3 Empty, 1/3 monster and 1/3 tricks or traps I like using this table because I think it gives a good spread of different types of encounters.

The starting hooks could be multiple things. Either the dungeon is a site that outside forces wish to infiltrate or the players are captured or hired by one of the internal factions. The addition of magical knowledge among the inhabitants could add to either possibility, this knowledge developed separate from the outside world may be an object of envy for a number of powerful wizards, or a means of trapping the party in the first place. Magic users also add a number of possibilities to the environment within the dungeon, illusions to hide secrets from rivals, magic traps to deter intruders and spells that improve the conditions in certain parts of the dungeon are all possibilities. It might also be an idea to group the factions based on what style of magic they prefer.

I'm probably going to write the next post in this series fairly soon and hopefully keep regular posts over the next mouth.

M.C.