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Author Topic: Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it  (Read 101462 times)

danbuter

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #30 on: January 14, 2012, 07:09:50 PM »
Once you have it fleshed out, you might want to submit it to Fight On!, if you are using an older edition of D&D. It definitely has that vibe.
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Benoist

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #31 on: January 14, 2012, 07:25:54 PM »
I had the O/AD&D paradigm in mind, yes. The Butcher mentioned S&W Complete rules, if I'm not mistaken.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2012, 08:10:42 PM by Benoist »

The Butcher

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #32 on: January 15, 2012, 10:52:50 AM »
You are correct, and this is not only didactic and inspirational, it's awesome. Please go on. :cool:

Benoist

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #33 on: January 18, 2012, 05:23:27 PM »
Alright. So now we have an idea of what our setting might be like.

Through this process, we drew a sideview of our dungeon complex (as it stands now anyway - we might modify that sideview later if the elements we come up with don't "lock" into each other neatly of if there's a piece we didn't think about that's glaringly missing with hindsight):



And we have a key that describes the elements we have on this sideview:

(0a) The Hive
(0b) The Aarakocra Aviaries
(1a) The Mines of the Ash-Kadaï
(2a) The Ashen Court
(2b) Tombs of the Builders
(3) The Smoldering Theatre
(1b) The Trogodyte settlement ruins
(4) Ponds of the Fish Men
(4a) Sunken Ziggurat of Ankhepoth
(5) Temple of the Hand
(6) The Market Place
(6a) The Fortress Gate of the Duergar
(1c) The Brigands' Hideout

As I mentioned earlier, I mostly came up with these names out of thin air, because they sounded cool at the moment, or I just thought "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we had the duergar there?" That's the extent of my brainstorm on this, along with the consideration of the types of different entrances to the dungeon that informed what these levels might be like (the ruined tower with the brigand's hideout, the troglodyte habitations and the mines above).

Names suggest a lot of things. Nothing beats a cool name as a jumping off point. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that each and every single one of us reading that list instantly started to imagine what the levels and setting might be like, and what they might contain, just by reflex. That's our imagination and logic taking over and instinctively filling in the blanks : "Oh, the Smoldering Theatre, what's that? Is that a level filled with smoke and stuff? Why a "theatre"? That sounds interesting!"

As the guy coming up with this megadungeon, I use this exact same reflex to structure the ideas afterwards and from there, shaping these instinctive ideas like I beat the crap out of bars of raw iron to reveal the blade that's been hiding there all along. I let the whole thing simmer for a while, dip it into water and let it sit in the back of my mind for a while, so that both my imagination and my logic fit the pieces into each other and break them down for the next few days.

Maybe I'll write a bit of an idea on a sheet of paper once in a while. Maybe I'll just think "hey, that might be a cool look for the fortress of the Duergar" and move on. At some point, I will sit down in front of my notebook or computer just as I'm doing right now, gather any notes I scribbled down, along with the map and key and all that stuff, and I'll just look at the whole before writing down what I think links all this stuff, as if I had "clues" to a mystery lying in front of me that I would have to solve right then and there.

Now, I usually have two ways of going about it. I either start drawing one or several dungeon levels right away and basically make sense of it as I go, writing down what I come up with for reference in later levels in case of foreshadowing elements, or ideas that might affect further developments of the environment, OR I think of a more coherent concept right away and go on to design the dungeon levels afterwards, retroactively modifying whatever I came up with on the paper as I go into the detail of what the place looks and feels like.

The point is, that’s an organic process starting from the moment you put the pencil to the page and start to draw where ideas feed into each other and everything gets smoothed out in a way as the whole takes shape. But there’s an important warning here I have to give you: don’t over design. Don’t describe absolutely everything in your dungeon environment. It should be described and populated in a comprehensive way so you can take your notes and run the damn thing (that’s the whole point here after all), but you don’t want it to become so detailed it stifles your imagination as you run the game. There’s a point after which less is more. It can vary from DM to DM, but the point still holds true generally, I think.

For the sake of this example, I’m not going to go straight to level mapping. I’m going to flesh out my ideas a little bit first.

So I look at that key and map we got. We know we have some “builders” somewhere in the history of that place. We also have people who built the troglodyte habitations on the side of the volcano, and people who dug the mines on its side as well. Are those the “Ash-Kadaï” mentioned earlier ? Perhaps these are the same people, but then, perhaps not.

I think it’d be weird to have these habitations here and the mines just next door, and also strange that these complex habitations would have been build after the existence of the mine, so I decide that the mines were dug after the habitations had long been abandoned. Maybe they are haunted by some presence, in which case it would explain the miners, whoever they are, avoided these ruins like the plague. But then maybe they came to this place because these habitations existed, and dug inside the volcano to get to a place of power while at the same time avoiding the dangers of the haunted ruins?

The brigands would have come to inhabit the tower at the foot of the volcano much later, fairly recently, since they would still be there. The tower itself could have been built by the same people who built the troglodyte forts/habitations.

I think the Builders were a race of pre-human beings that disappeared at some point during the world’s history. They built the main levels of this dungeon which were repurposed by their new inhabitants afterwards: I’m thinking of the ashen court, the tombs, the temple and the market place at the very least. Maybe something happened to them that made them degenerate over time. Maybe that’s what the Hive and/or the ashen court are: a sort of hive of mindless husks including some original builders, but also all manners of humanoids which have been repurposed by a “Queen bee” of some kind? The Aarakocras of the levels beside it might use it as a source of sustenance. Maybe the inhabitants of the mine too (inhabitants which, I am guessing, are some sort of clan of humanoids. The Ash-Kadaï could be some sort of goblinoid clan or war party; though I’m not sure what types of creatures their numbers would count quite yet).

The Smoldering Theatre could be some sort of hemicycle, or dungeon structure that surrounds and incorporates the volcano’s main conduit. If the temple was a place of  study and communication with the higher beings living within the fiery depths of the volcano that would later have been understood as a religious place of some kind by more primitive creatures, then the theatre might have been some type of testing area. Some sort of jumping off point for the experiments born within the ancient laboratories of the temple. The name would come from faces, or alcoves –cameras maybe– surrounding the conduit. It would look to a primitive creature as a “theatre” indeed, with silent figures looking at the fumes choking the whole place, a place for great sacrifices the ancients, the Builders, performed for their gods perhaps? They would have thus repurposed the place and turned it into some kind of cult to their Elders, a cult where they mimic what they understand of the Builders, that is… not all that much.

This is evolving; time to pause for a little while. I’ll go on with this later on. Let me know what you think.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2012, 04:03:47 PM by Benoist »

Lilaxe

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #34 on: January 18, 2012, 11:04:22 PM »
Book marked :)

Thanks for the Facebook link, I'd have missed this otherwise. Keep up the good work.
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Aos

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #35 on: January 19, 2012, 12:04:21 AM »
groovy
You are posting in a troll thread.

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Benoist

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #36 on: January 20, 2012, 04:08:09 PM »
I do not know what windings in the waste
Of those strange sea-lanes brought me home once more,
But on my porch I trembled, white with haste
To get inside and bolt the heavy door.
I had the book that told the hidden way
Across the void and through the space-hung screens
That hold the undimensioned worlds at bay,
And keep lost aeons to their own demesnes.

At last the key was mine to those vague visions
Of sunset spires and twilight woods that brood
Dim in the gulfs beyond this earth’s precisions,
Lurking as memories of infinitude.
The key was mine, but as I sat there mumbling,
The attic window shook with a faint fumbling.


Here I was, reading through one of my newly acquired books, when the idea suddenly popped up in my head. One question has been in my mind since I started building this megadungeon. It was right there when that item on the key just came up to me as I was naming the different levels of our side view of the volcano you can see above.

(2b) Tombs of the Builders

There it was, surfacing again. It's an item that I actually came up with on a previous dungeon project I played with my wife some time ago. You can read the entire writeup for that place there, on that particular thread. This is Level 2 of the Tower of Saint Makhab, the level where the adventures of Pei Lin, one of my wife's characters, started some time ago in my own Dunfalcon "Greyhawk + Yggsburgh" combo/mashup.



When I came up with it on this map here, I considered erasing it and just coming up with something else instead. But then I thought ... well, it could be something else entirely from what I had come up with for the Tower of Saint Makhab earlier. And the question of these mysterious "Builders" intrigued me. Who would have dug the first few levels of this place, exactly? I just went on with the map and questions you can read above, and let that simmer in the back of my mind. I knew this would come to me. And then, as I was taking a break from the board and reading through L'Appel de Cthulhu... it suddenly did.

The Builders are the Fungi from Yuggoth.

Everything fits: the isolated valley surrounded by mountains. Settlers and indigenous people living around, close by, with hints and legends circulating around about this wild places, these isolated peaks covered with dark trees, lost in the mist and snow. The digging underground searching for ores or secrets burried deep in the bowels of the earth. The sleeping volcano, and the connexion to a much deeper underworld.

The duergar keeping the gate come to mind. These could be worshippers of Tsathoggua, the Hyperborean creation of Clark Ashton Smith. And then this gate, this dark portal to the underworld could be more than just leading to the Underdark. It could be a clue to reach the black, lightless N'kai, somewhere under the blue-litten K’n-yan and the red-litten Yoth. To quote the Whisperer in Darkness, by HP Lovecraft:

       "Do you know that Einstein is wrong, and that certain objects and forces can move with a velocity greater than that of light? With proper aid I expect to go backward and forward in time, and actually see and feel the earth of remote past and future epochs. You can’t imagine the degree to which those beings have carried science. There is nothing they can’t do with the mind and body of living organisms. I expect to visit other planets, and even other stars and galaxies. The first trip will be to Yuggoth, the nearest world fully peopled by the beings. It is a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system—unknown to earthly astronomers as yet. But I must have written you about this. At the proper time, you know, the beings there will direct thought-currents toward us and cause it to be discovered—or perhaps let one of their human allies give the scientists a hint.

      "There are mighty cities on Yuggoth—great tiers of terraced towers built of black stone like the specimen I tried to send you. That came from Yuggoth. The sun shines there no brighter than a star, but the beings need no light. They have other, subtler senses, and put no windows in their great houses and temples. Light even hurts and hampers and confuses them, for it does not exist at all in the black cosmos outside time and space where they came from originally. To visit Yuggoth would drive any weak man mad—yet I am going there. The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious Cyclopean bridges—things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the things came to Yuggoth from the ultimate voids—ought to be enough to make any man a Dante or Poe if he can keep sane long enough to tell what he has seen.

      "But remember—that dark world of fungoid gardens and windowless cities isn’t really terrible. It is only to us that it would seem so. Probably this world seemed just as terrible to the beings when they first explored it in the primal age. You know they were here long before the fabulous epoch of Cthulhu was over, and remember all about sunken R’lyeh when it was above the waters. They’ve been inside the earth, too—there are openings which human beings know nothing of—some of them in these very Vermont hills—and great worlds of unknown life down there; blue-litten K’n-yan, red-litten Yoth, and black, lightless N’kai. It’s from N’kai that frightful Tsathoggua came—you know, the amorphous, toad-like god-creature mentioned in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon and the Commoriom myth-cycle preserved by the Atlantean high-priest Klarkash-Ton."


"There are openings humans know nothing of, and great worlds of unknown life down there," and the Fungi of Yuggoth have known them, built them, and kept them for eons at a time. This simple revelation of the identity of these mysterious builders opens so many doors in our dungeon design, it is kind of overwhelming at first.

The Hive. Maybe there are degenerated Fungi living there, maybe stealing some husks, some humanoid bodies from the creatures that venture in the caves and pits of this volcano. They might have regressed, separated for ages from their world, and reverted to this primal fungoid race serving a Queen Fungus, a monstrous being hidden in the dark levels above the mines. They must secrete something that the Aarakocras might want. Are they on friendly terms with each other, or do the avian creatures sneak into the hive, or connect with it through their own tunnels to use the Fungi's production like we do with our own bees? What if the Aarakocra "worshipped" the "Queen bee" herself? They could be the agents of the degenerated Mi-Go in the outside world. Their eyes over the heights of the nearby mountains, in a way.



What about the Fish Men close to the Ziggurat of Ankhepoth? These could be a remnant of a Dagon cult. Maybe these are the descendants of the men that discovered the remnants of a much older presence of Deep Ones around this area? Would that be a clue as to the manner in which the Fungi degenerated? Does it date all the way back to the wars of the Fungi and Cthulhu?

If the Hive is the location of a swarn of degenerated Fungi inhabiting corpses and, for a few, flying around in the darkness to protect their Queen, then maybe the Tombs of the Builders have some real Fungi in cryostasis or something. Undead Fungi maybe? Could these beings have some heads severed from various creature types dating back to the prediluvian times when they were entombed lying around? Maybe these could have seized control of the area, one way or the other?

I'm pretty sure the Ashen Court will be the dwelling place of the leaders of the Ash-Kadaï that roam within the abandoned galleries of the mines above. But what about the troglodyte habitations which predated the construction of the mines? Could there have been a lord and his retinue living here secluded from the world, obsessed by the secrets the fiery mountain might reveal to him, searching for a "truth" that cursed him forever, thus haunting this place to make it this creepy ruin everyone, including the miners that came afterwards, wanted to avoid at all costs?

It seems to me obvious that the Smoldering Theatre, the Temple of the Hand and the Market Place were once the core of the Mi-Go's hideout. The lair of the Bandit is much more recent, and was connected to the Market Place at some point. Now it's an isolated part of the complex. Maybe connected to the settlements on the cliff's side above, I do not know yet. I kind of like the idea of a foreshadowing level completely isolated from the others there.

Hm. More food for thought there. Let's stop right here and let that whole thing stew for a little bit. It's getting there. We have a much more precise idea of where we are going with this now.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2012, 12:08:09 AM by Benoist »

Benoist

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #37 on: January 20, 2012, 04:37:11 PM »
Quote from: Lilaxe;506794
Book marked :)

Thanks for the Facebook link, I'd have missed this otherwise. Keep up the good work.


Quote from: Aos;506799
groovy


Thanks for the feedback guys! Hope that proves useful, or inspirational at least!


The Butcher

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« Reply #39 on: January 20, 2012, 05:20:33 PM »
Whoa, that's great stuff right there. Let's Lovecraft up this bitch!

Though all the merit is Benoist's, I can't help but feel happy that I've started this thread. :)

The Good Assyrian

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« Reply #40 on: January 20, 2012, 05:21:56 PM »
Great insight, Benoist!  Once you said it, it clicked for me too.  Kinda like a "you got your chocolate in my peanut butter" moment.  Two great tastes that taste great together!  :)

-TGA
 

Benoist

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« Reply #41 on: January 20, 2012, 05:54:10 PM »
Glad you like it, guys! I owe some thanks to the Butcher for starting this thread in the first place. And indeed, these are two flavors that just work great together. HP Lovecraft and August Derleth are mentioned in Appendix N of the DMG, mind you, and we know the writing relationship that existed between RE Howard, mentioned as well in Appendix N, and HPL. So it's a part of AD&D's heritage, clearly.

Rincewind1

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #42 on: January 20, 2012, 06:11:24 PM »
Good stuff - liked the Mi - Go reference. I'd say that for classically understood DnD, it's rather Derleth, Lumley and Howard (& of course his great two continuators, de Camp & Carter). Lovecraft itself'd make for a rather depressing DM imo.

"You go left, you will go insane with the terrible knowledge of cosmic truth. You go right, you will be eaten by a Shoggoth."

Btw - how do you mark such stuff as stairs, in a relatively small dungeon? I just draw a few horizontal lines above each other (not so long that they connect to the "walls), and an arrow next to those lines - up when they go up, and down when the stairs are supposed to go down. Looks like a "corridor", which allows for easier drawing, but allows me to remember where the stairs are.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2012, 06:27:29 PM by Rincewind1 »
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

MadaX

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #43 on: January 20, 2012, 06:13:53 PM »
I've been lurking for a long while now and I feel I must break my silence to thank you for your posts so far on this. I'm working on getting my first real game happening and these posts have been really helpful & inspiring.

Anyway, back to my den of lurking. :D

Benoist

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Advice on building a megadungeon, and a campaign around it
« Reply #44 on: January 20, 2012, 08:28:34 PM »
Quote from: MadaX;507389
I've been lurking for a long while now and I feel I must break my silence to thank you for your posts so far on this. I'm working on getting my first real game happening and these posts have been really helpful & inspiring.

Anyway, back to my den of lurking. :D


By all means, stick around! :)

Thanks for delurking in any case. I'm really glad this is useful for your game.