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Basing dungeons on real places

Started by jhkim, October 18, 2023, 01:57:44 AM

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jhkim

October 18, 2023, 01:57:44 AM
So my upcoming dungeon in my campaign is going to be based on a real place, Chavín de Huántar. It's an ancient abandoned temple site with all kinds of psychedelic imagery like animal/human hybrids. It's got a bunch of underground chambers, though I'll definitely be expanding that for my campaign. Still, the initial layout and upper chambers will be from the original.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav%C3%ADn_de_Hu%C3%A1ntar

Has anyone used real places as the basis for dungeons? The Derinkuyu underground city in Turkey seems like an obvious choice, but there are tons of others.

Chris24601

#1
October 18, 2023, 08:42:52 AM
My setting is post-post-apocalyptic (200 years after civilization fell and began to rebuild) so half the fun is presenting something completely familiar to my players as something weird, mysterious and alien to their PC's.

jhkim

#2
October 18, 2023, 01:09:57 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on October 18, 2023, 08:42:52 AM
My setting is post-post-apocalyptic (200 years after civilization fell and began to rebuild) so half the fun is presenting something completely familiar to my players as something weird, mysterious and alien to their PC's.

Nice. Yeah, that's also a good one. That's a common post-apocalyptic trope. I played post-apocalyptic Mutant Year Zero where our home base was the biggest IKEA in the world south of Stockholm.

As a reverse, in the early aughts, I had an alternate-history campaign of vikings in North America in the 1300s, where the PCs were based in my hometown of Piermont, New York - and their adventures would take them into all sorts of place like New Jersey, Sleepy Hollow, Manhattan, etc. This was all in the area of those places many centuries earlier.

Dave 2

#3
October 18, 2023, 09:35:40 PM
I would like to, but the last time I looked it was weirdly hard to find good, usable at the table maps. Of caves especially, but others as well. Derinkyu included, I only ever found the one side view map most of you have seen, and no others.

If you've got any tips or links for that kind of thing please share.

Simon W

#4
October 19, 2023, 04:29:19 AM
Many years ago, I visited Wookey Hole (Somerset, UK). The tourist leaflet provided a map of the caves and some information about the history and about the "Witch of Wookey Hole". I used that as the basis of a D&D campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wookey_Hole_Caves

Ghostmaker

#5
October 19, 2023, 08:34:49 AM
I use Detroit. Makes a pretty good stand in for any post-apoc scenario.

Banjo Destructo

#6
October 19, 2023, 09:27:44 AM
I like to look at those "fire escape" maps some buildings have to get ideas for dungeon layouts.

There's some buildings that have tunnels connecting them to other buildings, those can be interesting too
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