Following a surge of interest about classic fantasy Megadungeon campaigns on the blogsphere, I’ve mused about re-visiting the concept in D&D 4e. Then, a few days later, I laid the foundations of how I would go at making a 4e Megadungeon campaign.
Today I thought I’d share with you some of the work that my friend Yan and I did to create the basic premise of what is shaping up to be our next campaign once we conclude Thunderspire Labyrinth.
The design of the campaign’s setting started with a question I asked Yan:
What would it take for you to enjoy a dungeon-only D&D campaign?
It bears mentioning that Yan dislikes site-based adventures (i.e. dungeons) and much prefers open-ended, event driven and sandboxy adventures (i.e. pretty much the opposite of my natural style). That’s why I asked him the question. If I can identify and implement the elements that he looks for in such a campaign, the chances of it being a success increase significantly.
After some back and forth, here’s what we came up with in order to create a dungeon-crawling campaign he would like:
- The dungeon would need to have a full-blown and complete city within it, making civilization nearby for delvers.
- Underground/dungeon elements need to exist to support running such an underground city: Mines, Rivers, Agriculture, etc
- Image: Bulettes ridden by dwarven miners!
- Image: Huge, lit Caverns with working crews building stuff in it
- Encounter areas need to be big and allow movement… no 10’X10′ rooms.
- The dungeon must be dynamic.
- Ex: Inter-Factions conflicts
- Ex: Moving encounters,
- Ex: Changes in area visited previously.
- Etc
Turns out that discussing the concept with him triggered a creative surge for him too. I not only got his buy-in, I got myself a world building co-DM!
As we were writing things down (we set up a Wiki so we could collaborate), a campaign theme bubbled up:
The Dungeon vs Civilization.
What if we had a ‘living’ dungeon whose biggest threat was that a group of crazy/religious fanatic people were building a city within it?
From there we surmised the following:
The Primal Dungeon
The dungeon is built around an imprisoned Primordial. Trapped for eons, it has been trying to weaken the divinely forged bonds and wards trapping it. Having weakened some of them it has spread it’s limited influence to attract creatures of chaos and evil near it, compelling them to build a dungeon around itself deep under the surface of the Natural World.
An extension of it’s limited will, the dungeon IS as much part of the captive Primordial as it’s imprisoned spirit is.
Unchecked, the dungeon would eventually cover most of the world’s subterranean volume, allowing the Elemental Prince to reincarnate itself with the husk of a dead, hollowed out World. However, through divine influence, the dungeon now has a threat to content with its growth… The City Within.
The City Within
The City Within is a city that is being built inside the Dungeon.
This city as been founded long ago by a group of dwarven clans that allegedly undertook this with instruction from divine prophecies attributed to the Goddess of Civilization. Finding untold riches in the mines and rooms of the dungeon, the clan developed into what is today known as the Builders.
The city is constantly growing within the Dungeon itself, reshaping it to the city’s needs whenever new sections are cleared out.
Of course, the dungeon and its denizen fight back, and the geographic limits of both the city and the dungeon constantly shift as new sections of the city are completed while others fall back in the hands of the various factions of the Dungeon.
The Setting
An underground city, governed by numerous factions with near limitless resources, fighting an endless divinely-backed war against a sentient Dungeon of Chaos and its competing agents.
All this without the surface world knowing about it.
A perfect setting for a new breed of adventurers looking for riches and glory.
That’s part of what we have so far.
While Yan will be a player in this mini-campaign, he’ll also keep working on the factions of the city and the dungeon Being the world builder that he is, I know he’s having the time of his life doing it. I’m sure that seeing it come to life at the hands of another DM is probably going to be a bonus for him.
On my side of things I’ll deal with the actual dungeon (and sub-dungeons) where the adventures will take place and I’ll DM the first few sessions. If things work out, I may ask him to DM an adventure so I can get to play some 4e too.
So, do you like the setup? Any suggestions or elements we could add to our growing background?
Next time, I’ll start describing discussing the first dungeon the party will explore: The Font of Sorrows (Sans serif, for those who’ll jump at the opportunity to make the joke…)
Credits: Wizards of the Coast (Image), Yan Decarie (Campaign co-designer)
This wulf approves!
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Looks to be some delightful stuff…I’d play that if I could…
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Wow, that sounds pretty awesome. Also, Yan and I seem to have the same tastes for megadungeons. I probably wouldn’t enjoy it either unless it was supportive of a local, neutral culture that I could interact with.
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Wow! Thanks for the feedback!
@The Rev: If things go well, this may become playable by others than my gaming crew. But lets not get ahead of ourselves yet. I know we’re sitting on a good idea, I’m looking forward to see how it makes it from the DM’s mind to the gaming table.
@Wyatt: I’m happy to see that you share Yan’s motivation in the game. He surely has great idea and I wish I had half the passion he can muster when an idea grips him. I may be blessed with a talent to put thought in writing, but Yan is an engineer in all senses of the term. I’m happy we finally get a RPG project to work on.
One of the things I like about the setting is the reverse “cliché” we have in it.
Dwarfs, for once, didn’t stumble unto something evil while digging. They are digging/building to stop something evil.
The Goddess of Civilization is rarely stated as an active god in the core books. It makes me smile when I think that it’s not Pelor or Moradin that’s driving the show…
Their are some others that we haven’t shared yet. As a DM I often like to go against the preconception of players on some aspects of fantasy lore. Especially the racist undercurrent that is often part of such worlds i.e: All goblins are evil, etc…
I look forward to playing that dungeon. 😉
I definitely like what I’m seeing here.
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There’s two games to play here; one of clearing and securing the dungeons and another of infiltrating and sabotaging the city. I think both are equally interesting, though different, games.
@Tommi: We’ll likely focus on the first aspect of the campaign, which is closer to the original intent of the Megadungeon, but you are right that another current could be to play on the side of the dungeon.
There’s even a third one, we have unaligned factions that have a different stake than those of the dungeon or the City. For instance, the Preservers are trying to prevent both the city and the dungeon from encroaching on the more of the ‘wilderness’ areas of the Underdark, so you have a whole ‘getting between two giant’ game in there to.
This sounds amazing. Your incredible back-story provides a lot of good role-playing opportunities. And if you throw in a few skill challenges along the way this sounds like it would keep even the most experienced players interested for a long time. Good job. Please keep us posted as you continue to flesh out this idea.
The 3.5 supplement Dungeonscape has a lot of good ideas in it. You might want to check it out.
One that is similar to your idea is the concept that dungeons can be formed by the chaotic energies of the Abyss. That could easily be retooled into being caused by the Primordial and its connection to the Elemental Chaos.
@Ameron: Gee man, thanks for the Kudos. I didn’t expect such a warm response to the idea. I’ll keep posting about it for sure!
@Hexmage: I’m busted! That’s where I got the inspiration for the Dungeon as a Sentient being. You can be sure that Dungeonscape will be close by when I prep for that game. That source book is excellent and stays useful across all editions.
Heck, I’m going to make me some Acid Sharks for sure!
Ha ha, Acid Sharks? Those were probably the only things in the book that made me go “Umm, what?” Although it would be cool to have them as elementals composed of acid that are shaped like sharks.
Hmm…suddenly I like Acid Sharks, too!
I especially like how you can see hints of 4E design philosophy in Dungeonscape. The alternate class features presented for the paladin (the various spirits) are similar mechanically to several 4E powers, traps as the focus of encounters that take the whole party’s efforts to stop are a staple of 4E, and monsters are even broken up into various roles (although there are far more roles in Dungeonscape than 4E)!
And here I though you came up with that idea… Talk about a reality check… 😛
Not many ideas are truly original when you come down to it. The City vs the Dungeon wasn’t in Dungeonscape… but the Dungeon as an entity was.
Let’s just say that we got some chocolate in peanut butter and the mix is awesome!
😛
Agreed, especially when you want the setting to be in a genre like fantasy in this case.
You need to strike a balance between recognizable concepts and original ones.
As you put it earlier today, a strong story/adventure/campaign rests on recognizable tropes and a skillful subversion of a few to hook players in!
@HexMage: That’s why I liked the late D&D 3.5 books better than. In my mind, Dungeonscape, Book of Nine Swords and Magic Item Compendium (all 4e precursors in their own ways) were among the best non-monsters book Wizards published.
Let me know when your megadungeon is published in hardcover so I can buy one.
Are you serious?
Wow, I didn’t expect that reaction! Thanks. Stay tuned and we’ll see how far this baby will go!
This kind of dungeon is the exact kind that my group would love. They hate confined places where the only thing to do is kill, but they love dungeons. I didn’t think it was possible to combine the two, but this idea does it perfectly. Bravo, Chatty!
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@Ivex: Well I’m glad you liked the idea. Later this week I’ll have a dungeon set up as an example of the kind I’ll be using for the campaign.
Can’t wait to write this post up…
But now, sleep calls…
Hmmm… underground city.
Brings back memories of escaping Menzoberanzan and the Underdark.
…and bioluminescent hallucinogenic fungi.
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Amazing. It’s really brilliant. I like it. There’s so much you can do with a setting like this. In fact I think I could get lost in it.
It’s huge not only geographically but also intellectually. I don’t know if it happened to you before, but never forget what sparked this. The idea. Keep it center to your story. Either the story of the evil force trying to release itself, or the city versus the dungeon. I don’t know what came first.
I lost focus while DMing/Creating a campaign a long time ago. At one point I’ve let the reason why I created that adventure get pushed aside by an avalanche of other good ideas, from me and my players and the first idea never got realized. The game got so far away from the point I was aiming for that the campaign itself finally collapsed. (Not the game, just the campaign) There’s a demon of madness still waiting somewhere on an Island south of Pan Tang. He could have destroyed the young Kingdom so much faster then Elric… nian… nvm.
Collapse. I like that word. You mentionned that the outside world was clueless of what was happening. If you need an idea to introduce a group of player to the this place. A group of dwarf could cause the land where the group is camping to collapse into the ground. The dwarves, trying to help them, bring them back to the city and are introduced to it’s citizens.
Have fun!
@Eric: Dude, I don’t want to know in what state you played 2e all those years! 🙂
@D_Luck: Thanks for your kind kudos and very insightful suggestions. I too have lost track of a campaign’s core idea and diluted it. Too often it was because I lacked time to prep and chose published adventures that had no thematic link to the campaign.
This time around, I’ll keep an Elemental theme and will try to frame all adventures through the motivations and maneuvering of the various factions of the dungeon and the city.
@D_Luck It’s good to have focus, then again sometime an idea does not deliver as you though (i.e: your player do not get the core issue). In these cases, its better to go with the flow and focus on what drives your players.
Dude, this is really great. If (when) you guys make a PDF out of this, let me know, as I would totally buy it. And after that I could see this stuff being published hardcover shortly after 🙂
Its a great campaign setting on its own, AND can be incorporated in to almost ANY other setting, published or homebrew. Its totally Awesome.
Hey, welcome to the Blog.
I will be seriously considering this as the feedback I got from this project is absolutely phenomenal.
Thanks so much!