Sunday, March 1, 2015

Mega Dunegon March:Part 1

MEGADUNGON MARCH:
Mega-dungeons The name brings to mind strange and twisting corridors spread out over a vast and multilevel zone filled with traps, riddles and monsters. How did that 20ft shark get in that 10ft room? Who cares, its a mega-dungeon Why is One Drow elf guarding a ivory horn worth 6000 GP? Who cares, its a mega-dungeon
The mega-dungeon has existed as long as our hobby has existed The fledgling days of D&D go hand in hand with the tales of Castle Greyhawk. My very first D&D adventure was in the Godholm mega-dungeon way back in the late 70's. While I have never designed my own mega-dungeon I have been collecting them for the past few years and have wanted to run/play a mega-dungeon campaign for a while now.
Over the past 5 years or so there has been a upswing in the Old School nostalgia wave over D&D and many a fan has out out his or her own version of the OG D&D books, such as OSRIC and Lamentations of the flame princes.
With this surge of RPG nostalgia has come a lot of work on mega-dungeons, whole web sites are dedicated to these classic adventures and many a fan has sought out to create there own.
Over this month we are going to explore the idea of a mega-dungeon, take a look at some of the great existing mega-dungeon products and maybe start work on our own?
The first question in exploring the ecology of the mega-dungeon is of course, who built this place and why?
Was it all the work of one really bored demon? (Yeah one level is good but 8 is better) or is it like Moira carved out year after year by the dwarfs who dug to deep? Perhaps it evolved over time as various inhabitants moved in and out? Maybe it has a long and twisting history? Or maybe it appeared over night?
Who knows?
Its a mega-dungeon and one thing mega-dungeons do not ever have to do is make sense. Castle Greyhawk make sens? There was a slide to China in the dungeon. Godholm make sens/ it had an elevator and WW11 soldiers fighting dinosaurs And yes the ever present 20ft shark in the 10 ft room.

So let us start mega-dungeon march with a list of the many mega-dungeons out there right now and links to the various sites dedicated to them shall we? I will try to keep it to product that is actively available . Thankfully most of these are either free or available as a PDF at one of the many RPG download sites such as “drive-through RPG.”.
I am not seeking to reinvent the wheel hear after all, plenty of work has already been done on this topic. All I offer is a fresh and often silly look at them.

Mega dungeon resource links

http://dungeonaday.com/categories/Intro (Dungeon a day's mega-dungeon)

This site is amazing and I go back to it time and time again as a resource for Dungeon building


http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle.html (the definitive castle greyhawk page)

List of Mega Dungeons

Garry Gygax's Hall of Many Panes.

Dragon Mountain for D&D

Anomalous Subsurface Environment (ASE1 and ASE2-3, available for Labyrinth Lord) 

Barrowmaze ((I & II, available for Labyrinth Lord) 


Castle of the Mad Archmage Adventure Book (available for Adventures Dark & Deep and Pathfinder) 


Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock (available for 3rd Edition D&D) ( I had this one, it was amazing. Sadly never got to run it as it was stolen)

Dwimmermount (available for ACKS and Labyrinth Lord)  (maybe? Lot of stuff revoling around this one))

The Emerald Spire Superdungeon (available for the Pathfinder Role-Playing Game) ( I was kind of diaspointed with this one)

Rappan Athuk (available for Swords & Wizardry and Pathfinder) (Awsom)
Stonehell Dungeon (available for Labyrinth Lord, Down Night-Haunted Halls with 2 bonus Supplements) 


Undermountain (Undermountain I and II for 2nd Edition D&D, Ruins of Undermountain boxed set, Expedition to Undermountain for 3rd Edition D&D)

World's Largest Dungeon (for 3rd Edition D&D)

 Undermountain: the Lost Level, Maddgoth's Castle, and Stardock. For 3rd edition



Caverns of Thracia (1E and 3E) (judges guild and frog god game)

The Tomb of Abysthor (3E) (frog god games)


Castle Blackmoor - by Dave Arneson - 1971

Castle El Raja Key - by Rob Kuntz - 1973

Hobby Shop Dungeon - by Ernie Gygax - 1978 (Still activ I have been told)

Maure Castle from dungeon 112, 124 and 139

The Darkness Beneath mega-dungeon levels in Fight On! magazine

 Night Below in 2e AD&D 

Numenhalla

Tegel Manor (judges guild and Frog god games)

The Lost City of Barakus (frog god games)

Vault of Larrin Karr (frog god games)

The Slumbering Tsar. (frog god games, I have this one and its amazing)

 Big Rubble of Pavis

City of the Spider Queen  (all hail lloth)

Tomb of Iuchiban


Ikia (think about it)


Mori is copyright the JRR Tolkien fund.
Castle Greyhawk is the creation of Gary Gygax and is copyright by the Gygax family

any other mega-dungeons I refer to are copyright by there original designers and publishers.
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