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Melamoto
2010-01-21, 12:39 PM
So, having looked at a lot of great ideas for dungeons, I thought, "What if a bunch of people got together to design an epic (Not necessarily in size) dungeon together?" So I decided to wait and see if anyone else would come up with the idea. Nobody has that I've noticed. And so, although I am hardly qualified to manage such a thing (If someone wants to take over management, fine by me. Good in fact.), I'd like to see it happen anyway. So, heavily inspired by Afroakuma's Vote-up-a-villain (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5189703#post5189703), Ertier's Vote-Up a PbP Game (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138759), and partially inspired by Shinizak's Let's make the next Tomb of Horrors (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112361&) and The World's Largest Dungeon (http://www.worldslargestdungeon.com/), I present the Collaborative Dungeon Project!

The basic idea is that first, we will vote on a number of essentials, such as level, themes, and size. After that, we hand most of the job over to our best willing homebrewers and dungeon designers, who can work up their ideas under the great supervising eye of the public. The public are also expected to supply ideas for them. More on that when we get there.


Voting Stage 1: Edition Wars
{table=head]Edition|Votes
3.5|13
Pathfinder|3
4th|2[/table]Vote Ended! Winner: 3.5


Voting Stage 2: Dungeon Starting Level
{table=head]Level|Votes
1-3|8
4-6|0
7-10|0
11-14|0
15-17|0
18-20|0
Epic|0[/table]Vote Ended! Winner: 1-3


Voting Stage 3: Dungeon Ending Level
{table=head]Level|Votes
1-3|0
4-6|2
7-10|0
11-14|0
15-17|0
18-20|2
Epic|6[/table]Vote Ended! Winner: Epic


Voting Stage 4: Dungeon Difficulty
{table=head]Difficulty|Votes
Epic|0
Heroic|0
Adventurous|3
Gritty|5
Dark|6
Horror|5[/table]Vote Ended! Winner: Dark.


Voting Stage 5: Dungeon Style
You may place 2 votes for this stage. They may not both be for the same option.
{table=head]Style|Votes
Traps and Puzzles|10
Combat|1
Humour|4
Horror|11
Epic Adventure|9
Existential|3
Other (Specify)|4[/table]Vote Ended!


Voting Stage 6: Dungeon Theme
{table=head]Theme|Votes
Necromancy|4
Far Realms|3
Monsters|0
Wizards|2
Underdark|2
Abandoned Castle|4
Underwater|0
Other|3[/table]Vote Ended! Winner: Necromancy/Abandoned Castle.


The initial voting stage is finished, and now we enter the dungeon design stage. That does not mean we are dropping the formalities (Or all of the voting), however.
We are currently voting for the dungeon we will be using. All of the dungeons can be found on the Obsidian Portal page.

Voting Stage: Dungeon
{table=head]Dungeon|Votes
The Dread Castle Taravar|0
Atroxia|0
The Fortress of the Hill|0
A Hellhold Asunder|5
Castle Abomination|2
A Prison without Bars|0[/table]
Winning Dungeon: A Hellhold Asunder!

We are currently in the Brainstorm stage:
During this stage, all those with their heads brimming full of ideas (Who just haven’t been able to contain them so far) can finally submit their monsters, puzzles, NPCs, and other ideas. When posting an idea, you must give a title in bold that is not likely to conflict with other titles. In addition to the title, you must also add a bold label that categorizes the idea under either Monster, Puzzle, NPC, or Other. There must be enough detail in any given idea so that it if a number of people were to recreate it, the results would all be almost exactly the same. You can post vague ideas if you like, but you cannot include a title, and all credit will go to whoever posts a fully detailed version of your idea. And please, the dungeon is A Hellhold Asunder, try to make the ideas fit in with it. For example if someone submits an idea that involves celestial protectors that doesn’t have a damn good reason why, I will make them pay in blood.

We have an Obsidian Portal page (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/epic-dungeon-in-the-playground/wikis/home-page) with info relating to the design stages.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-21, 12:52 PM
First off, your avatar with its whip-cracking taskmaster appearance, is perfect for being a project head. Kudos to you. :smallbiggrin:

Secondly...what are we going for? Terribly epic, like the Tomb of Horrors? That I can do. Intensely action-packed? Incredibly intellectual, full of puzzles and secrets? In short, we'll need a bit of focus.

That said, I'd be willing to lend some homebrew muscle to a project like this, as well as some creative dungeon-planning and storytelling muscle...

Fishy
2010-01-21, 01:01 PM
I heartily support this endeavor.

dsmiles
2010-01-21, 01:05 PM
I would be more than happy to support this epic undertaking. Unfortunately I can only post (ir)regularly M-F, 5AM-4PM (GMT-5).

Building things makes me happy.

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 01:07 PM
First off, your avatar with its whip-cracking taskmaster appearance, is perfect for being a project head. Kudos to you. :smallbiggrin:He's a shift manager in tech support.


Secondly...what are we going for? Terribly epic, like the Tomb of Horrors? That I can do. Intensely action-packed? Incredibly intellectual, full of puzzles and secrets? In short, we'll need a bit of focus.The dungeon is whatever the community wants it to be. Could be a mixture of all of them to make sure everyone is happy. It will be one of the vote topics later on. There could be rooms filled with horrible SoD traps, mighty puzzles of intrigue, or kobolds armed with chainsaws. Who knows?


That said, I'd be willing to lend some homebrew muscle to a project like this, as well as some creative dungeon-planning and storytelling muscle...Your assistance is appreciated, and I hope there will be others like you as well. We'll probably end up using a lot of homebrew made on these forums, and help from homebrewers like you would make for a great dungeon.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-21, 01:24 PM
Adventure Proposal

The City of Endless Thorns

The City of Endless Thorns was once a vast metropolis, only recently rediscovered within a deep jungle. Now a desolate necropolis, it is full of the restless dead and strange wildlife, and is completely overgrown with vegetation, turning the once bustling streets into a labyrinth of often deadly plant life.

An old legend tells tales that the city was build upon the ruins of a ancient Giant civilization, and that, hidden inside the city, is a path to the ruins of the subterranean kingdom these mighty creatures once inhabited.

Alas, this is only part true. The City of Endless Thorns was never intended to support life, as an expedition will reveal. Its streets are twisted, its buildings devoid of normal amenities like food or bedding. What water there is looks filthy far beyond what mere centuries of plant growth could indicate...and, most interestingly, the city itself is laden with confusing pathways and deadly traps, almost as if one was never supposed to walk the streets...

The city was designed as a means of imprisoning that which lurks below the surface. When ancient magic opened a breach to the Far Realms, and was not sufficient to seal it properly, the city was constructed to ensure that any monstrosity that emerged would swiftly meet its end. But the magical wards are failing, and the mundane traps and puzzles are not sufficient. The further towards the center of the city one goes, the more maddening the environment becomes: walls speak, plants rise and walk about, and the floor itself bleeds when trod upon...

Can the PCs, upon discovering the threat, manage to shut the gate once more? And, further...is that the end? Or will the campaign continue as the seal eventually weakens once more, forcing the players into a more active role as they strive to end the otherworldly menace once and for all?

Player levels: 1-5 would be best, as a city like this is easily circumvented with access to Fly spells and similar effects. Strange and unknowable things are also more devastating to lower level players.

Other Possibilities: A brief excursion into the Far Realms for players 5+, where they must, after finding the gateway, step into it to seal it properly. This could require them returning later, after having surpassed level 10, for example...

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 01:28 PM
That looks awesome, and would be a great setting point for the dungeon. It all comes down to what people decide on, of course, but this will be a definite voting option and will receive my personal vote at the very least (I like the Far Realms and areas with an underlying theme of doom).

Traikan
2010-01-21, 01:33 PM
The best (worst) dungeon I've ever gone through as a player was the "Elevator Dungeon". We were all level 6, a Sorcerer, Druid, Paladin and a Monk.

The basic 'hook' (which on topic, I think every good dungeon needs) was to split the party as quickly and disruptively as possible. There were pressure activated elevators scattered about, difficult to spot for a group that had no rogue... and they would send whoever stepped on them up or down some number of floors in the 4 level dungeon.

Elevators worked once, then shut down until a reset which happened every 2 hours.

There were large rooms with obsidian floors that belched skeletons if anyone entered the room, again resetting every 2 hours.

It was an amazing (horrible) experience and by the end our group had mapped the whole dungeon on four pages of graph paper and had killed about 150 skeletons.

Besides me wanting to tell an awesome (traumatic) story, I wanted to add that I think a good hook is essential in a dungeon.

A couple of ideas:
Traps bonanza, but big obvious things like regularly timed crushers and sliding walls of spikes. Or boulders that roll by at consistent intervals. And then have the party fight in a room with all of those. High maintenance combat, but potentially really fun.

The beholders's dungeon, think Telvanni buildings from Morrowind. Magic required to move about the dungeon, big cylinders to fly between levels, etc. For extra fun put a dispelling screen at the top of one of the cylinders.

jiriku
2010-01-21, 01:36 PM
I second the motion for chainsaw-wielding kobolds.

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 01:47 PM
I have been thinking about special dungeon traits, but depending on the size of the dungeon, a single one may not be enough, and it will get boring if it goes on for too long. Your ideas are good though, and I've taken a look at the trap one myself. It certainly makes for interesting combat, which requires a lot of tactical manoeuvring to win.

Darius Rae
2010-01-21, 01:59 PM
I love the idea of the City of Thorns. I had a background in Sci-Fi before getting more interested in fantasy settings, so anything from the Far Realms makes me happy. The city kind of reminds me of the Labyrinth and being near a gate to the far realms would make it even more confusing.

DrGonzo
2010-01-21, 02:03 PM
I second the motion for chainsaw-wielding kobolds.

It will be made of pure AWESOME!

Gamerlord
2010-01-21, 02:08 PM
Lets play with gravity in the dungeon, the characters are stuck on the floor while their enemies are free to float and fly around blasting the characters into oblivion and back. Also, in one room there is no gravity, just one big sphere of destruction or whatever it is called.
Or a kobold with a gun that shoots spheres of ultimate destruction, we had a thread about that a while ago.

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 02:32 PM
Lets play with gravity in the dungeon, the characters are stuck on the floor while their enemies are free to float and fly around blasting the characters into oblivion and back. Also, in one room there is no gravity, just one big sphere of destruction or whatever it is called.
Or a kobold with a gun that shoots spheres of ultimate destruction, we had a thread about that a while ago.

I love gravity based puzzles. You could go for an MC Escher room with subjective gravity playing a major role, i.e. you walk up the sideways stairs, you climb up floors, etc. There could also be another use of gravity, with an adaptation of Penny Arcade's Free Falling combat rules (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/08/07/my-free-fall-rules/).

A lot of crazy ideas can start to make sense as you get closer to the far realms.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-21, 02:51 PM
One way to use the gravity is in a dungeon that is 4 dimensional. You can do it virtually, and can cause some interesting fun if your guys love mapping.

I have had an idea of a tesseract of a dungeon. But I don't really know how to describe it in a way that I can type. I'll try later.

Edit: If you can picture a tesseract, it will help. but if not, I'll try to describe it.

Imagine a cube floating in space. Now attach a cube to each face of the original cube. After that, stretch the cubes so that each cube becomes the face of a larger cube. This is just a 3D visualization, as each is actually a full cube.

But I'll try later to show where I'm going with this.

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 04:05 PM
We're heading into hypergeometry here. This is the sort of thing that forces a San check for characters...sounds good to me. I'll be starting up the voting soon, once this thread has generated considerable enough interest that there will be plenty of voters, and that many of our forum's greatest don't miss it.

dsmiles
2010-01-21, 04:05 PM
Adventure Proposal

The City of Endless Thorns

...Stuff...

You are truly awesome...you went "Far Realm" on their asses...:smallbiggrin:

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-21, 04:22 PM
You are truly awesome...you went "Far Realm" on their asses...:smallbiggrin:

Why thanks!

I just love the idea of a dungeon where the challenge isn't really in tricky mechanical/magical puzzles or strange, out-of-place combat locals, but rather drawn from things like old and sporadic magical wards gone awry, strange, incomprehensible things, and the like. While I support the gravity puzzles and construction things mentioned by other posters, I think that, as an overall dungeon, it would be a mish-mash of random elements, and lack the unifying (and, in the case of the City of Thorns, frightening and unnerving) theme of what I feel a dungeon should be.

Hence why my idea comes off as a sort of sales pitch rather than dungeon element ideas. :smallbiggrin:

dsmiles
2010-01-21, 04:26 PM
Hey, I've got a pretty important question (before I start working on this stuff). What system are we building for?

EDIT: @Djinn: I have also added some of your homebrew Paragon Paths to my campaign world...me likey!
:smallbiggrin:

clockworkmonk
2010-01-21, 04:31 PM
Well, what I'm suggesting would not really make a full dungeon, more of an extended puzzle. I think it would fit well with a place that's magic gone mad.

Anyways, more details about what I had in mind.

The basic idea is that gravity would always be relative to the party, and you could be in any of the 7 cubes that make up the tesseract. every room in the tesseract would have doors on all but one side, including the top and bottom. as you walk through the doors, the best way I can describe it is that the whole cube shifts so that gravity remains down relative to you as you entered the room. but with certain movements, it would be possible to go straight forever, while going up one level will change your relative position as you are now in the center cube, and there are doors on all 6 sides.

I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but there it is.

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 04:31 PM
I assumed 3.5, but it's really whatever gets voted for. I'll make it a choice between 3.5, Pathfinder, and 4e. I know almost nothing of 4e, and know nothing of Pathfinder I don't already know from 3.5, so that would be my vote personally.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-21, 04:32 PM
Hey, I've got a pretty important question (before I start working on this stuff). What system are we building for?

EDIT: @Djinn: I have also added some of your homebrew Paragon Paths to my campaign world...me likey!
:smallbiggrin:

I hope 3.5, although my 4e homebrew could use a little polishing...

Speaking of which, let me know how those Paragon Paths work out for you, won't you? The balance may be a bit off, and input would be GREAT! :smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2010-01-21, 04:35 PM
This is an awesome idea, and I fully support it. 3.5 please, imo.

What level range are you gearing it toward?

WLD is for 1-20, so if you're competing with that in size, you'll need either a similar level range, modified xp gain, or more likely, both(even WLD has low xp gain).

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 04:36 PM
Well, what I'm suggesting would not really make a full dungeon, more of an extended puzzle. I think it would fit well with a place that's magic gone mad.

Anyways, more details about what I had in mind.

The basic idea is that gravity would always be relative to the party, and you could be in any of the 7 cubes that make up the tesseract. every room in the tesseract would have doors on all but one side, including the top and bottom. as you walk through the doors, the best way I can describe it is that the whole cube shifts so that gravity remains down relative to you as you entered the room. but with certain movements, it would be possible to go straight forever, while going up one level will change your relative position as you are now in the center cube, and there are doors on all 6 sides.

I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but there it is.

I get what you're saying, and it seems to fit perfectly with the idea of raw magic and the far realms. Trapped inside a Hypercube. I'd also imagine there would be enemies who knew exactly how to travel through it the same way we'd know how to move around any 3D space. It could appear, attack, and then disappear before anyone knew what had happened. It would really just be moving, but moving in the 4th dimension, so it would look as if it was just teleporting at will.

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 04:38 PM
This is an awesome idea, and I fully support it. 3.5 please, imo.

What level range are you gearing it toward?

WLD is for 1-20, so if you're competing with that in size, you'll need either a similar level range, modified xp gain, or more likely, both(even WLD has low xp gain).

Level range will be decided by vote. Starting level and ending levels will be decided by vote, which will also help determine the size, so votes on size will be relative. This could only be a 1 level long dungeon, or it could try to 1-up WLD and go 1 to epic.

dsmiles
2010-01-21, 04:41 PM
Maybe make "The City of Endless Thorns," and make it Undermountain-like, where it can support nearly any level party.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-21, 04:43 PM
Level range will be decided by vote. Starting level and ending levels will be decided by vote, which will also help determine the size, so votes on size will be relative. This could only be a 1 level long dungeon, or it could try to 1-up WLD and go 1 to epic.

1 to epic, I'd say.

I'm planning to do the same with the Endless Dungeon, and that currently only goes to what, level 6? It doesn't even touch WLD in size though....yet. It will, oh it will.

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 04:55 PM
1 to epic, I'd say.

I'm planning to do the same with the Endless Dungeon, and that currently only goes to what, level 6? It doesn't even touch WLD in size though....yet. It will, oh it will.

If 1 to epic wins the vote, then everyone who voted for it should help with the production of the dungeon. To make such a dungeon would take the effort of many, many great men to create.

Also, I'll be putting the edition vote up in an hour or 2.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-21, 05:04 PM
I already have more ideas than I can possibly fit in TED, so I wouldn't mind chucking it a bit of work into this.

The Tygre
2010-01-21, 05:24 PM
All I'm gonna' say is that we need some kind of dragon in here. Ooh! Maybe -two- dragons, and they're both Xorvintaal dragons at that! And let's see if we can't fit some interesting Non-Combat NPCs in here as well.

Melamoto
2010-01-21, 05:31 PM
Dragons are always part of a dungeon crawl. Maybe these could be Pseudonatural ones, considering. Or perhaps they are some kind of "Maze Dragons", the only ones who can safely traverse the city, stationed there as guards that were driven slowly insane by the whispers from the Far Realm.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-21, 07:07 PM
Dragons are always part of a dungeon crawl. Maybe these could be Pseudonatural ones, considering. Or perhaps they are some kind of "Maze Dragons", the only ones who can safely traverse the city, stationed there as guards that were driven slowly insane by the whispers from the Far Realm.

Sadly, unless we're delving deeply into Far Realms madness, the City of Thorns isn't something I could see as a 1-Epic campaign...as I said, it works best conceptually at low levels, as otherwise the horror element I was going for is removed by powerful abilities and just over use. It was suggested as a level 1-5 adventure, and that's the reason it works: PCs are weak, and even things that would be non-threatening to higher level PCs or just trivial to them function as serious impediments and annoyances.

I think you'd need something a little different for a 1-Epic game...say, a pathway taking you from the Material plane down through the Nine Hells, until you finally confront Asmodeus at the end of the adventure.

Mr. Spock
2010-01-21, 08:23 PM
Yeah I agree with djinn in Tonic.

golem1972
2010-01-21, 10:29 PM
A dungeon built by collaborative effort is a great idea.

It could be put together in a similar fashion to the original Heavy Metal movie. A single over-arching theme or story could link all of the smaller ideas together (as long as each individual part was made to work with the overall theme (the Green Ball was present in the beginning and ending of each story in Heavy Metal and linked the stories together)).

My suggestion (crunch) is for a 30 level campaign divided into story arcs. Each arc would have a range of character levels to build within (a story arc would begin where the previous arc left off, and work through however many character levels the designer reserved). I.E. Arc 1 is levels 1-3, Arc 2 is levels 3-4, Arc 3 is levels 4-5, Arc 4 is levels 5-9, etc.......

If I remember correctly, a level is gained roughly every 13 and 1/3 encounters. Reducing xp to 1/3 would give you about 40 equal level encounters for each character level (1200 encounters for the entire campaign). It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to present options for each encounter based on difficulty levels (easy, normal, hard, nightmare, etc.) so the DMs could tailor the difficulty of the campaign to the players while staying within the theme created by the levels designer.

My suggestion (fluff) is The Monolith. I'll work on details over the weekend (if needed) but basically it's a miles long artifact with a small portion of one end poking out of a mountainside. Temporary access through the indestructible shell of the monolith has been achieved via a very unreliable passwall item. Preliminary reports indicate that there is a hollow spherical space inside that is roughly 10 miles across. The passwall engine has temporarily failed, all contact with the survey team has been lost.

To me, the monolith is an 300 mile long 10 mile wide cylindrical (more or less as needs be) arcology divided internally into 10 mile wide spheres. Each sphere is separate from the rest but does have access to the sphere on each side of it.

This is a very rough idea and leaves a lot to be developed. I am currently more interested in the crunch framework to build the dungeon than my own fluff story ideas. I have been playing around with a similar idea (30 level themed dungeon) based more on Smash TV or Xcrawl.

Fishy
2010-01-22, 12:04 AM
I like dungeons that are in the process of turning into something else.

An ancient temple overrun with vines and banyan trees, with half the walls crumbling and the faces deliberately smashed off of all of the statues.

A gigantic library, staffed entirely by constructs and slowly being overrun by cranium rats.

The world's largest and 'unsinkable' airship, currently being used as a coral reef.

A Gnomish mine that used to be a Kobold mine that used to be a Dwarven mine that used to be a perfectly natural geological formation that used to be a dead god.

Forevernade
2010-01-22, 12:48 AM
I always wanted to run this but I never had enough time to prepare it.

A resourceful land created in the waking conscious of an epic level wizard. He isn't a deity, just a rarity paralyzed and trapped within his own dreams by his insanity. It would be a horrific landscape of spawning nightmare based horrors and ecstasies.

A living landscape, the soil is literally skin with cavernous pores to make canyons that reach around the sides like a bowl, connecting with the sky. The sky is a giant mirror, reflecting the land below, the source of light coming from a giant several mile diameter eyeball that sits in the middle of the skin-earth, it's pupil emitting a powerful ray of light up to the mirror as it looks up (down) on it's own 'face'.

As the PCs navigate through the world, after having been born as babies from the flesh of the face and growing at a vastly accelerated rate, they, at high level, will discover the truth behind the eyeball, under which the self-projection of the wizard abides in a small office where he plays with his epic level 'toys' (inventions, arcane puzzles etc). Here they would discover the truth about things, realizing the wizard doesn't in fact know he is asleep. Do they want him to wake up? For where will their souls reside then?

The actual world acts like a dungeon because of the enclosed space. New species keep spawning from the skin each day, and evolutions is fast enough to be weekly. Clan's grow and die, civilizations exist, but the wizard's mind is too much of a burden for anything to last long, puzzles appearing out of nowhere, illusions shaping themselves from thoughts.

The waking dream could be a sink-hole for souls from other universes... What is the wizard's origin, and how powerful is he, really? It could be fun to run, and really has infinate possibilities. The wizard could be a planar traveller in his youth, so almost anything could be born in his dreams :smallsmile:

Melamoto
2010-01-22, 02:25 AM
Sorry I'm late on this, my internet cut out last night. Anyway, first vote topic put up: What Edition shall the dungeon be made in? The vote will close in 12 hours.

Thefurmonger
2010-01-22, 02:30 AM
I vote 3.5

Kaun
2010-01-22, 02:47 AM
4th ed for me

Steelblood
2010-01-22, 02:56 AM
I vote pathfinder, its base rules are a slight modification of 3.5 but all of the 3.5 books are still viable for it. As for the "maze dragon" i think a few half dragon/minotaurs would be fun. I'm new to DMing but i would like to be able to toss it what little i can.

Mordokai
2010-01-22, 03:01 AM
I heartily support this endaveour and will be paying close attention to it as it develops :smallbiggrin:

I also vote 3.5

Melamoto
2010-01-22, 03:16 AM
I'm putting out a vote for D&D 3.5. As for levels, well, depending on what people vote for, things might be able to be adapted slightly. Maybe beasties from the far realms have escaped and there is a gradually growing portal, which is causing the laws of the far realms to be superimposed over the surrounding area. Maybe Kobolds really HAVE figured out how to make chainsaws.

Steelblood
2010-01-22, 03:34 AM
Adventure Proposal

The City of Endless Thorns


I like the idea, just swap out the undead for somthing else. Somthing along the lines of crazed animals.

Harperfan7
2010-01-22, 03:40 AM
I vote 3.5. In the event of a tie breaker between pathfinder and 4th, I vote pathfinder.

Kaiyanwang
2010-01-22, 03:49 AM
I vote 3.5. In the event of a tie breaker between pathfinder and 4th, I vote pathfinder.

Copypasted.

Steelblood
2010-01-22, 03:50 AM
well pathfinder characters seem to be a bit stronger then 3.5 and the grappling rules don't make me cry. Other then that they seem to be very similar.

Anonomuss
2010-01-22, 05:16 AM
I vote 4e, simply for ease of assembly of the dungeon itself and the creation of specialised monsters.

dsmiles
2010-01-22, 05:22 AM
I vote 3.5.

I have plenty of homebrew material just waiting to be unearthed for 3.5, and 4e doesn't make homebrewing easy (as much as I prefer the simplicity and less broken-ness of 4e).

clockworkmonk
2010-01-22, 07:27 AM
I vote 3.5

Dragero
2010-01-22, 07:42 AM
3.5 all the way :D

You NEED some ghost dragons :)

Kurald Galain
2010-01-22, 07:42 AM
I vote 3.5

I concur; it seems the most epic of the three choices.

Eldariel
2010-01-22, 07:45 AM
3.5 has great tools for this, particularly the infinite options of monster customization from templates to class levels to HD advancement to various alternative chassises. Pity if they remained unused. I'm voting 3.5e.

potatocubed
2010-01-22, 08:27 AM
I saw something similar on a website for a different RPG: build a level 1-20 dungeon in a week. I don't think you could do that with 3.x though, because it's so complicated.

Also, if you're doing a 1-epic dungeon written up by a whole bunch of different people, I strongly recommend avoiding a strong theme. You want to give each creator the opportunity to stamp their own mark on it and you want to avoid the players becoming bored.

Example: The megadungeon Rappan Athuk, by Necromancer Games, basically has the backstory "Orcus dug a huge pit and filled it with evil." Each level has its own named characters, things and set-piece encounters (bosses and minibosses, if you will) and its own feel, but all the big names are tied back to Orcus somehow. That's all the theme it really needs.

How about this for a 1-epic dungeon backstory?

Once upon a time there was a wizard of jaw-dropping power. He understood all the secrets of the universe and, among them, understood that Asmodeus was a serious problem and needed to be stopped. So the wizard crafted a demiplane whose sole purpose was to act as a weapon against Asmodeus. Through some unknown magical principle, the demiplane sucked up all the light and hope and good feelings from a huge patch of the prime material and fired it across the planes like some really happy laser.

It didn't work. The prime just wasn't happy enough. The blast injured Asmodeus and left a geometrist's nightmare of a spatially warped tunnel that 'drilled' through several outer planes, taking on their characteristics where it passed nearby.

Approximately a zillion years later the prime material has recovered and is moderately happy again. The space tunnel is now populated by a huge variety of creatures that have moved in from their spatiotemporally closest location, although the influence of Asmodeus and his devilish minions can be felt throughout.

The kicker? The far end of the tunnel is still lodged in Asmodeus' flesh, right next to his heart. If you could reach the bottom, defeat the devil guards and the savage traps, and somehow slay an avatar of Asmodeus himself, well... anything that lives can be killed, right?

Notes:
The upper levels are a surface sinkhole of suck (everything good has been shlorped out) and some dungeons 'beneath' that.
The middle levels are planar-themed.
The lower levels are devilish, and probably also planar-themed.
Although the geometry the dungeon inhabits resembles Cthonic spaghetti, it's all real geometry - the same 3+ dimensions we're used to - so your bags of holding etc. still work. Dunno about astral, ethereal or shadow travel, though.

So yeah, I'm willing to pitch in if the idea holds my interest. Maybe knock up a level or two.

System: I don't mind.

Calenestel
2010-01-22, 08:38 AM
I vote 3.5. In the event of a tie breaker between pathfinder and 4th, I vote pathfinder.

I concur.

C

bosssmiley
2010-01-22, 09:00 AM
@^^: JG mate.


Sorry I'm late on this, my internet cut out last night. Anyway, first vote topic put up: What Edition shall the dungeon be made in? The vote will close in 12 hours.

Systemless. Include names, numbers appearing, reason for being in the area and the like, but allow the DM to drop in the stats of his preferred edition. Any DM who can't do this isn't worthy of the name.

Where names and likenesses are copyrighted by the dog-in-a-manger IP-squatting incumbents use "not an X, really" alt-names (couerl/phase tiger, brain eater, floating eye, etc).

You really should pay attention to what other people are doing in the field. Monte Cook's Dungeon-a-Day, the guys at Three Headed Monster Games, the Greyhawk Grognard, James Maliszewski (mullah of old school), and the contributors to "Fight On!" magazine over at Megadungeon.net all decided that *2009* was the Year of the Dungeon, and published accordingly.

Oh, and there's an inherent paradox to writing up (let alone voting up/creating by committee) a dungeon, to whit:
the dungeon that does not emerge through play is not the true dungeon (http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/10/schrodingers-dungeon.html).

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-22, 09:15 AM
--Stuff--

I support this idea over my own, as I believe it lends itself better to the exercise we're debating undertaking. Mine would have to sacrifice to much of the initial concept to mesh well with the direction public consensus is going.

Also, I say 3.5.

Chrono22
2010-01-22, 09:18 AM
Pathfinder!

Because it's backwards compatible and it poses challenges to designers- new system, new obstacles.

Steelblood
2010-01-22, 09:26 AM
Through some unknown magical principle, the demiplane sucked up all the light and hope and good feelings from a huge patch of the prime material and fired it across the planes like some really happy laser.


Care Bear stare?

Tyndmyr
2010-01-22, 09:31 AM
3.5

Again, in case of a 4e/pathfinder tie, pathfinder is preferable.

potatocubed
2010-01-22, 09:54 AM
Care Bear stare?

Nihilism Bear stare. (http://imago.hitherby.com/?p=64)

Also, what does JG stand for?

bosssmiley
2010-01-22, 10:49 AM
Nihilism Bear stare. (http://imago.hitherby.com/?p=64)

Dang! Beaten to it.


Also, what does JG stand for?

It's like GJ (good job), only drunk and lairy. :smallwink:

Arcane_Secrets
2010-01-22, 10:54 AM
I love gravity based puzzles. You could go for an MC Escher room with subjective gravity playing a major role, i.e. you walk up the sideways stairs, you climb up floors, etc. There could also be another use of gravity, with an adaptation of Penny Arcade's Free Falling combat rules (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/08/07/my-free-fall-rules/).

A lot of crazy ideas can start to make sense as you get closer to the far realms.

I did that once in a game about a decade ago and it was hilarious. The setup was a 'wrap around room' in which there were buttons on the center of each floor/wall that reversed gravity to the wall opposite the button pressed. The buttons had to be pressed in a particular order to make the exit door appear. I didn't throw actual opponents into the situation aside from defeating the puzzle with a minimum of injuries.

Melamoto
2010-01-22, 11:09 AM
D&D 3.5 is vastly leading over the other choices right now, at 12 votes, while PF and 4th are crawling far behind at 3 and 2 respectively. This vote is pretty much set, but I'll wait until the end. Maybe 10 major PF fans will see this thread at once and change the vote around.

Great suggestions coming up people, keep them coming! This is gonna be a great dungeon. The final stage of the dungeon creation will be handled by only a few people, no more than 10. They will use all of the ideas made so far, and they will handle the final dungeon schematics. This is because, obviously, there will need to be coherency in this. But all the ideas put out here will be up for use, so carry on!

Fendalus
2010-01-22, 11:45 AM
I'm for 3.5 in this, seems like a very interesting idea. If nothing else, this would be a great source of insperation.

Dr.Epic
2010-01-22, 11:47 AM
Can I make a suggestion? A legion of half-dragon dire bears holding half-dragon dire sharks.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-22, 11:52 AM
Well, if you want some meanness, just start adding some templates to a dire weseal.

dsmiles
2010-01-22, 11:57 AM
Can I make a suggestion? A legion of half-dragon dire bears holding half-dragon dire sharks.

Do they have frickin' dire lasers on their frickin' dire heads?

Flarp
2010-01-22, 12:25 PM
Not that it really matters at this point, but I vote 3.5.

One system that I use a lot when making dungeons (large ones especially) is including a center room that has passages to major points in the dungeon - but most of these passages are, for whatever reason, inaccessible.

When the players reach these points naturally, they unlock the passage. This serves several functions:


In low-level adventures, if the players can't solve a problem and need to leave to get help, they can find their way back easier.
Non-linear dungeoneering and (good) backtracking is that much easier.
It helps the players know how far they've come and gives them an idea of scope for the dungeon.


Also, to preempt the theme and style discussions that Djinn brought up, I'd go for a puzzle-focused dungeon. For theme... hmm...

If we're just going for a long-ass dungeon, we could have one section for each outer plane, but that seems sort of unoriginal.

How about a magic-themed dungeon, with lots of challenges involving magical objects, copious uses of Force Walls, and maybe even time manipulation puzzles.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-22, 01:22 PM
So...here's a thought. We want a 1-20+ dungeon. That means we're building a campaign taking place in a single, expansive area.

Things we need to consider?

Purpose/Underlying plot of the campaign.
Final goal.
Places to introduce new characters in case of character death.
Places to purchase/sell items, in case the character assortment doesn't mesh with the treasure we choose to place in the dungeon.

dsmiles
2010-01-22, 01:28 PM
So...here's a thought. We want a 1-20+ dungeon. That means we're building a campaign taking place in a single, expansive area.

Things we need to consider?

Purpose/Underlying plot of the campaign.
Final goal.
Places to introduce new characters in case of character death.
Places to purchase/sell items, in case the character assortment doesn't mesh with the treasure we choose to place in the dungeon.

point 1...Far Realm
point 2...not to get sucked into the Far Realm
point 3...nearby town (read: Hommlet) that is not part of the Far Realm
point 4...see point 3

(Sorry, I really like the Lovecraftian monsters that inhabit the Far Realm. I like to run dark, gritty, horror games.)

Melamoto
2010-01-22, 01:30 PM
So...here's a thought. We want a 1-20+ dungeon. That means we're building a campaign taking place in a single, expansive area.

Things we need to consider?

Purpose/Underlying plot of the campaign.
Final goal.
Places to introduce new characters in case of character death.
Places to purchase/sell items, in case the character assortment doesn't mesh with the treasure we choose to place in the dungeon.

Don't put the horse before the cart; we don't know what level range we're using yet. I'm only using 12 hour votes for most of the earlier votes, so in 24 hours we'll know just what levels this is for. Until then, all that is left is a cloud of uncertainty.

Flarp
2010-01-22, 01:46 PM
So...here's a thought. We want a 1-20+ dungeon. That means we're building a campaign taking place in a single, expansive area.

Things we need to consider?

Purpose/Underlying plot of the campaign.
Final goal.
Places to introduce new characters in case of character death.
Places to purchase/sell items, in case the character assortment doesn't mesh with the treasure we choose to place in the dungeon.

Hm.


Purpose, Background, and Final Goal

A powerful wizard's guild has recently breached the barrier into a massive demiplane that contains one of (insert campaign-specific god of magic)'s many abodes, long abandoned.

In the plane, however, the god's experiments yet linger, making it a powerful and dangerous font of magic. At the center lies the (insert magical artifact name), responsible for the continued existence of the god's dwelling.

The wizards wish to remove the artifact, however, so that they may study it and and demiplane in relative safety. The artifact lies at the center of the twisting and near-infinite plane, however, and the wizards cannot use their strength alone to find it.


Safe Haven, Vendor Area, Exposition Location

Over the years, the wizards built their humble dwellings into an epic spire of magnificent proportions, where apprentices and archmages alike may study magic. At the pinnacle of the tower, the rift has formed.

OPTIONAL: Have the tower itself also be part of the dungeon, with elementals, magical beasts, and insane wizards as low-level monsters. Higher level dungeoneers explore the demiplane. As the PCs clean out the tower, the wizards take it back and may provide more powerful assistance.

Around the tower, a small hamlet of pilgrims began to form, seeking the aid of the wizards in mundane and arcane matters. Over the years, the small village grew, becoming a large town. When the wizards accepted the town, they declared themselves leaders, which the citizens agreed to.

Now the town serves as a functioning economy and food supply for the wizards, who solve the problems of the villagers in return for their servitude.

EDIT: Ninja'd, but this could really apply for any level range - make the plane incredibly small and only contain the "final boss", while the tower is the main dungeon, if you want a low level area, or make the tower a friendly area and only have the plane be hostile.

Also, a suggestion for future votes, to make foregone conclusions pass quickly - if one response gets >75% of the total number of voters in the last vote, it passes instantly. Discuss.

flabort
2010-01-22, 02:38 PM
Dungeon building is always the funnest part of DMing, in my opinion. That, and populating it.

I'm working on a small dungeon right now, a wizard's stronghold. He sent a job offer to clear out his tower, because it's being conquered by goblins. It's got a coliseum like area, were he pitted his magical creations against eachother to test them, and were goblins now throw prisoners to watch, it's got a deep basement, leading to an underground lake, were amphibios rats with arms dwell, and, being a tower, many stories. it's got a portal to a demiplane which the wizard made in his younger years, pretty early on, but there's basicly nothing there. it's got several useless magic items, and no undead. it does have an intelegent LG +1 sword of harm undead, but no undead.

When they reach the top, they find what the barkeep back at town had warned them about: the offer to clear out the tower is about 2000 years old, and the wizard is dead. not lich, just dead. he failed to find a way to achieve imortality. a scrawled note says his reward for any who clear out the tower has changed: they own the whole tower, and all it's contents.

As well, the "wizard" turns out to be a psion.

But, it offers interesting enemies:
A Blue colored chicken, made of metal actually, that has furry tufts at the back of it's throat, which spin rapidly when the chicken feals threatened. Zap! lightning breathing construct without half-dragon. also, some of them have purple crystals growing out of their backs. These ones, found in more upper levels, are hive minded, with psion instead of sorcerer levels. Yup, hive mind construct psionic chickens. the more metal they eat, the bigger they get, and that's also how they reproduce. Min. and max. int 3, but since "caster" stat is Cha...

Amphibious rats, with arms sprouting out of thier backs. throw feces at threats.

Massive mushrooms, with crystalized shells. tend to flap thier tops, despite solid shells, flying at foes. varying colors, with varying psionic effects. fire spores, which if embedded in skin, cause a fort save, followed by a will save. failing both results in being under the effects of suggestion, as the spell, but with minor psionic benifites. "Protect the tower, kill invaders", and your partners are invaders.

Melamoto
2010-01-22, 02:49 PM
Voting Stage 1 ended. The winner was (As expected) 3.5. The next vote topic is about the starting level of the dungeon. This is the approximate level the dungeon is supposed to begin at; it has no influence on when the dungeon is supposed to end (Other than it cannot end before the starting level). So if you want this to be a 1-20 game, vote 1-3. If you want this to be a 5-13 game, vote 4-6. If you want this to be an epic level dungeon, vote epic. You get the idea. Voting will end tomorrow at 8 AM GMT.

Calenestel
2010-01-22, 02:52 PM
I'm going to be a bit of a bother and say: 1-3!
I LOVE long adventures (both in RPGs, books and films). :smallamused:

Day shall come again!
Calle

Tyndmyr
2010-01-22, 02:54 PM
If epic is 1-epic, then I vote epic. If it's only epic, then I vote 1-20.

I too, love long dungeons.

Flarp
2010-01-22, 02:54 PM
Likewise, I must say 1-3.

We're playgrounders, goshdarnit! We can make 20 levels of dungeon with our hands tied behind our backs!

Melamoto
2010-01-22, 02:55 PM
If epic is 1-epic, then I vote epic. If it's only epic, then I vote 1-20.

I too, love long dungeons.

This is the vote for only the starting level. If you want it to start at level 1, then vote 1-3.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-22, 02:56 PM
I'm a big fan of starting low too. 1-3

Masaioh
2010-01-22, 02:58 PM
I vote 1-3 as well

Flarp
2010-01-22, 03:00 PM
Wow, should we even wait for this one? It seems even more unanimous than editions.

Melamoto
2010-01-22, 03:03 PM
I would lower the voting time down to 6 hours to save time, but that would require me to check out the votes at 2 AM, which I am not really that interested in doing. We could call it unanimous, but we're getting new interest, and it's not over until the dwarf lady sings.

Flarp
2010-01-22, 03:31 PM
I would lower the voting time down to 6 hours to save time, but that would require me to check out the votes at 2 AM, which I am not really that interested in doing. We could call it unanimous, but we're getting new interest, and it's not over until the dwarf lady sings.

Your invocation of female dwarves and their inferred sexiness has swayed my mind. Let the voting continue!

Tyndmyr
2010-01-22, 03:37 PM
This is the vote for only the starting level. If you want it to start at level 1, then vote 1-3.

In that case, 1-3

Gamerlord
2010-01-22, 03:54 PM
1-3 is my vote.

Bagelz
2010-01-22, 04:25 PM
normally i do not like starting low, and my vote would normally go to 11-14 (an epic dungeon requires epic levels right), but i really like the idead of 1-20+ in one dungeon.
So as long the adventurers cannot leave the dungeon and goto a "town" (that is not part of said dungeon as to buy/trade/sell magic loot), then my official vote will be starting level 1 also
~bagelz

Harperfan7
2010-01-22, 06:25 PM
1-3. I actually like low levels.

Dust
2010-01-22, 07:02 PM
1-3, making it a usable resource instead of yet another incredible campaign location that you have stored away, hoping beyond hope that your players will live to be level 11 for a change.

I, uh, have a special group.

Shardan
2010-01-22, 07:47 PM
At one point I had a vertical maze built. take a typical labyrinth and stand it up. low level with all the climbing. wall crawling and flying monsters...

I also had a dungeon where the floor was absolutely covered in copper pieces... and full of electrical monsters... one giant conduit..

Tyndmyr
2010-01-23, 01:03 AM
Heh...mind if I borrow a variant on the copper piece idea for the endless dungeon? I need me some more creative puzzle/trap rooms.

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 03:01 AM
Voting Stage 2 ended. The unanimous winner was 1-3. The next vote topic is about what level you want the dungeon to end at. If you want it to last 2 levels (A curse on you if you do) then vote for 1-3. If you want to go to level 20 then vote for 18-20. If you want to end up somewhere in epic, then vote epic. It's pretty simple really. Voting will end at 8 PM GMT today.

Harperfan7
2010-01-23, 03:34 AM
20 is nice.

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 03:42 AM
I realise 2 things:

This may be the first vote that has any meaningful variation between votes (Namely 18-20 and Epic)
This probably won't get much attention. In America, the home of most playgrounders, this is starting at about 3 AM and ending at about 3 PM. Anyone who has to leave early for work is gonna miss it if they don't have forum access at work.

Harperfan7
2010-01-23, 03:50 AM
I realise 2 things:

This may be the first vote that has any meaningful variation between votes (Namely 18-20 and Epic)
This probably won't get much attention. In America, the home of most playgrounders, this is starting at about 3 AM and ending at about 3 PM. Anyone who has to leave early for work is gonna miss it if they don't have forum access at work.


Extend it to 3am.

potatocubed
2010-01-23, 04:17 AM
I vote 18-20. Epic is a bit... sketchy, for me.

Calenestel
2010-01-23, 05:38 AM
Nah. Any DM worth his salt can handle it. I say epic.
Just take your time to truly familiarize yourself with the epic rules and you'll be OK. It's still D20 rules and not THAT far away from Core.

Aure Entuluva!
Calenestel

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 05:47 AM
Ok, good news, we need not extend the voting time to get the American crowd, based on the fact that I have just remembered today is saturday.

Calenestel
2010-01-23, 07:44 AM
Ok, good news, we need not extend the voting time to get the American crowd, based on the fact that I have just remembered today is saturday.

*Snicker* Good job... :smallamused:

C

Eloel
2010-01-23, 08:39 AM
Epic! We're building an Epic dungeon, anything before Epic is only preperation for the real thing!

Khatoblepas
2010-01-23, 08:40 AM
I vote Epic. There aren't enough adventures that deal on that scale, so a well done one should be pretty awesome.

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 08:47 AM
I wasn't expecting it, but Epic is leading 3-2 with those last 2 votes. This could be interesting...we'll need the full cooperation of as many people as possible to make a 1-epic dungeon.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-23, 09:45 AM
4-5. I don't want to have to try to tie together coherent plot and a sensible dungeon ('cause the PCs shouldn't be able to leave, and higher level magic makes that all but impossible to accomplish) across a 15+ level range...

dsmiles
2010-01-23, 09:47 AM
4-5. I don't want to have to try to tie together coherent plot and a sensible dungeon ('cause the PCs shouldn't be able to leave, and higher level magic makes that all but impossible to accomplish) across a 15+ level range...

Ditto. 4-5.

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 09:50 AM
4-5. I don't want to have to try to tie together coherent plot and a sensible dungeon ('cause the PCs shouldn't be able to leave, and higher level magic makes that all but impossible to accomplish) across a 15+ level range...

Don't forget, you won't be alone in dungeon creation. We're trying to get everyone we can to help, and there will be other people like you who take a very major role in dungeon creation. This is looking like it's going to be pretty difficult to create, but it's a community effort; your burden is not yours alone.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-23, 10:08 AM
Epic.

I don't feel that the dungeon has to have one coherent plot...it just has to have several plot arcs tied loosely together. Which, frankly, is easier when you have multiple authors anyway.

Sure, epic is relatively broken as such, but if the dungeon is designed to not make collection of a swarm of casting followers practical, then the broken aspects of epic casting don't really come into play.

Gamerlord
2010-01-23, 10:08 AM
I vote 18-20.
EDIT: No,actually, I vote epic, but lets make it as much as a meatgrinder as possible.

dsmiles
2010-01-23, 10:50 AM
I vote 18-20.
EDIT: No,actually, I vote epic, but lets make it as much as a meatgrinder as possible.

Why does it have to be a meatgrinder? Why can't it be a mindgrinder?

Eloel
2010-01-23, 10:53 AM
Why does it have to be a meatgrinder? Why can't it be a mindgrinder?

Meh, just put an Epic AMF at the Epic part, and it's as mindgrinder as it'll get :)

Gamerlord
2010-01-23, 11:28 AM
Why does it have to be a meatgrinder? Why can't it be a mindgrinder?

Because a meatgrinder is more fun.

dsmiles
2010-01-23, 11:35 AM
Because a meatgrinder is more fun.

Not quite. Don't forget I'm in the Roleplaying not Rollplaying camp. If I wanted endless combat, I'd go find my 40k group.

Roupe
2010-01-23, 11:39 AM
I would vote for epic as well.


The Epic dungeon could be similar the anime The Tower of Druaga, (which I can recommend for ideas)
http://www.druaga-anime.com/english/

Gamerlord
2010-01-23, 11:46 AM
Not quite. Don't forget I'm in the Roleplaying not Rollplaying camp. If I wanted endless combat, I'd go find my 40k group.

I am in the rollplaying camp myself.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-23, 12:33 PM
vote: EPIC!

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 02:57 PM
Voting Stage 3 ended. The winner was Epic, winning 6-2-2. This is gonna be a big dungeon. This next voting topic may require a little explanation. Basically, it determines the general feel of the dungeon. It ranges from Epic, where you slaughter enemies in massive numbers, and may throw caution to the wind; to Horror. This can best be summed up in the, you guessed it, Tomb of Horrors. The others are all shades between them. Vote wisely, this will last for 24 hours, so discussion and compromise is an option.

Flarp
2010-01-23, 02:58 PM
Epic. Any schmoe DM can fill 20 mundane levels. It takes a playgrounder to make a dungeon that epic players can't break.

EDIT: Wow, epic ninja.

FURTHER EDIT: I'll go for... mysterious, with epic/heroic portions.

The dungeon has been long abandoned, with its purpose initially unknown. As players progress, they learn more and more about it, and the battles get more and more epic.

So, it starts off leaning toward mystery and even horror, but finishes with a crescendo of epicness.

Out of the choices given, I'd say "adventurous". These players are literally going to be spending 20 levels here - it's going to be an adventure.


Epic is out - you simply can't be epic at level 1. It's really not possible without significant house-ruling.
Heroic is entirely possible, but that would be rather constrictive alignment-wise. Heroic screams LG to me, and I've never liked that.
Gritty... no. Epic characters aren't "gritty". Epic characters can reshape entire planets on a whim.
Dark... eh. It's possible. This is just personal preference on my part - I like high fantasy.
Horror, like a Gritty dungeon, is completely ridiculous at high levels. The PCs don't have anything to fear.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-01-23, 03:04 PM
Voting Stage 3 ended. The winner was Epic, winning 6-2-2. This is gonna be a big dungeon. This next voting topic may require a little explanation. Basically, it determines the general feel of the dungeon. It ranges from Epic, where you slaughter enemies in massive numbers, and may throw caution to the wind; to Horror. This can best be summed up in the, you guessed it, Tomb of Horrors. The others are all shades between them. Vote wisely, this will last for 24 hours, so discussion and compromise is an option.

Nit-pick: the Tomb of Horrors isn't a Horror dungeon. It's a sadistic, player-killing dungeon. There isn't really a true horror vibe to the place.

That said, I don't really have a vote for this part. I will say that I don't think we can pull a good 1-Epic horror dungeon (as in I don't think it's actually possible to keep the level of horror up for that long without it losing its appeal), but I don't really care what the final theme is.

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 03:05 PM
This will determine the dungeon difficulty levels mainly, which will mostly be the same throughout a dungeon. But if you want it to vary, then say so, and vote for whichever you want to be more dominant. All of the ideas will be useful.

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 03:07 PM
Nit-pick: the Tomb of Horrors isn't a Horror dungeon. It's a sadistic, player-killing dungeon. There isn't really a true horror vibe to the place.

That said, I don't really have a vote for this part. I will say that I don't think we can pull a good 1-Epic horror dungeon (as in I don't think it's actually possible to keep the level of horror up for that long without it losing its appeal), but I don't really care what the final theme is.

Just to clarify: These voting options do not really mean the dungeon is scary horror, or adventurous humour and fun. This is the difficulty. The Horror option is named after the Tomb of Horrors, as that is the most difficult, sadistic, downright nasty dungeon there is. Epic does not necessarily imply incredible easiness though; it simply means that you do not have to be very cautious at all, and that fights will be mostly against many weaker enemies. Epic means that compared to the dungeon, the players will be epic.

Epic is superman attacking the Villain's fortress of doom. Heroic is a group of Paladins storming a necromancers lair. Adventurous is your stereotypical D&D group in a dungeon. Gritty is your average low level group in a dungeon. Dark is a fighting a cult in CoC. Horror is Tomb of Horrors. Hope that helps.

kentma57
2010-01-23, 03:32 PM
Though pacing will be voted on latter, I would like to see the dungeon ease into "Dark".; maybe starting around Adventurous.

So, put me down for "Dark".

Mordokai
2010-01-23, 03:47 PM
I'd like to see if we can manage to pull some Horror off.

Gamerlord
2010-01-23, 04:16 PM
The horror! It Burnsss!

Eloel
2010-01-23, 04:19 PM
Everyone can build a kobold-infested dungeon on the go. We, as the creaturs of the Epic Dungeon, need something more - something more fun - something to be remembered across the editions.

So, HORROR!

When I say HORROR, I mean serious business - Tomb of Horrors is a walk in the park.

Shardan
2010-01-23, 04:36 PM
My vote lays with Tomb of Horror level. if you're gonna do it. do it right

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 04:50 PM
The foundations are being laid for a very ambitious project. It would be cool to pull off, but I'm gonna vote for Dark. Trying to make a dungeon last from 1-Epic and still remain at ToH level seems like it would be incredibly difficult, not to mention that at that difficulty nobody will make it past level 5, let alone finish the whole thing.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-23, 04:59 PM
The foundations are being laid for a very ambitious project. It would be cool to pull off, but I'm gonna vote for Dark. Trying to make a dungeon last from 1-Epic and still remain at ToH level seems like it would be incredibly difficult, not to mention that at that difficulty nobody will make it past level 5, let alone finish the whole thing.

Have you seen the Endless Dungeon and the Neverending Dungeon?

Im not sure what the record is for the neverending dungeon, but so far, TED hasn't had anyone live past level 3 yet. =)

Calenestel
2010-01-23, 05:01 PM
I completely agree with the man with the whip (always a good (or evil) idea).

Dark.

Horror would only chase people away at least when we're dealing with this BIG a dungeon.

Aure entuluva!
Calenestel

Tyndmyr
2010-01-23, 05:01 PM
Epic is out - you simply can't be epic at level 1. It's really not possible without significant house-ruling.
Heroic is entirely possible, but that would be rather constrictive alignment-wise. Heroic screams LG to me, and I've never liked that.
Gritty... no. Epic characters aren't "gritty". Epic characters can reshape entire planets on a whim.
Dark... eh. It's possible. This is just personal preference on my part - I like high fantasy.
Horror, like a Gritty dungeon, is completely ridiculous at high levels. The PCs don't have anything to fear.


I would vote for a gritty, dark start that eventually leads to a truly epic, high fantasy feel later on.

I mean, it's hard to feel gritty/horror at level 25, but it's a bit silly to feel epic at level 1.

potatocubed
2010-01-23, 05:05 PM
I vote gritty. It should be difficult, but it should be playable with sub-optimal characters.

Melamoto
2010-01-23, 05:19 PM
So far, we have Horror leading with 4, closely followed by Dark with 3, while Gritty and Adventurous trail back with 1 vote each. Nobody has voted for Heroic or Epic. I think this probably reflects the attitude of the playground...:smallamused:

Masaioh
2010-01-23, 05:19 PM
I vote Dark.

Je dit Viola
2010-01-23, 05:29 PM
I would vote for it to be anywhere between Heroic to Dark...mostly Heroic, then Adventurous, then Dark.

However, the first two are unlikely to win, so my vote goes for starting out Dark then slowly moulding more and more heroic, so that it's less dark by higher levels and more adventurous/heroic.

Fendalus
2010-01-23, 06:07 PM
Adventurous to dark, reaching dark around 10th level. Or, if just one long level of difficulty, dark. Horror wouldn't be usable for everyone, but dark seems like someone with baseline optimized characters could get through.

Harperfan7
2010-01-23, 07:17 PM
Where are these listed with detail? I don't understand the difference between some of these.

EDIT: Found it. I vote gritty.

Shardan
2010-01-23, 07:17 PM
I don't see how it matters once the wizard gets to the level he can just rewrite reality entirely. Meh. doesn't matter to me.

Dust
2010-01-23, 07:29 PM
Horror doesn't appeal to me for this project. I'll vote Adventurous!

Danin
2010-01-23, 07:39 PM
I'd have to go with somewhere between Dark and Adventurous. Certainly not horror or simple high fantasy, but just, a more challenging and hardcore heroic tale. Think dragon age kind of dark. It's not very, but it's certainly not super bright either.

So I guess my vote is in for... Dim?

Flarp
2010-01-24, 02:33 AM
Wow, this is the first vote that's seriously getting competitive.

I like.

Rasman
2010-01-24, 05:27 AM
I vote Gritty as well, a challenge, but something you can use to test a certain build.

Flarp
2010-01-24, 10:20 AM
Given the amount of people giving mixed votes, I would suggest that instead of taking the majority vote, we synthesize the ratio between the votes into an entirely new theme.

Volkov
2010-01-24, 12:58 PM
Do you have a so hard it makes battletoads look easy option?

Melamoto
2010-01-24, 01:44 PM
Do you have a so hard it makes battletoads look easy option?

That would be Horror.

Krylea
2010-01-24, 01:46 PM
Horror. Definitely Horror.

Kurald Galain
2010-01-24, 01:58 PM
+1 for gritty.

JohnnyCancer
2010-01-24, 02:26 PM
I vote Adventurous most of they way through: I think anything else could easily get too grueling to maintain for the entirey of a 1st-epic level dungeon. You can break it up in individual areas or levels, but overall I think it should be adventurous in spirit.

Melamoto
2010-01-24, 02:55 PM
Voting Stage 5 ended. The winner was Dark, very very closely followed by Horror and Gritty, and Adventurous not too far behind. Based on what people have said, this will start near the horror mark, but gradually get easier, until level 20 where it is adventurous, and from there on Epic just handles itself.

The new vote may also need a bit of explaining, so I recommend reading this before you vote. The Dungeon Style is the dominant theme of the dungeon. Another way to put it, is what players would be talking about when they mentioned it. For example, a deep labyrinth of intrigue with traps around every corner, it would be traps and puzzles. For a haunted crypt where demons could appear at any second, and characters may be possessed into killing each other, it would be horror. Or, perhaps a dungeon based on traversing Limbo while fighting trumpet wielding clown-beasts (Or the aforementioned Chainsaw-Kobolds) would be humour. The final decision will be based on the ratio of these results, not the winning option. Remember this, and vote for what you want this to be. You may each place 2 votes. They cannot be for the same option.

Additional: If you want to vote for something else, then vote "Other". You must specify what this other choice is, or your vote will not be included. If enough people vote for the same "Other" choice, then it will be included in the voting poll.

Eloel
2010-01-24, 03:09 PM
Traps and Puzzles & Horror.

Why? Because it would be fun to run into traps in a labyrinth while running from a demilich.

We can vote into 2 choices, right?

clockworkmonk
2010-01-24, 03:10 PM
My vote is horror, but a very particular type of horror. Think Lovecraft.

deuxhero
2010-01-24, 03:16 PM
Humor, just to see how it goes with dark theme.

Mordokai
2010-01-24, 03:21 PM
I once again choose Horror.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-01-24, 03:31 PM
I vote epic adventuous with a horror subtheme

Melamoto
2010-01-24, 03:38 PM
Traps and Puzzles & Horror.

Why? Because it would be fun to run into traps in a labyrinth while running from a demilich.

We can vote into 2 choices, right?

I was considering allowing 2 votes per person, and only didn't because I thought nobody would read the post. But your premade assumption has changed my mind completely. 2 votes each. You cannot vote for the same option twice.

potatocubed
2010-01-24, 03:43 PM
Other. Specifically, an approach I'm calling existential for want of a better word: an existential dungeon is one where the most important facet is the players' choices and the consequences thereof. For example, if a dozen fiends jump out of the walls and start chewing the characters' faces off, it should be because half an hour earlier they pressed a button that was labelled "Push here for treasure! And face-eating fiends."

EDIT: In that case, I vote existential twice. :smalltongue:

EDIT: Dammit, pre-empted. Fine, then I vote once for existential and once for moral questions (introduced below).

Xey42
2010-01-24, 03:51 PM
Incorporating a little bit of everything seems like the best bet on this part of the endeavor. heavy horror overtones (my main vote), but traps, straight up epic fights, skill monkey bits, adventure. a good blend of all seems like win if you can manage it.

and puzzles, if used, should only be used for optional stuff.. nothing more frustrating than spending hours trying to solve what should be a 'simple' puzzle because its the only way forward. really kills the mood and can easily ruin game sessions

Danin
2010-01-24, 03:56 PM
I'm not sure if it works in this situation, but could I suggest populated?

It can be dark or puzzle based or whatever, or even combine elements of these, but something where it is possible to have a variety of small groups of neutral humanoids and safe(ish) places.

Otherwise I throw my vote in for horror, followed closely by puzzle based.

Dr.Epic
2010-01-24, 03:57 PM
Do they have frickin' dire lasers on their frickin' dire heads?

No but they look like this only on steroids and with huge red wings:

http://www.hrwiki.org/w/images/1/18/bearholdingshark.png

Volkov
2010-01-24, 04:07 PM
That would be Horror.

Horror does not compare to battletoads in difficulty. Not in the slightest. Fricken hoverbike levels.

Volkov
2010-01-24, 04:09 PM
No but they look like this only on steroids and with huge red wings:

http://www.hrwiki.org/w/images/1/18/bearholdingshark.png

Ah Homestar runner. I like that universe.

Flarp
2010-01-24, 04:10 PM
Traps and Puzzles & Epic Adventure.

Don't we already have like a bajillion horror dungeons already?

Calenestel
2010-01-24, 05:31 PM
1: Other: Moral and ethical conundrums.

2: Undead crypt.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for playing clerics. ;)

Aure Entuluva!
Calenestel

Kurald Galain
2010-01-24, 05:39 PM
This is getting mighty abstract.

That said, traps/puzzles and epic adventure probably sound best.

What is it with people voting horror, anyway? Horror is not about dungeon crawling...

Melamoto
2010-01-24, 05:53 PM
This is getting mighty abstract.

That said, traps/puzzles and epic adventure probably sound best.

What is it with people voting horror, anyway? Horror is not about dungeon crawling...

I know it is. There is only going to be one vote topic after this; after that then we hand things over to anyone who can still bare to work on this monstrosity of a dungeon that we have created. They will handle things by themselves and with the aid of the community, not by a basic voting system.

The Tygre
2010-01-24, 08:05 PM
For style, I cast my votes for Epic Adventure and Horror.

Volkov
2010-01-24, 08:07 PM
I go with horror as well.

Voidhawk
2010-01-24, 08:14 PM
Giant Hollowed-out Inter-planar Care-Bear-Stare Dungeon
Well that's just awesome. If we don't end up building that here I'm totally stealing it for my universe.

On topic, I vote for Epic Adventure with a side of other(Ecology). I always like it when a dungeon has a coherent feel to the monsters inhabiting it, that they have their own reasons for being there, not just to die/further the plot

Dragero
2010-01-24, 08:15 PM
Traps and puzzles

Humor

Haha funny traps!

Dr.Epic
2010-01-24, 08:17 PM
Ah Homestar runner. I like that universe.

And leading the half dragon dire bears and sharks would be...

http://www.hrwiki.org/w/images/thumb/9/97/sucks_trogdor.png/220px-sucks_trogdor.png

Knaight
2010-01-24, 09:36 PM
Existential, Moral Ethical.

Yeah, hopping on that bandwagon.

flabort
2010-01-24, 09:44 PM
Horror(lovecraftian)//Other(Moral cunundrums)

Palidin freindly... not.
Mwuh hah hah hah!....

Harperfan7
2010-01-24, 10:43 PM
If it goes from first to epic, it can accompany all of these at some point.
The humor and the horror will have to have large in-betweens obviously, but I say lets have some from each.

So I vote Other (all)

JohnnyCancer
2010-01-25, 12:33 AM
Epic Adventure!

dsmiles
2010-01-25, 03:52 AM
Just to see how it would work out:

Humor and horror (chainsaw wielding kobolds while running from a demilich)

Steelblood
2010-01-25, 07:07 AM
gritty, epic adventure, traps and puzzles.

Forevernade
2010-01-25, 08:04 AM
I vote horrific puzzles.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-25, 09:04 AM
1. Existential.
2. Traps and Puzzles.

Masaioh
2010-01-25, 02:30 PM
Epic Adventure and Other (Parody/Satire).

Melamoto
2010-01-25, 03:00 PM
Voting Stage 5 is over. The final ratio was mostly Horror, but with a very high number of traps, puzzles, and epic adventure. Other options are not so common, and apparently there is to be almost no combat.

The new voting topic is the final voting topic, and it is about the dungeon theme. This is fairly self explanatory; it could be a Wizards doing it, it could be a necromancy cult's lair, or it could be Far Realms related (Djinnintonic's suggestion). If you don't want to vote for one of the options on the list, vote other, and give your choice. If you see an "other" option voted for that you prefer to the ones on the list, vote for that one. They will only be taken into account if 3+ people vote on them. You are only allowed 1 vote for this voting stage.

Eloel
2010-01-25, 03:35 PM
I vote Kobolds. Everything is better with Kobolds.

(And seriously, Kobolds in a Horror setting? Sign me up! I want the end boss to be Pun-Pun, not fighting him with swords & stuff, but going into a pun-making contest with him. Yes, I suck at puns.)

Flarp
2010-01-25, 04:14 PM
Wizards. Also, your table code is borked - you left out an opening bracket at the start.

Melamoto
2010-01-25, 04:21 PM
Wizards. Also, your table code is borked - you left out an opening bracket at the start.

It has always been the fixed way it is. To claim otherwise is heresy.

And just to make it clear to all, the options I have put are simply guidelines. I couldn't possibly list all of the possible themes, so I just listed some ones I thought would be popular. Feel free to vote for other options if you would prefer them. Remember, if 3 people vote on the same "other" topic, then I'll put it on the table.

Masaioh
2010-01-25, 04:49 PM
Other: Abandoned castle.

Calenestel
2010-01-25, 04:59 PM
Necromancy! I want to see a LOT of Turn Undead! Die, undead, DIE! :smallfurious:

C

Kurald Galain
2010-01-25, 05:22 PM
Okay, so theme? One vote for wizards, and one vote for natural surroundings (you know, waterfalls, flowers, plant monsters, that kind of stuff).

Lord of Syntax
2010-01-25, 05:47 PM
I vote Lovecraftian Horror and Epic Adventure

Mordokai
2010-01-25, 05:47 PM
Other: Abandoned castle.

I would like to put in my vote in support of this marvelous idea.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-01-25, 05:51 PM
Vote for necromancy and Underdark because Illithid Liches are AWESOME

Dust
2010-01-25, 05:52 PM
My vote is for the Far Realms. Dragon Age's extradimensional world creeped me out more than I like to admit, and there's more to fear in the truly alien than the simply abandoned and unknown.

Dragero
2010-01-25, 06:25 PM
Hmmmm Necromancy for me, fits the horror theme.

PersonMan
2010-01-25, 06:28 PM
Necromany. Yay.

flabort
2010-01-25, 09:37 PM
well, all this necromancy is well and good, but what if the necro-cult's tomb/hideout is only a front? with several others scattered throughout as sub-dungeons.

As a main theme overall, Far realms/Nth layer of hell.

starting area of dungeon acts as a direct portal into the Nth layer of hell, which has recently been breached by a portal into the Far Realms. you've been hired by either
A. paladins/priests: clear out the new altered demon spawn from the hellish pits!
B. Demons: Our home is being invaded and altered. Help!
C. Treasure hunters: Demonic and Far-realm artifacts always get high prices. this could be a reliable source for both!
D. Archeologists: study the effects of the influences of Hell and the Far Realms on each other.

Whole party could be hired by one source, or hired by various, and joined up at the gates.

Touchy
2010-01-25, 10:03 PM
That makes a good fluff excuse to be a warlock of nearly any alignment.

Harperfan7
2010-01-25, 10:22 PM
If we're going to do a 1-epic super horror dungeon, let's do it right.

I vote Underdark.

We'll have all the other kinds combined in an endless, lightless, all-hating world of tunnels and caverns and dungeons where even the most simple of things on the surface becomes a viciously fought-over commodity.

And it makes sense to have such a long dungeon, in order to get out, the pcs have to adventure like hell. You can't teleport out of the underdark. You have to find a portal to the surface, or cast plane-shift or gate. Meaning they can't even leave until they can cast plane shift, and by then, there will be complications.

Think of the possibilities! We can have abandoned castles in the underdark, we can have cities overun by the far realm, we can have necropoli, we can do it all!

Hell, we can have RAPTURE!

Melamoto
2010-01-26, 02:23 AM
I would just like to remind those who haven't noticed that each person gets only 1 vote in this.

potatocubed
2010-01-26, 03:35 AM
I vote Abandoned Castle. Shades of Greyhawk...

Harperfan7
2010-01-26, 03:57 AM
I would just like to remind those who haven't noticed that each person gets only 1 vote in this.

Some of these people have the same avatars.

Rasman
2010-01-26, 04:28 AM
I'm not really feeling any of the themes, so I'm saying Other

clockworkmonk
2010-01-26, 08:17 AM
I vote Eldritch Horror, Which, as I understand it, would be basically far realms. sounds fun, and it would have strange geometry.

Volkov
2010-01-26, 08:18 AM
Far Realm. Cthulhu Fhtagn.

Kaiyanwang
2010-01-26, 08:47 AM
Why not (seriously) an abandoned castle with far realm entities? Full of subterranean spaces, mirror demiplanes and riddles?

You can also merge undeads, demons and cosmic horrors in this way:

Undead --Tanar'ri Demons (of Orcus) --Obyrith Demons --Far Realm-- Aberrations

Fendalus
2010-01-26, 09:15 AM
Why not (seriously) an abandoned catle with far realm entities?

This. Far more interesting than either by itself.

Melamoto
2010-01-26, 11:04 AM
Some of these people have the same avatars.People have been voting twice in the same post, which was what I noticed.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-26, 11:11 AM
Why not (seriously) an abandoned castle with far realm entities? Full of subterranean spaces, mirror demiplanes and riddles?

You can also merge undeads, demons and cosmic horrors in this way:

Undead --Tanar'ri Demons (of Orcus) --Obyrith Demons --Far Realm-- Aberrations

Yeah, I wanna change my vote to this. Should I go back an blank my previous post or what?

dsmiles
2010-01-26, 11:43 AM
I don't think anybody could hold on to the insane horror of the Far Realms for more than a few levels. I vote Undermountain-ish (constantly shifting maze run by a diabolical, insane wizard).

flabort
2010-01-26, 12:53 PM
Well, It wasn't so much 2 votes, but two half votes.
I want a theme being a mix of far realm and hell, so count it as 1/2 vote to each?

Sir
2010-01-26, 01:21 PM
I vote for abandoned castle for the levels 1-10, then at the bottom there is that care-bear stare tunnel to Asmodeus's heart. That just seemed to epic to pass up.

potatocubed
2010-01-26, 01:56 PM
To be honest, I'm kind of hoping the care-bear-stare dungeon drops off people's radar. Then I can write it up myself and maybe people will pay me money for it. =3

(Or perhaps it'll just be a giant pdf. Or perhaps it will languish on my hard drive forever. It's difficult to know, with me.)

Melamoto
2010-01-26, 03:06 PM
The final vote has been finished, and now the real designing can begin. This will be freeform design until a point (Until I’m sure how to handle this part of design). For those of you who want to work on this, here is the information gathered from the votes.

The dungeon will be made in D&D 3.5, start around levels 1-3 and end somewhere in epic. The dungeon should be very difficult to start with, and there should be at least 1 death every few levels at the very least. As it gets higher level, it should ease up, finally reaching the point where character death mostly only happens from player mistakes or tough combats.

The game should feature a substantial horror element. A personal recommendation is not to try and use insane and scary monsters (Although they are the recommended enemies), but elements of darkness and other kinds of fear. Try to make things happen which would freak players out. The vast majority of challenges should be traps and puzzles, or the traps and puzzles should at least play a significant part of the dungeon. The adventure should truly span across an area; try not to make it all stick to one basic setting. Otherwise, make the dungeon as you see fit.

The setting of the dungeon should be based in what was originally an abandoned castle. However, it must also have a necromancy element involved. This would likely be either a cult of necromancers moving into the building, or a lich/ghost that is raising the dead men of the castle to fight once more. You are, however, free to use your creativity however you want. That includes changing the setting a bit at the higher levels, as long as you don’t drift too far off the point.

potatocubed
2010-01-26, 04:37 PM
Alright, so how is this being organised? My thoughts:

Get a space on Obsidian Portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com). This will help keep everything organised.
Assign a designer to each character level. Each designer is responsible for producing dungeon content sufficient to get the PCs from that level to the next one. (In terms of XP and WBL.) This could take the form of one level, multiple connected levels, or perhaps several levels that are not connected at all.
Bear in mind the first few levels pass so quickly that you'll probably be level 4-5 by the end of the second dungeon level. It might be best to 'clump' those under one designer.
Because we want a nasty dungeon, each 'segment' should provide just enough XP to hit the next level if the PCs discover everything (maybe a total of 1.1 x the required XP, with 0.95 available 'obviously'). This means a) most parties will be slightly under-levelled for the challenges they are facing, making things that little bit nastier; and b) parties with strong builds and/or smart players have an automatic reward system in the form of extra XP and cool stuff built right in.
Each level should link to at least two others. The best dungeons are not straight 'drills' down to the bottom but tend to meander a bit, with dead ends and cul-de-sacs and assorted pointless frippery, and plenty of easy ways to get in over your head so you have to flee in an undignified manner.
Don't worry too much about a stong 'through-line' to begin with. We've got a general theme to work to and the plot (such as it is) will emerge as things are created.
Equally, not everything has to tie back to the necromancers. A level infested with purple worms will make a nice change of pace.

Melamoto
2010-01-27, 03:20 AM
Alright, so how is this being organised? My thoughts:

Get a space on Obsidian Portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com). This will help keep everything organised.
Assign a designer to each character level. Each designer is responsible for producing dungeon content sufficient to get the PCs from that level to the next one. (In terms of XP and WBL.) This could take the form of one level, multiple connected levels, or perhaps several levels that are not connected at all.
Bear in mind the first few levels pass so quickly that you'll probably be level 4-5 by the end of the second dungeon level. It might be best to 'clump' those under one designer.
Because we want a nasty dungeon, each 'segment' should provide just enough XP to hit the next level if the PCs discover everything (maybe a total of 1.1 x the required XP, with 0.95 available 'obviously'). This means a) most parties will be slightly under-levelled for the challenges they are facing, making things that little bit nastier; and b) parties with strong builds and/or smart players have an automatic reward system in the form of extra XP and cool stuff built right in.
Each level should link to at least two others. The best dungeons are not straight 'drills' down to the bottom but tend to meander a bit, with dead ends and cul-de-sacs and assorted pointless frippery, and plenty of easy ways to get in over your head so you have to flee in an undignified manner.
Don't worry too much about a stong 'through-line' to begin with. We've got a general theme to work to and the plot (such as it is) will emerge as things are created.
Equally, not everything has to tie back to the necromancers. A level infested with purple worms will make a nice change of pace.


Good ideas, and I will be using the Obsidian Portal to store information as soon as we have enough information for it to be worthwhile. Meanwhile, we are beginning the next level of dungeon creation. To start with, we will get basic dungeon concepts...

Anyone interested in doing so may post a dungeon entry, which contains a basic dungeon concept, basic dungeon story, and the general outline of what the dungeon will be like (Try to include the different settings involved at different points). The most popular design will be used to create the dungeon. The design need not, and in fact I recommend it does not, all stick to one setting. It also need not cover every level; the blanks can be filled in later. It simply needs a coherent continuity.

Eloel
2010-01-27, 03:38 AM
Just to throw some ideas around;

We can actually try the 'each lich is another lich's phylactery' with several liches in this castle.

Or we could go with kobolds. Kobold zombies, if you might.

potatocubed
2010-01-27, 04:48 AM
Clearly, there has to be a gate to the negative energy plane at the bottom of the dungeon, leading to locations there a la The City That Waits from the Return to the Tomb of Horrors box set.

Perhaps this gate and whatever is behind it is the source of all the negative-energy fuelled undead on the prime? Closing it would be a suitably epic quest for suitably epic characters. (Or just taking control of it for epic necromancers, I guess.) It would explain why the necromancers like it so much, too, and why the undead here are so powerful.

Oo! Oo! And getting to the final negative energy citadel could require keys from four quasielemental citadels on the planes of (or themed after the planes of) ash, dust, salt and vacuum. Like Temple of Elemental Evil, but... evil-er.

flabort
2010-01-27, 11:41 AM
So, is it Ok for people to submit monsters, character sheets for villians and residents, room designs, or what?
as an idea, Some-one moaning from a prison cell, "kill me, and I will aid you", even though he can't see anyone, and wouldn't know the party was there
Another idea, animated sculptures of large-ish spiders, all over at around the 5th level. Steel, silver, cold iron, bronze, and golden webbing! and granite, too... (warning: idea stolen)

clockworkmonk
2010-01-27, 11:47 AM
If everyone's cool with it, Im gonna start on a 6th level segment, based on the Idea of the hypercube dungeon. might take a while, just wanna post here saying Im doin it.

Melamoto
2010-01-27, 12:08 PM
Right now, the design is the actual dungeon concept. We're holding off other designs and ideas until we know what the dungeon is. As explained in the previous post, people should submit basic dungeon concepts, and the rest comes later.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-27, 01:27 PM
Ok then, in that case, I suggest an ancient site that lays over a point of power. The door at the bottom suggested by potatocubed would do nicely. As a site of power, it has a long and violent history. Over the eons, various factions have built their bases on the site, to either use its powers, or protect them from outside forces. As the years have gone on, the lower levels near the portal have been buried and forgotten. It now appears as a small mountain with a massive fortress on top, now abandoned to the wilds.

This will create several strata inside the dungeon, and allow for a wide variety of inhabitants, perhaps with more mundane threats near the top. Perhaps as a quick camp for goblins to base operations from. Below that, a cult runs active, occasionally picking off goblins for their dark purposes. That, or something like it, should cover the first, or shallowest stratum before delving the depths of the place.

This would also allow certain "skips" at later levels. At certain floors, they could find a collapsed tunnel and dig their way out, and at deeper levels, paths into the underdark.

Melamoto
2010-01-27, 02:22 PM
I can see that this isn't really getting through to a lot of people. So, I'll post up a sample dungeon, you can judge it, and then come up with your own design. It is not perfect, but it is an example, and I have made mine bigger than it needs to be; you only need your dungeon to tell the other designers what they need to know.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-27, 02:24 PM
that might be helpful. Right now I'm basically throwing things against a wall and seeing what sticks.

Melamoto
2010-01-27, 02:26 PM
The Dread Castle Taravar

The Story
The Castle Taravar has been in ruins for centuries. They were once the stronghold of a great and powerful duke, whose armies were rivalled only by the king’s own. He led his people well, and lived a comfortable life. However, he wanted more. He wanted more riches, he wanted more people, and most of all, he wanted power. He wanted to rule over the kingdom himself, and so, he began the great war against his own king, and great destruction and slaughter ensued. Thousands of soldier’s lives were lost, and nobody knows how many civilians were caught up in the crossfire. The duke’s men were greatly outnumbered by the king’s, but somehow they managed to fight as equals in combat. But this did not last. The battling lasted for a decade, before the duke was finally pushed back to his last stand, Taravar.
There, as the king’s forces marched upon him, ready to destroy him once and for all, they noticed a strange silence coming from the castle. Nobody shouting orders over the walls, no marching squads, nothing. They broke through the locked gates, encountering no resistance. And soon after they entered they discovered why. Blood smeared the walls, hundreds of men lay, their bodies ripped apart and mangled in gruesome ways. As they searched, they found not a single living creature in the castle, or any sign of what had killed them. The final mystery, however was that they never did find the Duke’s body. The place was left forever, and nobody dared set foot in it, or go anywhere near it, for fear that they would share the fate of the duke’s men.
However, there was a greater influence at work. And he had no intention of letting the war he had started stop. And so, he wrought up his greatest magics, and, utilizing the primal forces that connected the planes, tore open a hole to the Negative Energy Planes beneath the castle. The flow of power began to fill the castle, turning it into a focal point for darkness. Great necromancers, liches, vampires, and other dark creatures were drawn there. Though there were many battles fought between them, eventually the few remaining decided to work together. Necromancers attempted to control the gateway, and in doing so, they greatly magnified their power, allowing the dead to be brought back to fight once more. The armies of Taravar Castle grow every day, and soon they will be strong enough to launch a direct assault on all of <Insert World Name Here> itself.


The Players
1-5 will be exploring the outskirts of the castle, on the moors, unable to travel directly to the castle. Forests have grown up all around the castle, a dark mist is falling, and creatures of the night lurk in search of victims. This will have a lot of combat, although it is going to be very dangerous in the dark mist, where the monsters can use advanced tactics; this is their home ground.
6-10 will be spent fighting throughout the castle, where the stronger creatures lay. Vampires, Giant Skeletal Spiders, and maybe the occasional Lich or Necromancer will be the main opponents. There will mostly, however, be traps here. The monsters up here are the (Unaware) guardians for the lower areas, and so traps have been placed to assist them in their (Unwilling) guard duties. The enemies here actually think they’re the bosses. They could not be more wrong.
11-15 will be finding the lower lair, which has been dug underneath the castle by the powerful spellcasters, in an attempt to reach the planar breach itself. Sadly, these attempts have been successful. They will face many hordes of undead, who are all ready for the attack, and have prepared accordingly. This will be tough, but it will be more about winning than not losing.
16-20 will be the deep lower areas, where only the most powerful creatures are. Personal bodyguards of the Lich-lords who have declared themselves rulers. And this will culminate with face-offs against said Lich-lords. The “having each other as Phylacteries” is optional, I won’t make a decision here.
21-23 will involve travelling through the Planar Gate to confront the entity who is behind all of this, who tempted the duke, who gave his soldiers unnatural aid in combat, who took the duke to hell and slaughtered his men when they failed, who opened the planar gate, and who now seeks to destroy the PCs for unravelling his schemes. A great and terrible Demon Lord, come from below to cause destruction and terror on <Insert World Name Here> like never seen before.


The Dungeon
Levels 1-5 will be very much horror, being focused on unseen terrors that will feast on your flesh. They players should never feel safe here, and try to include some fear elements too (Roll the dice. A natural 1? Ok, you’re dead; and now roleplay an evil doppelganger who has killed you and taken your place to assassinate your allies). Ambient music would work well at a table.
6-10 will be still scary, but in a different way. The players should feel isolation, with nothing to surround them but the darkness, which could turn on them at any minute. The area should have a very large number of traps, getting the players paranoid. Feel free to play with this paranoia any way you wish.
11-15 will not be as scary or creepy as the others. This bit should feel more like a standard dungeon crawl, albeit with powerful opponents who use clever strategies. Elements here should require the players to be quick on their feet, creative, and use strategy. There will not be very many traps; the few there are will likely be mindbenders.
16-20 should be mostly combat. This is the point where they are piercing the heart of the lair, and so there is little that can be done. All sorts of interesting things could come from the bosses though (I haven’t said how many Lich-lords there are). There are millions of possibilities.
21-23 is the proverbial it. The finale. The end. After this, the players can go home. The Demon Lord himself will confront them at the end of this point, and he is pissed. This will be almost entirely hack and slash, although there still won’t be much of it. The Demon Lord will have a number of tricks up his sleeve though, use these to whatever effect you feel like.

Harperfan7
2010-01-27, 10:05 PM
So, how does Obsidian Portal work?

How do we decide who gets what level?

Melamoto
2010-01-29, 12:46 PM
Ok, I can see what has happened here. Everybody was willing to vote, but they don't want to submit a design because they are either self-concious or just unwilling to do all the work it involves.

You don't have to worry about work being subpar; it can be improved upon. All we need is a basic concept.
On a similar note, you can come up with a dungeon concept and nothing else. You are not tied down to doing any work if you submit a dungeon. If you can't be bothered to do a write up, then just give people a basic idea and if others like it then they can write it up themselves.

Let's get this moving people. I've put up an Obsidian Portal page (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/epic-dungeon-in-the-playground/wikis/home-page) which, while not perfect, contains some basic info, and will contain a catalogue of all dungeons submitted in this thread. When we get any.

BigPapaSmurf
2010-01-29, 01:53 PM
The Undercube,

This is a dungeon which can be above ground or underground, it takes the form of a large black cube shape with no windows, its interior consists of 6 perfect pyramids formed together to make a cube,(think their bases face outwards).

Ideally you would start in the bottom pyramid and work your way up to the top where you come to the central sphere room. This room is all black and the walls barely reflect light, as you crawl up through the floor hatch you will see a magical light sphere in the center of the room , this sphere has exactly the same radius of light as the room itself.

The sphere room has no gravitational direction, if you walk up the sides, whereever you stand gravity goes downwards. The first step will cause nausea and vomiting, they may notice that the vomit doesnt slide down the wall but just stays there.

The light sphere is floating in 0G at the center if it is moved by any means it will fall in the direction it was moved until it strikes a surface where it will break. The light cannot be removed from the room. Standing at the bottom of the sphere you will see five other hatches, four on the walls and one on the ceiling, the ceiling hatch requires four 'keys' objects which can be recovered from the four side pyramids. Once you choose a pyramid to enter via hatch you will notice that gravity always faces down from the sphere room. Each of the six pyramids should be very different in tone and content, but similar in deadliness.

Sorry no time to write this up properly.

clockworkmonk
2010-01-29, 02:12 PM
Here's something I wrote up, I don't have access to Obsidian portal at work, so I'll go ahead and post now.

The varied histories of the Fortress of the Hill

The Fortress as it currently stands was built 300 years ago. Its in ruins, but is still active. It is used currently as a staging area for bandits and slavers operating on the nearby roads. Few merchants travel the roads in the area unless faced with no other choice.

It was constructed by the Quiet Sun, an order of paladins, for some purpose they refused to share with those not inside the order. 200 years after its construction, the Quiet Sun was forced to abandon the fortress, and have not attempted to reclaim it.

But the history of The Fortress of the Hill is much longer than that. It is only the most recent fortress constructed on the site, and holds ancient secrets.


The Dungeon

the first levels have been co-opted by the bandits and slavers. They operate freely in the area, but do not venture deeper. [probably player level 1-3]

Just below the Fortress proper are the catacombs, where 200 years of paladins are interred. at these levels a cult operates. The slavers above were not particularly aware of them, just that people who got seperated tended to not be seen again. They work for things lying deeper in the fortress. [player level 4-6, players start getting first real hints at the true depth of the place, and its history]

below that is where the things really start taking a turn for the strange. Here is where the eldrich horrors start to pour through. strange geometries and 4th dimensional monsters. This is also where the undead start to come through, guarding against those above venturing too deep [7-13 major meat here, seeing as the major goals were horror, and I think these levels allow that without much real threat. The players start getting a grasp on the real threats here, the evil undead plotting, the horrors from beyond the stars, that sort of thing]

The players start taking the fight to the undead kings or the like ruling here. The destruction of the undead lords ultimatelly leads to the power unleased below, as the UNdead lords are part of an ancient pact to keep the eldrich abominations sealed away[14-17, combat heavy]

having unleashed the eldrich horrors, the players have to rebind them. All tools to do so should be available from the undead lords, if they can work them out. [18-close. could lead to noble sacrifice, or some other method. but there it is]

Melamoto
2010-01-29, 02:56 PM
@BigPapaSmurf
I like it. Confusing and with an overarching dungeon mechanic. But I feel there may be some problems with space, and with making this large enough to be a dungeon. Not the least to say it doesn't match the voted theme. I still like it though, and maybe it could find it's way into another dungeon, or being the major area of another dungeon; so that it's a large level spanning segment of the dungeon.

@clockworkmonk
The fluff is quite good, and leaves room for expansion. There is a lot of room to work with about the Quiet Sun, and exactly what all of it is about. The level guide is quite good as well, giving at least a clear boundary of challenges, and the players get more and more involved with the story line as things go on. Added it to the Obsidian Portal page.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-29, 04:11 PM
I would like to design a midlevel area based on Stormwrack, ie, nautical, if that can be fit in.

Melamoto
2010-01-29, 04:17 PM
I would like to design a midlevel area based on Stormwrack, ie, nautical, if that can be fit in.

If you can fit a nautical area in a castle/necromancy themed game, then have a shot. But I'd like to say that the suggestion won't really be taken seriously until the next stage of design; if you have a nautical castle idea then feel free to give it. Don't forget, in D&D castles don't have to be on land.

Masaioh
2010-01-29, 04:30 PM
If you can fit a nautical area in a castle/necromancy themed game, then have a shot. But I'd like to say that the suggestion won't really be taken seriously until the next stage of design; if you have a nautical castle idea then feel free to give it. Don't forget, in D&D castles don't have to be on land.

How about a segment of the dungeon themed around Naumachia? Maybe one wing of the castle could be flooded, and the players have to navigate it by boat.

Harperfan7
2010-01-29, 11:28 PM
A Hellhold Asunder

Ages ago, several archmages from various lands joined council to decide how to rid the world of (insert name), a colossal ancient living fortress full of dark and terrible things not of this world. Since it held such great evil, it was decided that none should dare brave the castle for fear of unleashing its evil upon the land. After long years of study and debate, they decided the best thing to do was banish the space it occupied from this world. So the circle of archmages crafted a mighty spell to tear a hole in this world around the castle and let if “fall” through. The mages gathered around the mountain upon which the castle rested and began the rites of the spell, but before they could finish, the castle reacted. No one knows what happened, but the spell only half worked. The castle still stands to this day lost somewhere in the wilderness, but only half the castle is actually there. It stands sheared in two with the other half just gone.

The half still in our world is dead, a carcass or skeleton dried up and withering away. Its dark spells and powers are gone, and nothing but parasites and scavengers inhabit it now. (Bandits, cultists, goblinoids, terrestrial monsters, roosting aerial creatures, maybe a dragon or three)

Somewhere within the castle is a hidden portal to the ghost world where the lost half of the castle now lives. In the ghost world (a demi-plane not much larger than that half of the castle) the castle is alive and strong, still containing many of the horrible things it did in ages past. It is starting to fray apart at the ends however, with different parts of the castle inhabiting the ethereal plane, the shadow plane, the negative energy plane, the far realm, or various lower planes. The castle now rests in a comatose slumber, dreaming of coming back to the prime and unleashing its power in revenge.

One night, an eerie wall of mist comes down from the ghost world through the castle and down the mountain into the surrounding lands. From this mist comes some of the dark and terrible things from the ghost world portion of the castle (a group of skeletal knights riding skeletal horses, a flight of fiends, a poisonous madness upon the wind, etc.). Inside the mist, the world is warped and the stars are different. The mist only comes down at night and disappears when the sun rises, and it doesn’t come down every night, but the intervals get shorter over time until the mist is there every night, and the mist extends farther every time. Every day the land around the castle begins to look more and more like a hellscape. Once the mist comes every night, the intervening days are dark, the sun starts to look dim and red, fiery storm clouds roll out from a crack in the sky and pour acidic rain, leaving poisonous fogs afterwards, and beings not of this world being to prowl the land.

Every time the mist comes and goes, it leaves death and destruction in its wake, with slaughtered creatures, blighted wilderness, malignant curses, and other stranger things. Each night the mist brings something different and changes the land in different ways. One night, what was once a calm and beautiful sylvan forest is now a dark and haunted jungle of poisonous fungus and shrieking things, and the next night looks completely unchanged except all the beings living in the forest have gone insane with rage and begin killing each other and anyone else traveling through (just speculation, this is open to ideas obviously).

Something needs to be done.

The Campaign

The campaign beings with the pcs staying in a town somewhat near the castle. After a short simple (but possibly related) adventure in town, the town leader(s) come to the pcs and hire them to venture up to the castle and deal with the goblins/bandits/cultists/raiding dragon or retrieve the stolen goods/kidnapped heir/whatever.

During this adventure they get their first brush with the castle. They see that it is a long dead ruin now inhabited by creatures and beings that have moved in. They encounter a cult that knows of the castles past and seeks to bring back its evil, but probably don’t fully realize what the castle was/is. During this first adventure, or any following connected adventure, either they by accident open the hidden portal and unleash the mist, or the cult finds it and completes their rite, doing so.

After this, the next time they return to town, a (mysterious prophet) approaches them and cryptically warns them of what is to come. After this, the castle may begin to be inhabited by some of the things that inhabit the ghost world portion, or this may not happen until the mists occur every night, but either way, they need to master this worlds half of the castle, then breach the other side and deal with that half, preferably before the mists come every night and worlds begin to merge (which is bad, but in a so far undecided way).

Further on, the town the pcs started in may get destroyed or swallowed up by the mist/merging hellscape and they may need to move their base back to a bigger city closer to civilization. Time is of the essence however, so they should spend as little time as possible without the castle. As to why the pcs are the only ones dealing with the castle, they might not be (so possible alliances or recruitment of new pcs), but most people are going to be dealing with what the mist does/brings and the following hellscape and anything that comes with it. Perhaps evil all over the land/continent/world rises up as the castle gets closer to coming back, leaving the rest of the world plenty of problems to deal with. Perhaps the council of archmages became liches to guard over the castle to make sure it never comes back (again, just ideas).

The castle itself is huge. It has perhaps a dozen floors, several different towers and connecting walls, and it extends down into the mountain in a proper dungeon. It may have several sub-structures around the mountain, perhaps connected by tunnels. There may be a floating portion of the castle, or several floating towers, or something similar. The dungeon may connect with an ancient dwarven mine, or the underdark, or both.

The castle is sheared in two, meaning that at the shear the castle may be open to the elements (imagine if half a tall building collapsed). Some parts of it may have collapsed, leaving big piles of rubble and maybe some of the lower floors have buried because of it. Perhaps the cult or other inhabitants have added superficial fortifications to the ruins, maybe blocking off the open parts of the shear or adding fort-style wooden walls around the bailey, it's all possible.

The castle was once a living thing with much great evil, so it should have "organs" - for example, a now non-functional great crystal heart, waiting to be revived. Maybe the heart has some evil power, maybe reviving it accomplishes some goal (like opening up new parts of the castle).

The ghost world portion, and the prime portion once the castle re-merges, will be "alive" (but not "awake"), and can react to what the pcs do, meaning it might close off some areas, call security, etc., and will be much more powerful in this regard if it ever fully awakens.

What the castle is, what inhabits it, and what its ultimate goals are is up for debate. Mainly, the pcs want to keep the castle from re-merging, re-awakening, and kill it (or its controllers, whatever).

Anyways, I hope you are getting the picture. I think this could make a great campaign.

Melamoto
2010-01-30, 05:22 AM
Nice idea. I really love the fluff, and it ties in absolutely perfectly with horror and the undead. And the idea of a castle being alive is a perfect reason to stock up with traps. It would get my vote. Added it to Obsidian Portal.

Harperfan7
2010-01-31, 03:07 PM
Not letting this fall out.

Keep voting people, we'll get there!

Radar
2010-01-31, 03:57 PM
So i guess it's time to go out of lurking here. I'd like to place my vote on Harperfan7's "Hellhold Asunder" - a living, evil castle has a lot of horror potential and i'm a fan of Girl Genius (read about Castle Heterodyne - might give some ideas), so yeah. :smallbiggrin:

Mordokai
2010-01-31, 04:10 PM
Well, I just came across this (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=261519).

Maybe we could do something to that effect? I'm thinking of mixing the above idea with Innsmouth. Imagine that the castle original occupants are still alive, hiding in the castle and the castle in near the quiet village. There can be a monster trapped in the bowels of the castle and it doesn't even have to be the big T. I'm sure there are other monsters that are just as awesome and hard to kill as T. And if not, maybe homebrew something to that effect.

The original occupants are tainted by drinking the blood of the creature and the creature requires sustenance. Usually, this is provided by sacrificing the villagers. But if occasional adventurers party happens to wonder around... all the better.


***

The stars are right. The monster is hungry. You awake, your head pounding, sprawled on the floor. You remember going to sleep in your room and then there's darkness. Whoever brought you here obviously wasn't very smart, for they have left you with all your equipment. When you get out, there will be hell to pay.

Suddenly, the very walls shake, as the unholy shriek, coming from the very bowels of the castle jostles you up. You look around, but you see nothing but darkness. Did something move? Or was that just a trick of light?

"Ah, I see our guests are awake. I'd wish you welcome, but I don't expect you'd be assured by that. And by the sound of it, my pet is more than little hungry by now. Well, it will be interesting to see what comes out of this."

The voice goes silent as suddenly as it appeared. From the darkness, a loud and heavy footsteps can be heard. Something is coming your way.


***

Obviously, we need to work out a few kinks. If this is a start of adventure, how do the adventurers survive whatever is coming their way? We can't throw a CR 20 at level 3 adventurers. But maybe somewhere down the road, this could be an interesting quest.

Melamoto
2010-02-01, 03:57 PM
Ok, I can see that not many people have their creative juices flowing, so get them going please. We'll be having a vote soon over which dungeon to choose. Since few others are coming up with good concepts, I'll donate another one. This will be aquatic themed, since nobody has gone to make one, regardless of the number of people who are talking about it.

I wrote most of this in under an hour, so it isn't exactly...good. But it should serve at least as a basic concept worthy of judgement, given a few changes here and there (Such as the names).


Atroxia


Backstory:
The island of Atroxia lay miles away from any mainland, and was only about half a mile in diameter. It was untouched by man for thousands of years, having never seen intelligent life, and very little life in general. But, with expansion being what it is, eventually the island was discovered, and a small colony was built on it. There were a few years when they lived in harmony with the land, and the land gifted them with greatly fertile soil, perfect for crops. But there came a time when this would end.
One of the villagers living there discovered something. While digging, he found a vein of adamantine. He decided to dig a bit more, to make himself a nice profit. What he discovered was startling. There was not just a small supply, but what could only be described as a motherload. He naturally told the other villagers, and soon there was great interest over the island. Such a great source of adamantine naturally would cause a lot of interest, and soon others came to exploit the land. Eventually a great castle was built over the old, smaller village, where there was a furnace and the entrance to a great mine. This did not please the land.
Unfortunately for the people living on him, Atroxia did not appreciate being violated in such a manner. A Genius Loci is a rare phenomenon, where an entire section of land is alive. An even rarer case is when a Genius Loci has true sentience, and not just a primal instinct based upon its thrall. It is usually a malignant being, but Atroxia was initially generous. He cared for his settlers, and they lived in harmony with each other. But when he was being outright attacked, he had had enough. He started a war against the people living on him. While Atroxia was a powerful creature, the people would not go down without a fight, and even such a great being can be killed by many. But Atroxia’s death revealed another startling secret. He floated.
Kept afloat by personal action, Atroxia was only an island from his own will. But upon his death, this effect ended, and the entire island sank, taking everyone aboard with it. Desperate sailors tried to sail away, but the entire island sinking caused such a powerful suction that boats were swept in beneath the water, and crushed as the waves closed in around them. This is all that written history knows, and as far as they are aware it was a tragic end to the whole situation. It is a shame that this was not the case.
A Genius Loci is a living being, and like all living beings can be brought back from the dead. This also implies, however, that it can be brought into undeath, which is exactly what happened. Qual’sakh, an ancient elven lich, using his greatest reserves of strength, called forth the most powerful undead minion that could be created, and turned to reside in Atroxia’s castle. He kept it beneath the waves, a prison for all those he wishes to bring back, and a spawning ground for his dark armies. Here, he waited.
Recently the sea town of Apperwealth has been experiencing mysterious disappearances, mangled bodies left out in the open, and shadowy figures late at night. The residents think it may be a curse, descending upon them at night. People who have been vigilant enough to wait and watch have noticed only a fine mist, capturing all who stay inside of it. It has called for someone to investigate and remove the cause of the problem.



Levels:
Levels 1-3 will be intrigue and mystery, discovering the true nature behind the mist, what causes it, and how to stop it. The answers to these are, respectively, a cover for the night minions of Qual’Sakh, a spell which is being called by the creatures, and defeating Qual’Sakh. They may find this out through a variety of means, to be determined at dungeon creation. They may also rack up some bonus xp by finding a temporary protection for the town.
4-8 will be about travelling to Atroxia, and manipulating their way past all of the defensive magic, illusions, and guardians. Part of the challenge is finding out how to get there and not need air; as well as actually finding out where it is. This will all be very cruel to the players, including things such as water elementals which are effectively invisible, and illusions that make a dire shark look like a haddock.
9-12 will be the infiltration of the town, being careful not to gain the ire of enemies, and especially not Qual’Sakh himself. They will need to make encounters with undead quick, and disable traps if necessary. There could be a system here which causes more and more enemies to come if combat takes to long or if you do things which are generally alerting. Lots of potential.
13-18 will be where stealth goes out of the window, as the players have now reached the castle and will be fighting their way through the place as quickly as possible. Lots of combat, with various difficulties involved. Also water based puzzles. In fact, this is the main ground for all of the various puzzles which have been made out of context, which will be slightly modified to fit.
19-22 will be entering the mines inside the castle, and finding the way to Qual’Sakh, who is waiting with a need to see his new minions. This will be almost puzzleless, with maybe the odd exception coming through (Indiana Jones style, perhaps?). The main point will be the very long confrontation with Qual’Sakh, who uses lots of minions, tactical retreat, and the occasional mindscrew. After that will be the escape. Metroid Prime/Halo style, system overload, Atroxia is now dead again and will shortly collapse, killing everyone who doesn’t get out in time. As much fun as it would be to fight Atroxia at this point, a Genius Loci is CR 30. Although perhaps the undeadification has weakened him, and so he is a manageable difficulty. I don’t know.


Style:
Levels 1-3 will be, as I said, highly based on puzzles, roleplay, and mystery. Expect there to be no hack ‘n slash. Maybe only 3 fights for the whole 3 levels. They will be fairly short though, so at least the 8 Cha 8 Int Barbarian doesn’t have to cry.
4-8 will be mostly dungeon crawling techniques applied in new and interesting ways through the water, with what combat there is being puzzles by themselves. You’ll need the strength to take them out, but the brains to figure out how. And yes, we want more illusions. This is designed to be cruel, and kill players at a decent rate.
9-12 will be a stealth mission, but with mechanics in place so that only one person must be stealthed. This is where the horror comes in, or at least fear; as players grow to become paranoid, wondering whether there is someone behind them, but not daring to look in case the patrol in front notices the movement. Players will be scared for their IC lives, and it should not be too hard for them to lose it if they act rashly. But play it cool, take time to think, and you could make it past without any deaths.
13-18 will contain all of the left over puzzles that people wanted to put in to other dungeons, modified to fit an aquatic setting. It will contain interesting custom monsters, various templated beasts, and challenges. In short, this will effectively be the level where we dump in all ideas, appropriate or not, then make them appropriate, stir them in a pot, and create a dungeon.
19-22 will be about 70/30 with hack ‘n slash and puzzles. Horror is hard to keep up here, as well as difficulty, so players should instead be pushed to their limits, and kept against an active (Albeit slow) assault against them. Things like MMM and Rope Trick assure that the players can get their rest, and a good bit of stealth works too. The fight against Qual’Sakh will be a long one, taking up almost a whole level itself, as the old lich is one for trickery, stealth and hiding behind minions. This should be a hunt, and the players should feel like they’re on one. The escape could be easy with a simple teleport, so there should be some reason why that is invalid. Chances are good that Qual’Sakh would keep the entire place Dimensionally Locked, so that they need to escape Atroxia first.

Sir
2010-02-04, 11:19 PM
Couple Things:

Where is the Obsidian Portal? I noticed you never posted a link.:smallsmile:

IMO, your (Melamoto) first idea seemed pretty cool, but the living castle is a little to hard to pass up, and gets my vote. Maybe we could merge the two by making the controller of the castle the demon lord (or maybe a super advanced lich?) trapped in the rift, who wants to get out so he can awaken the castle. :smallconfused: either way, we need to get this going again, it was pretty cool.

Melamoto
2010-02-05, 02:48 AM
Couple Things:

Where is the Obsidian Portal? I noticed you never posted a link.:smallsmile:

IMO, your (Melamoto) first idea seemed pretty cool, but the living castle is a little to hard to pass up, and gets my vote. Maybe we could merge the two by making the controller of the castle the demon lord (or maybe a super advanced lich?) trapped in the rift, who wants to get out so he can awaken the castle. :smallconfused: either way, we need to get this going again, it was pretty cool.
Good to see people still know this exists.

I have added an Obsidian Portal Link in the main post; the page is here (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/epic-dungeon-in-the-playground/wikis/main-page) though.

I'll wait until saturday for people to submit new dungeons, and then put up a vote, for which castle we're using. After we start voting, no new dungeons will be taken in, so if you want to give it a go, then do it now!

Harperfan7
2010-02-05, 06:39 AM
Maybe we could merge the two by making the controller of the castle the demon lord (or maybe a super advanced lich?) trapped in the rift, who wants to get out so he can awaken the castle. :smallconfused: either way, we need to get this going again, it was pretty cool.

I was actually thinking Orcus or a half-fiend lich/demilich.

AgentPaper
2010-02-05, 08:23 AM
Castle Abomination

The Story
Little known to most, the origins of Castle Abomination are indeed rather innocent. In a plane far from here, the a child goddess, beloved by her parents, was gifted a magical, living castle for her to grow up in. It moved about and did whatever she asked. Then, however, she asked it to show her the Abyss and all the demons inside. The castle, unable to refuse her wish, began to move itself to the deepest layer of the abyss, where it was killed instantly by a demon of unfathomable power.

The demon entered into the throne room of the castle, expecting to find some fool wizard that thought he could destroy the demons once and for all with his "all-powerful" magic. Instead, he found a weeping girl, the daughter of one of his most powerful enemies. Thinking quickly, he turned into an elderly man, and offered to teach the girl how to bring her castle back to life. She accepted, and he did -- by teaching her necromancy.

Now the castle roams the planes, a mass of stonework and passageways and towers, changing shape constantly as it grows and creeps across the land. In some planes, Castle Abomination is seemingly still, perhaps merely a tower or keep sitting innocently on a hill, perhaps an entire fortress with walls and moat and grant inner castle, but most of it lies across the layers of the abyss, a veritable city of rotting stone.

The Dungeon
1-5 takes place in a large castle that appeared seemingly out of nowhere on the outskirts of (insert large city). The players are at first treated as honorable guests by a young man who claims to be the lord of this castle, along with a host of robed and hooded servants. In actuality, the servants are undead and the young man an aspiring necromancer, who found this castle and realized it to be a greater thing that it first appeared. He has been staying in it for a few years as it moved about the material plane, trying to crack it's secrets.

This part of the dungeon will be rather free-form, with the players trying to crack the mystery of the castle, eventually finding out part of the truth behind the castle. The players will eventually fight against the aspiring necromancer for a key, which opens a door in the basement that leads to the rest of the castle in another plane.

6-10 will be spent in the castle's shadowfell section, where a group of Shadar-kai have used a powerful crystal to bind the castle to the plane, keeping it from moving back to the ethereal plane and somewhat stabilizing it. Horror and paranoia will be the main themes here. The various shadar-kai, each a powerful shadow-themed NPC, have been influenced by the demonic energies of the castle and have turned against each other, waging a silent war within the castle using undead minions.

The players will eventually have to pick one of the shadar-kai to ally themselves with, and help them destroy or obtain the crystal, depending on who they decide to help. In any case, a the end of it the crystal will no longer be holding the castle on the shadowfell, and it will revert to the astral plane while the shadar-kai make their escape.

11-15 takes place in the castle's astral plane section, of which the part that was bound to the shadowfell is just a small section. Constant change and movement of the castle means nothing is certain. Here, the insane remains of a god, in fact the father that made the castle in the first place, controls the castle to some degree. (think castle Heterodyne) Eventually, the players will have to help the dead god re-gain his sanity by killing the various figments of his mind that he has created in his long stay here, and forming together his few remaining sane parts.

The theme here is change and the mindscape of the dead god. The castle might be formed into the vision of a young girl playing with blocks, building and re-shaping a large block castle, for example. Then, upon entering the room, the entire castle begins to crumble and the girl screams and disappears. The players should never really feel in control of the situation, though sanity should start to become more prevalent as they restore the dead god's sanity. Eventually, they fully restore his sanity, and the god tells the full, dread tale of the castle.

16-20 takes place in the Abyss, and this is a full-on fight against the demon who killed the castle, who himself is a powerful necromancer. The main theme here is danger at every turn. Combat is dangerous, always fighting powerful demons and undead, as well as many traps and animated sections of the castle. Eventually the players will confront and kill the demon.

21-23 will involve trying to find young goddess, with the aid of the dead god, who has some control over the castle even here, now that the demon is dead. Eventually the goddess is found, but it seems that she is completely insane and corrupted by a mix of her despair, the influence of the demon and the castle, and the strain of keeping the castle alive with her limited divine power. The dead father realizes this, but still tries to convince the party to try and restore her sanity the same way they did his.

Eventually, this fails, or the father is convinced to help anyways, and the dungeon culminates with an epic battle against the daughter, who upon being threatened forms much of the castle into a giant monster. The players have to fight their way inside of the castle and kill the daughter. The players then have to escape the rapidly collapsing castle, arriving on the material plane just as the castle they first entered collapses and it's link to the ethereal plane closes.

Tyndmyr
2010-02-05, 10:23 AM
How about a segment of the dungeon themed around Naumachia? Maybe one wing of the castle could be flooded, and the players have to navigate it by boat.

This could work. Im picturing this as a big castle after all, and nothing racks up the tension in a dungeon crawl like having to navigate tunnels flooded with murky water.

Radar
2010-02-05, 10:24 AM
I do have an idea, but it somewhat diverges from the chosen theme. I can't fit the "abandoned castle" part into the frame and necromancy is debatable. To wits:
A prison without bars (substitute of a title)
I'm unsure, how a good opening should look like. I was thinking about the party traveling through some forest with a bad reputation (locals might warn them, that people vanish there, if they go there by night - might be presented as a plot hook). If the PCs decide to check it out and stay late in said forest, they might an inn/hut/other habitated building. It might be a little out of place, but otherwise seem harmless. If PCs accept an invitation inside, their souls get bound Hotel California style. If they don't, they might notice, that some inhabitants are very slightly translucent. By the morning the building vanishes and reapears on the next night. This might be enough for them, to go in anyway in order to solve the puzzle.
In the first phase PCs would mainly interact with other trapped people. Most of them won't even notice, that anything is wrong - they are just having fun and don't want to leave. They will also explore the place, that will be much bigger on the inside, then it looks. Overall feel should be like some sort of a dreamworld - fancy ballrooms, fountains, exquisite food and drinks, whole worlds behind doors, that should lead to just one room. From gathered information and observation they should understand, that gradually all people become ghosts and are sucked somewhere deeper within the structure. Passages to those deeper parts should be hidden and look as some cracks in reality (a mirror, that shows reflections with half a second lag, a pond, that has a way too colorfull illusory fish in it, a place, that distorts perspective for no good reason).
Next part of the complex should be surreal and progresively darker in tone. I was thinking about areas similar to the previous dreamworld, but long abandoned and decomposing/going horribly wrong. I'm quite eager to put this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7748892&postcount=31) into use at some point. At least some of the PCs should by now be partially transformed into ghosts. They should gain some mild powers with it (mage hand as a SLA or some such) and their perception of the place should change as well (i'm not yet sure, how to handle this, but ghosts should essentialy see things, that other can't). It might be possible for the PCs to go between ethereal (or partially so) and material form by making for example a Will save to change their form (going back to being material should be harder, the longer they stay in ghost form). I envision this area as puzzle heavy, where using both material and ghost forms will be essential to solve problems. PCs should encounter first Shadows as well. Not the regular ones, they should be actually scary and might even force the party to run for it. Those creatures should be mostly hunting for ghosts and eat them if possible. PCs should find remains of long dead adventurers as well (no bodies, just displaced pieces of gear, journals and scraps of maps). They'd get hints, that the creatures running the place are particularly vulnerable to [Light] magic and there should be some fragments about trying to find an artifact (specifics below) locked away somewhere in wilder parts of the Plane of Shadow (where the whole complex is located - surprise, surprise).
I don't have much of an idea, how the holding place for the artifact should look like, so this place is blank for now.
Last part will be the descent into the very Heart of Darkness (not of the Conrad kind, but small letters wouldn't cut it), where they will be very likely to be eaten by grue. They will have to fight their way through to the BBEG (some sort of incorporeal monstrosity). The only thing between them and imminent death will be the artifact's aura, that weakens shadowy creatures enough, they can actually be slain. Yet some of them will be powerful enough, they will have to burn some charges on the artifact and that would weaken it's protective aura, so they might choose to run for it instead. Then the last battle commences.
Orb of True Light (alpha version):

1. The artifact sheds light as a Daylight spell with the difference, that it does hurt (or debuffs) creatures susceptible to daylight. The strenght of the debuffs and area of effect should be proportional to the number of charges left on the Orb.
2. 10 is the maximum of charges.
3. A charge may be spent, to grant all PCs a sort of a Bane enhancement (to their weapons and spells as well) with some additional goodness (bypassing DR, increasing save DCs for example). This effect should not last too long - I was thinking about 10 rounds or so.
4. The Orb can be recharged by using up spell slots to a total of 20 spell levels per charge (cost can be divided between more persons) and performing a 10 minute ritual.
Feel free to use/change/twist/mutiliate/criticize/ignore all my rambling.

Masaioh
2010-02-05, 10:30 AM
I vote for Castle Abomination.

Melamoto
2010-02-05, 11:21 AM
I vote for Castle Abomination.

We aren't voting yet. Castle Abomination and A Prison without Bars up on OP.

AgentPaper
2010-02-05, 09:03 PM
I think we have enough that we could probably start the voting now. Or at the very least, set a date for the end of submissions.

Melamoto
2010-02-06, 04:17 AM
Dungeon submission is over, people! We are beginning the vote. You may give 1 vote to any of the dungeons on the list. You may find the details about the dungeons on the Obsidian Portal page, or by scanning the thread.

If you have already voted, you must vote again now. Previously cast votes will not be accepted. You may vote for yourself.

Harperfan7
2010-02-06, 05:43 AM
Shameless self vote for A Hellhold Asunder.

Lord Loss
2010-02-06, 06:57 AM
I like a Hellhold Asunder as well... (Voting for it)

Radar
2010-02-06, 08:38 AM
I hereby put my vote on Hellhold Asunder - evil, unliving castle for the win! :smallbiggrin:

AgentPaper
2010-02-06, 09:38 AM
What, and Castle Abomination isn't? Actually, reading it over again, Hellhold Asunder really just sounds like the second part of Castle Abomination.

Anyways, (un)shameful vote for myself. (Castle Abomination, of course)

flabort
2010-02-06, 12:42 PM
Bah, Hellhold and abomination are both basically the same idea, fleshed out in opposite directions. well, not opposite, but different.
Abominations seems inspired by hellhold, though, despite having more presise flavor.

Abomination gets my vote.

(BTW: kept trying to make one myself, little brother kept interupting, and causing me to have to cancel, and loose my train of thought. probably a great big pile of engines off a cliff somewere in my mind... Ooh! that's an idea... but, too late.)

AgentPaper
2010-02-06, 01:44 PM
Bah, Hellhold and abomination are both basically the same idea, fleshed out in opposite directions. well, not opposite, but different.
Abominations seems inspired by hellhold, though, despite having more presise flavor.

Abomination gets my vote.

(BTW: kept trying to make one myself, little brother kept interupting, and causing me to have to cancel, and loose my train of thought. probably a great big pile of engines off a cliff somewere in my mind... Ooh! that's an idea... but, too late.)

I just want to note that, while Castle Abomination is rather similar to Hellhold Asunder, I thought up the idea on my own, and in fact didn't even read any other descriptions other than the first one Melamoto posted. :smalltongue: Great minds think alike, eh?

Eladrinblade
2010-02-07, 12:55 AM
I vote for hellhold asunder. It looks like it has the most flexibility. Remember, we're talking about 21+ levels here, things can get boring.

I came this close to voting for Atroxia. All I could think about was an elder scrolls argonian thief having the time of his life (for the first couple levels anyway).

Arcane_Secrets
2010-02-07, 03:21 AM
Definitely Hellhold Asunder.

Melamoto
2010-02-08, 12:16 PM
Well y'all, that voting stage is over, and now we're moving on to deeper stages of dungeon designing. That's right folks: It's Brainstorm time!

During this stage, all those with their heads brimming full of ideas (Who just haven’t been able to contain them so far) can finally submit their monsters, puzzles, NPCs, and other ideas. When posting an idea, you must give a title in bold that is not likely to conflict with other titles. In addition to the title, you must also add a bold label that categorizes the idea under either Monster, Puzzle, NPC, or Other. Any miscellaneous challenges, such as the Zero Gravity Battles idea below, are considered puzzles. There must be enough detail in any given idea so that it if a number of people were to recreate it, the results would all be almost exactly the same. You can post vague ideas if you like, but you cannot include a title, and all credit will go to whoever posts a fully detailed version of your idea. Finally, at the end of the idea, you must place a single (Bolded) number that signifies the level at which the challenge takes place. And please, the dungeon is A Hellhold Asunder, try to make the ideas fit in with it. For example if someone submits an idea that involves celestial protectors that doesn’t have a damn good reason why, I will make them pay in blood.

Some examples of bad moves would be:

A Room of Wonder - Puzzle: This is too ambiguously named.The Starred Rod - Item: This is not in any of the given categories.Zero Gravity Battles - Puzzle
Zero Gravity environments are fun, but sometimes they have to be more than just a long puzzle. So what if a battle was added in the middle? The room would have a zero gravity field around it, and the doors would lock when the players all entered. Then, air elementals would come out and start attacking the players while they tried to figure out how to escape! They would have to deal with a lot of air elementals while still trying to get free from the puzzle, leading to a frantic battle/puzzle combo.

11: This is too ambiguously made. The full solution to the puzzle, number of air elementals, type of air elemental, and all the traps (Including the zero gravity field) should have been given detail. A room size would also have been useful, as well as the method of the door locking.The Duke's Servant - NPC
A servant of the local duke who has gotten lost and needs help collecting an artifact that was rumoured to exist in the castle: This does not work; the castle has not been there for long, and nobody has any idea what is in there.

A good example would be:
The Grue - Puzzle
Many dark creatures have inhabited the castle over a long period of time, and some of the most evil and devious of these are the Grue. They hang back in the darkness, waiting for prey. They are shadow creatures that cannot live outside of anything short of pitch blackness, but are incredibly dangerous to those who are within their reach. They have taken hold of a long corridor, and have placed a trap with which they may fight their enemies without limit.
The corridor is 60'x10', and has doors at both ends. The trap is operated by Grue observing the corridor through a tiny slit in the ceiling, which may be spotted with a DC 30 spot check. When (As far as the Grue are aware) all players are inside the room, the trap is activated. Both doors close and lock and all the candles in the room go out. A spell of darkness takes over, extinguishing all non-permanent light sources and suppressing permanent ones after 1 round. Any new light sources are extinguished at the same rate, unless they would otherwise end sooner. Light sources may penetrate the darkness no further than 10', no matter how much light they would normally emit.
The grue arrive at any given square in the room 1d2+1 rounds after all light has been lost in that square. If any light is shone on the square, the grue flee, and do not return to that square until 1d2+1 rounds after the light has gone. While the grue are in a square near the players, or will shortly be arriving in their squares, the players hear scratching, grunting, and the occasional bout of horrible high pitched laughter. The Grue are always treated as having the highest initiative, and deal 10d6 damage (No save) to anyone who occupies a Grue occupied space at the beginning of the Grue's turn. Most AoE spells have no effect on the grue, unless they create light, in which case all effected squares are treated as having been lit up.
The corridor may only be escaped either by unlocking one of the doors (DC 20), by breaking the doors down (They are Good Wooden doors (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm#doors)), or otherwise finding a way past the doors. The Grue will not leave the corridor unless there is a clear dark path, and the darkness spell only effects the area inside of the corridor. After it seems apparent the players are gone, the grue retreat and release the trap (Turning the lights back on).

5

You can look up the current ideas on the Obsidian Portal page linked in the OP.

My first submitted idea will be the Grue example above.