Let's build an Epic Dungeon! Design Stage: Brainstorm!

[Calenestel]

Necromancy! I want to see a LOT of Turn Undead! Die, undead, DIE!

C

[Kurald Galain]

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]

I vote Lovecraftian Horror and Epic Adventure

[Mordokai]

Other: Abandoned castle.

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

[Dusk Eclipse]

Vote for necromancy and Underdark because Illithid Liches are AWESOME

[Dust]

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]

Hmmmm Necromancy for me, fits the horror theme.

[PersonMan]

Necromany. Yay.

[flabort]

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]

That makes a good fluff excuse to be a warlock of nearly any alignment.

[Harperfan7]

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]

I would just like to remind those who haven't noticed that each person gets only 1 vote in this.

[potatocubed]

I vote Abandoned Castle. Shades of Greyhawk...

[Harperfan7]

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]

I'm not really feeling any of the themes, so I'm saying Other

[clockworkmonk]

I vote Eldritch Horror, Which, as I understand it, would be basically far realms. sounds fun, and it would have strange geometry.

[Volkov]

Far Realm. Cthulhu Fhtagn.

[Kaiyanwang]

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]

Why not (seriously) an abandoned catle with far realm entities?

This. Far more interesting than either by itself.

[Melamoto]

Some of these people have the same avatars.

People have been voting twice in the same post, which was what I noticed.

[clockworkmonk]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Alright, so how is this being organised? My thoughts:

• Get a space on Obsidian Portal. 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]

Alright, so how is this being organised? My thoughts:

• Get a space on Obsidian Portal. 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]

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]

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.