Places to Go Around the Great Deku Tree

[Chauncymancer]

I'm creating a dungeon with the theme "Elven temple complex surrounding a giant magic tree." I'm about eight rooms into a 30 room complex, and I'm starting to run out of ideas. What encounter spaces would you put into a dungeon with this theme?

[Segev]

I'm creating a dungeon with the theme "Elven temple complex surrounding a giant magic tree." I'm about eight rooms into a 30 room complex, and I'm starting to run out of ideas. What encounter spaces would you put into a dungeon with this theme?

Well, first off, what's the purpose of it?

Is it a lived-in facility? In that case, bunks/barracks, mess hall, food storage, some sort of bathroom-equivalent (even if it's just an outdoor latrine).

Does it teach or study beyond the preaching in the cathedral or shrine chamber? Then teaching rooms. Libraries, perhaps.

Are there warriors dedicated to it? Armories and training fields would be suitable for them.

Prayer chambers scattered about. Meditation rooms, and great halls for the same.

Places with great views of the natural beauty of the place: the temple, the deku tree, the surrounding forrest.

Rookeries for any sacred birds or flying beasts.

A chapel or few, if you don't have that already. Maybe crossed with shrine chambers that hold relics or other shrine-representations to specific patron spirits of this place.

A pond that is open to the outdoor sky, but has direct room access to the temple complex and also runs under the roots of the tree. Possibly with boats to take out onto it for meditation and prayer. Maybe a ritual cleansing chamber deeper in that uses the same water but is more private for actual bathing.

Gardens.

Interior gardens/potted plant rooms.

Farm fields.

Sand/rock/zen garden.

Smithy or other artisans' chambers for craftworks, both for internal use and for sale to the outside world along with their blessed trinkets.

The Spider Cellar, where they acknowledge Lolth was once of the Seldarine, but has fallen. Also, it happens to be a prison for a Yochlol, which is really why it's Lolth-tainted despite this being a good-aligned elven temple, but they don't advertise this fact. Keeping the demon sealed is considered one of their sacred duties.

[Squire Doodad]

Internal Zen gardens, nice little resting spots, perhaps pens to keep tamed animals (if it's abandoned, there may be some of their more vicious descendants still living around there), among other things. Just think about what you would need in a nature-centric small city, then do a lot of trimming.

And of course, a room dedicated to a single small little shopkeeper's stall with fairy dust everywhere and a sign that says "closed for the holidays". You did say Deku Tree, why not Faore?

[Imbalance]

Ha! Faxanadu laughs at your "great" Deku tree!

You at least need a fountain that restores hp and a guru who irritatingly admonishes, "your mantra is in the wrong." The poisonous meteorite and killer dwarves are optional.

[Chauncymancer]

The complex is located inside a larger (ruined) elven city, so things like barracks, armories, kitchens, are all located outside the dungeon. This is just meant to be the area directly adjacent to the tree itself.

[Segev]

The complex is located inside a larger (ruined) elven city, so things like barracks, armories, kitchens, are all located outside the dungeon. This is just meant to be the area directly adjacent to the tree itself.

Prayer chambers/meditation rooms

Access to the branches where sacred birds and other tree-based life holy to the site would be kept

The lake still works

The zen/sand/rock gardens.



Multiple shrines to different spirits/gods who serve the greater entity that either is the tree or is the tree's master, perhaps? If you want a large and sprawling complex, you could make these sections the rough equivalent of "dungeon floors" and their sacred guardian beasts (or the god-spirits, themselves) the bosses of each.

[TinyMushroom]

Is the place abandoned or still lived-in by someone? A dungeon implies abandonment, unless the players are like, actively invading a lived-in complex.

The "giant spider web that you have to jump into" part always really stuck with me as a cool part of the Deku Tree. For direct inspiration, choosing a particular creature that lives around the dungeon a lot (maybe as a pet or guard for the elves?) could help shape your dungeon.

If it is abandoned, maybe the tree is sick? And particular rooms could just be "filled with strange growths", and you can make the players be on their guards by having it spurt acid at them. Additionally, maybe the tree's natural defenses are fighting the players, thinking them to be an additional intrusion? Similarly, there could be parasitic flowers living on the tree, insects living beneath the bark.

The type of tree might matter for the function too. If it's like a maple, perhaps there are old contraptions stuck into the wall for the elves to be able to take some of the delicious sap. A pine tree that is part of a city might have enormous pinecones that serve as rooms/homes by themselves, or maybe the elves have taken some of the pinecones and crafted furniture from them.

I really like the idea of a "maintenance area" between the tree roots where they monitor the health of the tree by its roots.

Maybe a room with all kinds of "family trees", just because the "tree" thing is in-theme and i think elves would care a lot about their lineages and heritage like that.

[JNAProductions]

Deku Tree?

Spoiler: Image

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[NigelWalmsley]

I'm creating a dungeon with the theme "Elven temple complex surrounding a giant magic tree." I'm about eight rooms into a 30 room complex, and I'm starting to run out of ideas. What encounter spaces would you put into a dungeon with this theme?

One trick in situations like this can be to work backwards. Instead of starting from "what would be here" and building an encounter around that, start with an interesting encounter and figure out how that would work in the context of the dungeon.

[paddyfool]

Have a look at the layout of real life medieval monasteries:
https://www.timeref.com/life/abbey5.htm

Then play with the theme to make it more elven and organic themed. Make the central garden wider and maybe circular with the sacred tree in its centre. Maybe keep the cloister, but instead of one centre of worship have several for different deities that open into the cloister at different points with some kind of built in weather protection magic. Then look at accommodation for both sacred and secular staff, and for visiting guests, kitchens, outer smaller gardens etc. Maybe have a gallery or two for sacred artworks, high viewpoints, scholastic hubs focused on matters natural and divine... and I rather like the spider basement that's been proposed as well.

[Kaptin Keen]

So, it's a temple? Ergo, religious in nature.

The Deku Tree has guardians - each with their own little shrine: The Squirrel, The Crow, The Wasp and The Keeper. The first three are reasonably self-explanatory (animal spirit shrines, perhaps each with a suitable challenge to overcome). The last, The Keeper, can be whatever you want it to be, from the spirit of an ancient druid, to a treant, to an earth golem.

Every so often, the Deku Tree will produce some magical mcguffin - an acorn, a flower, a sapling, whatever. When this happens, it is brought to the Special Room (again, whatever, let's say it's an open courtyard open to the sky, and it's called The Dome of Heaven) where supplicants can bask in it's glory, and receive it's healing (or whatever) powers.

More shrines? There might well be shrines to The Sun, The Wind, The Clouds and The Earth - stuff trees like. Again, encounters could range from elementals to riddles to spirits to ..

Did worshippers live here? If so, were they monks, or gardeners? Druids? Did they care for the tree, or was it mosly able to take care of itself?

To my mind, elves don't go around building and crafting stuff - they grow it, or shape it, or use magic, or have others do the hard work for them. If there's a wall, it was spun from the sheer bedrock by an elemental - or it's a hedge grown so thick and dense it might as well be stone. In my games, elves make weapons from glass (well, 'glass' - it doesn't break, for instance).

On top of that, if people live here, there's mundane stuff - like quarters, dining rooms, toilets, boring stuff like that.

There might be mausoleums among the roots of the tree. It's well known that where a powerful druid is buried, a treant will eventually grow.