What would a group of multiple floors be called?

[Greywander]

Dungeons can generally be divided into rooms and floors, with multiple rooms grouped together to designate a floor. But what would a group of floors be called? If, for example, you had a 100 floor megadungeon split into ten groups of ten floors, with each group having some unifying theme and a tougher "final" boss on the last floor in a group?

[gbaji]

Is there some significance to what you call it? Section? Region? Area? Any work I think. I you want to be literal or something maybe "Decalevel"?

[Rynjin]

Whatever whoever designed the building decided to call it, honestly. This is more a worldbuilding question.

[KillianHawkeye]

I don't think there's an existing general term for this. An artificial designation such as "section" or "zone", or similar, is likely necessary.

[Wintermoot]

Dungeons can generally be divided into rooms and floors, with multiple rooms grouped together to designate a floor. But what would a group of floors be called? If, for example, you had a 100 floor megadungeon split into ten groups of ten floors, with each group having some unifying theme and a tougher "final" boss on the last floor in a group?

Domain would be my choice for synonyms of segments/subsets/areas/zones because it sounds the most ominous.

[ciopo]

Stratum/strate
"Level"
Elevations
Floor (made of 10 subfloors)
Iteration
Grouping
Designation
Neighbourhood
Tower

[TinyMushroom]

In buildings you have "wings"? You could co-opt that

[Greywander]

I don't think there's an existing general term for this.

That's what I was afraid of. I don't suppose anyone knows if there's any architectural term for a group of stories? We have some pretty tall buildings in real life, surely someone's coined a term for such, right?

Whatever whoever designed the building decided to call it, honestly. This is more a worldbuilding question.

Only if I was making up a new word for it, or choosing a word that best fit with a particular setting. I'm more just asking if there was already a word for such a thing, in general.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Coming from a MMO perspective, I'd probably consider calling them "tiers" (like raid tiers), with floor numbers repeating within a tier. So T1F5 would be Tier 1, Floor 5 (out of however many).

But that's definitely not standard notation. I don't believe there is standard notation.

[MoiMagnus]

We have some pretty tall buildings in real life, surely someone's coined a term for such, right?

Not really. I mean, when the "group of floors" has a purpose, then peoples use the name of that purpose, like "the accounting department", or whatever.

But when this section of the building has no specific use, there is no use for such a name. Peoples go to a specific floor through an elevator, so there is no point saying "Go to the 9th floor, it's in the third 'group of floors'.", it won't help them more to know in which "group of floor" it is.

[False God]

Coming from a construction background, there isn't one. We don't build things in a way that would necessitate it.

[Vahnavoi]

Y'all don't play enough dungeon crawls. This many replies and no-one's mentioned dungeon branch yet?

As far as real architechture goes, the ones I've seen, many of which have already been mentioned, are: section, sector, compartment, department, ward, wing. Also? Building, house, ship, castle, bunker, cave system, tunnel network, so on and so forth, depending on use. There isn't one term because "group of multiple floors" is rarely a thing that happens without being tied to some specific shape or use.

EDIT: oh yeah, one more you can use: complex. You can put "floor" before it for clarification of context, so, "floor complex".

[Rynjin]

If you want an "existing" term, I think Tower of God (which has a similar setup) uses the word "stratum" for floor sections? Something about the atmosphere getting thicker with magic air the higher up you go or something, I fell off it a long time ago.

[Kriegspiel]

The term 'block' could be used.

Similar to a city block, block of flats, cell block etc.

[Imbalance]

The common word in RW use is department, usually found in large hospitals or vast offices where several adjacent floors or planned spaces serve a specific purpose, as mentioned above, ie. accounting department. Also, imaging department, maternity department, engineering department, etc. At that, it gets left off a lot: plenty of mail is addressed to Accounting, and signage directs you to take the elevator to Maternity. In your dungeon, players may have to fight their way through Temple before reaching Lair or something, but I don't reckon the builders in your world called those departments.

It is interesting, in a way, that architecture, which does have an enormous glossary of esoteric terms for just about everything, does not seem to have a unique term for this instance (would love to know if I'm wrong). I'm pretty sure architects I've met would simply refer to a collection of stacked levels in a constructed structure as...part of a building...that is, "those floors."

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Imbalance
I'm pretty sure architects I've met would simply refer to a collection of stacked levels in a constructed structure as….

I would just call it a “stack,” myself. Like a stack of pancakes, except they’re dungeon levels.

[animorte]

All of the thoughts I had have already been mentioned, and way more. Column/pillar could be options.

[Lord Torath]

I would just call it a “stack,” myself. Like a stack of pancakes, except they’re dungeon levels.

I was also thinking "stack". Or possibly "sub-stack" (no humor intended). Also "range": Upper range, lower range, mid-range, etc.

[jjordan]

No one has mentioned 'cluster'?

[OldTrees1]

Use proper names for each clump?

Underneath the Howling Caves lies the Lost Ruins of XYZ. The old city of XYZ was built above the Depths of Depression. However there is an old XYZian legend that there is an Ancient Temple located somewhere in the Confusing Caverns at the bottom of the Depths. The temple is said to be an ancient seal locking away a Terrible Secret.

[Saintheart]

Surely a collection of floors would be called a storey-book!

[Wintermoot]

Surely a collection of floors would be called a storey-book!

An Anthology of Storeys

[KillianHawkeye]

Use proper names for each clump?

Underneath the Howling Caves lies the Lost Ruins of XYZ. The old city of XYZ was built above the Depths of Depression. However there is an old XYZian legend that there is an Ancient Temple located somewhere in the Confusing Caverns at the bottom of the Depths. The temple is said to be an ancient seal locking away a Terrible Secret.

This is how Diablo and a lot of other games have done it.

[Dr.Samurai]

When it comes to building mechanical systems that serve a certain number of floors, we call them zones. So these hot water heaters and circulator pumps would provide hot water to the low zone, and these to the mid zone, and those to the high zone, etc.

[Thane of Fife]

The ocean is divided up into zones by depth, and mountains are divided into zones by elevation (see the Wikipedia page on Altitudinal Zonation), so I think that Zone would be a fairly natural word.

[AceOfFools]

Strata is a term from geology that means several related layers (and also just one layer, because English).

[JellyPooga]

For subterranean dungeons specifically, I like the term "deep". e.g. the second floor of the third deep. It's sort of Tolkien-esque ("drums in the deep") which is nicely thematic. There's no reason why a deep couldn't also have a unique name or that named areas/zones or even levels could extend into or span across multiple deeps, in much the same way as dungeon levels or areas within those levels do. "Deep" used this way is simply a sort of collective term to designate literally how far down things are (in much the same way, as mentioned above, oceanographers and geologists might use the word "zone").

[Kane0]

A flight, like steps.

[Witty Username]

Zone, and section feel the most natural. Complex I might use for specific kinds of dungeons. Proper names would be my preference for most parlance though.

What is the purpose behind the groupings?

[Bohandas]

I've seen the corresponding kind of regions in Diablo 1 referred to as "Areas" or "Stages"