Prepping for the next level of a Megadungeon!

 

Running a pre-written megadungeon is a challenging undertaking. Combing through a setting built by another person that spans kingdoms and continents is in many ways easier. There are large swathes of terrain left undetailed in the latter. You can write up and plop in just about anything your devious mind can imagine, as the writers of campaign settings make sure to leave plenty of space in the margins for just such a thing.

 

In a megadungeon, it's very different. It has all the elements of a normal dungeon, sure. Rooms, corridors, encounters, NPCs. But in a normal dungeon, you're in and out in a few sessions. Then the space is left behind to molder and rot until you need it again, if you ever do. With a megadungeon, you're there for quite a long time. The goal is to have the dungeon be the campaign. So you sort of have to choose the right dungeon and then prepare to live and breathe that space.

 

I've been running Stonehell for only three sessions, but I've been prepping it for about a month. It's my second attempt to run a mega-dungeon, the first time being an ill-fated campaign of Dungeon of the Mad Mage for 5e. I've learned a lot, crawling through these darkened halls on my eyes and brain.

 

In my last post, I talked about getting set up to run a game online. In that post, I mentioned that it was important to skim the material. If you're getting geared up to run the 1st or the 20th session, though, you're going to need to really get into the weeds of it. So break out your pencils and highlighters, and lets get cracking.

 

First, you do actually have to read the text for the section of the dungeon you're preparing. Make copies of the relevant pages. So if you know the PCs are going to be going into Level 5, the Pits of the Viper Queen, you'll want to have the map and key for that level printed out in front of you. Grab at least three highlighters of different colors. Then, you're going to want to highlight as you go. The details you want to highlight are the monsters, the treasure, and the key descriptive elements. Assuming you've also done this for level 4, you should also prep for level 5 as well in case the party makes there way there by accident or with intent.

 

31. The Hatchery.

A heavy musky smell fills the air of this 45 x 45 room. Shifting, broken egg-shells crack underfoot as you enter. Great pillars carved to look like snake-men hybrids hold up the vaulted ceiling.

 

This room was built by the Viper Queen two hundred years ago to be a shrine devoted to her divinity. Along the walls are great mosaics showing a female figure being worshiped by her devotees. Six spitting cobras nest among the shells.

A small compartment is hidden at the base of the farthest column from the door, containing 3d6 x 10 SP and 2d4 GP.

 

In the above example, you'll see the highlighted text. Yellow is for treasure, Green is for monsters, and blue is for key descriptions. The highlighting is just to draw your eye at a glance when you go back over it in play.

 

As you go along through the text, you may find it also helpful to make a numbered list of each room as you go and add your own notes. Many of them may be "run as written" or similar. If the room descriptions are a bit on the sparse end, you may want to add your own dungeon dressing, or clues to signpost dangerous traps or secret rooms and the like if those things would be obvious. Maybe the scything blade trap in room number 4 should have old blood stains on the floor nearby, for example. Or if the midden used by the goblins should be smellable down the hall between rooms 15 and 21, then write that down, too.

 

Next, write down your key factions and NPCs. For this you'll want to have separate pages or index cards for each one, with the name as a header, which will serve throughout your prep of the entire dungeon. As you read through the levels you're prepping for, make notes on each page to show the major relationships, goals, modus operandi and resources. You may also wish to make note of any roleplaying cues given by the text. Or just make up your own.

 

For example, in the completely confabulated megadungeon The Labyrinth of Despair, you may have the following factions: the Red Hand orc tribe, Vivock the Necromancer and his apprentices, the Viper Queen, and the Broken Marrow gnoll tribe. After making a page for each faction, you may read in prepping for the Pit of the Viper queen that although the eponymous regent is the primary faction on the level, the evil necromancer Vivock is making inroads to win the queen's favor. On the individual faction pages, make notes on the relationship between the two. Vivock's apprentices have brought with them sacrifices to the queen in the form of a group of adventurers captured elsewhere in the dungeon. If the source material doesn't include how the Queen will respond, or what the true intentions of Vivock are, then make some things up. Or change what's written to suit your designs. You see also that the Viper Queen has a magical item that allows her to scry on any location in her domain of the dungeon, so definitely make a note of that. Essentially, you should be writing down anything that effects a factions reactions to the adventurers' presences in the space.

 

Every dungeon has special elements that effect the whole of the thing. On your skim through of the dungeon, make sure to note any big set pieces, magical artifacts, or other force that runs a throughline of the setting. Many levels in a mega dungeon likewise have key features that make an impact on the whole of it. When you're prepping your session, note down any of these features to be found on the level. Where is it? Who controls it, if anyone? What does it do or what does it change about the space? What happens if it's taken or destroyed by another party?

 

In our example of the Labyrinth of Despair, the Viper Queen controls the Segmented Chamber, a powerful magical machine that can create chimerical beasts from any living things placed into its various chambers. She uses it to create half-human half-serpent monsters that patrol the level and attack anyone not wearing a token of the Queen's favor. Vivock and his apprentices want to study the device. The adventurers may want to destroy it. If the machine changes hands or is destroyed, perhaps the monsters made through its dark magics will be destroyed? Or in destroying the machine, it explodes and collapses a huge chunk of the level?

 

This is far from an exhaustive list, but I hope you find it helpful in your own preparations of megadungeons or normal pre-written dungeons. How do you prep for your next session? What are the big hurdles you've found in preparing for a megadungeon session? Leave a comment and lets continue the conversation.