Dungeon Craft: Segment 1

"When you set out to create a dungeon think about its distinctive qualities." (Crawford, Dungeon Master's Guide, pg. 99). Dungeons are a central part of the game Dungeons and Dragons. In the early days of D&D dungeons were just ancient tombs and abandoned ruins, over the last forty years they have evolved. Dungeons are encouraged to have a history, their own narrative, and a sense of purpose. Before making a dungeon we should consider this very important criteria though.

"Within a dungeon, adventurers are constrained by walls and doors around them, but in the wilderness, adventurers can travel in almost any direction they please. Therein lies the key difference between dungeon and wilderness; it's much easier to predict where the adventuring party might go in the dungeon because the options are limited- less so in the wilderness. " - Crawford, pg. 99

Chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master's Guide goes over how to make a dungeon, along with many tables to just randomly make one should your players be bored in a session, allowing the GM to toss a distraction their way. There are somethings that we are going to consider moving forward with this serial of posts.

Figure 1: Dungeon Know How

Keep this general information in mind whenever you move forward with a dungeon. You do not have to go in any particular order, just ensure those five point in Figure 1 are addressed before the dungeon is completed.

From now on I will be working on crafting a dungeon for the world of Akura, where both my D&D groups play. This may end up being a Mega-dungeon, or a whole campaign set in a dungeon, I don't know yet myself. Some things I post might be completely revised later on too. What you as an audience will see is the process of creating a dungeon, so I am crafting a large dungeon and will attempt to include as many things as possible to ensure you see them in action.

My favorite thing to do is world build. There is a pseudo spectrum for world building, it slides from the top down, to down up methods. Down up means you make a town, and expand the world off of that, top down is you make a general world with what common knowledge the inhabitants in locations have and craft the towns, characters, and dungeons after that.

With that in mind I like the dungeons I have to relate to the world. A month ago I had my Saturday group go to the Night Owl's Inn where they fought a sleeper cell of the Red Mask gang. The inn had always been on the map, I just used it at random to get them out of the massive city of Abrana for the first time. Soon they will be going to another dungeon, Wraithrest. An abandoned heretic monastery, turned castle by an affluent lord, then an asylum for plague victims, soon after a mass burial site, and finally a cursed ruined place embedded in the Erie Marsh to the west of Abrana.

Figure 2: Akura

Looking at Akura's map it really seems like there is a lot to work with. Now my girlfriend plays in Aelfland, and whenever we can get time to have her friends involved they will all most likely be in the vague western part of the world too. My Saturday group is in Abrana, which is the city intersecting those major river ways in the central portion of the land. But, I don't want them dealing with this yet. I want perhaps a dungeon I can work towards, that would be very fun and interesting. Or, have players start off in and play out portions of it. Flexibility is key to being a Game Master.

Now we have a meta purpose, outside this game world we know the point of the dungeon, so we can write that down and keep it in a safe space to always remember. Next comes an idea, what should the dungeon be inspired by? (Read my posts on inspiration and combining ideas if you don't think you are good at coming up with things).

Now in a practice run with my girlfriend I made a character called Edern of Bran. For his history I put that undead destroyed his home, and that is how a peasant became a Vengeance Paladin. In this world, Bran is a kingdom. In fact in a forum game I ran called Landfallen Age of Strife, Bran was a vaguely French kingdom with strong ties to paladin orders. Let us draw from that.

A kingdom with strife, western European-esque culture, paladin influence, and undead could be involved.

Now this makes me think of possible examples of cities bestruck by undead, my brother and father play Diablo III whose expansion deals with that, in a way. More so there is also an underlining conflict where the chaos is being used by a rebel faction to take over. That's interesting and we should write that down and keep it incase we want multiple factions in this dungeon.

We have added a city and division caused by the calamity. With my background in other games it made me consider Stromgarde from World of Warcraft. Stromgarde was set in  the cradle of human civilization, and was a strong military force for most of Warcraft history. In World of Warcraft though it is a shadow. In it there are three factions the Roguish Syndicate, a Troll/Ogre alliance, and the Remnants of Stromgarde. (Wowpedia). This area was never completed so it always felt like lost potential, but we should consider this as something to build off of.

Figure 3: Kingdom of Stromgarde

Bran can be a former great nation that has recently come under such heavy burdens its collapsing in on itself. This idea combined with a potential knightly history caused me to also think of a specific scenario from Age of Empires II: Conquerors Expansion. In the El Cid campaign the scenario Enemy of my Enemy involves El Cid attempting to quell unrest in the city of Toledo, where the Moorish and Spanish population have risen up and begun an all out war against one another. (Age of Empire Wiki.) We can use aspects of this as well, giving players options to have a peaceful end to the problem.

Here is the review of what we have. A kingdom with strife, western European-esque culture, paladin influence, undead could be involved, set in the capital city, multiple factions all at war with each other, a potential for some to become allies, and the players thrown in the middle of it all.

There are no clear cut details, yet we have a location, a purpose, a history, and inhabitants. They may be all general ideas nor a creator, but with this is a foundation to what could be an extremely fun dungeon. With that over I leave you with a working synopsis to give the players once they are introduced to the dungeon.

Bran,  a once mighty kingdom now on the verge of collapse. The capital is torn asunder by ill magic and vile ambitions. The great paladins of old are all gone, with only those willing to do what is necessary left.

Work Cited

Age of Empires Wiki. Wikia.com.  2016. Web. 12/17/2016. Accessed From <http://ageofempires.wikia.com/wiki/The_Enemy_of_my_Enemy>

Crawford, Jeremy, et al. Dungeon Master's Guide. USA: Wizards of the Coast, 2014. Print.

Wowpedia. Gamepedia.com. 2016. Web. 12/17/2016. Accessed From <http://wow.gamepedia.com/Stromgarde>