Building the Megadungeon...

So, I will be starting a new section of posts here over the next few weeks.  Yes yes, I know.  I have posted much in a long while.  Screw you too.  But it's time to put some ideas down on digital paper for the world to see.  So what am I doing?  Building a megadungeon!

Minor story segway time!
For the past 2 months, I have been running a Pathfinder game for some friends and family.  All of them newbies.  While this is fine and dandy, most of them are foreign to role-playing and crafting characters (unlike us geeks in the D&D field).  So they've become the fightery fighters of fightingness, or FFF as I will refer to them from here on out.  There is only a half caster in the group, a magus (who's archtypes has diminished his spellcasting even further...), so they're kinda very screwed in the future.  I will indeed punish them for that by killing at least one of them during the megadungeon.

Right, the reason I segway'd - since my players don't care much for story or role-playing, I'm building them a megadungeon so they can explore and kill and loot all they want.  I have a few more weeks of buffer time to work with, between crappy work scheduling, a few more seasons of their current adventure, and my friend running for a few seasons for me.
(end segway)

So, I am recording the whole ordeal of making this dungeon for the world to see.  Mostly because this will get interesting.  As well as try to record how my players roll with the whole thing.

So, the first step was research and concepts.
Since this was my first foray into the megadungeon, I searched the internets for advice.  This link gave me a great deal of info for the whole thing.  Thank the gods for the internet.  Meanwhile, I scoured Pathfinder books for ideas to cement the whole thing into the world.  I have a great deal of flexibility here, given that my players haven't read anything into the world (lazy bastards) or they don't care (ie, my wife).  Eventually, I came across the Rise of the Runelords adventure path, and used that as a stepping stone.  For those who never played it/read it, it details the rise of one particular Runelord (ancient Super-Evil Mega-Wizards), but also suggests others return to the world.

The concept was simple enough - a mountain with a tower on top.  Eventually, I explaned the idea to making the tower go through the whole mountain, making it a hub of sorts for the various sections.  The players would start out by clearing out mines full of orcs, but then stumble upon the tower's hub at the end of the mines.  The door into the tower already opened by the orcs (as they came from another end of the tower hub).  Throw in some awesome plotting and scheming by a wizard or two, some ulterior motives, and a possible cataclysm ending, and this might just turn out epicly.

Taking the advice I found, I drew up a side view sketch of the whole dungeon.  We have the mountain contain everything, with the tower right down the middle.  Then I added various locations: the mines, the Crypt (gotta have undead somewhere), the Forgotten City (for those mindflayers and other fuckers that can fuck up your day), the Underground Lake (gotta have some water here), and the Pit (for the demons and other crazy monsters).  There is also the Orc tribe camp, which connects via a set of tunnels to the tower hub.  Speaking of the tower, that is also divied up - the Summit at the top, the Spiral below, the Tower Climb next (right around where the mountain peak is), the Cathedral (just above the main Hub), the Tower Hub (where most of the connecting areas meet up), the Tower Base (which connects to the Pit and the Lake), and the Cage (which can be only accessed by going through the Pit, and you have to be very high level for that shit).

To keep things easy to understand for myself, I created a small 3D sketch of where thing where in relation to the tower.  I will scan this page and post it later when I get to a scanner...

Plotting
I like to believe I'm decent at making an over-arcing plot.  So I created a basic job to bring the players in - a wizard in charge of a mining business hires the players to clear the orcs out.  After the boss orc, party FFF (or what's left of them after that fight) discover the door to the Hub.  Hopefully, at this point, they head back to town to get some answers from their employer, who then explains that the miners dug up the door, but left it untouched (in fear of any nasties that'd come out of it).  The wizard will offer more gold to secure the Hub, hoping to prevent any more monsters from coming up from the woodwork.  Of course, the party being the money grubbing fighters that they are, will dig deeper into the tower and it's related dungeons and kill off major monsters, guardians of the Tower....  And I will stop there in case my players find this post.

Mythic or Not?
At this point of my plots and schemes, I discovered the Pathfinder book, Mythic Adventures.  It's pretty cool stuff, and I am tempted to use it with my players.  They need all the power they can get during this thing.  Unless someone re-rolls a real mage.  Gotta kill someone soon...

Next time...?  I dunno what I will duscuss next.  Encounters?

Of D&D Campaigns

Okay, so after talking to Dave about the campaign and the idea behind it all, I have come to the conclusion that damn it, I should run it. Therefore, so I don't have to explain it every time I tell somebody new, I shall post the entire concept and hook here, along with any particular rules that I will use (some are pending, haven't looked through everything yet).

Wings of Chaos: Ruined Wind

A silver haired man with blue-tinted glasses sits in a comfortable looking leather chair, a book in hand. He glances up to see his guests. “I see it’s time for a story, isn’t it? Ya know, I just found this one earlier today. My mentor wrote it. It’s a story of one of his later adventures.

“Who is my mentor, you ask? Why he holds the title of ‘Fuujin, the God of Wind’. He is the founder and leader of the Anarchy Cross. He’s a wanderer, and he enjoys writing stories of the adventures he and others have been through. This, is one of them. And this will be today’s story…"

The man opened the book and began to read it out loud. “Dark stormy clouds could be seen off the coast that night. The residents of Waterdeep could easily tell it was going to be the worst storm they had seen in years. But the storm would soon be the least of their worries…

“Oh, sure, it was a bad storm, but what came after it made the horrible weather seem like a child’s playground. The next morning, people awoke to the sight of terrible black obelisks framing a vile fiery portal. Next thing they knew, monsters started to pour out from this portal, and several others littered throughout the city. It was as if the gates to hell itself had opened on their door step. In some cases, that was very literal…

"For myself, however, things were far less pleasant. I didn't get to wake up to that sight. Didn't even get a full night's sleep, even. What I found was red skies. At first, I thought I was looking at the beautiful sunset sky, then looking a bit closer, I realized it was too dark of a red. And the bright pulsing veins in the sky were a good clue to tell me that I wasn't in Faerun any more. Or Kansas, which would've been slightly better than where I ended up.

"It wasn't long before I heard noises of something shuffling about. And that was when I found a rather ugly face only a few inches away from my own face. A combination of reflexes and instinct kicked in as I swung my right arm wildly. The ugly thing jumped away in surprise. If only that moment lasted longer. I would later call these creatures 'scamps', since they looked like tiny, scraggly humans with big, elongated ears and nasty looking claws. The scamp took a lunge for my throat. A rolled over, avoiding its attack, and sprung off my hands to get back onto my feet. Luckily, my sword was at my feet. I kicked it up and grabbed the handle, ready to draw. I focused my senses briefly, searching for that instant to strike. Before the creature could spin around for a second attempt, I drew my blade and cleaved its head right off its neck in a single motion.

"The monster fell limp onto the ground, which I had now noticed was barren dirt with a slight rust color to it. As I looked around my surroundings, the only thought that came to mind was How the fuck did I end up in Hell? Later, I realized that it wasn't Hell that I was in, but a plane I would later identify as Oblivion. I looked around a bit, finding dead mauled townspeople lying around. Maybe fate was on my side that day, however. I found survivors. And they were adventurers, too. Or maybe fate just loves to mess with me..."

_________________

Confused? Allow me to make this into more sense. In short, this campaign will take place in Faerun, the FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign setting. What is going on is that portals to Oblivion have opened all over the place. The party, however, doesn't get the chance to prepare to go into one of the portals, since they start off right inside one.

Yes, I realize that portals to Oblivion was covered in Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. I'm using that for a reason. And I'm not following that game's plot. After all, somebody else is behind this. Somebody with some very big ambitions.

Now for other important details. This starts off at level 10. Almost all WotC books are allowed, as long as I've seen it and have all the info I need. I intend this to be a good/neutral party, but there can be an evil character or two as long as they're not killing off the party or selling their souls to devils. All PCs and major NPCs will get the following extra goodies: one free regional feat and one skill that can be made into a class skill, regardless of what skills are available to their normal selection. Each character starts with 50,000 gp. More may resources may be given out as I see fit depending on character background and other interesting things.

I intend to use the taint rules presented in the Heroes of Horror book (also found in Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures). I am considering using the Action Point system found in Eberron, as well, but I need to look that through some more.

Comments, suggestions, or questions should be directed to me via comments or AIM (RiotTheStorm). There's more, but since I'm kinda tired, I need to think more and look through more rules.

EDIT: These are the forums I plan to use for the game. Link

-Locke