GamesTopica.Net

This is a new series in the making – 101 forms of a dungeon! A dungeon crawl does not have to be underground all the time, or the usual “You see a 4 inch by 4 inch wide stone chamber”. Every week, there will be 10 ideas for a dungeon of a different theme and style. So hopefully in 10 weeks time there really be 101 forms of a dungeon to choose from!

The first ten:

1. A hedge maze, where the plants making up the walls are thorny and coated with thick lethal poison.
2. Boats and large ships tied together, forming narrow walkways
3. Treetops platforms and rope bridges
4. A foggy marshlands where higher grounds from narrow paths and the occasional hilltops plus platforms
5. The inside of a large, dead being
6. The side of a mountain, with bridges or walkways cut into the side, connecting various buildings on the side steep cliffs (see the Hengshan Hanging Monastery).
7. Thick, impassable jungles where the undergrowth could be higher than a human being and the only safe way to navigate is through  streams and rivers
8. Sewage systems of a city which leads to other ruined in the strata from earlier settlements
9. A fossilized forest, where “stone” trees and bushes form obstacles
10. The ruins of a city devastated by an earthquake – bottomless fissures, rubble and ruins bar the way

Welcome to the second episode of “101 Forms of a Dungeon”. Here goes for 11 to 20!

1. The roofs of a city-scape, where sky-bridges and bizarre architecture allows the adventurers to explore a city on the rooftop
2. A terraced pyramid, except that there are no internal passages; chambers are all only accessible via entrances on the terraces
3. A certain culture in the game world practise burial where they build elaborate towers and place the dead on top for vultures to feast on.
4. A partially finished castle
5. Underground lake which is heated by volcanic rocks. Adventurers must stay on path or be boiled alive!
6. An asylum, seemingly abandoned
7. Twisted alleyways inside a large city (see Stranded in the Alleyways)
8. Tunnels craved by giant ants
9. Inside a giant mechanical clock
10. A half-sunk ship

Just in time for the week!

1. A series of walls and forts built on top of a rugged hill-top, much like the Great Wall of China, stretching in all directions for tens of miles
2. A gigantic tree where chambers are craved into the trunk of it, while smaller trees and plants grow top of the branches.
3. A half sunken city
4. A series of caves linked by submerged tunnels. Getting from caves to caves require the adventurers to emerge occasionally to find air pockets.
5. A city and its dead inhabitants preserved by the ashes from a volcanic eruptions.
6. A weaving mill
7. The private zoo of a rich collector
8. Floating islands within a marsh. Those islands are debris where thick vegetation has grown around it, making them afloat
9. A fissure opened up by an earthquake
10. A series of multi-coloured rock terraces, where pockets of pools with deep and clear blue water dot the landscape (such as this). The pools, unfortunately, are acidic.

Once more, 10 more ideas for a dungeon. I am running dry on ideas and make have to do some research, reading around and so on to refresh my mind. So the next 10 ideas may come 2 or 3 weeks later. Gotta to give my brain a break now and then

Read more…

After taking a break to recharge my mental batteries, I hopefully am able to come up with some nice ideas for dungeons. This is the 5th list in the series, so this would bump the number so far up to 50!

1. Slaughter House: An abandoned slaughter house, with dried blood and bone scattered all over the place while bleached bones hang from hooks. It seems that no only just farm livestock were slaughtered here…
2. Aqueducts: Sewer crawling happens all the time, however a change of altitude? The ancient aqueducts which feed the fountains and well of an ancient city has dried up, and are infested with…well, whatever the GM has in mind.
3. Endless Stairways: A massive chasm where stairways lead up and them, left and right and are joined by numerous other stairways. Some would eventually lead to towers which raised up from the unseen bottom
4. Giant’s Mine: A mine where the steps of each stairs is half the height of a fully grown man, tunnels stretched high above and filled with oversize mining equipment
5. Underground Garden: A gigantic cavern underground, its light-source a strange glowing large crystal which glows with an eerie pale blue light. The vegetation grown there are unknown to most and strange insects roam the thick undergrowth
6. Abandoned Gladiator Arena: Arranged in a series of arenas, in which pits the hapless slaves or a toughen gladiator against different type of challenges. It is now abandoned, its storage room either looted or its stores worthless, and monsters which once feed on slaves thrown into the arenas now have to hunt for other preys…
7. Ice Glass Maze: Walls of ice, crystal sculptures and bridges of frozen water made up this maze; the interesting thing is the ice wall are reflective (and refractive too), and the adventurers would be prone to seeing what they want to go, and unable to get to it, and other interesting light tricks.
8. Hospice: Used to be the place for resting, recuperating and spending one’s final days, the hospice has come under the shadow of an evil beings, perverting the original nature of the place. What has it became?
9. Mechanical Temple: Temples of ancient time were often rigged with clever mechanics to give the impression of “miracles”, such as doors opening by themselves, urn which dispenses water when coins are dropped into it and the bronze songbird which burst into song by itself. Those mechanics are also used to guard secrets and dispose of unwanted intruders.
10. Mutated Caves: A mysterious entity dwells at the heart of these series of caves but is gradually transforms the entire mountain; instead of stone walls, it would have wall of flesh. Instead of wind, it will be the rancid breath of the creature. Once the transformation is complete, the being will come to life. 

Welcome to part 6 of 101 forms of a dungeon. My apologies that it has taken so long; starting a new work and doing numerous freelances as well as a sudden new-found love for Star Trek: Voyager is sapping up my time. It is getting harder to come up with new ideas, especially when I have to make sure that none of them are repeats:

Read more…

Apologies for the long break; I had to take some time off to recharge my brain and hopefully come up with new ideas for 101 Forms of a Dungeon. Right, now for number 71 to 80.

1. A forest of executioner’s crosses, where the local law authority leaves criminals to die and to serve a somber warning to others.
2. A prison high atop a mountain cliff, only accessible by a crude ‘elevator’.
3. Wreck of a ship used as a prison. Where have all the prisoners gone to?
4. The ruins of arena designed for trial by combat
5. A half-built pyramid
6. A quarry where half-built statues form of rocks protruding from the hillside are everywhere. Those statues are colossal, from 4 metres tall and 2 metres in width
7. A goblin’s (or insert evil demi-human race of choice here) version of a slaughterhouse…intended for humans.
8. Ruins of a bath-house with technology comparable to what the Romans has…for use by giants.
9. Sites used for judgments by rituals
10. A gigantic “well” (really a deep shaft) which goes deep downward, with wooden platforms and side excavations (think the Money Pit)