Abbey of Saint Ciorstan: The Beginning of a Megadungeon

Abbey of Saint Ciorstan, Personal, Roleplaying 4 Minutes

I’m running a megadungeon for my in-person Monday group, and for the first time, I’m going to be designing my own megadungeon!

Yay!

I’m a big fan of megadungeons, I think they’re great.

First, let’s talk about some resources I read up on.

Other Megadungeons

I read a bunch of other megadungeons, trying to get a feel for it. A sampling of what I read:

  • Tomb of the Bull King for Mazes and Minotaurs.
  • Castle Xyntillian by Gabor Lux for S&W.
  • Stonehell Dungeon by Michael Curtis.
  • Arden Vul by all those crazy people who made a SIX TOME MEGADUNGEON. Like, good grief. This thing. It took me longer to read than it will to ever play mine. It’s insane.
  • Tomb of Annihilation by Wizards of the Coast (and Tomb of Horrors, et al.)
  • Moria by Decipher RPG for their now defunct LotR RPG. I love that game and love this dungeon.

I also read a bunch of other ones folks consider classics, influential or important, but the reason I’m listing the ones above is because I’m using them to guide what I’m doing (either avoiding something the above does or evoking something the above does).

Blogs!

I also read a bunch of blogs about megadungeons.

Nick LS Whelan, one of my favorite small press creators, has a great series on Papers & Pencils about megadungeons. Some of the posts I found particularly helpful from Nick were:

As well as a slew of others. Really, Nick’s whole blog is what I wish this blog was. I just find reading it so inspiring.

I also listened to INTO THE MEGADUNGEON a podcast by Ben Laurence, and a slew of play reports about megadungeons. I won’t get into them all in this post (it’d be several posts in and of itself), but never doubt that the RPG space is full of folks talking and sharing their ideas, lessons, and more. So much to learn.

Getting Started

I will be using Outcast Silver Raiders, which I’m a big fan of, so that’s sorted. It has good rules, I love the way they approach dungeon mapping, and they have built-in factions, to which, I will append my own.

Factions

A quick note on factions. I consider factions to be one of the biggest things that megadungeons need. Groups of organization (multiples necessarily) indicate scale. The more groups, the bigger the space supporting them is (conceptually). The smaller the space, the more conflict between factions there is. So paradoxically, I want a large space to indicate the scale of the megadungeon, but I need a small place to drive the conflict between factions (obviously other solutions for conflict exist).

Dungeon Theme

I have a clear idea of what I want to be at the bottom of the dungeon. OSR’s The Mythic North setting uses the idea of a fictional Scotland-esque analog in a real Europe, so I can use all that with some serial numbers filed off to create the core of this megadungeon.

At the bottom of the “dungeon”, there exists a mystical well, Vitrvár (a bastardized version of Old Norse for “Wise Well”). This well sits between the branches of the Ashroots It is claimed that this well is where Fjolnir placed his eye in the well after sacrificing the eye for a drink. Atop the dungeon, sits an Abbey, the Abbey of Saint Ciorstan.

It is said that those who drink from the well, will gain the wisdom of the well and Fjolnir.

I’ve got some stuff going on with the well at the bottom, that I won’t spoil here, but it involves magick and otherworldly stuff obviously.

To me, this set up implies three factions:

  • Viking Raiders (who see attacking the abbey to try to get to the bottom and the well as a prize or obligation). They might exist anywhere in the dungeon, depending on
  • The Abbey occupants who exist in the first few levels. This is a unique order, but they are aligned with the Black Bishop (from OSR’s The Mythic North).
  • Otherworldly stuff drawn from the bottom of the well.

Some notes:

In order to give myself some wiggle room for adjusting mythology, religion, and

  • Ashroots are my standin for the world tree.
  • Vitrvar is my stand-in for Mimir’s well.
  • Fjolnir is my stand-in for Odin.

Next Setps

So going from there, I printed 10 levels from donjon’s dungeon generator (a fantastic resource), tweaking each level to fit the shape and size I wanted it to be.

Rules I followed for this:

  • Easy ways in and out at multiple points. I put egresses and ingresses every 2-3 levels in the dungeon. Ardun Vul has a similar idea that I like.
  • Changing shape. The dungeon is not the same basic shape at each level. I wanted it to feel organic and different, while sharing consistent characters.
  • Logical progression. I tried to structure the ideas in the dungeon in a way where it makes sense (the Abbey faction will be closer to the top, the Otherworldly faction closer to the bottom, etc.)

Now that this is done, tomorrow I’m going to build some tables to key the dungeon. I’ll share those in tomorrow’s post.

Published