I've been experiencing DM's Writer's block and decided to go back to 1970's D&D basics and just focus on building a big dungeon to explore, one so large it would take several days if not weeks of in game time to fully explore. I decided on making a tomb of ancient Stone Giants, inspired by Cambodian and Mayan structures. The tomb/crypt was built to memorialize heroes of a strange tribe of Stone Giants, who fought away and sealed an evil power/plague deep underground and built this temple on top of it. It consists of 3 above ground levels and 5 below ground levels, and since it was built by and for giants, all the hallways and rooms are enormous, which should make for some fun exploration. Other creatures and explorers have plunged the tomb, though very few have made it any deeper than the first basement floor. Here's a brief rundown of each of the levels and some rough map sketches I've drawn up so far:
Main Floor: A temple area, surrounded by a stone wall with carvings depicting the ancient battles won by the stone giants. 6 towers each hold a large torch which were lit at night for ceremonies, a building at the back wall served as a guard's living chambers and the central structure was a large shrine with a fake sarcophagus of their greatest hero who overcame the evil. Staircases on either side lead up to the second floor and a hidden staircase behind the shrine leads downstairs. Most of the treasures from these upper floors have long since been plundered.
2st Floor: A simple dining room with a large fireplace built behind the eyes of the large stone head on the outside, so that they would illuminate when the fireplace was lit. A small room for supplies is on one side and the other had a sort of "dumb waiter" pulley system so servants from B1 could send up food and drink. Another staircase behind a closed door leads to the top floor.
3nd Floor: A small chapel like area where new warriors and 'priests' were chosen and anointed before a statue of their great hero. Drawers underneath the statue hold ceremonial treasures, and the outer walls were built with a special semi-translucent marble which would allow in light from the 6 outer towers' torches.
1st Basement: The only 'public' basement level, it is comprised of long elegant hallways and rooms for lesser heroes and dead family members, a ceremonial embalming room, a larger dining hall and kitchen, as well as sleeping and washing chambers for the giants (I assume the stone giants would bathe in gravel and rubble). There are also sleeping chambers and smaller, human sized passageways built for their servants and thralls to walk between. Each basement floor also had air tunnels leading to the outside to allow air flow, which would be let out through small statues scattered throughout the surrounding jungle. The door to the 2nd basement floor was sealed and well hidden, to prevent any invaders from discovering it.
2nd Basement: Only select giants were allowed this deep and any deeper, servants were forbidden entry. This floor has long hallways and rooms devoted to crypts and coffins built into the walls, as well as a larger, more functional embalming room. This floor has several traps and a more confusing layout to fool trespassers, including sloped hallways, large overpasses, winding corridors and raised levels. Many of the dead giants were entombed with their treasures and weapons, and a collapsed air tunnel has expanded into a larger tunnel allowing local wildlife to infest this floor, building nests and hovels inside coffins and throughout the winding halls. Many of the traps are still functional and are triggered often by careless creatures.
3rd Basement: This floor was the main storehouse for treasures and relics of the giants, and only higher members of the Ordning were permitted here. A large, dome shaped room served as a meeting hall for the giants to discuss ceremonies, rituals and prepare battle plans to defend or attack nearby settlements of rival giant tribes. Some of the most beautiful rooms in the entire temple are on this floor, long halls filled with carvings and ornate archways, statues and monuments celebrating the victories of the past. It is on this floor that a Beholder has made his lair, gathering the treasures and funneling his minions here. The Beholder has begun digging outwards and created a mining facility here, to mine precious ore and mineral deposits from the ground. His minions have built railways, carts, and other mining equipments and have been here so long they formed their own society and hierarchy serving the beholder as a god. Most of them have never seen the sun and known only these halls their whole lives.
4th Basement: This was the last line of defence to contain the evil power below. This floor is a series of large chambers filled with puzzles, traps, and even moving rooms and shifting hallways meant to confuse and kill anyone who dared enter. Even most giants were forbidden entry. So desperate were they that they even had a wizard cast magic upon these rooms to reinforce their seal. Guardians of stone, built by the giants and brought to life by the same wizard attack any and all invaders, including other stone giants. Not even the beholder dares explore these rooms, having long since given up trying to get past these rooms. None were ever intended to surpass these rooms and reach the lowest floor.
5th Basement: If somehow one is able to break the seal and overcome the trials, they will enter the lowest level of the dungeon, where the most dangerous and powerful items and relics were sealed away, as well as the tomb of their greatest hero, who sealed the evil away. Unfortunately, disturbing these chambers will reawaken this evil plague/force, which the hero had given his life to seal away, trapping it within his body. If awakened, it will attempt to escape and wreak havoc and destruction upon the surface world and kill any in its path.
So that's my basic outline of the dungeon. I want it to be very involved and probably take players from 3rd or 5th level to 7th or 9th level or even higher through the journey. I have some ideas for other events that could happen, such as encountering rival groups of treasure hunters, forming alliances with creature tribes, and even giving each player a hidden, ulterior motive for exploring (for example, maybe one player is searching for a very specific item, perhaps to break a curse on him which attracts a devil to him every 4 days, or being in debt to a dangerous warlock who is tracking the party). I Also want them to encounter a Necromancer here, who is trying to raise giants from the dead to create a personal army. But, as you can tell from my map sketches, I'm having trouble actually designing the layout and structure of the dungeon, and I'm not very happy with my current 2nd basement sketch. I've been trying to design it in a functional way first, as in, how would the giants have built it and intended it to be used and then later going in and adding traps and encounters, but I'm hitting a bit of a brick wall. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do, or any knowledge on crypts/mausoleums and what kinds of rooms and chambers I should include? Any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated, and you are more than welcome to use these ideas for yourself too :)
Thanks!
p.s. please excuse the messy handwriting and sketches, I wasn’t expecting anyone other than me to see these haha
Your sketches make it look great and I'm sure your party will have a great time.
One suggestion is to think about the fact this is a 'giant' temple and the party will be small in every room. Consider taking advantage by having opening a door a puzzle because it's massive. Also is the party better off using a drainage or air duct system to get around (simply because they fit). Look to things like the borrower's and land of the giants for some inspiration with this as well.
Thanks! They are pretty rough but I’ll be redrawing them in a big bullet journal I got when I’m happy with the layout.
Those are are great suggestions, I’ve always been fond of stories of little people in a large environment so this can play on those tropes. Do you have any other ideas for habits and lifestyles of stone giants which could come in handy? I know in 5e they seem to mostly be a solitary race but I’m picturing this tribe as being a pretty unusual group who would actually live together and formed their own small culture.
Also, any advice on the best way to make the maps themselves? Is it usually better to draw the rooms and then figure out the hallways connecting them? Maybe work backwards from the end, or just draw as you go as if you were exploring and charting it yourself? I have some experience making small dungeons but nothing on this scale.
I've never run a big dungeon. But I'd say consider mixing up the environment. You don't want the whole dungeon looking the same.
Perhaps part has collapsed opening an entrance to a section of the underdark. This can allow you to mix up enemy types. It could also tell a story about the dungeons history, such as a siege from beneath. Flooding could be another way of mixing it up too.
In terms of the maps I'd look at other maps that already exist. Consider putting together several dungeon maps you find you like. At the end of the day you want to put your efforts into telling the story as opposed to worrying too much about room sizes.
Oh I really like the ideas of it flooding or opening to the underdark, those are awesome suggestions. Maybe long ago the ground collapsed or the beholder built a tunnel which opened to the underdark and he started gathering thralls and minions from there! I was also thinking of parts where roots from trees have completely taken over passageways and rooms.
It makes sense in story for the giants to have built dead ends and trap rooms as well, I’m just hoping I can signal them subtly enough that attentive players could avoid them. Maybe by seeing dead bodies of animals or other explorers tipping them off. I completely redrew the second basement level and I’m much happier with how it’s looking. Thanks again for the suggestions, and I’m happy to hear more.
Here's my redesign of the second basement floor. I thought it would be cool if on the fourth basement level, some stone golems have been turning giant gears for years and it's powering s mechanical system through the dungeon. On this floor, it would be a series of columns with extended bridges constantly spinning, making platforms between various entrances and exits of the lower left chamber. Since this floor was meant to be kind of a trap floor, there are lots of intentional mazes, traps and dead ends meant to confuse invaders. Finding the staircase to the next level down was meant to be difficult to any who didn't know the secret way to open it. There are even a pair of staircases in the upper left corner of the map that lead to a false third level full of traps, another method to confuse invaders.
If this is a long abandoned temple, then perhaps some levels have new inhabitants. Mayan/Cambodian makes me feel this structure might have been swallowed up in jungle. Now there are giant vines running from the upper levels to the enormous trees that surround. Then you could have the top floor inhabited by the chieftain/high priest of some tree dwelling tribe of monster types, lizard men or whatever. Gives you an excuse to populate the upper levels, and maybe the upper chamber is now a maze of bridges and platforms leading up to the chiefs throne on the old giant altar. A sort of optional mini-boss fight for the area with loot combining the old giants relics and the tribes treasures.
Run through each room like a party would mentally and try to have 3 ready solutions to every problem (players will make more). solutions dont have to be present there in the room but in the dungeon at some point. Can they use a sewer or duct? can they pick a lock, solve a riddle, do a puzzle, combine items needed to open a door, RP with a spirit, shapeshift like alice, play a game, find a clue, doge a trap, trigger an event, be forced to make a game altering choice, etc...
Ohh great suggestions! I really like the lizard men idea. Even just a giant dining hall would be large enough to become a multilevelled village for lizard men to inhabit. I really want the dungeon to feel almost like entering a world all it’s own and that would add a lot to it. Would also give lots of great role play and combat moments.
Finding 3 solutions for every room sounds like a good rubric to build upon. I’m thinking of that playing around with the idea of stone giant spellcasters who created trinkets and relics with weird magical properties, and scattering the remains of dead explorers who brought their own weird items for the players to find and use as well. I want to give them lots of freedom to explore in many different directions
This floor is like a series of connected halls and cathedrals, with some more coffins and tombs. There aren't many traps here since the Giants assumed no one would make it this far. There is a spinning column in the lower left portion of the map, connected to the spinning bridges in the floor above. The beholder and his minions have attached mechanisms and conveyors to the column to power their mining operations.
The fourth basement floor is meant to be impossible to navigate. The hallways spin counter clockwise and the square rooms spin clockwise, their entrances connecting and spinning to turn you around and, the Giants hoped, cause you to be lost forever. Powering everything (including the spinning mechanisms in the floors above) are stone golems cursed to forever turn a giant wheel, sealed away in the bottom left corner. A very hard to find path leads to them. Some of the spinning rooms contain traps, others guardians, and it would require smart planning and mapping to find a way through.
The final floor. A massive hall venerating the greatest Giant hero. It is here that the greatest treasures are stored, as well as the most dangerous and evil force that the Giant sealed away. But I'm a bit unsure what that power should be. Do you have any suggestions? I was thinking either a lich or demonic "energy" that was sealed within his body and reawakens when the room is disturbed. Basically I want there to be some sort of twist to the dungeon: it wasn't only sealing away treasure, but something awful as well. But I'm at a bit of a loss as to what that could be and would make sense for the players to want to stop. Any feedback?
Some sort of Lich-Giant? All the powers of a Lich with the physical stats of a Giant. If the difficulty for that isn't high enough for your liking then surround it with other undead giant units or corrupted golems. It was the high priest who created this temple so long ago, who then turned to the darkness and was defeated and imprisoned by the hero who gave his life to do so. The histories of both of these great beings is long forgotten, but the carvings and scrolls in that chamber tell the story, so a bard turning up there would be overjoyed.
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I've been experiencing DM's Writer's block and decided to go back to 1970's D&D basics and just focus on building a big dungeon to explore, one so large it would take several days if not weeks of in game time to fully explore. I decided on making a tomb of ancient Stone Giants, inspired by Cambodian and Mayan structures. The tomb/crypt was built to memorialize heroes of a strange tribe of Stone Giants, who fought away and sealed an evil power/plague deep underground and built this temple on top of it. It consists of 3 above ground levels and 5 below ground levels, and since it was built by and for giants, all the hallways and rooms are enormous, which should make for some fun exploration. Other creatures and explorers have plunged the tomb, though very few have made it any deeper than the first basement floor. Here's a brief rundown of each of the levels and some rough map sketches I've drawn up so far:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fat4UEvlYG_brm3b8KbmREJJw3DdQQal/view?usp=sharing
Main Floor: A temple area, surrounded by a stone wall with carvings depicting the ancient battles won by the stone giants. 6 towers each hold a large torch which were lit at night for ceremonies, a building at the back wall served as a guard's living chambers and the central structure was a large shrine with a fake sarcophagus of their greatest hero who overcame the evil. Staircases on either side lead up to the second floor and a hidden staircase behind the shrine leads downstairs. Most of the treasures from these upper floors have long since been plundered.
2st Floor: A simple dining room with a large fireplace built behind the eyes of the large stone head on the outside, so that they would illuminate when the fireplace was lit. A small room for supplies is on one side and the other had a sort of "dumb waiter" pulley system so servants from B1 could send up food and drink. Another staircase behind a closed door leads to the top floor.
3nd Floor: A small chapel like area where new warriors and 'priests' were chosen and anointed before a statue of their great hero. Drawers underneath the statue hold ceremonial treasures, and the outer walls were built with a special semi-translucent marble which would allow in light from the 6 outer towers' torches.
1st Basement: The only 'public' basement level, it is comprised of long elegant hallways and rooms for lesser heroes and dead family members, a ceremonial embalming room, a larger dining hall and kitchen, as well as sleeping and washing chambers for the giants (I assume the stone giants would bathe in gravel and rubble). There are also sleeping chambers and smaller, human sized passageways built for their servants and thralls to walk between. Each basement floor also had air tunnels leading to the outside to allow air flow, which would be let out through small statues scattered throughout the surrounding jungle. The door to the 2nd basement floor was sealed and well hidden, to prevent any invaders from discovering it.
2nd Basement: Only select giants were allowed this deep and any deeper, servants were forbidden entry. This floor has long hallways and rooms devoted to crypts and coffins built into the walls, as well as a larger, more functional embalming room. This floor has several traps and a more confusing layout to fool trespassers, including sloped hallways, large overpasses, winding corridors and raised levels. Many of the dead giants were entombed with their treasures and weapons, and a collapsed air tunnel has expanded into a larger tunnel allowing local wildlife to infest this floor, building nests and hovels inside coffins and throughout the winding halls. Many of the traps are still functional and are triggered often by careless creatures.
3rd Basement: This floor was the main storehouse for treasures and relics of the giants, and only higher members of the Ordning were permitted here. A large, dome shaped room served as a meeting hall for the giants to discuss ceremonies, rituals and prepare battle plans to defend or attack nearby settlements of rival giant tribes. Some of the most beautiful rooms in the entire temple are on this floor, long halls filled with carvings and ornate archways, statues and monuments celebrating the victories of the past. It is on this floor that a Beholder has made his lair, gathering the treasures and funneling his minions here. The Beholder has begun digging outwards and created a mining facility here, to mine precious ore and mineral deposits from the ground. His minions have built railways, carts, and other mining equipments and have been here so long they formed their own society and hierarchy serving the beholder as a god. Most of them have never seen the sun and known only these halls their whole lives.
4th Basement: This was the last line of defence to contain the evil power below. This floor is a series of large chambers filled with puzzles, traps, and even moving rooms and shifting hallways meant to confuse and kill anyone who dared enter. Even most giants were forbidden entry. So desperate were they that they even had a wizard cast magic upon these rooms to reinforce their seal. Guardians of stone, built by the giants and brought to life by the same wizard attack any and all invaders, including other stone giants. Not even the beholder dares explore these rooms, having long since given up trying to get past these rooms. None were ever intended to surpass these rooms and reach the lowest floor.
5th Basement: If somehow one is able to break the seal and overcome the trials, they will enter the lowest level of the dungeon, where the most dangerous and powerful items and relics were sealed away, as well as the tomb of their greatest hero, who sealed the evil away. Unfortunately, disturbing these chambers will reawaken this evil plague/force, which the hero had given his life to seal away, trapping it within his body. If awakened, it will attempt to escape and wreak havoc and destruction upon the surface world and kill any in its path.
So that's my basic outline of the dungeon. I want it to be very involved and probably take players from 3rd or 5th level to 7th or 9th level or even higher through the journey. I have some ideas for other events that could happen, such as encountering rival groups of treasure hunters, forming alliances with creature tribes, and even giving each player a hidden, ulterior motive for exploring (for example, maybe one player is searching for a very specific item, perhaps to break a curse on him which attracts a devil to him every 4 days, or being in debt to a dangerous warlock who is tracking the party). I Also want them to encounter a Necromancer here, who is trying to raise giants from the dead to create a personal army. But, as you can tell from my map sketches, I'm having trouble actually designing the layout and structure of the dungeon, and I'm not very happy with my current 2nd basement sketch. I've been trying to design it in a functional way first, as in, how would the giants have built it and intended it to be used and then later going in and adding traps and encounters, but I'm hitting a bit of a brick wall. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do, or any knowledge on crypts/mausoleums and what kinds of rooms and chambers I should include? Any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated, and you are more than welcome to use these ideas for yourself too :)
Thanks!
p.s. please excuse the messy handwriting and sketches, I wasn’t expecting anyone other than me to see these haha
Your sketches make it look great and I'm sure your party will have a great time.
One suggestion is to think about the fact this is a 'giant' temple and the party will be small in every room. Consider taking advantage by having opening a door a puzzle because it's massive. Also is the party better off using a drainage or air duct system to get around (simply because they fit). Look to things like the borrower's and land of the giants for some inspiration with this as well.
Thanks! They are pretty rough but I’ll be redrawing them in a big bullet journal I got when I’m happy with the layout.
Those are are great suggestions, I’ve always been fond of stories of little people in a large environment so this can play on those tropes. Do you have any other ideas for habits and lifestyles of stone giants which could come in handy? I know in 5e they seem to mostly be a solitary race but I’m picturing this tribe as being a pretty unusual group who would actually live together and formed their own small culture.
Also, any advice on the best way to make the maps themselves? Is it usually better to draw the rooms and then figure out the hallways connecting them? Maybe work backwards from the end, or just draw as you go as if you were exploring and charting it yourself? I have some experience making small dungeons but nothing on this scale.
I've never run a big dungeon. But I'd say consider mixing up the environment. You don't want the whole dungeon looking the same.
Perhaps part has collapsed opening an entrance to a section of the underdark. This can allow you to mix up enemy types. It could also tell a story about the dungeons history, such as a siege from beneath. Flooding could be another way of mixing it up too.
In terms of the maps I'd look at other maps that already exist. Consider putting together several dungeon maps you find you like. At the end of the day you want to put your efforts into telling the story as opposed to worrying too much about room sizes.
Oh I really like the ideas of it flooding or opening to the underdark, those are awesome suggestions. Maybe long ago the ground collapsed or the beholder built a tunnel which opened to the underdark and he started gathering thralls and minions from there! I was also thinking of parts where roots from trees have completely taken over passageways and rooms.
It makes sense in story for the giants to have built dead ends and trap rooms as well, I’m just hoping I can signal them subtly enough that attentive players could avoid them. Maybe by seeing dead bodies of animals or other explorers tipping them off. I completely redrew the second basement level and I’m much happier with how it’s looking. Thanks again for the suggestions, and I’m happy to hear more.
Here's my redesign of the second basement floor. I thought it would be cool if on the fourth basement level, some stone golems have been turning giant gears for years and it's powering s mechanical system through the dungeon. On this floor, it would be a series of columns with extended bridges constantly spinning, making platforms between various entrances and exits of the lower left chamber. Since this floor was meant to be kind of a trap floor, there are lots of intentional mazes, traps and dead ends meant to confuse invaders. Finding the staircase to the next level down was meant to be difficult to any who didn't know the secret way to open it. There are even a pair of staircases in the upper left corner of the map that lead to a false third level full of traps, another method to confuse invaders.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ezxMhjX5Isc-rmAVLsPQbw6g1tzuJOR1/view?usp=sharing
If this is a long abandoned temple, then perhaps some levels have new inhabitants. Mayan/Cambodian makes me feel this structure might have been swallowed up in jungle. Now there are giant vines running from the upper levels to the enormous trees that surround. Then you could have the top floor inhabited by the chieftain/high priest of some tree dwelling tribe of monster types, lizard men or whatever. Gives you an excuse to populate the upper levels, and maybe the upper chamber is now a maze of bridges and platforms leading up to the chiefs throne on the old giant altar. A sort of optional mini-boss fight for the area with loot combining the old giants relics and the tribes treasures.
Run through each room like a party would mentally and try to have 3 ready solutions to every problem (players will make more). solutions dont have to be present there in the room but in the dungeon at some point. Can they use a sewer or duct? can they pick a lock, solve a riddle, do a puzzle, combine items needed to open a door, RP with a spirit, shapeshift like alice, play a game, find a clue, doge a trap, trigger an event, be forced to make a game altering choice, etc...
Ohh great suggestions! I really like the lizard men idea. Even just a giant dining hall would be large enough to become a multilevelled village for lizard men to inhabit. I really want the dungeon to feel almost like entering a world all it’s own and that would add a lot to it. Would also give lots of great role play and combat moments.
Finding 3 solutions for every room sounds like a good rubric to build upon. I’m thinking of that playing around with the idea of stone giant spellcasters who created trinkets and relics with weird magical properties, and scattering the remains of dead explorers who brought their own weird items for the players to find and use as well. I want to give them lots of freedom to explore in many different directions
I've finished my sketches for the final three floor of the dungeon:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O2OHC3xmJY_ppX3oLTJ9RWTYci4PyNcZ/view?usp=sharing
This floor is like a series of connected halls and cathedrals, with some more coffins and tombs. There aren't many traps here since the Giants assumed no one would make it this far. There is a spinning column in the lower left portion of the map, connected to the spinning bridges in the floor above. The beholder and his minions have attached mechanisms and conveyors to the column to power their mining operations.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TqdoJ1K62ba7gF_FaBJj8vTVWUyHdT-j/view?usp=sharing
The fourth basement floor is meant to be impossible to navigate. The hallways spin counter clockwise and the square rooms spin clockwise, their entrances connecting and spinning to turn you around and, the Giants hoped, cause you to be lost forever. Powering everything (including the spinning mechanisms in the floors above) are stone golems cursed to forever turn a giant wheel, sealed away in the bottom left corner. A very hard to find path leads to them. Some of the spinning rooms contain traps, others guardians, and it would require smart planning and mapping to find a way through.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gv8VM253OQnSKTnJdQyMcoD48DIAcdmU/view?usp=sharing
The final floor. A massive hall venerating the greatest Giant hero. It is here that the greatest treasures are stored, as well as the most dangerous and evil force that the Giant sealed away. But I'm a bit unsure what that power should be. Do you have any suggestions? I was thinking either a lich or demonic "energy" that was sealed within his body and reawakens when the room is disturbed. Basically I want there to be some sort of twist to the dungeon: it wasn't only sealing away treasure, but something awful as well. But I'm at a bit of a loss as to what that could be and would make sense for the players to want to stop. Any feedback?
Some sort of Lich-Giant? All the powers of a Lich with the physical stats of a Giant. If the difficulty for that isn't high enough for your liking then surround it with other undead giant units or corrupted golems. It was the high priest who created this temple so long ago, who then turned to the darkness and was defeated and imprisoned by the hero who gave his life to do so. The histories of both of these great beings is long forgotten, but the carvings and scrolls in that chamber tell the story, so a bard turning up there would be overjoyed.