Megadungeon 2023

A fine link popped up in my FB feed, leading me to Mazirian's Garden and the Megadungeon 2023 challenge, and from there to Win Conditions - a substack by the challenge starter.  From the look of things, it is shaping up to be quite the collection of posts across the internet, to include my own.

Long-time readers may recall that I have already done some megadungeon writing in the past, addressing Overall Contents, Specials, Traps, Random Encounters and Wandering Monsters, and Monsters in general for an incomplete megadungeon. I even wrote some Rumors for it. This #Dungeon23 challenge may end up being the impetus I need to continue that ambitious project.

After all, 365 rooms (one each day of 2023) fills about 3.5 levels of my planned megadungeon, or more likely, 3 levels and one or two sublevels.  Finding folks to play through it with can wait until another day.

I demonstrated back in January that while I can participate in a month-long challenge, it quickly turned into a grind that I assuredly dreaded near the end.  I crossed that Character Creation Challenge finish line, but some of it was not my best work.  Dungeon rooms are substantially smaller, and there is no rule that I have to connect the rooms together, just that I need to write them.

If nothing else, I will be left with a deeper reservoir of ready rooms to dip into as needed.

Be warned, there are likely to be bad jokes, obscure references, homages, and statistically outright lifting (but not intentionally, I promise) scattered about my chambers, but that is half the fun. 

To get folks in the proper mindset, here are Philotomy's musings on the Dungeon as the Mythic Underworld, the Greyhawk Grognard addressing Megadungeon-based Game Mechanics and what that implies for a proper megadungeon, as well as some inspirational art.

Dave Trampier, from the AD&D Players Handbook

I look forward to seeing what folks dream up, as well as my own dreamings.  Join us!