D-2: Brainstorming a story

 Ok, now for getting on paper a few things I've been thinking about, so I don't forget. At least for me, I think this dungeon needs a story. A story means I can understand the dungeon's role and place in the world, which means I can understand what each room is doing, why it exists, what its purpose is, what it once and currently contains, etc. I want any players going through this dungeon to be learning new things, and I want them to want to discover more about the place. Exploration can be its own reward (and I'll probably reward them for major discoveries with xp).

The story so far

The tower is very old, predating the legends of the people who live in the region. All they know is that people who go in don't always come back out. There are legends of a magnificent treasure inside, but sensible people don't believe it.

The tower was the long-ago fortress of some civilization. I'm not certain what kind of people manned there. At the moment I'm actually thinking of explicitly setting this in the Mwangi in the Pathfinder-standard world of Golarion, and in that vein, I was wondering about making it either a Iruxi (lizardfolk) or Sekmin (serpentfolk) fortress. I'm also thinking it will be set high in the mountains, and wintery, which might be a nice contrast with reptilian imagery. But maybe that's too silly. Also, overgrown ruins in the jungle is an iconic image for a very good reason.

Anyway, long ago this tower was involved in defending against a massive invasion of baddies. I'm leaning towards demons/devils, but other options are cool too (heck, if we go with the Sekmin idea, maybe it was an Azlanti invasion)? The besiegers were ultimately defeated by the garrison's wizard/magician, but at terrible cost (the spellcaster may have been the only survivor? Maybe not that though).

Probably driven by guilt, the wizard (I'll call him/her that, and call her a her, for the sake of not caveating every other sentence) begins working to make sure an invasion like this can't happen again, building the tower into a great collection of knowledge and magical research. But her constant quest to save the world leads sooner or later to madness, perhaps being willing to justify any means to further her research. She is eventually slain (I want it to be by her best friend/the commander during the siege, which is why I don't necessarily want the whole garrison killed off).

But, in a twist that surprises no one who knows I want to inspire a whole megadungeon, she's taken out insurance against just such a betrayal, and arises again as a lich. Whoops! She's been trapped in the underdepths of the tower, however, either by some heroes or as a condition of the magic granting her undeath.

Incidentally, I like the idea of a lich particularly because it's only a lvl 12 enemy, and if you remember from yesterday, I expect the players to finish at lvl 14. This means I can expect them to face the lich a few times, probably eventually defeating her before they're high enough level that it isn't a challenge. But! maybe we can pull a bit of a bait-and-switch where they think defeating the lich is the end of the dungeon, before discovering that they need to find her phylactery, which is hidden and secured somewhere else entirely. And in the meantime, she can come back as a demilich or hordelich or some other, higher-level foe to challenge them one last time.

Meanwhile, the lich has been driven mad and twisted and is now either confused or wants to take revenge, and is working to open a portal to hell/the abyss (right now I'm leaning more towards demons, as I feel like some CE energy works better with what I imagine as the lich's motivations). Between that, the residual defenses of the tower, and the tons of magic the wizard/lich stored here, that gives us lots of fodder for encounters. I'm also thinking the tower was built somewhere to tap into elemental power. I'm leaning towards elemental earth, because I feel like it's more of a challenge to make that exciting, but it synergizes well with a party delving deep into the earth below. I can just make the mountain a volcano instead and make it elemental fire. Those are probably the only two options that would work well.

Also, I like the idea that the party has to face an ancient dragon as their final test. But I'm not certain how to work that in. I'll ruminate.

Environments: a working list

One thing I want to do to avoid making the place feel same-y and give the players a sense of a real location with secrets to explore is make different areas feel distinctly different. I also don't want it to totally line up with floor levels; they should be mapping the place out in an effort to learn their way around and discover how things are connected.

To facilitate it, I want the dungeon to have discrete environments that are readily recognizable and logically connected; these are going to be both horizontally (spread out over levels) and vertically (extending up and down levels) oriented. Obviously the location in the dungeon influences what is possible on each level, but I don't want any level to have only one environment--at least, with one or two exceptions.

These are my current list of environments. Some are probably sub-elements, and I don't need to consciously keep a distinction between them. In other cases the ideas need to be more fleshed out. I want enough distinct environments so the party notices moving across them with regularity, but I don't want so many that it loses it's cohesive element. Ultimately, something like 6-10 is probably the right number, but that's just a guess.

  • Built environment:
    • tower/fortress/fortifications. Includes barracks and service spaces
      • built on the surface
      • built/carved into the mountain
      • towers
      • inside defensive walls
      • outdoor spaces?
      • both intact and ruined/rubble variants
    • Wizard's tower. Areas where magic has clearly had a big role; the laws of physics weren't followed in constructing or modifying these areas.
    • Ossuary. Area where those who died in service (or especially in the big siege) are buried. I'm sure no one expects areas where lots of dead bodies are stored in a dungeon to result in anything.
    • Stables/flying yards. I imagine the tower was so important because the garrison had flying mounts (drakes, if we're going with reptilian inhabitants) which they could use to harass and raid any invader which bypassed them. So there's going to be a largish area which was once dedicated to them, and had open air access.
  • Natural environment:
    • Underground tunnels/caverns. Dry tunnels which the builders expanded, reinforced, or built some structures into (doors, for example), but which are primarily unworked
    • Underground caverns, vegetated. Areas where life has taken hold. Probably this area is distinctive for phosphorous fungi, because that's always a fun trope. Whereas other areas the
    • Rift. I'm picturing a massive underground open space, descending for many levels up and down. Preferably the party finds it well before flight becomes an option (L7), so it starts out as an obstacle and then becomes something of a superhighway, giving them easy ways to bypass some areas as needed.
  • Magical environment:
    • Elemental earth. Some area which is distinctively unnatural, but driven more by the elemental plane of earth than the material underground environment. I'm not yet certain how to make this distinctive and memorable.
    • Abyss-influenced. Probably either this space is also close to the abyss, which is why the demons invaded in this region, or the lich's efforts have brought the abyss closer. In either case, it's having bad news effects on the surrounding environment.
    • Dragon's lair. Having a dragon may be packing too much in, but I want to keep it under consideration. Since I'm calling this locale "Thunder Rift," it might just have to be a blue dragon. But it may be dropped in whole.

That's all for today! I'm going to have to learn to write short things. Hopefully when I'm just describing a room, I can keep these entries to a paragraph (although I know I'll have some thoughts on the first room or two to share). Have a good last few days before the descent begins!

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