Let's worldbuild a megadungeon!

[Crumpet8406]

So a megadungeon is a dungeon with at least approximately 5x+ 5 room dungeons. I don't know what universe this is in but I will start us off with a nexus room. Someone give me a cardinal direction and as much or as little of a prompt as you like and I will try to write a room based on the prompt.

If someone else writes a room description for me and it is popular (say, 10 cups of coffee), then that is the official room.

We start with room 1-1, a central fountain square under a starry night. The fountain has been broken for weeks, the gardener has sent for the repairman but he's busy elsewhere at the moment, so the only inhabitant is a small black cat lounging on the side of the fountain barrier, licking its legs lazily.

There is a park bench with old half rotted wooden beams with a book sitting on it in a weatherproof manilla folder.

There are marble paths that lead North South East and West, and there is on the northeast side of the fountain a small metal square door set into the concrete plaza flooring.

To the southwest side of the Promenade Plaza is a fully functional phone booth, American style, well lit and has only been peed in twice.

Is this phone booth out of its universe or completely mundane? Is the year 1998, 2098, 1898, 98? Up to you all as we all work on adding "just one more room".

Someone give me a room now, room X-2 where X is 1 for ground level, 0 for basement level, 2+ for multi story, and where Room is less a physical room and more of a limited defined space that we can explore and send a nurderhobo party through someday.

 

[llillilll]

The fountain has a hole in it a human can pass by, albeit hard. The hole below looks darker than it should be, even if you swing your lantern to it.

A brave, or suicidal, soul would jump right in. The 0-1th room would greet them with a thick air and and oppressive darkness.

The room has 4 stone walls filled with moss, soo much soo that the brown walls are barely visible. The floor is slippery thanks to the moss.

There is a wooden door to the west. It is soo rotten it could be broken when tried to be opened.

agora isn't active enough to get 10 coffees in a post, only memes get that much reacts

 

[Crumpet8406]

The fountain has a hole in it a human can pass by, albeit hard. The hole below looks darker than it should be, even if you swing your lantern to it.

A brave, or suicidal, soul would jump right in. The 0-1th room would greet them with a thick air and and oppressive darkness.

The room has 4 stone walls filled with moss, soo much soo that the brown walls are barely visible. The floor is slippery thanks to the moss.

There is a wooden door to the west. It is soo rotten it could be broken when tried to be opened.

agora isn't active enough to get 10 coffees in a post, only memes get that much reacts

Fair enough @llillilll then 3 coffees it is! Let's see what awaits our unwise explorers until we hit a dead end or a deadly end

 

[Crumpet8406]

Vigilance or Perception type checks of hard difficulty would reveal to searching players that there are thousands of tiny depressions in the moss covered floor, they lead to and through a small hole in the bottom of the door below the hinges.

Passing a very hard knowledge type check would give players plausible ideas about their source, anything from moss door spiders to frog footed rats to a pocket centaur tribe to long trapped clockwork circus toy animals making their upteenth vain attempt to escape. Or, of course all those ideas could be wrong and it's much worse.

After making one's way through the door beyond, hopefully the door survives but no guarantee, one finds oneself standing at the western edge of a long winding hallway that curves slightly to the right like it was a soulcast oversized grimy underground banana. There is a large decal on the wall labelled 0-2.

To the north are two doors, one just next to you labelled 0-4, and one barely visible labelled 0-3 that has been clearly and hastily welded shut and partially boarded up. A brick red note says "no, sta" and then the apparent ink source ran out.

To the right on the southern and inside curve of the hall is an alcove with stairs leading down into a half flooded dark room that one cannot see the far walls of without entering it.

And at the far end of the hallway on the eastern side, there is an archway leading to another space, but the brown stone walls cease, replaced by roots and cobbled together packed dirt and misshapen craggy rocks.

The air is heavy and smells of plant life. There is definitely life here, that much is known.

 

[幽邃森林]

When one enters room 0-3, they are greeted with a memorizing gallery of floral and fungal life. Massive fragrant flowers lay on the floor with their petals making a soft mat. Vines dangle from the moss covered ceiling and the room is illuminated by what appears to be bioluminescent fungi dangling from above like lanterns. Condensation weeps from the plant life above making it appear as if there's a slight spring drizzle in the room and the atmosphere looks as if one stepped into a surrealist painting.

The mood is broken however if the adventurer makes an easy perception check. Footsteps from room 0-2 can be heard traversing down the hallway. Shivers would be felt down one's spine. Whoever, or whatever behind that door is emitting a sinister presence that would make the adventurer stand still and quiet.

Luckily the footsteps pass into the half flooded room as they would hear water sloshing with another easy perception check. If one is daring enough, they could follow the footsteps back in room 0-2, wade through the water, and can feel that there is a submerged staircase.

If one returns to the flower room 0-3 and makes an easy intelligence check, they'd notice that these are aquatic plants and that this room as well has been submerged. This is under a fountain after all. Maybe there is more to be uncovered in this lush flower chamber.

 

[Crumpet8406]

0-2 the half-flooded washroom is unsanitary at best. But there is indeed a submerged staircase leading down, further and deeper underwater. Characters who can breathe underwater through various means will find themselves at the beginning of the crystal cave (room N1-1), an entirely flooded antechamber long abandoned, the spiral staircase almost (but not quite) making it up and above the water. Large doors on the western (N1-2) and eastern (N1-3) sides of the room promise treasures and dangers for even those characters stalwart enough to breathe underwater, for water breathing is now just table stakes down at these depths.

Meanwhile back in the plaza, walking to the west from the promenade plaza leads one to the abandoned market (1-2), where the marble path gives way to gravel, dirt, and cobblestone in places, the creaky nasty stalls and shops desolate especially in this mostly cloudy, seemingly perpetually overcast weather.

(Note: once we have the megadungeon rooms reasonably laid out we can fill them with more NPCs, treasures, traps, and toys than we can come up off the tops of our heads when doing room creation, this can be iterative after all, while we only have ~8 rooms or stubs for rooms to get put in, at some point I will need to figure out how to do a map of these things hehe).

 

[Crumpet8406]

N1-2 - The Crystal Observatory

As you step into the Crystal Observatory, the air (rather, water as you remind yourself that this entire level is underwater) chills around you, sending a shiver down your spine. The room is vast, its high ceiling lost in shadows that dance just beyond the reach of the glowing crystal lights embedded in the walls. Each light emits a soft, pulsing glow, bathing the room in a serene, azure light that filters through the large, stained blue crystal glass windows. These windows cast intricate patterns on the cold stone floor, reflecting the drawn images of stars and sky outside in a mesmerizing display.

Dusty crud floats suspended in the water, flotsam of unknowable age.

The heavy double gothic doors to the south appear ancient, their dark wood adorned with iron details, suggesting they lead to yet another mysterious part of this sprawling structure.

To the east, a passage framed by natural rock formations leads towards the Crystal Cave Entrance.

Small crystals set into the walls at regular intervals around the room are embedded within the stone walls, strategically placed to illuminate the room and highlight the architectural beauty, yet with the lazily floating crud buckets of debris and half-rotted kelp, the light is spent showcasing the dirtiness of the partially occluded water

These crystals emit a bioluminescent glow, pulsing gently as if breathing, providing both light and a calming presence.

Above them, large windows made of thick, blue-tinted crystal occupy most of the northern and western walls, offering images of alien celestial constellations drawn into a dark rock face just beyond the windows.

The crystals are stained with an unfamiliar mineral that casts soothing teal light. A small, forgotten transparent telescope is positioned awkwardly near one of the windows, its lens cracked but frame still shiny, even as flotsam has begun to collect at its lense edge and tripod mounting to the stone floor.

There are two exits. To the east, an arch leads towards N1-1.

To the south, imposing wooden doors with ornate iron detailing, designed in a gothic style lock down the southern wall of the room.

The dark wooden door contrasts with the cold, rough-hewn stone that retains the chill of the deep earth around the outside walls of this subterranean underwater chapel.