The dungeon's name and background

[Mythmere]

Go for it!

[Mythmere]

Some ideas for the name:
A metal plus "deeps:" Bronzedeep, Brazendeep, Silverdeep, etc.
Halls of plus whatever; Halls of the Lower Darkness, etc. Probably better for level names, this, actually.
Warcraft style naming: Zul Andor, Argath Nor, etc.

[Arthnek]

Here are my couple of ideas.

I think the megadungeon should reflect the classic of the classic style dungeon setting. To my mind that means that the big bad guy inhabiting it is a powerful dragon capable of both speech, spell casting and the sort of mega villain leadership usually reserved for humanoid villains.

With that in mind I was thinking a ruined castle set on the shores of a sea or lake reached through a swamp or bog would be pretty cool. This would allow for some variation on using water in some fashion in some of the levels.

I thought the Dragondeeps might be a cool name for the dungeon itself and maybe the castle is known as Dragonwald Castle or something of that nature.

The ruined castle up topside and upper levels would be inhabited by minions in the service of the dragon and maybe there would be an evil dragon worshipping cult involved and dragon worshipping theme'd temples down below. Maybe the castle has a dark history of its own...maybe it used to belong to a line of evil nobles with some vampirism or undead stuff in their background so the crypts area might conceal an entire other faction of major bad guys that might accidently be released by the heroes on their way to down the big dragon bad guy in the lowest levels.

As a twist maybe the dragon turns out to be an ancient and extremely powerful dragon turtle. I dunno. Just tossing out ideas here. The dragon turtle could have been raiding and sinking ships for years litering the sea floor outside of the castle with broken hulls of ships. Maybe it has a way of getting inside that is impossible to enter without a specific magical key to keep the adventuring party from trying to get in through the back door.

Anyway. Just some very rough ideas.

Arthnek

Finished a side view map of the levels for the place, well for my idea anyway. Very rough obviously.

[Scottenkainen]

I just noticed this going on.

A normal dragon doesn't have the magical capacity to make a mega-dungeon. Air integrity, structural integrity, temperature control, suppressing the water table (or putting a forcefield around the dungeon to control/prevent water seepage -- there aren't enough spells to account for all the magic that must go into the daily maintenance of a mega-dungeon. Gygax, perhaps inadvertently, got one important detail right in that it would take a demigod to do all this.

I just had a thought. Demigods building dungeons is old hat, as are imprisoned demigods. But what if the dungeon itself was the demigod? An imprisoned, evil demigod and, every time you beat a level, you're weakening the demigod? The dungeon corridors are its veins, the monsters its blood cells, the rooms its organs. Not in the literal sense that Nightmare Keep was, but figuratively so. On the bottom level the demigod itself can confront you at whatever power level it has left based on how many levels you beat.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[Mythmere]

Sidetracking just for a moment:

Stuff to put in a dungeon:
A pocket demiplane
A small jungle
Lake and river
Lava
Pathway to another planet like Barsoom
Deep-sand "desert" level (never seen that)
Horror from ancient times

[Arthnek]

Whatever you guys want.

I was thinking the original castle and dungeon was built by an ancient line of nobles with alot of magic at their disposal. THe dragon came along later and occupied the bottom level, the dragon cult growing up around the dragon from some more recent local lizard man or tribals or something from the nearby swamp.

I mean the dragon could have any kind of minions you want. REally anything could be in the place.

Maybe start attributing stuff to different levels?

WIth my original idea there would be a crypt level or two where the original nobles responsible for building the place would be buried or imprisoned or both. Vampires, mummys, undead servants etc....

There would be a main dragon vault and temple associated with it..I was thinking level 20 for that.

Pretty much anything would go in the rest of the place and if you changed the background to something different you really could do anything with any part of it although I personally have a need for dungeons to at least make a small amount of sense, but that's just me.

[Mythmere]

Organizationally, here's a variant on Arthnek's

[Grim]

Organizationally, here's a variant on Arthnek's

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f200/ ... crossx.jpg

I like this one a lot.

[Mythmere]

More name ideas:
Gravendeep
Oldengard

[Grim]

More name ideas:
Gravendeep
Oldengard

Since it's by water, maybe Fathom or Fathoms Deep?