Follow up to The Sign of the Blue Dragon, with some musings on Megadungeons

I wanted to post some more information concerning yesterday’s post, The Sign of The Blue Dragon: A Drop In Locale For Your D&D Campaign.

If Sascha and Father Lucas had been able to spend some more time deciphering the various writings on the walls of the Tavern, they might, at the DM’s discretion, have discovered some of the following:

1. The Tavern shifts through time, as well as dimensions.

2. The actual number of Prime worlds the Tavern visits is smaller than the chronicler whose words they were reading, thought. This is due to the Tavern visiting some worlds at different points in time. The true number is closer to 50. 

3. They didn’t get to the actual description of the dungeon level which the anonymous wizard explored. It was composed of a buried city, as if the buildings and infrastructure of the city had melded with a very large, crafted dungeon.  It was inhabited by demons, as well as a few other evil, outer planar beings. (The little map which was placed in the illustration is not an actual depiction of the dungeon level; it is an easter egg.)

4. There are a few adventurers who have figured out enough about the route the Tavern travels, that they sometimes brave using it on a regular basis. It is these parties who are responsible for keeping the place stocked with alcohol.

Originally, my idea of the genesis of the Tavern involved a failed attempt at creating a series of gates. I was never quite happy with that conception, but, as no party had ever dared remain inside for any length of time, I never had an impetus to revisit the idea, or develop the Tavern further. After reading Philotomy’s essay, The Dungeon as Mythic Underworld, I had a few other ideas.

The Tavern began its strange journey, when a group of adventurers stopped a Demon Lord from drawing several Prime Worlds into its layer of the Abyss. The Tavern was originally located at a point of entry of Abyssal Energies into one of these worlds. Through the use of Wishes, and similar magics, the heroes created a convergence of these points of entry, using the Tavern to tie them together and create a sort of  inter-dimensional plug, or lock, stopping the transformation process and ending the Demon Lord’s plans. Though they were mostly successful, the only way the heroes could find to bring their plan to fruition, was to sacrifice the world from which the Tavern came. The Tavern was sort of a Trojan Horse in this regard and when the Abyss swallowed that forgotten world, the magics built into the Tavern went into effect. Now, as an unforseen byproduct of the spells used to empower the Tavern, it constantly Plane Shifts to the various nexus points which form the connections between the Abyss and the worlds involved in the original conflict. This includes the world from which the Tavern originated, which is now a part of a vast dungeon inside one of the layers of the Abyss. Or, perhaps, this layer is really just one big Dungeon.

Several days ago, I read a blog post where someone mentioned the idea of The Mythic Underworld Dungeon spreading its tendrils throughout the Prime Material. Not sure who that was, so, if anyone reading knows, please drop me a comment so I can attribute and link.  Could this layer of the Abyss be the Ur-Dungeon? Or, perhaps, the as yet unnamed Abyssal Layer may be just a part of The Dungeon, which runs through all the evil aligned Outer Planes. Perhaps it is a demi-plane, burrowing its way into the various underworlds, as well as the Inner Planes.  If so, what dark god or fell power might be behind such an influential force?

Going back to the Tavern, there is a slightly different version of this locale that I have used in past campaigns. This is The Sign of the Angry Dwarf, which, in addition to the properties of the first version, also confers Protection From Evil upon anyone inside the Tavern.  I’m not sure if the two taverns are the same, but the latter version is sometimes frequented by a Dual-Class Thief 4/MU 2 named Giovanni Casanova, who may know the secret to controlling, or at least guiding, the Tavern’s journey.

Any comments, critiques or ideas furthering this material are most heartily welcome!