The first level of the megadungeon is, in fact, the first hurricane map I drew on the night of September 29. The storm rolled in around 3–4 in the morning, but when I'd gone to bed a few hours earlier, my area wasn't really expected to get much beyond some heavy rains and high winds. The hurricane took a big swing to the northwest and passed right over us on its way to some Biblical-level destruction less than 100 miles north. That area is still badly messed up 11 months later.
I woke up on my office couch around 4 AM because I could hear the roof creaking (never a good sign). You could feel the shifting air pressure. I got up and looked outside, but noped back inside when I realized how intense things had gotten. I'm originally from South Florida and went through many hurricanes as a kid, so I knew this was a big storm. I got in bed in my shorts and t-shirt, with my heavy boots in easy reach, and just lay there listening to the winds howling and the sheets of rain lashing the house.
I'd heard some trees going down at some distance away, and we lost our power around 5, but at 6 AM I heard the first tree(s) come down in my yard. A neighbor's mimosa fell across my backyard, taking a second tree (and part of his fence) with it. That was it! I got out of bed and started a vigil. I live in an older section of my city (my house was built in 1929) and have several hundred-year oaks within crushing distance (not to mention a few dozen smaller, but still-dangerous trees).
So far, just the two trees had come down near me, but as I stood at my back door and watched, another 12 trees in my yard came down between 6 and 8 AM. My house sits on a moderate hill slope, and after the the torrential rains soaked the ground, the hurricane winds came up the slope, "against the grain" of the tree roots, and just toppled them, one after the other. Luckily, none of the oaks fell, but my neighborhood was now officially a disaster zone. My girlfriend slept through the whole thing. A crazy time and hard to believe it has already (only?) been a year.
The hand-drawn map came about while reading the DMG by candlelight that first night. I got tired of reading but felt some creative energy, so I just started doodling on a graphing pad. I began by rolling on the random dungeon design tables, but got bored with that so I started over drawing on my own, letting the rooms and corridors flow out of the pencil without any real design concept. I love creating maps and it usually doesn't take me long to start sorting out a good, logical floorplan. I ended up with this map:
Since this was only a drawing exercise I wasn't worrying about connections or routes between levels. As drawn, there is a staircase from "a" level above in the upper-left-center of the map that serves as the level "entrance." A second staircase to the left of that descends to "another" level below. There's also some teleporting halls with 4 entry/exit points, though there is an error, with only three letters (A–C) represented instead of four (A–D).
As I began developing this map into a connected dungeon complex, I realized I would need to create additional routes between the levels. I did not want to mark up the original hand-drawn maps (call me sentimental), so I used Photoshop to add some details to the digital image. Some of these details are copied from fragments of the existing map and repurposed elsewhere. Other details were hand-drawn on paper, scanned in, and converted into .pngs which I dropped into the map image.
I also created fonts for numbers and upper- and lower-case letters from my own handwriting, with the same pens I used to draw the map. After dropping in the room key numbers and a level title, fixing the issue with the mislabeled teleporting hall, placing a new grid, and adding shading to the solid walls of the dungeon, I ended up with this map:
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Next, I settled on a methodology for stocking the dungeon, relying mostly on the AD&D/OSRIC tables to flesh out the level contents. My first set of rolls (over a total of 42 dungeon locations) came up with the following results:
–Empty: 19 (45% / 35%)
–Monster: 8 (19% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 10 (24% / 25%)
–Stairs: 2 (5% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 0 (0% / 5%)
–Treasure: 3 (7% / 5%)
The first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC guidelines).
To determine the straight-up monsters (no treasure), I rolled four times on DMG table I (berserkers, orcs, skeletons, and giant rats), three times on Fiend Folio table I (jermlaine, al-mi'raj, and gnomes), and once on Monster Manual 2 table II (vortex*).
For monsters with treasure, I rolled three times on DMG table I (orcs, skeletons, and orcs), once on DMG table II (troglodytes), once on DMG table III (ghouls), four times on FF table I (orcs, orcs, giant fire beetles, and hobgoblins), and once on MM2 table III (fire snakes*).
*I inadvertently used the "wrong" encounter tables from MM2 during this first round of rolling. These were made from the "Dungeon Monsters by Level and Frequency" table on p.139 before I realized there were separate Dungeon stocking tables better suited for what I was doing. Vortices and fire snakes are not found on the standard encounter tables, but I didn't realize my mistake until I was already rolling for level 2, so I let these results stand.
Next I rolled out the 10 treasures (technically 20, since you roll twice on the table for treasures guarded by monsters), plus an additional 3 treasures (with no monster). The rolls came up with mostly coins, though an excellent distribution of silver, electrum, gold, and platinum (with only one cache of copper pieces in the bunch). There was one result of "gems" and one "magic item": a Scroll of Purify Water (1/Dr). Not very satisfying results, treasure-wise.
I was also, at this point, using a 50/50 chance for a treasure to be hidden and/or trapped (or not), resulting in 4 hidden treasures, 3 hidden and trapped, and 6 trapped. None of the treasures had neither concealment nor trap. This was when I started to doubt my decision to leave these features to the standard dice rolls. Instructions are a little vague in both DMG and OSRIC as to when to employ these percentages, but the obvious subtext is for the DM to roll it whenever they feel it is warranted (and not necessarily for every single treasure).
Here, I'd rolled 50/50 on every treasure just to randomize the stocking process as much as possible, but it's too much. When you trap half of all the goodies, your players can become so jittery that gameplay slows to a crawl as they check and double-check every little detail. It's also creatively exhausting to think up new ways to present bog-standard traps so as to keep things interesting. I've now reduced the percentages to 30/30 and retroactively excised some of the traps I rolled to reduce the overall number. I can reuse all that material elsewhere.
This first round of stocking rolls was not the point at which I decided to add more magic item rolls to my methodology, but I was pretty disappointed how the results shook out. I like magic items. I like having them; I like giving them out. I remember in 10th grade, my 2nd-level half-elf magic-user, Gemini, acquired a Wand of Fireballs with 3 charges. I felt like a badass just knowing I had the capability to unleash hell on all my foes, my comrades gave me respect because they wanted the protection the wand afforded, and my rivals hesitated to move against me due to the threat it posed. It was great! More, please!!
So turning up a paltry 1st-level druid spell scroll seemed pretty lame. As I began filling in my key outline, I added a "wizard vault" with 3 MU scrolls and 1 rando item. It would be protected by a potent Wizard Lock spell, a formidable obstacle for low-level parties to prevent lowbies from just stumbling in, but trivial at higher level. Even a persistent 3rd-level MU could get in eventually. The scrolls I rolled were Invisibility (2nd), Ray of Enfeeblement (2nd), and Feign Death (3rd), while the random item roll turned up a Robe of Blending... perfect! A low- to mid-tier caster item and on-point, thematically—a nice prize for a diligent and patient player.
Later (after making the content rolls for levels 2 and 3 and being similarly disappointed with the treasure results), I decided to add 3 free magic item rolls per dungeon level to each level (e.g., 6 rolls for level 2) This seems like a lot, but I figured most of them, statistically, would be consumable potions and scrolls. I also assume many of these items would be hidden or tricky to obtain, meaning the party would only retrieve some portion of them, but not all. I knew I would cap the number at some point once I saw how this idea sussed out. Going into the rolls for level 4, I'm capping the number at 3 items/level for the first 3 levels plus 1 additional item/level after (thus, level 4 gets 10 additional item rolls).
For level 1, I rolled 3 additional times and came up with a +1 Longsword, a +1 Broadsword, and a suit of +1 Plate Mail. Not quite what I was expecting/hoping for either, but I didn't want to tinker with the randomization much more than I had done already. Fortunately, the results of this change end up better and more varied on levels 2 and 3.
For the "Stair" category, the map already had a stair up to the surface ruins (level 0) and a stair down to level 2. When stocking the ruins, I had rolled a "Stair" result there as well: A trapdoor down from the surface to level 1. The results for level 1 indicated two additional stairs, both down one level, so I added all these to the map, giving me a total of two access routes from level 0 and three access routes to level 2. Finally, one of the treasures is protected by a pit trap, so I ended up making that a fourth level 2 access.
The stocking results came up with zero "Tricks" or "Traps," but I had a few "Special" areas already in my outline, based on details in the original map. One was the wizard vault; another was the series of teleportation corridors. I knew the the central octagonal room, surrounded by secret corridors, needed to be a special area as well, and it struck me as a good spot for a central teleportation hub that players could use to get to lower levels quickly (if they can figure out how to use it). This room's location and shape ultimately determined the shape of the Ivory Tower in the palace ruins.
I made an interesting personal discovery while designing this room. The chamber features carvings inlaid with "mithril," the fictional metal from Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy. I recall D&D having many references to mithril and for me, it has always been the defacto magical metal as long as I've been playing. But while looking up some sort of value for mithril, I learned that, in fact, there are just a sprinkling of references in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide (and it's spelled "mithral" in the DMG). In OSRIC, there is only a single reference to "mithril." I'm not sure why I've always thought it was a bigger deal in the original game.
After making my content rolls for levels 1–3, the results had lots of orcs on level 1, lots of hobgoblins on level 2, with a sprinkling of human berserkers on 1 and 2, and human brigands on level 2. These are groups that would likely not get along very well, suggesting an underlying conflict on these two levels. I made it a fight between the orcs and their (Chaotic Evil) berserker allies on one side, and hobgoblins and their (conquered) brigand conscripts on the other.
Referencing this simmering tension as a backdrop, these creatures were placed in logical areas of the dungeon level. With the human/humanoid results accounted for, and skeletons and giant rats being ubiquitous throughout the upper dungeon levels, I needed to work out what to do with jermlaine, al-mi'raj, gnomes, vortex, troglodytes, ghouls, giant fire beetles, and fire snakes .
Like jermlaines and xvarts, the al-mi'raj also originate from the Fiend Folio (technically, jermlaine are from D1–2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth, and represent one of Gygax's comparatively few contributions to that book). In Arabian mythology, the al-mi'raj was a fabled creature that caused all other animals to flee from their sight. In AD&D, they are basically 1HD unicorn-rabbits with no special abilities and a "dagger" attack. Of note, the Magic Resistance line in the al-mi'raj's stat block says "See below," but there is no follow-up information. The creature also has "a particularly acute sense of smell and sharp eyesight," but no commensurate Surprise modifier. Its horn isn't even worth anything special. The FF is full of such wasted, pointless ideas.
I wasn't sure how to include gnomes at first, but then the idea of them as orc-slaves emerged. The nature of the vortex (vortices, in this case, yet another Fiend Folio monster) lends itself to a trap of some sort. The trogs and the ghouls were both rolled on deeper-level dungeon tables, per guidelines. I made the trogs a small scouting party from the lower levels, and I sealed off the ghouls in a secret crypt. Like skeletons and giant rats, giant fire beetles are simply dungeon vermin I can slot in anywhere without needing a setup of any sort, but the fire snakes results got me excited because I've never used them. I immediately came up with an idea of the snakes lurking in a fountain of fire. They turned out to be another disappointing surprise, unfortunately.
It turns out they are simply immune to fire and camouflaged in flame (surprise modifier), and their venomous bite paralyzes its victims. It's an okay monster, but the fire theme feels weak with this creature (especially given the salamander's heat aura). Meh... They were one of the "Monster+Treasure" results, so I made them part of a more-elaborate dungeon room puzzle.
I added a (potential) pair of manes demons as part of a magical puzzle/trick/trap, which could definitely pose a problem to parties with limited magic. I came up with a few other interactive pieces, some based on the details rolled up on the treasure concealment table, and a couple of random, stream-of-consciousness details (like the dungeon graffiti) which have morphed into dungeon elements with greater meaning.
XP totals for level 1 include 120 HD of monsters worth approx. 2,600 xp (not including wandering encounters), plus another 11,591 xp in monetary treasure (not counting individual loot carried by orcs, etc.) for a total of 14,291 xp. Magic xp for kept items is either 7,200 using AD&D values or 4,340 using OSRIC; or 54,300 (AD&D) / 43,400 (OSRIC) for sold items.
I was very happy with the final result. The methodology worked well, even after tuning some elements to my personal taste. Patterns emerged from the results that felt natural and satisfying, and it wasn't difficult connecting the random pieces together into a (semi-)coherent whole. It's vanilla as hell, but in a good way (I like vanilla if it does the tropes right).
Alright... on to level 2!
>>Hurricane Dungeon – Level 1 Key
>>Hurricane Dungeon – Level 1 Map
<<Dungeon Level 0<<
>>Dungeon Level 2>>
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