Tag Archive | megadungeon
October 24, 2023  

Atalante’s Portable Megadungeon

Here’s a write-up of the greatest magic item of all time: Atalante’s Portable Megadungeon.

Knights check in, but they don’t check out!

And yes, it’s based on the Knight Hotel from Orlando Furioso.

If you want all this in a PDF version, you can find one free here on my itch page.

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Atalante’s Portable Megadungeon is a large, roughly rectangular carved stone.

  • The Stone: The stone is portable, but heavy, as large as a thick tome. It is a bulky item. When placed on the ground outdoors and the command word is spoken, the stone’s spirit instantly creates an illusory megadungeon.
  • Megadungeon Appearance: The megadungeon’s exterior appears as an ancient imposing fortress. The gate is open and unguarded. The megadungeon’s interior is an endless array of rooms, corridors, halls, towers, and courtyards that unfold before its unwitting prisoners.
  • Illusion of Heart’s Desire: The stone’s spirit can discern the heart’s desire of anyone within the dungeon or within sight of the gatehouse. The spirit can generate the illusion of a humanoid foe carrying whatever this desire may be deeper into the dungeon.
  • Entering the Dungeon: Anyone who passes beneath the gate falls under the spirit’s spell and will not be able to find the gate again without a guide unaffected by the illusions.
  • Heroes check in, but they don’t check out: At any given time there will be 2D12 prisoners already trapped within the megadungeon.
  • The Megadungeon is inhabited: The spirit creates illusory foes. The creatures are unaware that they are illusions and behave as if they were real. They will have factions and regularly intrigue against each other.
  • Cruel, but not Evil: The spirit has no desire to kill its prisoners or see them killed. Its job is to keep its prisoners trapped inside for as long as possible. Prisoners of the dungeon can take damage but can not be slain by an illusion while in the dungeon. The spirit will also use illusions to keep prisoners from killing each other. Food and drink can be found by those trapped inside.
  • Immunity: The stone’s owner is immune to its illusions and can locate and move to any individual trapped inside in a single round. Individuals immune to illusions can recognize that the megadungeon and its inhabitants are not real. However the illusions behave as if they were real when encountered.
  • Escaping the Dungeon: It is impossible to escape while under the spirit’s spell. However if one is unaffected by its illusions and can find the stone in the gatehouse and expose its arcane mark to sunlight, the spirit will take material form. If defeated in combat, duel of wits, or any sort of contest the spirit will dispell the illusion and the megadungeon vanish. All prisoners will be freed instantly with full health. The spirit can not be summoned again for a month and a day.

Enjoy!

August 20, 2013  

Nero’s Megadungeon

I finished Gilbert Highet’s Poets in a Landscape. It was pretty great. I recommend it.

It’s the type of book you can read a chapter of and then put aside for weeks or months and then pick up again when you’re on the way to the can or wherever, read another chapter, and continue on this way until the book’s done. It’s a collection of biographies, so it never feels like you missed anything.

Here’s a bit about Nero’s swinging megadungeon:

“What they saw as a labyrinth of rooms within a mound of earth, with tunnels and cells buried deep in darkness and trees growing high above its topmost story, had originally been a large and sumptuous mansion on the street level, open to the air and sky all around, and that it had simply been buried by age, disaster, neglect, and oblivion. They looked at the richly decorated halls, far beneath the level of what they knew as Rome; they saw the elegant and comparatively fresh decorations, satyrs and garlands and wreathed columns, sacrificial emblems and trumpeting tritons; they decided that such fantasies were appropriate for the subterranean orgies of a bad emperor, and that, just as Tiberius had gone to the topmost summit of Capri to indulge his nameless vices, so, Nero, to hide his delights from the eye of heaven, must have buried himself in a subterranean cave, a grotto, secret but brightly lit and brightly decorated.”

Lastly, in all the books I’ve read about Rome’s history (this is three books) there’s always mention of how in the Middle Ages Rome consisted of mostly fortified noble houses from which the nobility would fight one another in the ruins. AND THAT’S IT, like one little footnote. I want to read a book all about that. Seriously. If there was an Osprey Book, Gangs of Medieval Rome, I would eat that shit up.

In other news, Pelican died. I was sad. Now I have to play a paladin. It sucks.

And, Elmore Leonard died, which also sucks. I’ve only read one book by him, though I have a few of his Westerns here on my shelf. His books are one of the half dozen or so ubiquitous ones you find in expat used book store coffee shops.