Safe at Home
Prisoners are thrown into The Pit, but the fall does not harm them. In an earlier age, these dungeons were part of The Palace, and visitors would float down this shaft as a thrilling diversion. The same magic persists in the structure's current purpose, but it is merely a small mercy for the condemned.
The area at and around the bottom of The Pit is the sanctuary. Most of the prisoners stay very close to this location. The jailers provide food and water from above, but only enough to keep the prisoners alive. The only other provisions provided are candles. So many candles. The Sisterhood of Benevolent Abstraction receive favorable tax treatment for the production of the candles, so they send scads of them. All supplies are simply thrown into the slow-fall field of the shaft and float down to the waiting people below. The prisoners never even see their captors.
The sanctuary is safe. Just as the shaft is enchanted with Feather Fall, some ancient Sanctuary or Hallow spell shields this place from harm, and none of the monsters of the surrounding dungeon halls will enter this place. No threats from the dungeon can come here. Adventure does not happen here, experience cannot be gained here, and nothing new will be found here unless the PCs bring it there. The sanctuary follows the same principles as West Marches settlements; it is a place between adventures, not a place of adventures.
The sanctuary is a source of new PCs, hirelings, and henchmen. There are always some number of prisoners here. How many there are and who they are is a quantum aspect of the game. They only come into focus when the players need them.
It is also a place for downtime to happen. Any downtime activity that could be done in a settlement can be done here – if the PCs can come up with a plausible plan for acquiring the necessary resources. Expertise might be available within the pool of prisoners, or might be something a shrine could offer. The people in this space are really more of a resource the PCs can leverage, rather than distinct NPCs the DM will personify (although the DM may adjudicate what these NPCs need in order to do what the players want, and what they will refuse to do, in the same way the DM would step in to control the actions of a hireling who was otherwise directed about by a PC).
Up Above
Returning up the shaft is not a realistic option. At least, not at first. The walls of the cylinder are 200’ of smooth stone, and there is not remotely enough material at the bottom to build even makeshift platforms. The hole is set in the middle of the ceiling, not close to the walls, and covered by a heavy metal trapdoor that is winched open and closed by jailers overseeing four burly, ribbiting froxen. Beyond that aperture, several layers of protection within the prison itself stand between a would-be escapee and freedom.
All that said, it is not impossible to escape in this manner. If the PCs come up with an ingenious plan, going up the shaft and turning the tables on their jailers should be celebrated. But we presume that doing so will require at least some engagement with the megadungeon itself, to gather either the power or the resources to execute such a daring reversal.
The First Shrine
Near the sanctuary is the first shrine, the home of Carnyhollow. Carny is a “demon” in a technical sense, but lacks the willpower and can-do attitude required of an extraplanar entity to manifest a discernible moral position. It mostly just wants to accumulate wealth in exchange for junk.
At request, Carny can transform an object or objects into something else of one-tenth or less the value. For example, if 50’ of rope is valued at 10 silver coins, Jerry would require at least 100 silver coins worth of treasure to produce the rope.
He is indifferent to the type of treasure, but absolutely will not haggle or discount his price.
He will accept magical items, but can only produce nonmagical things in return, and will be conservative in guessing a value for a magical item without a clearly implied value.
He can only produce generic items and cannot customize them. He can create blank paper, but not specific books. He can create a padlock and matching key, but cannot create a key for a specific door in the dungeon.
The equipment list for the system in use is a good proxy for what Carny can create, and the DM can use common sense and liberally reject any requests that stray far from it.
Carny is most immediately useful as a supplier of basic equipment and an immediate use for treasure, but the party can consider more elaborate schemes as they acquire more riches.
Any dissatisfaction the PCs may express with Carny's terms should also motivate exploration. It is hardly the only such creature offering such services in the dungeon, and any friction the PCs experience with any particular NPC or antagonist should serve as a motivation to explore further.
Three Tiers of Maps (for the DM)
We’ll go through (at least) three tiers of planning out the dimensions of our megadungeon.
- A diagram showing only hard and soft barriers or exploration complications; verticality and danger levels; and treasure targets.
- A very loose and sloppy map that converts this diagram into approximate rooms and overlays factions and major points of interest onto it.
- A proper keyed map that fills in room-by-room contents.
Three Tiers of Maps (for the PCs)
To create concordance between planning the game and executing it, we will aspire for symmetry. We’ll provide (at least) three kinds of maps that PCs can find.
We want maps to be a highly prized resource. Even the humblest map might at least indicate the position of a trap or threat. In a high lethality game, that could save a PC’s life.
Recent and improvised. The PCs are not the first to explore these halls. Other prisoners have ventured out into the darkness, hoping to find treasure to trade at shrines, or even dreaming (foolishly) of escape. A map may be a crude series of lines on trash wedged under a door, or hurried chalk markings on a wall, or a self-applied tattoo on a corpse that didn’t make it out.
These maps are helpful for understanding recent and proximate threats and opportunities, but they won’t convey any deeper understanding of the dungeon.
Modern and carceral. Maps were required to turn this place from The Palace into The Pit. Perhaps the jailers were sloppy or indifferent to how this might aid prisoners. Perhaps they were in a hurry to leave this dangerous place and didn’t remove all signs of their work. Perhaps some of them were left behind here, buried with their plans. Perhaps that was intentional. These maps are helpful for understanding barriers and obstacles, and where the divergence between the structure's original purpose and its repurposing can create opportunities for the PCs.
Ancient and original. Beautiful blueprints made thousands of years ago. These maps are helpful for finding secrets and understanding magic, and locating particularly valuable treasures. None of these maps are perfect, because each is of its respective time and ignorant of what came before and after. But they are all useful, because they are foundational, and in many respects contain information not known anywhere else.
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