World's Largest Dungeon (2nd draft (getting there))
The World's Largest Dungeon is a really, really large d20 adventure from Alderac. While it might not be the largest dungeon ever (I think Castle Zygyg will be 8 128 page books; Undermountain is at least 2 boxed sets and 3 modules plus a computer game; Dungeon World was an entire plane and I think 3-4 books), it's definitely the largest dungeon in one book. 840 pages, with little to no artwork and a very small font, 810 or so of which is for the dungeon (the rest is a small intro and appendix).
It's priced at a cool $100, but can be had cheaper online (I got mine on ebay new, for $30). That's a lot of money (in either case, at least for me), but it is more or less the equivalent of 15 64 page dungeon crawls, which generally go for $15 each or so. So it is actually a pretty good deal, even at full price, in terms of what you get. At least in pure "stuff"
This is a strange book to review. Like I said, it really is the equivalent of 15 or so 64 page adventures, which I normally write about 6-8kb of words for. So the Worlds Largest Dungeon probably deserves the world's largest review. But that ain't gonna happen, at least not from me. But I will try to cover it as best as possible.
Dungeon Backstory:
The history of the dungeon is perhaps not the most original in the world. It seems that the powers of good (aka the Celestials) decided to imprison a bunch of evil types and built a giant prison to hold it. Like always, instead of building the prison in someplace nice and safe like say, in some obscure outer plane or out in space on a moon or an asteroid, they built it in a fairly hospitable place on an inhabited planet. Because as Lord Helmet says, "Good is stupid."
In this case, good was even stupider than normal, because they apparently built this prison in a tectonically active region (ie, somewhere that has earthquakes, presumably near a fault line) and even better, built it underneath a lake.
So anyway, as you can probably guess, the prison worked fine until one day an earthquake happened and boom, it fell apart and the prisoners started running amok. At which point it sort of turned into "Escape from New York", basically they stopped trying to guard it from the inside (sorta, there are still guards remaining inside), but have the entrance and exit guarded.
The Dungeon Itself
Unlike a lot of dungeons, this is essentially just one big flat thing (except for one small area below the map), with no vertical component/variation. This makes mapping much easier, but I think loses a lot of flavor.
It's basically a 4x4 sectional map, with each section being one "sheet" (for lack of a better word), except for one which is actually two "sheets". So there are a total of 15 sections. Each sheet is really about the size of a 4x4 regular sheet of graph paper, though, so it is a big dungeon. (I think the biggest one I ever made was 8x8, this is 16x16)
There is one really big complication to it. It's like a roach motel - PCs go in, they don't come out. Because it was meant to be a prison for extraplanar types, there is some sort of magical field blocking teleportation out. And once you go in the entrance, it closes and you can't go out. So as written, if you are going to run or play this, you are in for the long haul and will need a lot of dedication both from the GM & players. The book estimates that it will take 2 years of gaming to finish.
Another interesting thing is that it contains every monster that is in the SRD. (The SRD being the online version of the d20 rules that 3rd party publishers can use in lieu of the PHB/DMG/MM). They got a bit cute here, it doesn't contain every type of monster, ie, not every sort of dragon, or every sort of sphinx. But each base type. (Which is actually odd, since I think they did have room for everything).
Just a note on encounters - pretty much every one has information on how to scale the encounter to make it harder or easier. Which is really really helpful. Because while each section has a suggested level range, the PCs don't go through the dungeon linearly. In many cases, there are two sections a party of the same level range can do. But once they do that section, they'll be out of that range (since they will likely pick up 2 levels per section), so if they backtrack and do the other section, it would be too easy.
Section A "Longtail's Destiny" by Michael Hammes
This is the section just after the entrance
Basically, a group of humanoids, led by a wererat named Longtail, came to the dungeon for adventure and loot (same reasons as the PCs). However, they soon found that there wasn't all that much treasure in this section, and so they sort of broke up.
This is a fairly straight forward section. Maybe not go from room to room and kill everything, but close to it.
From section A PCs can go to section B or E
Section B "A Goblin Empire?" by Chris Burns and Jim Pinto
Sort of like Section A, a group of humanoids migrated to this section. In this case, goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears.
At first the 3 groups fought for power, but eventually the goblins and the hobgoblins made an alliance, which resulted in them more or less taking over the region.
However, this goblin empire ran into a problem. A new religion started, and not all of the goblins wanted to follow it. So there is something of a civil war.
Add to this mix a whole bunch of blink dogs who just showed up one day (which happens, that's how I got my 2 dogs. And a bunch of cats) and a dastardly Halfling named Bartleby (which thankfully hasn't happened to me).
Here things start getting more complicated. While presumably the PCs could simply kill all the goblins, they would probably be better off siding with one faction or another.
It's connected to both section C and F, but PCs need to get a key from section C to open the door to section F.
Section C "The Final Option" by Jeff Stolt and Richard Farrese
This section was meant to house just one fairly powerful demon. It's got a fairly complicated backstory. It seems that the last followers of some goddess were directed here to help garrison the dungeon (this part, anyway). Her name is either Myruun or Merunda, depending which half of the section you're reading. The demon imprisoned here broke free, but the last followerers of the goddness managed to destroy him, but all perished doing so.
It's now inhabitanted by some gnolls, a black dragon, and some hill giants. There's also a whole bunch of traps and tests left over from the days when it was a prison.
This is interesting to read, because you learn of the fate of the followers. But I'm not sure that translates into fun for the players, as it's heavy on the puzzles and traps and magical effects (mostly negative). Your Rogue player might have fun here, but most the others could get bored or annoyed if they fail some of the 'tests', whose answers may or may not be obvious.
This section connects to section G.
Section D "The Tartarean Depths of the Xill Master" by Robert J. Schwalb
Although this is the 4th section in the book, it's one of the tougher regions in the dungeon, and is the lower right corner, only accessible after you've done most of the dungeon (at least gotten to the middle). It's meant for levels 14-18
Xills are one of the creepier monsters in d20, I think. They are sort of a combination of the alien from Alien and the predator from Predator. Intelligent and a hunter like a Predator, but can implant eggs in people which then come bursting out like the Alien.
The background of this level is somewhat convoluted. It's a level holding a fairly powerful fiend, a Pit Fiend. Now for reasons that are too lengthy to go into, this xill wants to get a wish spell cast for him. Presumably being a xill, he can't just go buy one from a wizard someplace. So he heard about this Pit Fiend being trapped and thought "Hey, if I rescue him, I can get a wish out of him".
This section is good, but could have had more variety in the inhabitants. Basically it's either Xill, Derros or Deep Dwarves.
The players are also under a deadline (this is one of two sections that are like that). If they don't hurry up and kill everything, a demonic horde will be let loose in the dungeon. Presumably killing off everything else. (Though if the players have gotten this far, most everything else is already dead). Or possibly if they aren't careful, a tarrasque. This is a really thorny problem.
After doing this, the players will have to backtrack.
Section E "The Last Stand" by Lee Hammock
This is another prison section. But this section still has some celestial guards trying to guard. But they've split into two factions, half-crazy and half sane.
The crazy guards have decided to start drafting or pressing passersby into a group of guards called the "Redeemed". This is one of the earlier sections of the dungeon (possibly the 2nd ones the PCs explore), so it's for low levels. As such, the PCs are probably outclassed by the remaining guards, so if they were evil, they would get stomped on by the guards. So this is a pretty clever solution, I think, they just get drafted instead of killed. (Though really evil PCs probably shouldn't be playing this adventure, since a lot of people won't like them.)
The sane guards do their best to ignore the crazy guards.
PCs can go to section I or F from here
Section F "The Maze" by Richard Farrese
Somewhat ironically, given the original maze was meant to imprison the legendary Minotaur, in D&D, Mazes & Minotaurs go together. And since this is named "The Maze" and basically is one, of course, it's teeming with Minotaurs.
Actually, it's almost got a Greek mythology thing, there's also harpies and manticores and a hydra and a sphinx (which is Egyptian, but the Greeks borrowed it) and a medusa.
Section G "Hell on Earth" by Richard Farrese
This is another prison section, and it also has some guards left. These are all pretty sane, though.
However, their leader is dying, because he uses himself to recharge the power of the section, not the magical charging gizmo (which is lost). The PCs need to find this gizmo and give it to the guards so the leader can recover.
But as mentioned, this is a prison. It holds a powerful Demon Lord, Krasveshk. And lots of lesser demons are trying to spring him. Somewhat ironically, though, for a Demon Lord, he ain't that tough. He's actually "just" a Nalfeshnee, which are generally 3rd from the top. (Marilith and Balor are generally tougher. And ironically, they need to fight a Marilith to get to this guy).
Still, this level is aimed at 9th to 11th level characters, presumably if they take these demons on, they get help from the remaining celestial guards. Having lots of fairly high powered extraplanar critters fighting in one combat can be tricky, since all of them have lots of magic powers.
Besides that bunch, there's also some other evil critters that don't really care one way or the other.
Section H "Protectors of the Tree" by Jennifer Baughman
This is my favorite section of the dungeon. Unlike the rest of the book, it's not really a dungeon crawl. For one, it's got more role-playing and character interaction (other than just combat). For another, it's almost a forest adventure, as opposed to a dungeon.
As mentioned earlier, the dungeon was apparently built on a fault line. And underneath a lake and forest. An earthquake happened, and the top came crumbling down. The lake fell elsewhere, flooding the region, but this got the forest. Including a very very old treant which was venerated by a group of wood elves.
Being a tree, the treant survived (I guess they don't really have internal organs to get squished), but apparently haven't fallen, can't get up. (Actually it was immobile before it fell, not having seen one of those scooter for the elderly commercials). And the elves beeing elves, decided they would go down into the dungeon and protect him.
Even though it's fairly deep in the earth, they transformed it into a woodland via the clever use of mirrors. They had to have a region like this in order to use all the woodland critters in the SRD, I guess.
Anyway, the wood elves garrison this place, but there has been trouble lately. It's ruled by a council of various things, and some of them have started going a bit nuts. And to top it off, lots of the elf warriors have gone missing while on patrol. Have they deserted, have they been eaten by something (more like appetizers than dessert) or something nefarious?
Presumably the PCs will get to the bottom of it.
There's a number of woodland related NPCs, with fairly detailed personalities and such. However, most of them are either the leaders or other important NPCs, I think it glosses over the regular folks too much. (This probably couldn't be helped, as presumably there was a space limitation). And one of the NPC's names is a glaring allusion. The last name of Dante (author of the Divine Comedy), and it works in a purgatory reference. While clever, that sort of stuff does sort of destroy the suspension of disbelief. But it's easy to rename NPCs, so no biggie.
Section I "The Halls of Flesh" by Mark Carroll and Jim Pinto
This is pretty icky. The whole region has been infused by living energy, making the place fleshy. Also lots and lots of mutants and aberrations.
See, basically a long time ago, a group of Drow and Dridgers entered the prison. But there was a revolt, and the Driders took over. But in order to reproduce themselves, they had to do icky experiments. Some of these experiements went awry, including one particularly nasty experiment involving a bronze dragon egg and a ham sandwich. The results of the latter created two Lovecraftian style monstrosities dubbed "Madness" and "Anguish". (In fact, this section even quotes a line from Lovecraft).
Anyway, the Drow and Driders still inhabit this area. Presumably the PCs will kill them. But they also can possibly make friends with the Drow, because some of them are rebels.
Section J "The Pyrefaust" by Jeff Dohm
As you might guess from the name, this is full of fire critters. This section was meant to house a big 'ole red dragon.
The red dragon in question clocks in at a cool CR of 23, so the PCs probably want to run when they meet him. (If they do so, they can go to section N)
Also as a bonus, there is a vampire lady here, underneath. She's pissed off at someone else in the Dungeon and wants him killed, so tries to enlist the PCs to do so.
Section K "The Shallows" by Patrick Kapera
This is one of two sections where the water from the lake that fell into the dungeon settled. So there is standing water here, though it's not that deep (thus the name).
This section is inhabited by several different factions. An evil group of hags, a green dragon, a tribe of tritons and a tribe of merfolk.
I think this is where the David Hasselhoff reference is. There's a lizardman with the name of "Hassslessh", which seems to me to be a lot like Hasslehoff, spoken in lizardman-ish. And the portrait kinda looks like him, too (you don't usually see chest hair on a lizardman. Joke.).
Section L "The Deeps" by Dana DeVries
This is the other section where the water from the lake fell, but in this case, it's deep water (again, thus the name)
This is one of the sections where the PCs are up against the deadline. Unless they kill everything (or almost everything) in the region quickly, a big bad evil guy will invade section K and kill everything in it (or almost everything).
This section has a vertical component to it of sorts. Everything is sort of flat, but various rooms/keyed locations are at various depths.
Section M "The Chasm" by Mark Carroll, Richard Farrese and Patrick Kapera
This is sort of a great big cave, actually. Full of Drow & Driders. As mentioned, I think, the Driders in this Dungeon have reversed the traditional master/slave relationship, and rule over the Drow as slaves. (Actually, I thought Driders used to get exiled, but I guess that was before 3e).
Section N "Tomb of the Unliving" by Richard Farrese
This is the double section. It's a place where a whole bunch of undead was imprisoned, along with a nasty god of death (or something like that). So essentially it's just one really really big crypt
There's basically 3 factions. A mummy lady, a lich dude, and a very unfriendly ghost of a Blackguard. Each of these factions wants to wake this god of death, but they want to be the ones who do it. (The Ghost actually just wants to escape the dungeon)
This section I really liked. It's pretty much the most "epic" section of the book, if not in the power level of the monsters, but in the scope of what the PCs do and experience. The power level is probably the same as "D", but this section is far more interesting.
Section O "Halls of Ice and Stone" by Ari Marmell and Jeff Ibach
Unless I'm missing something, this last section, which is the exit area, is something of a let down. Chances are very good that if the PCs have done all the previous sections, they are all at least level 20, if not higher (presumably using the Epic Level rules).
The last battle is pretty tough, CR 23, but is against a pretty pedestrian frost giant cleric. I mean, after you've battled lich lords and world eaters; tarrasques and demon hordes; and enough drow to make R.A. Salvatore cry, a frost giant is somewhat anti-climatic, even if he is a high level cleric.
Still, like everywhere else, they provide help to scale up (or down) the encounter. But a Frost Giant? Maybe if he killed the PCs parents, or something, it would be more climatic, plot wise.
Really, I think N should have been the final section, with the bad guy from there being the last boss. At least in terms of "plot". But that said, since most of the challenge here is not obvious ( most of the monsters are tough because they either have high class levels or large numbers (or both)), the players could run into trouble by acting too rashly. So this was a pretty devious decision to end the dungeon on something seemingly easy, but not.
But anyway, the exit part of the dungeon was more of an accidental exit than an official one. An exit opened up in some icy caves. Fairly recently, a large tribe of frost giants decided to set up shop around it, as part of a toll booth sort of operation, getting money and such from people leaving.
Other Stuff
Among the other stuff is the amazing revelation that you can do percentiles that are multiples of five (ie, 5%, 20%, 35%) by using a d20 instead of a d100. My goodness! Who'd have thought? They even helpfully provide a chart. This really made me go, WTF? I mean, is there anyone who plays RPGs that doesn't know you can do that on a d20? I am not good at math - I couldn't handle boundry value problems in college, but this is like 2nd grade math.
Looks & Layout
If you love lavishly illustrated books, then this is not for you. Personally, I don't really care one way or the other, but at least in section H, I would have liked to have seen illustrations of the major NPCs. The other sections have fewer personalities, more things just to kill, but they do have some notables as well that could have been illustrated.
Beyond a fair amount of typos, there are some editing glitches. Maybe not glitches. But things are rarely explained as well as they could or should be.
I actually have to wonder if most of these problems weren't caused by (somewhat ironically) space limitations. Several sections have the feel of being cut down. I usually trim my reviews and I often cut stuff out without properly connecting the remaining parts together. While I can't cite specifics, I get the same sort of vibe.
Final Thoughts
It's actually pretty decent, but it falls well short of being a legendary dungeon in anything other than size. That is, there's really nothing remarkable or all that memorable about it.
A couple sections are pretty good (H and N, I liked the idea of I, but the implementation could have been better), but the majority are just sort of bland.
I also think it's got some logic problems (er, beyond the normal logic problems with dungeons). Like it's supposed to be a secret prison no one really knows about. Except there are these elves that regularly fly in and out to protect a really famous tree. How can the tree be famous, but not the location where he is? At least the general location.
And besides being based on the premise that "good is stupid", it also seems to be based on the premise that good is lazy. Apparently having spent tons of effort making and staffing this prison, the various celestials now ignore it, once it gets damaged and the prisoners riot? Pffft.
I also think having it like a roach motel really hurts it. I mean, very few people will want to do nothing but a dungeon crawl for 2 years. And I would have to think many of those who do would want to do more than just the same dungeon. I know I wouldn't want to be in the same building for 2 years, even the world's largest brothel (even with pizza delivery).
Personally, I think it would have been a better, and more importantly, a far more useable, product if this had been dropped, and the dungeon could be entered/exited in various locations. True, PCs can leave about halfway through, thanks to the hole in the middle. But that's not easy, and that's still quite a long ways in.
I also think it suffers from too much repetition (not my using "I also think", but the dungeon itself). I mean, in too many cases, the PCs have to stop the evil lesser creatures from freeing the big bad evil creature. And a fallen angel who became an Eryinyes is the villainess in two different sections. (Another became a vampire, and is the villainess in another).
Similarly, some sections are basically just 1-3 monsters, over and over and over and over again. And in many cases, I don't think they are all that great, as monsters go. Driders! Ugh. 1-2 Driders is fine. Sections full of them are not.
Lastly, they seem to have had some differences on how the d20 system (or roleplaying as a whole) should work. For instance, they don't like the Take 10/Take 20 rules, so they tell you do not use them and have designed the dungeon so you don't. They change the experience system (in part to keep characters from leveling up so much, but some of the logic they try to use to justify it is a bit silly). And in giving advice on how to make goblins tougher, they tell you to cheat. While probably every DM fudges from time to time, if you blatantly cheat, that can really piss off players. If they wanted that section tougher, why not give the Goblins class levels or something?
Writing a huge dungeon according to AEG's house rules is fine, since they made the book, but it reduces the ease of which people playing normal D&D can use it. They'll have to change back the changes AEG made. Which in part largely defeats the purpose of buying a premade dungeon to begin with.
Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll be actually ever use it. I certainly don't have the attention span of running a game in one dungeon for 2 years. And taken separately, each section really doesn't compare well to the various Dungeon Crawl Classic modules from Goodman or most of Necromancer's stuff. The section I really like, H, doesn't really seem possible to use as a stand alone. And in fact, taken alone, many sections simply stop making sense. Since many of them are prisons, where the critters have escaped. But since they couldn't get out (because the exit was so far away and guarded by some really tough things) they stayed and took it over. But if used separately, there is no reason they couldn't get out and get on with their lives. But some are useable stand alone. N, probably the best "dungeon crawl" seems to work just fine that way.
All in all, though, it's really hard to beat the price for what you get. Since there isn't an 800 page compilation of all the Dungeon Crawl Classics or Necromancer Games adventures. Even if you are an ebayer like myself, it can be hard to find DCCs or NG's stuff at low prices (or at all), not to mention getting them in one package (if you win 10 different auctions from different people, you could pay $40-100 just for shipping), while there usually seem to be a half dozen or so copies of this on there for around what I paid ($32, total).
(Though of course, if you can afford it, you should buy it through the store here to help support the site)
It's priced at a cool $100, but can be had cheaper online (I got mine on ebay new, for $30). That's a lot of money (in either case, at least for me), but it is more or less the equivalent of 15 64 page dungeon crawls, which generally go for $15 each or so. So it is actually a pretty good deal, even at full price, in terms of what you get. At least in pure "stuff"
This is a strange book to review. Like I said, it really is the equivalent of 15 or so 64 page adventures, which I normally write about 6-8kb of words for. So the Worlds Largest Dungeon probably deserves the world's largest review. But that ain't gonna happen, at least not from me. But I will try to cover it as best as possible.
Dungeon Backstory:
The history of the dungeon is perhaps not the most original in the world. It seems that the powers of good (aka the Celestials) decided to imprison a bunch of evil types and built a giant prison to hold it. Like always, instead of building the prison in someplace nice and safe like say, in some obscure outer plane or out in space on a moon or an asteroid, they built it in a fairly hospitable place on an inhabited planet. Because as Lord Helmet says, "Good is stupid."
In this case, good was even stupider than normal, because they apparently built this prison in a tectonically active region (ie, somewhere that has earthquakes, presumably near a fault line) and even better, built it underneath a lake.
So anyway, as you can probably guess, the prison worked fine until one day an earthquake happened and boom, it fell apart and the prisoners started running amok. At which point it sort of turned into "Escape from New York", basically they stopped trying to guard it from the inside (sorta, there are still guards remaining inside), but have the entrance and exit guarded.
The Dungeon Itself
Unlike a lot of dungeons, this is essentially just one big flat thing (except for one small area below the map), with no vertical component/variation. This makes mapping much easier, but I think loses a lot of flavor.
It's basically a 4x4 sectional map, with each section being one "sheet" (for lack of a better word), except for one which is actually two "sheets". So there are a total of 15 sections. Each sheet is really about the size of a 4x4 regular sheet of graph paper, though, so it is a big dungeon. (I think the biggest one I ever made was 8x8, this is 16x16)
There is one really big complication to it. It's like a roach motel - PCs go in, they don't come out. Because it was meant to be a prison for extraplanar types, there is some sort of magical field blocking teleportation out. And once you go in the entrance, it closes and you can't go out. So as written, if you are going to run or play this, you are in for the long haul and will need a lot of dedication both from the GM & players. The book estimates that it will take 2 years of gaming to finish.
Another interesting thing is that it contains every monster that is in the SRD. (The SRD being the online version of the d20 rules that 3rd party publishers can use in lieu of the PHB/DMG/MM). They got a bit cute here, it doesn't contain every type of monster, ie, not every sort of dragon, or every sort of sphinx. But each base type. (Which is actually odd, since I think they did have room for everything).
Just a note on encounters - pretty much every one has information on how to scale the encounter to make it harder or easier. Which is really really helpful. Because while each section has a suggested level range, the PCs don't go through the dungeon linearly. In many cases, there are two sections a party of the same level range can do. But once they do that section, they'll be out of that range (since they will likely pick up 2 levels per section), so if they backtrack and do the other section, it would be too easy.
Section A "Longtail's Destiny" by Michael Hammes
This is the section just after the entrance
Basically, a group of humanoids, led by a wererat named Longtail, came to the dungeon for adventure and loot (same reasons as the PCs). However, they soon found that there wasn't all that much treasure in this section, and so they sort of broke up.
This is a fairly straight forward section. Maybe not go from room to room and kill everything, but close to it.
From section A PCs can go to section B or E
Section B "A Goblin Empire?" by Chris Burns and Jim Pinto
Sort of like Section A, a group of humanoids migrated to this section. In this case, goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears.
At first the 3 groups fought for power, but eventually the goblins and the hobgoblins made an alliance, which resulted in them more or less taking over the region.
However, this goblin empire ran into a problem. A new religion started, and not all of the goblins wanted to follow it. So there is something of a civil war.
Add to this mix a whole bunch of blink dogs who just showed up one day (which happens, that's how I got my 2 dogs. And a bunch of cats) and a dastardly Halfling named Bartleby (which thankfully hasn't happened to me).
Here things start getting more complicated. While presumably the PCs could simply kill all the goblins, they would probably be better off siding with one faction or another.
It's connected to both section C and F, but PCs need to get a key from section C to open the door to section F.
Section C "The Final Option" by Jeff Stolt and Richard Farrese
This section was meant to house just one fairly powerful demon. It's got a fairly complicated backstory. It seems that the last followers of some goddess were directed here to help garrison the dungeon (this part, anyway). Her name is either Myruun or Merunda, depending which half of the section you're reading. The demon imprisoned here broke free, but the last followerers of the goddness managed to destroy him, but all perished doing so.
It's now inhabitanted by some gnolls, a black dragon, and some hill giants. There's also a whole bunch of traps and tests left over from the days when it was a prison.
This is interesting to read, because you learn of the fate of the followers. But I'm not sure that translates into fun for the players, as it's heavy on the puzzles and traps and magical effects (mostly negative). Your Rogue player might have fun here, but most the others could get bored or annoyed if they fail some of the 'tests', whose answers may or may not be obvious.
This section connects to section G.
Section D "The Tartarean Depths of the Xill Master" by Robert J. Schwalb
Although this is the 4th section in the book, it's one of the tougher regions in the dungeon, and is the lower right corner, only accessible after you've done most of the dungeon (at least gotten to the middle). It's meant for levels 14-18
Xills are one of the creepier monsters in d20, I think. They are sort of a combination of the alien from Alien and the predator from Predator. Intelligent and a hunter like a Predator, but can implant eggs in people which then come bursting out like the Alien.
The background of this level is somewhat convoluted. It's a level holding a fairly powerful fiend, a Pit Fiend. Now for reasons that are too lengthy to go into, this xill wants to get a wish spell cast for him. Presumably being a xill, he can't just go buy one from a wizard someplace. So he heard about this Pit Fiend being trapped and thought "Hey, if I rescue him, I can get a wish out of him".
This section is good, but could have had more variety in the inhabitants. Basically it's either Xill, Derros or Deep Dwarves.
The players are also under a deadline (this is one of two sections that are like that). If they don't hurry up and kill everything, a demonic horde will be let loose in the dungeon. Presumably killing off everything else. (Though if the players have gotten this far, most everything else is already dead). Or possibly if they aren't careful, a tarrasque. This is a really thorny problem.
After doing this, the players will have to backtrack.
Section E "The Last Stand" by Lee Hammock
This is another prison section. But this section still has some celestial guards trying to guard. But they've split into two factions, half-crazy and half sane.
The crazy guards have decided to start drafting or pressing passersby into a group of guards called the "Redeemed". This is one of the earlier sections of the dungeon (possibly the 2nd ones the PCs explore), so it's for low levels. As such, the PCs are probably outclassed by the remaining guards, so if they were evil, they would get stomped on by the guards. So this is a pretty clever solution, I think, they just get drafted instead of killed. (Though really evil PCs probably shouldn't be playing this adventure, since a lot of people won't like them.)
The sane guards do their best to ignore the crazy guards.
PCs can go to section I or F from here
Section F "The Maze" by Richard Farrese
Somewhat ironically, given the original maze was meant to imprison the legendary Minotaur, in D&D, Mazes & Minotaurs go together. And since this is named "The Maze" and basically is one, of course, it's teeming with Minotaurs.
Actually, it's almost got a Greek mythology thing, there's also harpies and manticores and a hydra and a sphinx (which is Egyptian, but the Greeks borrowed it) and a medusa.
Section G "Hell on Earth" by Richard Farrese
This is another prison section, and it also has some guards left. These are all pretty sane, though.
However, their leader is dying, because he uses himself to recharge the power of the section, not the magical charging gizmo (which is lost). The PCs need to find this gizmo and give it to the guards so the leader can recover.
But as mentioned, this is a prison. It holds a powerful Demon Lord, Krasveshk. And lots of lesser demons are trying to spring him. Somewhat ironically, though, for a Demon Lord, he ain't that tough. He's actually "just" a Nalfeshnee, which are generally 3rd from the top. (Marilith and Balor are generally tougher. And ironically, they need to fight a Marilith to get to this guy).
Still, this level is aimed at 9th to 11th level characters, presumably if they take these demons on, they get help from the remaining celestial guards. Having lots of fairly high powered extraplanar critters fighting in one combat can be tricky, since all of them have lots of magic powers.
Besides that bunch, there's also some other evil critters that don't really care one way or the other.
Section H "Protectors of the Tree" by Jennifer Baughman
This is my favorite section of the dungeon. Unlike the rest of the book, it's not really a dungeon crawl. For one, it's got more role-playing and character interaction (other than just combat). For another, it's almost a forest adventure, as opposed to a dungeon.
As mentioned earlier, the dungeon was apparently built on a fault line. And underneath a lake and forest. An earthquake happened, and the top came crumbling down. The lake fell elsewhere, flooding the region, but this got the forest. Including a very very old treant which was venerated by a group of wood elves.
Being a tree, the treant survived (I guess they don't really have internal organs to get squished), but apparently haven't fallen, can't get up. (Actually it was immobile before it fell, not having seen one of those scooter for the elderly commercials). And the elves beeing elves, decided they would go down into the dungeon and protect him.
Even though it's fairly deep in the earth, they transformed it into a woodland via the clever use of mirrors. They had to have a region like this in order to use all the woodland critters in the SRD, I guess.
Anyway, the wood elves garrison this place, but there has been trouble lately. It's ruled by a council of various things, and some of them have started going a bit nuts. And to top it off, lots of the elf warriors have gone missing while on patrol. Have they deserted, have they been eaten by something (more like appetizers than dessert) or something nefarious?
Presumably the PCs will get to the bottom of it.
There's a number of woodland related NPCs, with fairly detailed personalities and such. However, most of them are either the leaders or other important NPCs, I think it glosses over the regular folks too much. (This probably couldn't be helped, as presumably there was a space limitation). And one of the NPC's names is a glaring allusion. The last name of Dante (author of the Divine Comedy), and it works in a purgatory reference. While clever, that sort of stuff does sort of destroy the suspension of disbelief. But it's easy to rename NPCs, so no biggie.
Section I "The Halls of Flesh" by Mark Carroll and Jim Pinto
This is pretty icky. The whole region has been infused by living energy, making the place fleshy. Also lots and lots of mutants and aberrations.
See, basically a long time ago, a group of Drow and Dridgers entered the prison. But there was a revolt, and the Driders took over. But in order to reproduce themselves, they had to do icky experiments. Some of these experiements went awry, including one particularly nasty experiment involving a bronze dragon egg and a ham sandwich. The results of the latter created two Lovecraftian style monstrosities dubbed "Madness" and "Anguish". (In fact, this section even quotes a line from Lovecraft).
Anyway, the Drow and Driders still inhabit this area. Presumably the PCs will kill them. But they also can possibly make friends with the Drow, because some of them are rebels.
Section J "The Pyrefaust" by Jeff Dohm
As you might guess from the name, this is full of fire critters. This section was meant to house a big 'ole red dragon.
The red dragon in question clocks in at a cool CR of 23, so the PCs probably want to run when they meet him. (If they do so, they can go to section N)
Also as a bonus, there is a vampire lady here, underneath. She's pissed off at someone else in the Dungeon and wants him killed, so tries to enlist the PCs to do so.
Section K "The Shallows" by Patrick Kapera
This is one of two sections where the water from the lake that fell into the dungeon settled. So there is standing water here, though it's not that deep (thus the name).
This section is inhabited by several different factions. An evil group of hags, a green dragon, a tribe of tritons and a tribe of merfolk.
I think this is where the David Hasselhoff reference is. There's a lizardman with the name of "Hassslessh", which seems to me to be a lot like Hasslehoff, spoken in lizardman-ish. And the portrait kinda looks like him, too (you don't usually see chest hair on a lizardman. Joke.).
Section L "The Deeps" by Dana DeVries
This is the other section where the water from the lake fell, but in this case, it's deep water (again, thus the name)
This is one of the sections where the PCs are up against the deadline. Unless they kill everything (or almost everything) in the region quickly, a big bad evil guy will invade section K and kill everything in it (or almost everything).
This section has a vertical component to it of sorts. Everything is sort of flat, but various rooms/keyed locations are at various depths.
Section M "The Chasm" by Mark Carroll, Richard Farrese and Patrick Kapera
This is sort of a great big cave, actually. Full of Drow & Driders. As mentioned, I think, the Driders in this Dungeon have reversed the traditional master/slave relationship, and rule over the Drow as slaves. (Actually, I thought Driders used to get exiled, but I guess that was before 3e).
Section N "Tomb of the Unliving" by Richard Farrese
This is the double section. It's a place where a whole bunch of undead was imprisoned, along with a nasty god of death (or something like that). So essentially it's just one really really big crypt
There's basically 3 factions. A mummy lady, a lich dude, and a very unfriendly ghost of a Blackguard. Each of these factions wants to wake this god of death, but they want to be the ones who do it. (The Ghost actually just wants to escape the dungeon)
This section I really liked. It's pretty much the most "epic" section of the book, if not in the power level of the monsters, but in the scope of what the PCs do and experience. The power level is probably the same as "D", but this section is far more interesting.
Section O "Halls of Ice and Stone" by Ari Marmell and Jeff Ibach
Unless I'm missing something, this last section, which is the exit area, is something of a let down. Chances are very good that if the PCs have done all the previous sections, they are all at least level 20, if not higher (presumably using the Epic Level rules).
The last battle is pretty tough, CR 23, but is against a pretty pedestrian frost giant cleric. I mean, after you've battled lich lords and world eaters; tarrasques and demon hordes; and enough drow to make R.A. Salvatore cry, a frost giant is somewhat anti-climatic, even if he is a high level cleric.
Still, like everywhere else, they provide help to scale up (or down) the encounter. But a Frost Giant? Maybe if he killed the PCs parents, or something, it would be more climatic, plot wise.
Really, I think N should have been the final section, with the bad guy from there being the last boss. At least in terms of "plot". But that said, since most of the challenge here is not obvious ( most of the monsters are tough because they either have high class levels or large numbers (or both)), the players could run into trouble by acting too rashly. So this was a pretty devious decision to end the dungeon on something seemingly easy, but not.
But anyway, the exit part of the dungeon was more of an accidental exit than an official one. An exit opened up in some icy caves. Fairly recently, a large tribe of frost giants decided to set up shop around it, as part of a toll booth sort of operation, getting money and such from people leaving.
Other Stuff
Among the other stuff is the amazing revelation that you can do percentiles that are multiples of five (ie, 5%, 20%, 35%) by using a d20 instead of a d100. My goodness! Who'd have thought? They even helpfully provide a chart. This really made me go, WTF? I mean, is there anyone who plays RPGs that doesn't know you can do that on a d20? I am not good at math - I couldn't handle boundry value problems in college, but this is like 2nd grade math.
Looks & Layout
If you love lavishly illustrated books, then this is not for you. Personally, I don't really care one way or the other, but at least in section H, I would have liked to have seen illustrations of the major NPCs. The other sections have fewer personalities, more things just to kill, but they do have some notables as well that could have been illustrated.
Beyond a fair amount of typos, there are some editing glitches. Maybe not glitches. But things are rarely explained as well as they could or should be.
I actually have to wonder if most of these problems weren't caused by (somewhat ironically) space limitations. Several sections have the feel of being cut down. I usually trim my reviews and I often cut stuff out without properly connecting the remaining parts together. While I can't cite specifics, I get the same sort of vibe.
Final Thoughts
It's actually pretty decent, but it falls well short of being a legendary dungeon in anything other than size. That is, there's really nothing remarkable or all that memorable about it.
A couple sections are pretty good (H and N, I liked the idea of I, but the implementation could have been better), but the majority are just sort of bland.
I also think it's got some logic problems (er, beyond the normal logic problems with dungeons). Like it's supposed to be a secret prison no one really knows about. Except there are these elves that regularly fly in and out to protect a really famous tree. How can the tree be famous, but not the location where he is? At least the general location.
And besides being based on the premise that "good is stupid", it also seems to be based on the premise that good is lazy. Apparently having spent tons of effort making and staffing this prison, the various celestials now ignore it, once it gets damaged and the prisoners riot? Pffft.
I also think having it like a roach motel really hurts it. I mean, very few people will want to do nothing but a dungeon crawl for 2 years. And I would have to think many of those who do would want to do more than just the same dungeon. I know I wouldn't want to be in the same building for 2 years, even the world's largest brothel (even with pizza delivery).
Personally, I think it would have been a better, and more importantly, a far more useable, product if this had been dropped, and the dungeon could be entered/exited in various locations. True, PCs can leave about halfway through, thanks to the hole in the middle. But that's not easy, and that's still quite a long ways in.
I also think it suffers from too much repetition (not my using "I also think", but the dungeon itself). I mean, in too many cases, the PCs have to stop the evil lesser creatures from freeing the big bad evil creature. And a fallen angel who became an Eryinyes is the villainess in two different sections. (Another became a vampire, and is the villainess in another).
Similarly, some sections are basically just 1-3 monsters, over and over and over and over again. And in many cases, I don't think they are all that great, as monsters go. Driders! Ugh. 1-2 Driders is fine. Sections full of them are not.
Lastly, they seem to have had some differences on how the d20 system (or roleplaying as a whole) should work. For instance, they don't like the Take 10/Take 20 rules, so they tell you do not use them and have designed the dungeon so you don't. They change the experience system (in part to keep characters from leveling up so much, but some of the logic they try to use to justify it is a bit silly). And in giving advice on how to make goblins tougher, they tell you to cheat. While probably every DM fudges from time to time, if you blatantly cheat, that can really piss off players. If they wanted that section tougher, why not give the Goblins class levels or something?
Writing a huge dungeon according to AEG's house rules is fine, since they made the book, but it reduces the ease of which people playing normal D&D can use it. They'll have to change back the changes AEG made. Which in part largely defeats the purpose of buying a premade dungeon to begin with.
Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll be actually ever use it. I certainly don't have the attention span of running a game in one dungeon for 2 years. And taken separately, each section really doesn't compare well to the various Dungeon Crawl Classic modules from Goodman or most of Necromancer's stuff. The section I really like, H, doesn't really seem possible to use as a stand alone. And in fact, taken alone, many sections simply stop making sense. Since many of them are prisons, where the critters have escaped. But since they couldn't get out (because the exit was so far away and guarded by some really tough things) they stayed and took it over. But if used separately, there is no reason they couldn't get out and get on with their lives. But some are useable stand alone. N, probably the best "dungeon crawl" seems to work just fine that way.
All in all, though, it's really hard to beat the price for what you get. Since there isn't an 800 page compilation of all the Dungeon Crawl Classics or Necromancer Games adventures. Even if you are an ebayer like myself, it can be hard to find DCCs or NG's stuff at low prices (or at all), not to mention getting them in one package (if you win 10 different auctions from different people, you could pay $40-100 just for shipping), while there usually seem to be a half dozen or so copies of this on there for around what I paid ($32, total).
(Though of course, if you can afford it, you should buy it through the store here to help support the site)
