If you're reading my blog, you are almost certainly already aware of Sean McCoy's viral #dungeon23 challenge. In short, make a mega-dungeon one room per day in 2023 -- 365 rooms divided into 12 levels, one per month. Ben L. of Mazirian's Garden is compiling periodic round-ups.
Like so many others, I'm setting out to make an attempt.
Inspiration
In 2022, after years of having our travel constricted by the ongoing global health crisis, my wife and I were fortunate enough to go on a couple of big trips. In the spring, we went to Peru and visited a lot of Inca sites, including Machu Pichu. In the fall, we went to France, and spent a few days in Normandy, where we spent a day exploring Mont-Saint-Michel. The broad concept for my dungeon23 project draws inspiration from both of these trips.
Machu Pichu is located on top of a isolated pinnacle of rock. The complex is built into the stone and was originally only accessible via miles of steep stair cases and ledges carved into the mountainside. It is believed that this site was a royal retreat and ritual space (and perhaps a religious academy).
Mont-Saint-Michel has been a fortress since the dark ages. Over the centuries it has been used for many purposes. It houses churches and an abbey. It's been used as an armory, a prison and a treasure storehouse.
Both of these places inspire me with their long history of different uses, their grand, imposing prominence in their landscapes and the rock-hewn nature of their construction.
The Concept
My dungeon23 (name TBD) will be a grand fortress-monastery, carved into an imposing granite spire. Over centuries it has been used to safeguard holy relics of the Gothic Church and to hide profane artifacts. It has been used as a prison and a menagerie of monsters. It houses armories, stocked with obscure and powerful weapons. Deep within the stone, there are labyrinthine crypts, holding both the sacred slain and the bodies of those that the church feared might one day wake if left unattended.
Perhaps it is something within the mountain itself or perhaps it was the presence of so many evil artifacts, prisoners and corpses but whatever the cause, over time the fortress twisted its inhabitants. Heresies sprouted, monsters spawned. The once orderly bastion became a warren of fratricidal warfare. Dark things escaped in the chaos and now roam the halls unimpeded.
Cutting their losses, the Church sealed the mountain off, hoping that the fires of chaos would burn themselves out within. It seemed to work. The mountain became desolate and quiet. For decades it was avoided and the surrounding country mostly forgot its sinister history.
As fear subsided, unsavory elements have begun to move in. It is rumored that cults have begun to climb the mountain to make their sacrifices on it's high places. Bandits have found hideouts in old towers.
The Church has not forgotten their treasures. They are ready to begin recovering them. Adventurers are needed to delve inside, to map the lost halls and bring back their relics. Those that survive will be paid handsomely (and those that don't will surely be richly rewarded in the next life). Are you up for the challenge?
