Dev Blog #5 Populations N Stuff

Hey Game Fam, we’re back with week five of our Mega Dungeon Dev Blog. If you’re new here, thank you for stopping by however you got here. If you’re a little confused, that’s ok. Check back to the start of these articles here and you can catch back up. Today we’ve hit a landmark. The Dungeon is complete, now we just need to populate it. If you want to see what the dungeon looks like right now, check it out here. Now let’s see who and what lives here.

So now we need to check the dungeon’s population density. This is easy to check. I just need some dice, and our copy of the Mega Dungeon Generator. I rolled a 5, so 75% of the dungeon rooms in this dungeon are “occupied” by something hostile. This doesn’t mean the other rooms are empty, it just means that their denizens are not immediately hostile. 

This is a densely populated dungeon. How dangerous are these denizens? There’s an explanation on page 44 for how to determine this. Grab that D3 and roll it. I rolled a 2, so the dungeons “Threat Rating/Challenge Rating/Difficulty” is equal to the party’s average level. This means that most encounters should be manageable for the characters to deal with.

Just a recap. This dungeon level has 18 rooms. Let’s do some allocation and figure out which ones have hostile monsters. 75% of those rooms being occupied means there are 14 hostile monster rooms.  

Room 1:

Room 2:

Room 3:

Room 4:

Room 5:

Room 6:

Room 7:

Room 8:

Room 9:

Room 10:

Room 11:

Room 12:

Room 13:

Room 14:

Room 15:

Room 16: 

Room 17:

Room 18:  

There’s a section in the book on the “math of encounter building” and you should absolutely read through it before you read through this. There are five types of encounters that are typical for a game like, Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard. Each type of encounter represents the amount of resources the typical adventuring party will spend getting through that encounter type. Resources include, Hit points, spells slots, usages of magical items, etc. Very easy encounters take a minute expenditure of these resources, conversely a very hard encounter can drain these resources deeply.  

Another idea to keep in mind is the rest interval. Most adventuring parties can’t clear a dungeon on one pass through. They will have to rest somewhere in the dungeon, and understanding the amount of resource drain that an encounter causes a party will help you figure out how many Rest Intervals (or safe spots) the dungeon may need. Also, keep in mind that a party may return to a previously discovered safe spot for a dungeon.  

So, I’m going to use the “Normal” dungeon distribution for encounter difficulties in the book, and that means I’ve got the following encounters to work with:

• 1 Very Easy Encounter (1%)
• 1 Easy Encounters (5% each)
• 10 Normal Encounters (20% each)
• 1 Hard Encounters (33% each)
• 1 Very Hard Encounters (50%)

Note: The percentages represent the resource drain each encounter causes the party.  

So, how do I want to allocate these?

Room 1: Normal Encounter

Room 2: Normal Encounter

Room 3: 

Room 4: Normal Encounter

Room 5: Normal Encounter

Room 6: Normal Encounter

Room 7: Normal Encounter

Room 8: Hard Encounter

Room 9:

Room 10: Normal Encounter

Room 11:

Room 12: Very Hard Encounter

Room 13: Normal Encounter

Room 14: Normal Encounter

Room 15: 

Room 16: Very Easy Encounter

Room 17: Normal Encounter

Room 18: Easy Encounter

This distribution may be wonky, but I think it works. Room 12 is basically the “Boss Room” of this dungeon, but it’s locked from the easiest access point at Room 9. This means the characters “can” rest up before barreling straight into the hardest encounter in the dungeon. Note, there are also 4 rooms that don’t have encounters assigned to them. These rooms aren’t empty, but their denizens aren’t initially hostile to the characters. I need to generate who/what’s in those rooms. Fortunately, I have a tool for that. After Rolling the dice, we come up with:

Room 3: Wandering Healer

Room 9: Stranger

Room 11: Weapon

Room 15: Friendly Denizen 

Now with everything slotted in, we have the following rooms:

Room 1: Normal Encounter

Room 2: Normal Encounter

Room 3: Wandering Healer

Room 4: Normal Encounter

Room 5: Normal Encounter

Room 6: Normal Encounter

Room 7: Normal Encounter

Room 8: Hard Encounter

Room 9: Stranger

Room 10: Normal Encounter

Room 11: Weapon

Room 12: Very Hard Encounter

Room 13: Normal Encounter

Room 14: Normal Encounter

Room 15: Friendly Denizen

Room 16: Very Easy Encounter

Room 17: Normal Encounter

Room 18: Easy Encounter

The dungeon’s populated, sort of. I know how hard the encounters are, but I haven’t established what they’re encounters with. Let’s do a little more work on that.  

Room 1: This is the entrance to the dungeon, but it’s full of a shifting maze and some other elements that make it difficult to fight in. The darkness combined with the other elements of the dungeon makes me think this is a fine place for bat swarms. There are several colonies of bats that make this room their home, and if disturbed (by, say, a party of adventurers entering their home), they will swarm to attack.

Room 2: This is the larder room with the Hole from the volcanic effect from the eruption. I am thinking this room is home to a predatory lizard. The warm spot makes a natural nesting area for said lizard. 

Room 3: This room has a Wandering Healer in it. Since there is a trap in this room, I’m thinking this is the ghost of a priest who died in this room. The Trap killed them while exploring, and cannot move on while their body is left the way it is. They can cast 3 cure wounds spells per visit, and can cure disease (not that this *should*  come up in this adventure). If the characters can find all of their bones (some of which are in other rooms) and bury them, they put the spirit to rest and earn xp as if they’d defeated a threat 2 enemy.  

Room 4: This is the room with the Fungus forest in it, and I honestly think this is a cool place for some predatory bugs. The bigger the better, and if you have several that hang out here looking for food among the otherwise harmless things that eat the fungi, even better.

Room 5: Keeping up with the bug theme we’re running, this room has an assortment of giant insects that use the Lava Lamp for warmth. When startled by adventurers, they will swarm and attack.

Room 6: The Statue Gallery is home to skeletons. These were some of the original clerics who lived in this temple complex but died during the eruption. Their bodies will animate to attack intruders in this area.

Room 7: The Garden room can have a dryad living amongst the trees. The Long-term isolation has made this otherwise friendly fey creature hostile towards intruders, but they can persuade her towards a non combat result. Doing so makes this a safe place to rest, as the Dryad will watch over the sleeping characters.  

Room 8: This is the one hard encounter in this dungeon, and it’s a doozy. There are two Fire Snakes and a pair of magma Mephits that make this room their home. These four creatures will work together to protect their shared lair from intruders.  

Room 9: This room has a “Mysterious Stranger” in the dungeon. This is an explorer who came into this area by himself looking to explore the deeper parts of the dungeon, but he doesn’t have the tools to get himself in deeper, and is worried about getting back out. He can provide a bit of information about rooms 4, 7, 10 and 13. If he’s told the way out is clear, he will exit the dungeon. He does not wish to go much deeper in. The experiences he’s had so far have cured him of wanting to be an adventurer.

Room 10: This room has a Monstrous Skeleton (like a minotaur or an ogre) that appears to have assembled itself out of the bones from the Grill.

Room 11: Hidden in the library is a magic sword.

Room 12: The “Boss” Room of this dungeon features a Hell Hound. Taken with the other features of the room, the Hellhound usually hides behind the illusion of the Altar and breathes fire through it before getting into close combat.  

Room 13: This room has the ghost of a sage who died in this room. He’s a grumpy sort who argues with the intelligent magical effect all the time. If dispersed, he will reform within 7 days. He can’t be put to rest, because his body has been scattered through the entire mega dungeon.  

Room 14: This room has a Yuan-ti Pureblood who’s studying the poisonous nature of the water. They are hostile, but they can be persuaded away from violence. The persuader will have to talk fast, though.

Room 15: This room has a friendly denizen. Keeping up with the “Ghosts” theme, this room has the ghost of an adventurer who died exploring this place. He has no abilities, but can share details about the dungeon (including the power of the library and the secret door).

Room 16: This room has a gas spore floating around in it. If disturbed, it will do what gas spores do and explode. Fortunately, this room also has the font of healing, and is a safe place to rest.

Room 17: This room has 2 shadows that use the Absolute Darkness as a shield to hunt whatever’s foolish enough to enter this place.

Room 18: This room has a Specter (the victim of the torture device) lurking inside the statue. It will leap out to surprise adventurers and attack.  

And that’s the Dungeon occupied. It looks like a blast. I’ll spend next week putting all of this together in a more coherent iteration for DM/GM to use in their home games. You can buy this tool kit here.  I'll see you next week and try to turn all this information into something usable.