Back in the day we had the DMG. What a glorious tome of magical information for a young person!
On page 94 Gary Gygax shared with us a Sample Dungeon. A map with tunnels and corridors and a cave and 37 other rooms to explore. Unfortunately the “Monastery Cellar and Secret Crypts” were only detailed as far as Room 3…
In my group, all middle school, then high school boys (it was the early ’80s, none of the girls we knew wanted anything to do with this, except my little sister…) with plenty of time on our hands, we took turns filling in the remaining rooms of the dungeon and playing through them.
I thought it might be fun to do it again. To describe and populate the Sample Dungeon with the benefit of being 35 years older, having read lots more books and seen more movies.
In fact, it might be fun to do as a group! I’ve made a PDF of the map, and a picture, as well as the description of the first three rooms.
This is all there is!
Your assignment, if you choose to take it, is to finish the dungeon with an introduction as to why it is there and why the PC’s are starting on the steps down to Room One (or wherever you decide they need to start).
- No additional maps allowed.
- Ingress/Egress to the surface only at area 1 (areas 2 and 39, optional).
- The underground stream from area 2 may lead outside, or it may lead to another dungeon level.
- Area 30 leads to another dungeon level (“the caverns”) which we will explore later.
- The pit at area 18 can be a trap or an elevator, leading to another dungeon level, if you wish (again, to be explored later).
- Dungeon Accessories, such as tapestries, statues, chests, bunks, cabinets, etc. may be added where needed for the descriptions.
Populate the dungeon with tricks and traps, monsters, NPCs…whatever suits your fancy. Then send it as a word document to me at [[email address]].
I’ll put them all together, bundle them up into one big PDF and share it here on the blog. Be sure to grab the link to this post and send it to your friends, the more the merrier!
Hey there-
Has anyone taken you up on your challenge to fill in the remaining rooms of the sample dungeon? You are probably aware that some folks from Dragonsfoot.org have already done this. But just in case you aren’t… They call it The Monastery of the Order of the Crimson Monks. They also mapped out the “lower levels” that are accessed via the stairs at area 30. They did not do the “caverns” accessed through the pit at area 18. The “lower levels” and the “caverns” may or may not be connected, or may even be one and the same. For the most part, I like what they’ve done with it.
Of course, just because they have already done it, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done again, and I hope someone does take you up on your challenge to do so. I would love to see other adaptations for this dungeon.
Most people like this type of dungeon floorplan, which is a series of twisting and turning corridors connecting rooms in a very random pattern. But I’m not most people. I prefer a floorplan that makes sense. With this in mind, I re-drew the floorplan. I kept it filled in/stocked the same way that the Dragonsfoot.org people did it for The Monastery of the Order of the Crimson Monks. I kept all the rooms, halls, and features, but put them together in a more organized way. I did not re-draw the lower levels because I think they are fine the way they are. If you are interested, I’ll send you a pic of what I’ve drawn.