More Fantasy Figures

Are these good guys or bad guys?  Sometimes it can be hard to tell.  They are all from the DemonWorld line of figures, that's for sure.  

Wizard, Barbarian Warrior 3, and Barbarian Princess

 That center figure could be a male or female.  You don't often see that kind of versatility.

These two fellows are the worst kind of good guys.  The one on the left is the Supreme Dark Lord, as evidenced by his shield emblem.  (It's actually a Dark Paladin figure from Ral Partha Europe.)  His minon, a Vile Faceless Minion, is a Black Knight figure.

One of the things that slowed my figure production over the last several months was the recording of a number of audio books for Castalia House, including a number of books by Martin van Creveld, a John C Wright book, and a pair of excellent short story collections.  Reading Jerry Pournelle in high school you would have bowled me over if you'd told me that one day I'd be professionally reading his works.  Truly an honor.  It's also an honor to work with Vox Day and serve alongside his Vile Faceless Minions.  So much so, that I stole their logos for the above figures.

But this isn't all about advertising my professional work using my hobby blog.  Rest assured, there is madness to my method.  The money earned from my audio work has been enough to fund a fairly major project that I'm excited to share with you lot.  I'm still in the planning, purchasing, and preparation phase, but rest assured that you're going to see some major new additions to the blog before too much longer.

Meanwhile, here are the SDL and his VFM, heading off into the sunset. 

Complete Mini-Megadungeon

Just in time for DMs day, here's my present to all you hard working, handsome, and under-appreciated DMs out there in internet-land.  With all 14+ levels of the Mini-Megadungeon are complete, I went ahead and bundled all of the relevant posts into a single PDF document for ease of printing and reference.

As an added incentive to look this free 22 page dungeon setting over, I've updated the introduction and added some new material.  The biggest block of material consists of a lengthy list of rumors associated with the dungeon to help your adventurers know what to expect when they delve into the depths of the biggest little dungeon around.

The Mini-Megadungeon Consolidated by warrenabox

Consider this my way of giving back to the community from whom I've stolen so much material for use at my table. Remember, though,this wouldn't have been possible without the genius of Dyson Logos.  If you want cool free stuff like this to keep coming, head over to his Patreon campaign and throw him a few bones.

I think that Scribd is the easiest way to make this available to all and sundry.  If you're interested in a copy, but that isn't working, let me know.  We'll work something out.

Megadungeon Bonus Post: More Secrets

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the dungeon...

When I run this dungeon, the entrance looks like this*.
  There is a narrow path up to the left side of the mouth
shaped cavern that leads down to the dungeon proper.

Even after carving up that amazing map by Dyson Logos into a baker's dozen different levels, there were a few small nooks and crannies that didn't quite fit into the rest of the dungeon.  These little rooms are perfect for small vignettes.  As a final entry in the mini-megadungeon, here are four more little secret areas to explore.  I'm particularly fond of the massive treasure horde hidden right near the entrance to the dungeon.  Play your cards right and your players should walk past it a dozen or so times before they find it.  Those reveals are some of the most priceless moments in the game.

The Dungeon: Other Secrets

This essentially closes out the mini-Megadungeon series.  It may be revisited from time to time.  If my players return, I'll let you know how it evolves in my own campaign.

*Shamelessly cribbed from Google Image Search - I think it is from an episode of the Smurfs of all things.

Megadungeon Level 10: The Mad Lich's Prison

At long last, the very core of the MegaDungeon - a prison for a mad lich.  The lich was once a fire wizard who burned his way into this inner sanctum in pursuit of  a safe place to hide his phylactery.  He found it, but the Dungeongod tricked the lich by dimensionally anchoring him, waiting until he had wasted his gate and teleport spells, and then barred his escape with a creature immune to all of his fire powers.

Now the lich is trapped with his back and his phylactery against the wall.  If the party manages to make into the lich's prison, they will have beaten the hydrax and now stand as the only things between the lich and freedom.  Not only that, they are standing with yards of his phylactery.  That's some pretty powerful motivation to bring the hammer down on them hard and fast.

No treasure listed here.  As this is the ultimate level of the dungeon it should represent a definitive capstone.  If the party needs more loot, you can stash a couple hundred thousand gold in the phylactery room along with an artifact or campaign specific magic item or two.

The Dungeon: Level 10 - Prison of the Mad Lich

Return to the Megadungeon: The Dragon Sublevel

A couple of years ago, this blog presented readers with the first ten levels of a miniature mega-dungeon.  The series ended abruptly when the hard drive on which it rested gave up the digital ghost.  Over the last few months a few loyal readers have asked for an explanation, and rather than provide one...aside from the previous sentence...I finally dug up the old hard drive and grabbed the necessary files to finish the thing off.

By way of a refresher, what we're doing here is stocking one of Dyson Logos' impressive full page maps. The only things left to detail are the final boss level, which contains a lich imprisoned by his own limited spell set.  The poor crazed thing is a fire-based mage whose escape has been barred by a powerful creature immune to fire attacks.  Before we get to that final level, though, there are a couple of nooks and crannies left to flesh out.  Sublevels like the green dragon lair in the upper left hand corner only reachable by pulling yourself upstream against the swift underground current.

The Dragon

In retrospect, and having spent time reading through the amazing amount of material scattered throughout the OSR-verse, this dungeon might not be very playable.  It's way too cramped.  Moldvay, Holmes, and the great Gygax himself suggest having plenty of open space, and there aren't very many of those in this dungeon.

More good news on the recovered hard drive front!  I've found a few full-blown modules that I put together almost ten years ago.  These are for Third Edition D&D, and designed for use under the OGL, but they should be suitable for any edition or any OGL game.  Give me a few days to polish one up, and if there's interest, I can probably bang out a few more with little effort.

Roll All the Dice - Starting Equipment

Whereas; Purchasing equipment for those first level D&D characters is sometimes a tedious exercise in juggling weight and cost and when can we just get to the dungeon already,

Whereas; Most of a character's generation is already random,

Whereas; Choosing the right niche item "just in case we meet X" is a gamble anyway,Whereas; Roll-All-The-Dice Random Generators are a neat little gimmick,

So be it resolved that the world needs a one page chart that will let players roll all the dice to generate their starting character's equipment.

Roll All the Dice Equipment Chart [PDF]

One thing that might not be clear here.  Your starting cash is basically equal to the difference between the armor and weapons you roll and the armor and weapons you can use.  For example, a thief that rolls an 8 on the armor chart (plate mail and a shield) can only use a shield and leather (which is a roll of 4), so he gets the leather and shield and 4sp for his trouble.

Yes this means that fighting men start with no cash.  They are also the most likely to start with the most expensive gear - them's the breaks.

Yes this means that a fighter might start out the campaign with full plate armor, a shield...and a pitchfork.  There's a story there. A great single sentence story that tells you more about the character than you really need for day one adventuring.

Yes this means all characters start off darn near broke - guess they better not waste any time goofing about in town when there's a perfectly good dungeon nearby.  See also: fully armored knights fighting with a pitchfork.

Megaduneon to be Named Later - Overland Player Map

As if this blogger didn't have enough irons in the gaming fire, I've been inspired by the likes of Peter Dell'Orto, Dyson Logos, and a host of others to start in on a new megadungeon.  As with so many others, it may never see the light of an adventurer's torch.  It's okay, man.  Building, as with exploring, is one of those "journey not destination" things.

The basic set-up of the megadungeon is your standard city-built-over-an-ancient-evil.  As is so often the case, the evil bubbled up, the city fell, and now you've got a mess of ruin at the surface.  The whole lot is overgrown with trees and brambles and hills and other sight-blocking terrain.  Keep that though, we're going to circle back to it in a bit.

Before we talk about those first seven dungeons, though, let's take a look at the players' map for the ruined city to be named later:

What you've got there are eleven named sites to investigate, plus a bunch of collapsed sewer tunnels*.  A few of them are dead-ends, no dungeon to be found anywhere.  A couple are dead-end dungeons with no connection to the main level of the megadungeon.  The rest do contain passages into the dungeon proper, but not all of them are obvious.  At least one of these dungeons contains a straight shot into the dungeon without any preliminary encounters.  The odds of finding that right out of the gate are small, but clever or lucky parties can bypass the ruins.

As this is an old-school sandbox style game, not all of these dungeons are suitable for first level adventuring parties.  Some of them they'll have to come back and deal with when they've got more experience.  Which provides a way to "unlock" new entrances later in the campaign.  This is also a good place to point out that a successful party should be able to find exits from the dungeon to this map if they work their way deep enough into the dungeon proper.

What have we learned?  Nothing if you're paying attention to the smarter old-school bloggers upon whose shoulders I stand.  But if you're balancing on those shoulders with me, maybe this series will help by providing another example of megadungeon crafting.  Worst case scenario, maybe you find a couple ideas to steal for your megadungeon.

*They make fine hidey-holes, but none link up with the main dungeon - that's at least one cliche avoided.

The Dungeon: Level 9A - The Lich's Doorstep

Waaaaaay back at the beginning of this article, it was hinted that The Dungeon is nothing more than an elaborate prison for a Mad Lich.  The Mad Lich is locked deep inside Level 10; this level and level 9 combine to serve as an effective the 'lock' on his prison.  As a fire wizard hated by the denizens of The Dungeon his escape would require him to be prepared for fire and ice at the same time - not a simple prospect.  And so the Mad Lich rants and raves in his cell - waiting for a plucky band of foolish greedy looters to kill his guards and free him.

Before they can release, or fight, or loot that great evil, they first have to contend with the environment and guardians on this cold, wet, and icy level of The Dungeon.

The Dungeon: Level 9A - The Lich's Doorstep

The Dungeon: Level 9 - Forge of the Fire Giants

The Pool of Fire has been commandeered by a larger than usual Fire Giant, named whatever you need him to be named, and his three young apprentices.  These black stone caverns have high vaulted ceilings that allow the giants and their phoenix pet plenty of room to stretch.  The floors are black cinders and ash lit by passing orange and blue curtains of flame.  The heat of this place does 1 hp damage per round to everyone unprotected by magic.  (A draught of water from the Pool of Water will negate this effect for one day.)
The Dungeon: Level 9 - Forge of the Fire Giants
The giant smith brought a pack of hellhounds with them from the pit of fire, and use them as sentries near the only entrances.  The giants have also built a retractable iron staircase that they can pull up behind them to keep out unwanted intruders.

The Pit of Fire itself is a low obsidian wall of black glass surrounding a roiling and boiling flaming pit filled with black burning pitch.  Things that crawl out of the pitch are generally crushed by the giants, who are easily irritated when the work of their forge is interrupted.  The walls of the Pit Room are covered by the various tools of a smith, and an enormous anvil rests on a stone slab in the center of the room.

The Fire Giants use their troll slaves to prepare food and generally keep the area tidy.  The trolls, protected by simple charmed rings dare not try to escape from the living hell that is Level 9.  They may beg adventurers for mercy, but won't keep their word - once out of this part of the dungeon they go back to their thieving, backbiting ways.

The Dungeon: Level 8 - Spider Warrens

These caves and cold, dank, and unfriendly.  The halls of this level are only 6 feet high, but the cavern roofs vault high above.  The rough and uneven floor is covered by a thin layer of hard scrabble that makes finding your footing tricky.  Not so for the eight legged beasts that roam the walls and roofs of this part of The Dungeon.  Their webs stretch across the narrow halls, hard to spot by the flickering light of torches or lanterns, and harder to spot by the steady light of magic sources.

This part of The Dungeon is ruled by the Spiderking, an intelligent planar spider who settled here to raise a large clutch of eggs safe from his rivals.  He prefers to talk to his meals before sucking them dry; a character trapped in the spider's den may find his wits his last hope for freedom.  A freedom that comes with a price - the Spiderking does not forgo his meals lightly.  He will demand a high price for freedom.

The spiders who followed their king to this cavern love to scuttle about above the light and drop onto unsuspecting prey below.  They scurry and dash about above the blocking webs, attacking from unseen corners whenever possible.  They work in tandem to flank invaders and lure them into their webs.

The Dungeon: Level 8 - Spider Warrens This is the most accessible of the deeper and more dangerous levels in The Dungeon. The only thing separating lowly adventurers from the giant spiders is a wade through hip deep water.  The ledge between this area and Level 4 is covered by thick sticky ropes of webbing, and the Man-spiders will investigate anyone hacking their way through.  The site of these giant beasts and their long spears (which can attack through the webbing long before a path is cleared)_ should be enough to scare off all but the strongest and/or most foolhardy adventurers.

The Dungeon: Level 7 - The Dead Wizard's Lab

This portion of The Dungeon is a once-opulent hermitage gone to rot.  The magnificent rugs and furnishings are dusty, moldering, and falling apart.  Only the shelves and books in the library, protected by powerful spells of preservation and protection, still contains polished wood and many curious volumes of quaint and forgotten lore.  Even these are covered by a thick layer of dust.

The Dungeon: Level 7 - Dead Wizards Lab

The dead wizard once went by the name Garinginax was powerful wizard who learned of the Mad Lich’s Tomb deep on Level 10 of The Dungeon.  He was strong enough to carve out a portion of The Dungeon for his own private workshop, and cunning enough to use his neighbors to keep unwanted guests at bay.  Despite friendly relations with the Fire Giants on Level 9, he was not brave enough to break the seals binding the Mad Lich to his prison.  He was powerful enough to beat back a demon that escaped his control, but not powerful enough to stave off the effects of the poison barb shoved into his heart by said demon.  Distracted by the pain, his teleportation to the safety of his lab failed spectacularly - he missed his anchor sigil by just enough to place him half inside the room and half encased in the walls of his lab.

Now, decades later, his hidden lab is a sealed dusty tomb.  The wards against detection and intrusion still function, but most of the sigils of a more brutish defensive style have waned in power.  The whole region reeks of barely constrained arcane power, but aside from a few remaining guardians and traps, this once mighty fortress is no longer the potent death trap it once was.

The Dead Wizard's once incompetent apprentice is a strong mage in his own right these days, though he has yet to discover the secret to breaking the geas that commands him slay any who intrude on his master’s former lab.

The Dungeon: Sublevel 6A - The Air Temple

Back into the Dungeon we go.  The Air Temple centers on the Pool of Air, a bottomless pit which emits a steady stream of clean fresh air.  This could be a portal to the Elemental Plane of Air, but that would be a literal leap of faith.  More likely, it's a conduit to the alien mind forcing its way into this reality in the physical form of The Dungeon.  The other side of this well might contain nothing more than sanity crumbling dreams of chaos.
The Dungeon: Sublevel 6A - Air Temple The Temple of Air has two obvious entrances, but the big locked double doors are the easiest to open. A constant stream of air whistles out through the seams around the heavy oaken doors. These doors are intreicately carved with all manner of cloudy faces, mouths puckered and emitting swirling clouds of wind.

The smaller side entrance is an obvious door that is just as obviously sealed up by the surrounding rock.  It can only be opened if you blow on it. Good luck sussing that out unless you see one of the monsters inside the Temple inadvertently blow on its sister door. Then it serves as an easy back door or escape route from pursuing monsters.

The walls and floor of this temple are carved out of massive tan sandstone bluffs. The sandstone is very friable, meaning that brushing against it rubs sand off. This results in a dungeon level where find grit swirls around the floors, gets into your clothing, and is a continual irritant - especially when combined with the breeze that constantly wafts through the level. These winds rise out of the Pool of Air and grated foyer floor, drying everything in the level, snatching at loose scrolls, and threatening to put out even the tightest sealed lanterns. The ceilings of the rooms are high vaulted affairs, stretching up more than 30 feet and providing dark cover for the flying creatures that call this level home. Even the ceilings in the hallways rise 20 feet above the floor. The only area seemingly built to human proportions are the back rooms behind the altar. Though barren, they lack the continuous breeze and blowing sand that marks this entire level. The feeling of normalcy in these rooms keeps wandering monsters at bay - none will disturb those who rest and recover here.

The Dungeon: Level 6 - The Brutes

These may look like natural stone caverns, but they were called forth from the twisted imagination of the DungeonGod the same as any other level in this madhouse.  One indication of this is that even though the walls are rough stone, with stalactites hanging from above, the floor is a fine level sand.  It provides excellent traction for cloven hooved creatures with enormous horns to build up a full head of steam in order to gore their foes.

And the minotaurs who dominate this area love nothing more than to do just that.  The key to making this level challenging is the speed of its denizens (the ogres are the slowest) and the combined arms style of fighting.  This map shows the main resting areas for each type of monster, but they move throughout the whole cave system.  Each room may contain any combination of the three inhabitants, and a fight in one area will draw additional brutes within a few rounds.
The Dungeon: Level 6 - The Brutes

[Updated May 18, 2012:  Fixed the link between this map and Level 7 for consistency.]

The Dungeon: Sublevel 5A - Tomb of the Unknown Dwarf King

The Dungeon: Sublevel 5A - Tomb of the Unknown Dwarf King

The Dungeon: Level 5 - Pool of Earth

The weight of the earth presses down upon those who explore these halls.  The walls themselves seem to bend with the stress, and trickles of sand and dust fall from the sagging ceilings.  At odd moments, the halls fill with the creaks and groans of the roots of the mountain settling around this part of The Dungeon.

Living statues - it's about time we hit these classics.


The Dungeon: Level 5 - Pool of The Earth

Pendraken Homo Rodentia

Pendraken's line of stupid, stupid rat creatures has a lot of variety to it. The six types of rat things that came in my dungeon pack assortment barely scratch the surface, but they fit my needs just fine. The gun and bomb wielding packs don't jive with the dark age feel of my current D&D campaign. The ratmen carrying the ghetto-blasters are right out.

These assasins and spear-rats definitely jive with it, though.  Click on the picture for a bigger view, and you can see the greenish poison dripping from their daggers.   You should also be able to see that each cloak has a different color trim to it, as well.

FR3: Large rats with daggers

FR11: Small rats with polearm

For those of you following the megadungeon posts, these guys are going to fill in for the goblins on Level 1.  Nothing changes but the miniatures and the feel of the unknown.  A couple of the crew know all about goblins, and just swapping out this miniature should go a long way towards adding some mystery and danger to an otherwise standard goblin murder run.

The Dungeon: Level 4 - The Lizard King

The Lizard King crawled from the mire of the water pool and wandered The Dungeon for a time before claiming these halls for his own.  He frequently visits the river on the left side of the map via secret (as in: not available to the characters) submerged passages, and has laid claim to most of that pool's spawn.  In his own twisted way, he loves the monstrous beasts that it spawns, and guards them well against the other denizens of The Dungeon.  He may appear during any combat on this level to lend aid to his poor attacked 'pets'.

This may be the most random of the levels inside The Dungeon.  The hallways range from cavernous to confined, rough wall to worked stone, and from high and dry to fully submerged.  The creatures that dwell here consist of a menagerie of monstrous beasts barely kept from slaughtering each other by an inscrutable ancient lizard king. It also serves as a rarely traveled crossroads, with access to four other levels:

• The goblins on level 1 rarely venture close to the water out of fear of the owlbear who often plucks rats out of the hordes that live on the far shore
• The bugbears on level 3 have made incursions in the past, but the threat of the predatory trolls keeps them in check
• The trolls on level 6 have access to a pool, but use it only for fishing to supplement their diet of bugbear and hate.  Thanks to their secret tunnel, they can also sneak in through a back door, but why bother?
• The giant spiders on level 8 are content to lurk in their holes.  Giant webs span the stairs and ledge that connect these two levels, providing a clear warning as to what lies beyond the large pool.

The Dungeon: Level 4 - The Lizard King


This level ties The Dungeon together in ways beyond the mere physical.  Access to the submerged treasure can be achieved by tapping into the water breathing properties of the Well of Water in the Dragon's Lair.  The knock spell inside Garinginax's spellbooks on Level 7 can negate the wizard lock on the door to Level 1, making for a much shorter (and dryer) route between the dungeon entrance and the deeper levels.  Finally, the characters may have already encountered a clue to the existence of the Tree of Solace in the tapestry hanging in the study on Level 2.

In fact, due to the properties of the Tree of Solace, this portion of The Dungeon may become a favored stopping point for the characters.  The Lizard King's throne room, with its one exit, may serve as a relatively safe harbor for the party as well - if they can devise a way to bar the door from wandering monsters.

The Dungeon: Level 3 - Bugbear Den

This area was once territory controlled by the Cult of Chaos on Level 2, but the large and fierce bugbears that crawled out of the abyss quickly claimed the area for themselves.  This situation serves the cultists well, as the bugbears serve as a buffer between them and the large minotaurs and ogres who raid the upper levels from their lair on Level 6.

The floor of this area is smooth polished tile.  In contrast, the walls and ceilings are rough cut limestone blocks poorly mortared together.  This works to the advantage of the white apes, who swing wildly through the halls at odd moments.  They sometimes cling to the ceilings of rooms where they wait to ambush the bugbears in play, or hide from the brutes on level 6 during their raids.

Level 3 - Bugbear Den

The rightmost room and hallway are a demilitarized zone - the decor matches the bugbear's rooms, but they know the brutes pass that way.  As a result, the bugbears try to stay safely on their side of the battered heavy door.

As with every level in The Dungeon, you can have the bugbears wait in their rooms for the characters, or you can have them take a more active defense.  One bugbear can run for help and be back in 3-4 rounds with reinforcements of more bugbears, one of the wokans, or both.  Those wokans are twins, but most humans and demi-humans can't tell bugbears apart anyway, so it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

If the character's first meeting with the bugbears doesn't prove hostile, the bugbears may hold out the promise of much gold to lure them into the hole in the floor that leads to the ogre and minotaur caves.  The bugbear wokans know that sending more manflesh down that hole will keep the brutes at bay for a few extra days.

The Dungeon: Level 2 - Cult of Chaos

Greedy men whose ambition exceeds their power gravitate to The Dungeon where they serve the unknown entity that spawns its children in the Black Pool of Chaos.  They protect and serve the pool, guide its stronger children to appropriate portions of the dungeon, and murder and steal from those that they can.  As such, this area of The Dungeon is the brightest and cleanest and best fit for human occupancy - if you are an insane human that can tolerate the bizarre wall carvings, delights in murder and suffering, and can live with the presence of vicious monsters around every corner.

The floors of this entire level are identical flagstones 2-foot square mortared in place.  Each one is engraved with the strange letters of an alien alphabet.  They do nothing, and their meaning is open for interpretation. Dwarves will find something sinister in the the perfect precision with which each stone is cut, and the identical nature of sigils of the same letter.  They are almost too perfect.

Level 2 - The Cult of Chaos


The halls of this portion of The Dungeon are well lit by burning torches placed every sixty feet, indicating that these halls are better traveled than most.  The walls are smooth faced stone carved directly out of the rock with pedestals jutting into the hall every twenty feet or so.  The pedestals support arches that would support the roof were the roof itself not also carved directly out of stone.  Along the central spine of the vaulted arches, the roof reaches fifteen feet above the floor.

The vaulted roof of the central hall is covered by bizarre frescoes - images showing gargantuan tentacles swarming over cities and mountains and forests.  Most will never see these, as the ceiling is more than forty feet above the ground, too dark for standard torches to penetrate the gloom.  The gargoyles who perch above the Pool of Chaos use this darkness to their advantage, swooping down from unexpected angles.

Why do men gather here to worship this pool?  Avarice - plain and simple.  The creatures that rise from the pool carry gold and treasures with them, and when the cultists ambush these newborn children of the DungeonGod, they help themselves to the gold, but always add to the offering pile that surrounds the pool.  As is so often the case, their greed will one day doom them when their master sends them a challenge they cannot match.  Until then, their leader dreams of finding the tomes of the wizard Garinginax so that he might unlock the mystery of the pool of Chaos and bend the DungeonGod to his will.

The Dungeon: Know the Warning Signs

The illustrative example from the Cook edition of D&D.

In the grand old OSR tradition, long stairways were a sign for the players that they were moving on to deeper, darker, and more dangerous depths of the dungeon.  The challenges became greater, and the rewards commensurately so, as you penetrated the mysteries of the deep.  The Dungeon* itself sprawls across two dimensions, and the variations in depth occur within levels, not between them.  This calls for alternative means of indicating when characters leave one level and enter another.

In The Dungeon, this is accomplished by varying the architecture and dungeon dressing. Most walls and floors in The Dungeon are manifestation of the malice and cruel imagination of the DungeonGod whose will created The Dungeon in the first place, but they area as chaotic as you'd expect from an entity of that nature.  Some walls are formed as natural caverns (Levels 1, 6, 8, and 9), and some are tunnels of smooth rock (Levels 2, 3, and most of 5), while others take the form of fitted stones or stone blocks mortared in place.

Despite these variations (detailed further in each level description), some general rules of thumb do apply.  Unless otherwise noted:

• Hallways are generally ten feet wide and ten feet tall.   
• Rooms (with doors) have ceilings 15 feet tall.
• Chambers (any large room with a column, archway, statue, or any other feature that justifies more headspace) have ceilings at least 20 feet high, and possibly taller.
• Caverns range in height, but generally the wider a cavern is, the taller it's roof will be.  Remember that the walls slope up at an angle with the highest point somewhere near the center, and that most large chambers will have ceilings higher than simple torch light can penetrate.  Flying creatures like wyverns and gargoyles know this, and they will take appropriate advantage.

Every time players (and their avatars) cross the threshold of a new level, there is another architectural clue present to indicate the change.  Every level is separated by a dramatic feature - a heavy locked door, a strong portcullis, a wide of water, to name a few examples.  In most cases, the denizens of The Dungeon have ways around or through these barriers that the characters do not, but this is a living dungeon, and the players may spark inter-level conflict when they crack open a seal between levels.  As always, suggestions are detailed in the respective sections, but use your head - there are others waiting for an intrepid DM to discover or create.

Since The Dungeon sprawls about with little rhyme or reason, it is possible for characters to wander into troubles greater than they can handle.  Most of the level breaks have built in safeties - you can't get directly from Level 1 to Level 4 without cracking a door wizard locked at the 2nd level (requiring a 4th level knock spell) or fighting a strong beast that can't leave the water (and thus can't pursue characters who know all about the better part of valor).  This isn't always the case, so smart players will expeditiously retreat to safer areas in the face of overwhelming force.

* This dungeon really does need a better name.  In my lazy moments I tell myself that naming the dungeon is a job for the players, or that it will arise organically during the design process.  For the sake of simplicity, this particular dungeon will have the boring but descriptive proper name The Dungeon, whereas a general hole in the ground with monsters and gold will use the lower-case 'dungeon'.