Example Dungeon: The Danzuishanese Maze - an introduction (Edited)

Nirrum the has a vague idea of how the Maze Works.
I, on the other hand, am pretty sure that place is bonkers.

Do you ever just space out and listen to music and imagine worlds around it? Have you ever heard half a story and filled in the rest? Went on a journey on an idea and just envisioned the trip that followed?  Yeah, That's this.

The Danzuishanese maze was an exploration in allegory, metaphor, and general representation for me. Themes that others may understand immediately, others are esoteric and might carry meaning only for myself. I managed six floors of the maze before I ran into burnout from other factors, and each runs along a small theme. Unlike other mazes, backtracking is seldom if ever necessary, it is a puzzle, not an odyssey, as mentioned further down. I built this in order to stuff a lot of bizzare ideas, a lot of treasure, and to remove the idea of metagaming from my players. People who've been playing for a long time know what a Goristro is and what to expect from it. *No one* knew what Gary "The Beast" Lasereyes was capable of. The puzzles weren't puzzles but things to play with, things to experiment with, and I'm pleased to say that past the first floor, the players got nearly all of them, and each time their bizzare choices and often their first guesses were rewarded, despite them being entirely shots in the dark. The next series of blog posts is going to examine the design philosophy and thought process behind each of these six floors, as well as where they fail.

To start with, the maze had a critical path but there was no telegraphing for it, this was partially by design, as it was meant to be experienced, and over seven sessions they covered six floors and a majority of the rooms I had inserted. While the party was satisfied with the maze and its progression, I was not at points, as the rooms dragged on after their initial description. The theming and grandeur was spoiled by them being removed from the experience by trying to figure out the next step. This wouldn't happen in a videogame but this is the medium I'm working with. Some of the rooms were envisioned from a third person perspective, frequently omniscient, but details of that third person perspective are lost on people entering the room. Sometimes I'd have to re-envision parts of the dungeon on the fly an I will discuss that as we go.

Inside the blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey [1060 x 960] from r/ArchitecturePorn

The Blue Mosque was definitely the largest influence on the design of the maze's interior. The "default" space of the maze, any given room without description, was built with this blue-green-white and very rare purple flecked design, though the intent of the blue mosque far outpaces the mottled randomness of the maze. Domes, Pendentives, Muqarnas, Mosaic. I was also inspired by snippets of Ayreon's "Into the electric castle"  Album



So with that in mind, let us head into the Maze ourselves.

The Maze of Shang Lai: Entrance

The Maze's entrance is that of a vined lake trout, a fictional fish that looks more like a carp than a trout. Bulbous, stylized, and carved entirely out of jade-like stone. The open mouth of the carp peeks out of the water and offers entrance down a long staircase to a well fitted wooden door. Everyone going into the maze between opening and closing the door experiences the same maze. The door Forces itself closed after half an hour of being left open, because not splitting the party in this maze is a great idea.
Built in 2672 by Shang Lai, a grumpy white dragonborn, The Danzuishanese Maze is the truest testament to the school of the Irrevocable death.

Manaharamu has not yet been able to replicate this void-netting technique despite centuries of trying. The maze yet stands as Danzuishan's chief source of exports. The entrance is a massive blue-green copper-adamantide in the shape of a rather bulbous and stylized trout. It sits in the middle of the river in the center of vehi, sitting lower than every single building nearby, its mouth open, exending a platform in the shape of a wide tongue, bifurcated slightly at the tip out into the water. The water never seems to rise up high enough to flood the entrance, which is simply open to a large staircase
Mechanization of the maze-hunting process is impossible, as it has a tendency to change and contain terrifying new creatures
Outside of the Maze there is a sign directing people to go to the Office of the maze hunters to gain information on the plane they've found themselves on.

The maze is not a puzzle, It is an oddessy. Experienced Maze-runners have been known to get lost for months. Its domed rooms are of hugely varied size, though many feature vaulted pendentives, often as Muqarnas. The ceilings seem to be made of adamantine, but damage done to them never seems to last after the maze shifts.
The colors of the maze tend to be blue green, The lighting is a diffuse white light which *seems* to come from the domed roofs.
Creatures cannot be banished from the maze, they will always act as if this is their home plane while within the maze. Plane shift does not work, as usual, neither does the spell teleport or gate, though misty step and dimension door work fine, because I don't want people fuckin' escaping, but I'm ok with them being cool and moving around.

Danzuishanese Maze - First Floor

Here, put this on, this description follows the path of the intended party 

 Immediately they are greeted with an extremely foul smell as they enter a short square room with a dead gargantuan shark with irregular purple striping on a greenish back and a brown belly. Characters must make a constitution saving throw for every minute they spend in the room or be poisoned for 1d4 hours. If the characters have eaten in the past two hours and fail their save, they lose the food they have eaten and would not gain the benefit of having eaten it. 2n+1 nilbogs clad in pale masks and thick white cloaks made of cords with bells hanging on the end erupt from behind the shark if the players talk. They only speak goblin. The goblins will always move to be within 5 feet of eachother
Behind them is a curtain-gate made entirely out of silver armbands worth 1gp each, for a total of 300gp. But behind the gate, held impossibly by the extremely sparse curtain, the next room is entirely flooded.

This room was made as an introduction. WELCOME TO FUCKVILLE. Why is the shark dead? Why those colors? What are these bizzare things that look better when we hit them? When I ran this, I actually ran the old nilbog, where you could only kill them if you healed them. 
Breaking the gate floods both rooms, without reducing the water level in the flooded one. Moving it aside does not have this effect. Things that move into or out of the water come out wet, as if the arm bands are simply providing a new surface of the water, blowing on it or splashing it creates waves which want to move downward after they begin with their normal circular propagation. Effects that control or shape water will work on this room, though the water will eventually melt ice and if the mechanism fills the room with water after being emptied, it will fill with new, warm water.
Players that cannot breathe underwater cannot breathe here, the bull is just special.

That fuckin Aurochs infuriated the party. It took over an hour for them to accept that the thing wasn't going to die despite their best efforts. This room was inspired by this video


The square, 14ft tall, 30ftx40ft Room contains an aurochs bull, seemingly able to breathe under the water, munching on some sea grass. The water is impossibly clear but tinted green by the walls. In the corners of the room, are four White statues that glow at the base as if in intense moonlight. The statues depict Muscular hobgoblins, pointing as if running toward something. The Statues, upon investigation are set on circlular diases, with clearly marked gauge marks, indicating numbers from 1-400, with 400 being oriented toward the center of the room, with 1 and 399 on either side. The statues can rotate to point in the direction of these numbers and they do so with very little resistance, On each statue, because of the walls, only a range from 350 through 400 to 50 can be selected. the total values the statues align to is 1600.

I wanted some sort of puzzle to really hammer in the odyssey. Bizzare underlighting, slight fog, warm water, a very sensory experience that also poked at the brain to explore this place a little.

• When they Point at any Given Wall An opening appears
  • Opposite the entrance reveals an empty but domed room with red walls, and black trim, making the light within it dim. A mummy lord with 13 health waits here. It has not established its lair, but does have 500 gold worth of small golden cylinders around it, and two 100gp rings on its fingers.
    
    They never found this room, it was intended to introduce them to the abundance of treasure they could find, as well as set the tone for some of the strange circumstances they might find.
  • Right of the entrance is a pair of gargantuan genderless but obviously nearly human legs made of sandstone that are slowly fading away. Stuck into it is a rapier. The name on the Rapier reads "Lazarus Honore Dorian Tibeaux" with "The Old Chariot" on the other side of the blade. It functions as a "charity sword"
    • Nirrum's note: A convenient ozymadias reference, or the result of Elder Dramuut getting cut in half by the bag-in-a-bag trick? Who can say?
      
      Nor this room. This laid out both Allegory and a connection to other parts of the campaign and hinted at how powerful the maze is. Tibeaux lost his sword to two bags of holding in exchange for half of a sandstone god. The other half didn't last long.
  • left of the entrance is the interior of a small wooden hut, the outside of which is bounded by the blueish green stone of the maze, streaked with black (should the players attempt to tunnel through). The person inside is a very lanky old halfling woman. She is a druid of the 4th level and has goodberry pie in the oven currently. She offers the pie to the players if they can help her escape the maze and it not only heals 5hp but acts as a single cast of "lesser restoration" if eaten, there are 12 pieces total and it takes an action to consume one. The pie is tart but also sweet.
    
    She's still in there, their first NPC they could have saved. It takes 3 sapients to become a maze-hunter. She exmplifies many of the lessons I bake into my campaigns, as well as my pies. Make do with what you have, accept what you have not.
    
  • If pointed at the entrance, the entrance is replaced with a stairway downward. Creatures still in the previous room can see in but creatures in the room can't see them, and only see them emerging from the new doorway as if it were a watery illusion, the stairway
    down goes to Floor 2
    
    They got this but went another route. Spooky, innit?
    
  • If pointed at a creature, that creature gains the ability to breathe underwater for 1 minute.
    
    They actually got this! I was so excited,  I was hoping they'd explore more.
• When they are oriented for a total value of 200, the room drains and the Aurochs begins to suffocate. If the previous room is flooded, it flees to there. The rest of the mechanism's operations change then
  • If all statues point (as best they can) to any one of the four walls, An opening reveals itself on that wall
    • Opposite the entrance reveals a room with 25 hostile bodhaks that move out of the way of the party until everyone is in the room
      
      They figured out that the bodhaks in this room couldn't come into their version of the maze. This actually implies they came into the maze from a separate instance, and were not warped in
      
    • To the left of the entrance there is is a small platform and a 60ft drop with no ladder. This brings the party to Floor 2
      
      They took this one down, All excited to move to the next floor
      
    • To the right is a dark corridor with seemingly no end (It is 3 miles long). The air is always clear in this hallway and smells of old glue or paper. This brings the party to A large octagonal room with a stunning mosaic on the cieling, within is an abandoned village built for something that could have been no more than three feet tall. The construction appears to be out of mangrove wood. A blind Oni sits against one wall.
      
      Who lived here, why is it so small, how did this get here? Did the Oni have something to do with this?
      
      • Within the village there is spice snake jerky and Kimchi, which is extremely spicy but edible, there is enough for 4 medium creatures
        
        Florida and Korea both in mind, 4 rations in case they took a long time.
        
      • The oni asks for a single participant duel of anyone. Anyone who even remotely interferes is cursed to have disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws for 1 day and 1 hour. Attacks to hit the Oni have disadvantage unless the player is also blind. If the oni dies, he leaves behind is glaive, a Black guan-dao with jade-like inlay. The Guan-dao is magical and can be used as an arcane focus.
        • The oni will do nothing if they leave him alone
        • If they sleep without watch, they wake up to the oni sitting on a dead horse with no flesh on its head and long fangs.
          
          This went entirely as planned. They got the glaive but they didn't see the knuckleavee. The Oni subverted the sense of sight, making vision equal to blindness and blindness equal to vision in function.  This is also how I seed treasure in my world.
          
    • If pointed to the entrance, Nothing happens
      
      They got this as well. What a disappointment
      
  • If pointed at a creature, that creature gains +2 to damage with weapon attacks and only takes half of all damage for two hours
    
    They didn't get this one, which is a shame. Hobgoblins have big muscle energy.
• When they are aligned to a value of 1400, the room fills up.
  
  They did this several times trying to kill the bull, poor thing, it just wants to eat sea grass alone. He'd probably succeed if he wasn't such a raging asshole.

The Aurochs is Indestructible and ornery. It will charge the nearest creature every round unless charmed.

This was the introduction to the maze and was purposely fucky. This was there to break the assumption that you can guess what comes next. An idea that was purposely re-established and subverted again, More coming in floor 2!


L'A
-Nirrum the mad