With the right attitude, anything can be a dungeon in the D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide
When someone says the word "dungeon," especially in the context of Dungeons & Dragons, a certain aesthetic comes to mind. I picture deep tombs, dark crypts, and dank catacombs.
As it turns out, I'm thinking too small. Or at least too traditionally. No, there's nothing wrong with wading through sewers or delving through animal dens. There's a reason why places like those are classic: They evoke grimdark imagery in a player's imagination before they even step inside. Besides, where else would you expect to find Juiblex the Faceless Lord of Slimes and Oozes?
But Chapter 3: DM's Toolbox in the D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide would like you to consider less conventional locations to hold your next dungeon crawl. The Dungeon Quirks table has 36 ideas—some more traditional than others—that will add character to your run-of-the-mill dungeon setting. A few excellent examples:
- An amazingly well preserved ancient city inside a dome encased in volcanic ash, submerged underwater, or entombed in desert sands.
- Floating on the sea
- Built in or among the branches of a tree
- Built to house a planar portal but abandoned when creatures or energy from the other side of the portal seeped into the dungeon
- Carved into a meteorite (before or after it fell to earth)
- Caverns carved by a beholder's disintegration eye ray, with unnaturally smooth walls and vertical shafts connecting different levels
- Made by giants at a massive scale
Did you see the one up there about caverns carved from a beholder's disintegration eye ray? Or the one carved into a meteorite? Designer Chris Perkins did that last one to his players once. Sounds like a good time. I've always wanted to soar towards a planet on an extinction-level event.
It was the Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus adventure that first expanded my horizons as to what a dungeon could be. Traveling across the first layer of the Nine Hells, I'm not sure a single site fit my original definition of a dungeon. There were Hellwasp nests that made off with our golden Hollyphant, a labyrinth of thorny bones with a hag wanting a spa day at the center, an enormous scab wrapped around a holy structure, and even the lava-dipped smithy of the former ruler of Avernus.
Again, nothing wrong with a good ol' dungeon crawl through a good ol' dungeon. But as far as Dungeons & Dragons is concerned, anything can be a dungeon if you try hard enough.
The D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide launched today, November 12. It's the second of three core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons' 50th Anniversary. The first core rulebook, the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook, earned rave reviews.
