I'll try to keep this quick.

Prepping to run a sandbox campaign in Eberron (I disregard the Pundit's opinion of the setting). Keeping most of my notes system neutral in case 5e doesn't work out long term.

Focus is on the foreign quarter of Dar Jin, a city in a formerly closed empire (Riedra) that's only just starting to allow foreigners into very restricted areas. Lots of espionage, culture clashes, fancy digs.

Going for a very James Bond / Noble House / Casablanca vibe.

BUT, I want a megadungeon because I think having one handy is good for the players. They always have that standby to explore if they don't like their other options for the session. Plus, it's a good starting point for the newbies I want to introduce to the game or something easy to do with players who have unreliable schedules but want to get in the occasional game without having to keep up with the larger intrigue plots.

Trouble is, I think I've painted myself into a corner. The foreign quarter is closely watched and the rest of the country is off-limits to foreigners, so there's no convenient wilderness boundary zone to trek through to get to a dungeon. Even if there was, the paranoia of this control-freak empire would soon have agents tailing the PCs, finding the mega-dungeon, and declaring war on it themselves.

I'm trying to fit the dungeon under the streets of the foreign quarter, or more precisely inside a hill in the northern district that spreads under the wall and into about a mile of barren shore beyond (cut off from the rest of the country), but there's still the spy factor and the fact that a megadungeon under a major city would be an even higher priority for the control-freak empire!

I'm mulling over some possible solutions, but I could use some advice:

Perhaps the empire already cleared out old some old smuggler tunnels, figured the job was done and sealed most of the access points. This was a major and costly operation they don't care to repeat again. But they forgot at least one entry point that is then discovered by the players.

In the meantime, gradually monsters started bubbling up from the underworld, repopulating the sealed smuggler areas. They then dug new tunnels and linked formerly unrelated water systems and spaces that were missed by the government sweep.

While some of the governments agents are aware that the megadungeon is flourishing again, their superiors just don't have the manpower to spare and are planning to deal with it later. Any spies watching the players will then been instructed to report back only if their actions endanger the government, otherwise they are just doing the empire a favor by clearing out beasties.

I still don't like it much; it makes the ominous empire look weak.

Your thoughts?

Catacombs a la Paris?

I would just assume that the Empire sees the megadungeon as the garbage disposal of things. They have political prisoners toss them in the mega dungeon, oh the potential spies wandered in. good riddance one less group to worry about.


now when they start showing up again then it might get interesting, How in the heck did they survive?

would make it interesting.

Eh, I didn't read anywhere that you have to agree with everything Pundit says to post here. I have fond memories of Eberron myself.


Maybe the entrances are shielded from psionics (possibly due to daelkir influence or being a prison for daelkir) and thus invisible or unreachable to the Inspired?

The nice thing about the game is that you can play the moment of chaos between something happening, and the empire finding out.

Remember the last shot of the movie "From Dusk till Dawn"? The camera pans back and it is revealed that the bar/stripper joint is built on top of a huge pyramid structure. You could use something like that. Unbeknownst to anyone part of your city is on top of an ancient pre-human structure. Then someone dug too deep...

One of those TSR modules from the 80's, B4: The Lost City, might be useful to you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29

There could be a cultural taboo that limits what the empire is willng to do with the dungeon, or perhaps an epic curse affects native born folks and prevents them from seeing the dungeon which worked really well during the times if total xenophobia.

Or perhaps a secret faction of the empire has a vested interest in keeping knowledge of activities in the dungeon on the down low. Perhaps they have their own exploration effort, or have already established a base in the dungeon. Or maybe the faction are actually infiltrators from the dungeon.

There are also the underground cities in Cappadocia/Turkey - http://www.cappadociaturkey.net/undergroundcities.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_Underground_City

http://thetravelbunny.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/derinkuyu_map.jpg

- ancient catacombs à Paris or Rome
- sewer systems and/or well shafts... that have accidentally connected to something that better shouldn't be disturbed, or have been breached by burrowing dungeon dwellers
- buried undertown
- graveyard tombs breached by tunneling ghouls... and where they came from, there may be more whacky dungeon levels. What if the ghouls did actually *flee* surface-wards from something nastier?

I like these answers from Roger G-S: Why's There A Dungeon Under Your City?

I like your avatar Barbatruc.

I think many of you have misunderstood the dilemma I have.

The questions are not "Why is there a dungeon under the city?" or "What is the dungeon under the city?"

The questions are "Why hasn't the very organized and powerful dictatorship already cleaned it up?" and "What's to stop the dictatorship from cleaning it up themselves the moment their competent spies notice what the PCs are doing?"

The point of a megadungeon is that it can be visited multiple times and is so big it can never be fully explored/cleared and so the PCs always have it as a session choice. The city and country I have selected make this approach difficult, but I've already generated a lot of material for it and I don't want to relocate.

Why are there still piracy, drug trafficking, crime, slums or poverty in our world of governments that have much greater resources at their disposal than any medieval government could ever dream of? Because it is about issues that won't ever be solved.

If orcs or goblins or whatever sprout from cthonic ooze like fungi, there may never be a "final solution" to the evil humanoid problem.
If evil humanoids are just people like you and me but with an evil bent, they may be too well organized and dezentralized - some sort of subterranean Viet-Kong or Taliban evading and picking off government patrols.
If the monsters come from another place below the dungeon (Hell Gate, Hollow Earth, whatever) that is too well defended to be rushed by the humans, but neither can muster the numbers to do a full-out offense, you may have a Cold War Stand-Off situation where clashes are limited to minor border skirmishes.

In the end, it may be more efficient for the government to keep the problem from spreading to where the tax payers are by occassionally sweeping level 1 of the dungeon, and to leave the dangerous parts to themselves.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;784259The questions are not "Why is there a dungeon under the city?" or "What is the dungeon under the city?"

The questions are "Why hasn't the very organized and powerful dictatorship already cleaned it up?" and "What's to stop the dictatorship from cleaning it up themselves the moment their competent spies notice what the PCs are doing?"

Re-examine your questions. Instead of the above, how about "What use could a powerful dictatorship have for a megadungeon under their city?"

If you want a cold war feeling, then the answer is intelligence gathering. With some kind of observation of the goings on in the megadungeon, the powerful dictatorship can gain knowledge of heroes capabilities and tactics - thus giving them an edge.

For a James Bond superweapon feeling, the megadungeon could house a monstrous army of undead or a pet Tarrasque waiting to be unleashed on the world.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;784259The questions are "Why hasn't the very organized and powerful dictatorship already cleaned it up?" and "What's to stop the dictatorship from cleaning it up themselves the moment their competent spies notice what the PCs are doing?"

The point of a megadungeon is that it can be visited multiple times and is so big it can never be fully explored/cleared and so the PCs always have it as a session choice. The city and country I have selected make this approach difficult, but I've already generated a lot of material for it and I don't want to relocate.

I posted the moment of chaos, but also, how are they going to clear it out? Underground fortifications are very successful, and even still used in modern times like Tora Bora.

Given the influence far realm creatures have had in that region you could go for something simple that somehow got warped by the influences of that realm last time it was co-terminus with eberron, lots of aberations and warped creatures living in the remnants of the undercity(maybe a few political prisoners were "hidden" there aswell) unable to reach the surface city because of powerful anti psionic wards and "other" protections.
The heroes somehow finding a way in could set off alarm bells for the authorities which would further ramp up your other campaign plots.