Dungeon Concepts

Every Dungeon NEEDS

 * 1) Three types of loot - obvious, hidden, and hilariously hard to find
 * 2) Something for the PCs to kill
 * 3) Something to kill the PCs (traps/monsters)
 * 4) Someone to TALK TO
 * 5) Something fun to play around with
 * 6) Different paths to get where they are going
 * 7) Realistic reasons for the dungeon to exist and the monsters to be here

Dungeon Concepts
Split timeline Dungeon where magic has frozen time, and split everything wtihin the dungeon into two separate timelines, but now only one can progress at a time and are triggered by a magical item.

Mad Wizard's Lair with experimental magical rooms and experiments.

A dungeon room where the floor is made of perfectly interlocked gold coins.

A clockwork tower shaped like a giant golem, being incorrectly repaired by malfunctioning Modrons.

A dungeon with only a single pool of water, when an item is thrown into the pool, it opens a portal based on the item thrown.

Dungeon room that requires non verbal communication, under the effects of a permanent silence spell, anyone who speaks takes psycic damage.

Dungeon with rapid-forming mold on certain surfaces, primarily on PCs, and needs ot be cleaned off every few minutes or they suffer increasingly ill effects.

Dungeon with very dry arid environment making water consumption a real concern.

Room with large face of a devil in the wall, with debilitating screams and breath, and can shoot rays from its eyes, once defeated it turns back into stone and opens its mouth wide granting passage to next room.

Dungeon where each player's soul is swapped into another PC's body.

A mound of earthy dungeon rooms that leads to room with a giant beating heart in the center.

Dungeon that mimics other climates, swamp, desert, snowy mountain, etc.

A dungeon room 'of holding' filling up with items from other dungeon rooms before the bag get too full and expulses its contents to other rooms withing the dungeon.

A dungeon designed as a trap for adventurers, always pitting two rival parties of adventurers against one another to reach the treasure first. May link to multiple planes and may also distort time to set up competitions.

A room with an invisible maze, with sections that rotate, and incorporeal monsters that drop pieces of the key to leave.

A castle that is actually a giant mimic, housing a gallery of mimics and other animated items.

An underwater dungeon that is made of crashed ship hulls, and dead giant sea creatures.

A dungeon contained within a large painting.

Dungeon with magical elemental oils to use on weapons and armor to grant a combat advantage and resistances vs other elemental creatures.

Dungeon filled with soul jars supposedly belonging to an ancient lich. Each jar contains a soul of some sort, helpful or unhelpful.

A huge cube-shaped dungeon with rooms on the walls and ceiling,where a switch rotates the gravity to allow for passage to the walls and ceiling.

Desert Shrine that appears ominous at night, but during dawn and dusk is aglow with the light of the rising/setting sun.

Dwarf Stones, chunks of dwarven city that has been hurled by massive earth elementals, the size of mountains, landing very far from anywhere you'd expect to find dwarven ruins.

A dungeon comprised of tiny magical pieces/monsters that changes shape and form around the party as they progress.

Ice castle or structure that is melting and slowly revealing new areas and monsters not explored in centuries.

Large water temple is slowly nearing the shore, home to a sect of crazed monks bent on taking back the mainland for their god by force.

A room in a dungeon with a gibbering mouther safely behind a wall of force, the party has to learn the secret password from one of the mouther's frequent ramblings. Could also awaken a dead god.

Abandoned city built on and around large deposits of Shire Glass.

Dungeon where primary means of travel is only by extinguishing all light sources and the darkness magically teleports the PCs to the next destination.

A dungeon populated with demons wherein the demonologist had to hide himself in a grimore to try escaping a pact he is trying to get out of.

Dungeon filled with traps already sprung and recently killed adventurers strewn about, once the party reaches the treasure room, they find the treasure is an illusion and the traps reset and the adventurers reanimate.

When crossing the threshold of the dungeon, the party's souls are ripped from their body and contained in a small crystal pendant, and need to be used to work the dungeon's puzzles.

A dungeon that has no visual component. In order to see, the party must make loud noises, and can then 'see' the echos of the noise.

A dungeon that is a series of taverns, all connected magically and you can use it to travel long distances. Need to be various levels of drunk to pass through.

Dungeon made of long Labyrinth sections, broken up by clear progress chambers, or monster chambers.

Wizard's tower with an infinite number of floors, all of a low challenge rating. Puzzles allow PCs to skip certain amounts of floors to get to the 'top'

A small dungeon being fought over by low-level devils or demons.

A dungeon with surfaces that bounce ranged attacks, any arrows or spells missed keep going until they hit another player, or do a certain amount of total damage.

A dungeon inhabited by animals made of twisted wood and vines, the lair of a master druid creating their own race of creatures to better protect the forest.

A dungeon under a large city - the dungeon being an upside-down duplicate of the city above.

A dungeon with a giant spotlight that shines a light that wherever it hits, it rewinds time by a certain amount of time, but must be rotated to get to all elements of the puzzle.

A room with two doors that need to be opened simultaneously to progress, and walked through simultaneously, else you end up in a dead end room separated from the party.

A dungeon with doorways that transform the PCs to larger or smaller versions of themselves, able to reach higher and push large objects.

A dungeon room where a golem needs to cross a pool of water, and a bridge needs to be assembled by some aquatic plants that can be moved by the PCs, but only by the PCS making loud noises to repel the plants.

Dungeon with a day/night cycle, and can be controlled by the party using strategically-placed sundials.

A room filled with tripwire traps with wires blocking every avenue, and the party has only so many rounds to traverse to the other side.

A temple is built on an island inside of an active volcano, an enormous gem keeps the temple protected from the ravages of the heat and lava, removing the gem causes the volcano to erupt.

Dungeon Decorations / Features
Iron / Stone faces in the wall that shoot fire / acid / darts

Collapsed passageways requiring that the party move heavy objects out of the way.

Bloody handprints or footprints and spatter on the floor/walls

Plant growths that release tiny monsters from pods.

Knocking on the stone walls of a dungeon, follows the party or leads them.

Bugs crawling toward a specific room leading to a dark entity or item.

Water that sings as it drips, hauntingly filling the room with noises.

Broken glass strewn across the floor, very noisy to walk on and move around, may be spread intentionally or not.

Ghastly white bodies, stripped bare and frozen in poses indicating fear or fleeing, their faces frozen in terror.

A wall of force holding back water or lava used to light the dungeon or clean it.

Large stones that are held aloft by roots or loose vines.

Enchanted tapestries that glow as they depict their scenes.

Dead bodies speared to walls/ strung up from ceiling with chains and hooks.

Metallic skeletal structures, or frameworks, sings when struck.

Statues submerged in water except for top of head and eyes.

Strange metal bipedal statues, decorated with paint and strange symbols, overgrown, rusted, ancient.

Stones that glow only under certain light sources, sun, moon, stars, magical light, etc.

Cliff face with elven faces carved atop abstract bodies in the stone.

Faintly glowing colored smoke that hangs in the air, signifying an otherworldly presence.

Corpses speared to walls, or hanging chained from ceiling.

Traps set up surrounding a treasure chest, or some food, hunters will spring once the traps are heard going off.

Pillars and fixtures with beating hearts and organs in them.

Large disgusting eggs or cysts growing on the walls or floor, filled with liquids and/or creatures.

Doors that only open under moonlight or sunlight, starlight, or magical light.

Crystals growing is short spiky formation, like small fat fingers growing outward from the surface of the walls or floor.

Broken switches that require new levers or cranks to be replaced.

Mechanical chest that requires a specific method of opening, such as a combination lock with pictures, a puzzle involving the moon's phases, or a physical puzzle requiring tiles on the box to be slid into a specific pattern.

Tree with a twisted trunk and twisted branches, swaying even without wind. If attacked, it unwinds its branches revealing them to be magnitudes longer than they first appeared.

Statues with open mouths, when ancient bone relics are thrown in, it grants the person a boon or curse.

Vending machines that spawn elementals or minions wearing collars, putting gold into the vending machine buys several minutes of assistance from the minion, but they turn hostile unless more gold is inserted into their collar within 1d10 minutes, gold amount is irrelevant. Collars are magically returned to machine once the minion expires.

Natural cavern with walls and floors covered with fleshy, amorphous plants that will attempt to eat anything, with varying degrees of success. Cavern seems to have formed on its own after the dungeon was constructed, and may be growing.

Potion bottle found that is actually a genie's bottle.

Demon soul trapped in painting/item/weapon found in dungeon.

Mystical symbols that appear in random places that cause madness and visions.

Two holes, if a limb is put into one hole, it is severed after a few seconds. If two limbs are put in both holes at the same time, the limbs are magically swapped.

An altar with dried blood on it, maybe a few bones or sacrificial instruments.

Skeletons of dead adventurers, carefully posed standing or sitting. Disturbing them has them fall into a heap, and a chance that the person disturbing them will gain a minor curse.