Dungeon23, 1/1/23 - 1/1/23

This is a day of firsts.  This is my first time blogging, and this is my first megadungeon.  Actually, it's my first dungeon of any kind.  This post will go a bit into the background and general idea of my megadungeon, and also what I did today on it.  I think I'll post every week.  

Background

This megadungeon is set into the wall of a canyon.  Here's a side view, from the ancient times and the modern:

In the ancient times, there was a deep raging river that carved out the canyon.  Giant sea serpents glided along its surface.  At the top of one canyon wall, a hunter-gatherer tribe of humans dug down and carved out a home for themselves.  They carved down 12 floors.  Eventually, they tamed the sea serpents, riding them forward and back along the river, establishing trade up and down along the canyon.  They became wealthy.  As the river receded in later years, an opening in the far canyon wall was revealed, that the sea serpents went in and out of.  The ancient ones guided a serpent to the far wall, and found a massive cave structure there.  They killed the serpent, stretching its mouth open to fill the cave opening, and pounded stakes through its mouth into the walls.  As they explored the cave, they carved meat out of the serpent for their food, eventually forming a tunnel through its corpse back to their home.  The explorers were overrun by monsters then, who swarmed through the tunnel and slaughtered everyone inside.

Now:

The megadungeon is home to many groups of monsters and other factions.  The river has receded to a small stream on the canyon floor.  The serpent's body remains.  

Format

I bought the fancy Japanese notebook like everybody else, and then afterwards saw a post about using a binder with graph paper, and thought hey that's an idea.  So I'll be using both; the notebook for daily use, with that week's section of seven rooms and their keys, and then I'll transfer the sections to the binder and add faction information on the top page, like this:

Day 1: Exterior, top of the canyon

January 1 is on the previous page in the notebook, so I decided to do a rough sketch of the exterior entrance.  As with everything else today, nothing is to scale:

General Guidlines

I didn't want to have undead, goblinoids, or a dragon.  I think I'll have mindless, harmless mummies somewhere though.  I've got a plan for two factions at this point: Poachers on level 1 led by McLeash, ripped off from Rescuers Down Under; he's here to take monster trophies, and came especially to find a legendary giant sea serpent, which may or may not exist alive.

And then, midway down, is the Palace of the Man Scorpion King; his minions guard every exit they know about on their floor, and they charge a tribute of 100 gold from anyone passing through their level.  

That's it for this week!