Designing a Safe Haven in D&D 

A friend of ran a game a few years ago. He kept mentioning 'The Time of the Bad Moon', at least once every session. When the in game timeline was right he told us the event was happening. For several nights in a row the moon would be especially full and bright. And during 'The Bad Moon' lynchanthropes were more active and also more powerful. The odds of being infected were higher (doubled I think) and of course we ended up fighting a large group of them. He pulled it off well and made sure that we had to venture out into the wilderness during the event, and that we were unable to get back to safety to the keep before nightfall.

Last I heard... Ever since the last group of adventurers returned from the dungeon, we've had gristly murders in the woods. Watch yourself on the roads at night, friend.

A former group of mine played a megadungeon campaign a few years back, one of things that happened with the nearby town was that new businesses popped up as more money got pumped into the town. We got into it ourselves by opening our own curio & antiquities shop, stocked with stuff we plundered from the dungeon.

Rumor: the infamous killer, Bo-run Dushaw has been sighted inside the dungeon. A handsome reward may be claimed for bringing him in dead or alive. He is a madman that collects the spoons of his victims and can use them to deliver spell attacks. This serial killer is considered armed and dangerous by the law.

A pack of large wolves roams the moors at night, stay in town or take your chances.

Rumor : Man 1: "Ya hear about that young lad Linus? The one who came back crawling on the walls! I heard when the guard caught him the kid puked up spider eggs. " Man 2: "Aye hear he made a deal with a devil, and sold out his party for his life!" Rumor : Partly True. Linus, a former bow fighter did come back with strange powers. But they're not a devil's. They're from an arachnid queen capturing adventures for her brood and offering some an escape. Accepting her offer changes your class to Warlock, Patron Arachnid Queen. Custom. He did not sell out his party, he was the only surviving member.

My party made an arrangement with a farmer family that allowed them to build a house on their property which they watched over while the party was away in exchange for gold

So I just found your channel. Through the power of Reddit. Honestly am surprise you don't have more subs. Like your video are awesome and insightful.

Ben Robbins, creator of the West Marches style of play, also advocated for a safe haven. One of his arguments were that players would be distracted by all the possible quests and dangers in the town, instead of hexcrawling. So he explicitly said to his players that the town had no danger nor quests to be made IN the town. Of course quests could be given there.

Rumor: “Albreth the alchemical goods trader is offering a reward for information on new slimes, molds and fungi, but no one seems to have provided enough evidence to collect it.”

A rumor. Some one (the rumor mill can't say who) found a journal of the renowned thief Black Dugal the Elder in this very dungeon. He was said to have a charm that would tell him of deadly poisons on treasure chests. Maybe his body still has that charm, if he died in the same dungeon his journal was found. Even if he didn't who knows what secrets the journal of a master thief would hold!

Another good video Daniel interesting stuff . After the heavy rains of late a Sheppard found an old coin while rescuing a lamb from a flooded stream , it must flow out of the Dungeon.

There is an enchanted mead horn that can give you the wisdom of the dwarves, but at a cost Partially true. It is a magic well with a mead horn used to take drafts. The water tastes like strong ale and it causes you to grow a magnificent beard. The beard falls out in d6 days but you have dwarven stone cunning until then. On draft can be taken a week. A second draft causes 1 day of intoxication (role play drunkenness. Penalty at DMs option)

The Shadowburg is an old, ruined castle on a mountain of indeterminate size that is full of dungeons (whichever ones suit me). The PCs live across the river in the village of Knightsbridge. I used the Tower of Zenopus from the Holmes Basic book as the first “seed” dungeon inside the Shadowburg. PCs have freed Baron Philip, the heir of Shadowburg, from a lengthy imprisonment there, because too many monsters had overrun his ancestral home when he tried to rule from it. Baron Philip now lives in the Knightsbridge town hall, ahem, the miller’s house. Disturbances continue to emerge from the Shadowburg, and if I need another dungeon adventure at any time, I can locate that dungeon somewhere in or under the Shadowburg too.

Rumor: A small monster stole a powerful sword from a passed out adventurer and was spotted taking it back to the dungeon. Partially true. One of the bartender's kids fancied themselves an adventurer and saw their chances to get into that dungeon by stealing the sword.

I'm in the process of setting up an open table game. You're videos have been very helpful. Thanks!!

It's not a stronghold, but it is a clubhouse!

I believe you also need to have something near the town for the non-adventurers to do, otherwise you'll end up with a town of adventurers that have been attracted to the dungeon and the party won't be able to go down there without bumping into a competing party. Mines/quarries are good as that i) explains what a lot of people might be doing, ii) might be how the dungeon was found and iii) might unearth some other activities/locations that can be explored outside of the megadungeon. Local quarries can be providing stone for civic buildings too. Also, as the town grows all those people are going to need to be fed, so you'll either end up relying on magic for that or those caravans are going to be lugging a load of food into town. Even with guards that's going to end up being a risky business - lots of food/goods going in, lots of expensive trinkets and gold going out. Banditry on the road would be rife. So the town is going to need to expand its agricultural capability (which means land clearance, logging businesses, etc. as well as farmers) and that can provide for local out-of-the-dungeon adventures. To protect those new businesses/supply routes the town is going to need to substantially increase its guard patrol and defence capability too so that provides work for the non-adventurer, though still adventurous, sorts and gives a natural source for replacement PCs too whilst explaining their familiarity with their locale. All that growth is going to need a lot of money from the town, so the tax on treasure trove coming from the megadungeon is going to be quite substantial - before you even get to start to talk about inflationary prices for goods in a "boom town"!

I never got into the whole town with a dungeon based economy thing. I put my megadungeon about one days journey (conveniently through mostly safe land) from town, and put a map to the megadungeon in as a treasure in an intro dungeon. Then, I added a couple potential safe-house in the edge of the dungeon itself -- currently they hide out with some friendly cavemen between adventures and head back to town periodically (always rested and fully healed for the trip).

I am a fan of quest givers. As such, you could insert them as key NPCs in and around the town / safe haven or in the wilderness by the dungeon. Perhaps a hedge wizard (this could be a mage, cleric or even a multi class spell caster, or even a humanoid witch doctor) that lives near the mega dungeon engages the part to recover some Macguffin from the dungeon. Provide a crudely drawn map, somewhat nebulous instructions, but be very clear on what they need to find. If you want to throw in a double cross for good measure, go ahead. Something similar could be done with an apothecary in town who needs a rare or difficult to obtain and preserve component for a particular salve / tincture / potion. Offers of potions as payment and whatever else the PCs can carry out should provide enough of a hook. Rumors could include: A spider brood mother resides within the dungeon protecting a clutch of eggs that will hatch at *particular time*. If they are removed from the dungeon and treated with *substance* they may be used to create ink for Spider Climb and Web spells or for potions of Spider Climbing. - True? A pool in a cave in the nth level of the dungeon contains an unusual/ unique mineral formation that is critical to the creation of Potions of Treasure Finding or Invulnerability, you pick it. It cannot be exposed to the air directly or it will exude a poisonous gas / explode / petrify the PCs touching it. - partly true? Just have fun with it.

When the haven came under attack, they abandoned the town. Said that’s their problem, I’m a dragon slayer - and walked out

Lots of great campaign ideas in this vid. Congratulations on your channel's growth! It's well deserved! It's been my experience that you consistantly produce top level content for your audience! Much appreciated. 👍

Love this channel so much. Keep up the awesome work, Daniel!

Rumor: there be mirrors, broken now, what act as magic portals into a vault of vast riches.

Two different computer games, similar but different genres did this quite beautifully in my opinion. The original diablo, oh yeah game of the year 1996 released in 1995! That's the one! Also I do believe the icewind Dale games, the first one if not the second one as well, made by black aisle under the same umbrella as aldersgate one and two, had the town safe area and then the dungeon you would dive into. I wish they would remaster Diablo 1

I don't like "quest givers" because in my experience there have been a few times where they've broken game immersion or generally altered the atmosphere that I was trying to cultivate. It's okay to have overarching missions, or quests or tasks, but I have had moments where I've been explaining an NPC and a player would loudly say, "Oh, so they're a quest board". No, it's farmer McGregor and he's trying to find his daughter! He's not just some checkbox on your list.

“I saw a basilisk near them old ruins! Looked him right in the eyes I did! Must be it’s lair in there somewhere!” Mostly(?) true!

Rumor: A corpse drained of all its blood was discovered this morning in the shady part of town (T).

Running B2 my nephew (7) insisted on stealing the evil cleric's platemail instead of proof of his evil doing. The clatter of course roused the guards and only a skillful vaulting of the Keep's walls kept him from getting clapped in irons. It however got the party put on notice and him exiled from returning to the safety of the walls. So while nothing should happen to the partyin the sanctuary, breaking the security of the sanctuary should also be severely penalized .

Jackman Keefer the Master Thief didn't return after his third time into the dungeon. It is rumored that he had magical thieves tools and that's why he was so successful the first two times.(true)

Years ago, a broken-hearted explorer limped back to town after the rest of her party was lost. She swore that she had found a deep grotto filled with glowing crystalline gardens, as she was feverish and dying. I’d like it to be true…

Liked.

Good video. I highly recommend Greg Gillespie's Mega Dungeons to see how you can do a fresh spin on the standard "dungeon". Each one has a very cool Safe Haven tied to the dungeon and surrounding areas.

My idea? Make the PCs BUILD their safe haven.

Rumors! 1) A high elf lost their magic boots while escaping a hungry pack of slimes in the dungeon. Boots have value, but maybe a favor from an elf is worth more? (TRUE) 2) The apothecary is supplying bandits outside the town with potions of invisibility! (FALSE)

Rumors? 1- The ruins of (deity name here)'s temple, which was a vast reliquary and storehouse of lore back in the day, were found by some investigators but only one of them returned and he is hiding somewhere in the workers quarters. Oh, by the way, the rats in the workers quarters are starting to behave strangely and dangerously... 2-They're a witch! No, I'm not a newt anymore-- I got better. 3- The merchant's selling magical potions smuggled from a bad place and bad people 4- The councilman's/noble's/general's/bigwig's daughter was found sneaking into the dungeon and meeting with strange people/creatures. Don't listen to their excuses... it just ain't right! Why... councilman B's family would never do such unseemly things; why do we listen to councilman A so much? 5 - Some of the disappeared children were seen going to a camp near the megadungeon. 6 - Bob is actually a missing hero from a distant land. (He's actually Bob's twin brother) 7- The land of Badass have had more and more scouts in the area. They're watching the trade caravan routes... must be planning something. ... and so on and so on...

I like the concept of the Town next to the megadungeon that has an economy based on it. However, what I find difficult to justify is the treasure, or "realistically" the lack of if. A town like that next to the dungeon means that it probably is raided very frequently, meaning that there should hardly be any treasure left for the first couple of floors (besides the corpse of some previous adventurers) or rather anything really. Most traps would be already disabled in some way, treasure is already looted and monsters lairs would be very few, Wandering monsters get a pass as they may come from levels below. Of course you could say that the idea is to get to lower floors but I fear that most of those things would be absolutely deadly to justify the intactness of treasure and other stuff, creating some kind of a "bottleneck" that probably would cause the opposite effect of incentivizing the players on exploring it. Maybe there is something that I'm missing, I haven't played that much with megadungeons so a more experienced player/dm could shed me some light on it.

NPC-to-PC stations are something I’ve been putting in my adventures, because I usually only have only a couple of players who play two to four characters apiece, and, you know, PCs die all the time. Along the way, though, I place a new NPC here and there who needs rescue or something. These NPCs eventually get handed over to the players. This saves my players from having to make up new characters with bullshit backstories about how they met the party.

Running a mega-dungeon adjacent campaign I did have the safe haven (a fortified lumber camp in this case) be attacked by a sizeable force of bugbears after the party had ticked off the bugbear king in the dungeon for taking out too many of his soldiers. Oops. The PCs did managed to see them off though.

Great thumbnail. Is it from a movie? Can you share where it is taken from?

Hey Daniel! I'd love if you made a video about Chainmail, and what parts of it you think could be valuable to a BX style game. I'm particularly interested in weapon speed factor. Love the channel.

In deadlier games I think i's good to have players involved in coming up with backstory for the home-town. Perhaps they may lose a fair few characters at low-levels so this way they can develop backgrounds and a shared history but have them tied to the town.

Rumor: There's a monster on the third level that looks like an old sea chest, but will snap shut on your arms and start eating you when you reach in to pull out any of the treasure. When I was younger my party lost _three_ Thieves to this specific monster, because they kept insisting on breaking off from the group to sneak some extra treasure for themselves. False. Whether or not this type of monster is real, the retired warrior saying it only _wishes_ some of his former Thief companions got a karmic end for cheating him and the mages. They actually all got away with skimming money from the party. It's also not any of the third level chests, though you can't rule out floors 1, 2, 4, or deeper.

Rumor, I've heard that many people have seen Aurumvorax coming in and out of that cave. True or false

I don't know if anime is a media you consume, but there is one anime (and Light Novel the anime is based on) with a fantastic example of the Dungeon Economy Town. "Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in the Dungeon?"

I've played in a few mega-dungeon campaigns where the PCs had a safe haven town or castle to return to. It seemed to serve narratively as the place between sessions, and was safe by default so characters could regain HP, restock supplies, and prepare spells for the next adventure. The point of this style of gaming was exploring/conquering the dungeon, so it makes sense to provide a safe haven where adventures don't happen. Other games that focus on political intrigue, or epic quests wouldn't necessarily benefit from or require this type of setup.

A layered city on the outskirts of the abyss. In the center, a mega dungeon. Next out, a nomans land. Next, a wall to shoot down obvious demons that leave the dungeon. Then, a city with inns and loose laws infiltrated by shapeshifters, possessed people, cursed items, unfiltered items from the dungeon. If you have a recipt from buying and selling in the zone, it's duty free. The next layer out is a checkpoint and tollway. All items are inspected and taxed if you don't have a recipt. Cursed items or people aren't allowed to pass nor are people who cannot afford the inspection and Healthcare fee. Outside the check point is the safe city with much of the wealth and almost none of the curses. There is smuggling of cursed items and dispute on what constitutes a curse. As long as you stay out of politics, the streets of the outer city are safe. Next layer is just the outer wall to the outer city.

Your name may be Daniel, but you are a Miyagi! XD

Rumor: A local ruffian recently murdered his friend and is hiding in the dungeon to avoid the authorities. A reward is being offered. TRUE Rumor: A nearby group of goblins know a secret way into the dungeon that bypasses some danger. They have been seen with expensive jewelry. FALSE Rumor: Little Timmy fell down the farmer's well, when he was rescued he claimed that there were lots of scary looking tunnels that lead in the direction of the dungeon. TRUE

I often struggle with this. Most towns I habe made have ended up left behind by my players who seem forever interested in going ever into the unknown. This has led me to treat towns as a bit cookie cutter because my players have shown that, no matter how interesting a town is, they are done with it after a few visits.

I have found that by having monsters show up in the Safe Haven, the players lose confidence that anyplace is safe. I have never been satisfied how those adventures turned out. I had an idea for a potion mechanic that needs putting in writing: a healing potion low level players can make which restores 4 hp but subtracts 1 point of constitution for 24 hours. Very useful to save a life but cannot be overused. Basically an alchemical healing potion rather than a clerical one.

What would you reccomend as far as monetary value for donations to receive healing from a cleric? I ran Keep on the Borderlands once and I feel like I made it too cheap (maybe like 5 or 10 gp, I can't remember).

First comment! Damn fine topic my friend!

Is there a shirt available to purchase with the image from the start of this video (ie. the demon with the wand - asmodeus?)?

RUMOUR: There is a cult that lives deep in the dungeon who worship a metal god and have metal skinned servants. True (if you like sci fi in your fantasy)