The World's Largest Dungeon, ugh.

I remember when I picked up this massive tome of a book with a parcel of maps attached. It was Gencon 2008, and the AEG booth had three copies left for 15 dollars each. I had always seen it in high school at the local game store, sitting on the shelf with a 100 dollar price tag. Finally able to satisfy my curiosity I grabbed a copy and took it home.

The map itself was massive, made up of 16 large posters which when put together would take up a 5' x 8' area. It was a beautiful map that hung in it's glory in my office for several years until I recently took it down to hang some D&D Walkthrough Maps. Each square was represented (Although small and almost unusable) and each room was labeled on the map with a number to help find it in the book.

800 pages thick and weighing in at several pounds the tome that came with these maps was about the only good things I could say about this book. The map aside, the dungeon itself was a slog and rather boring with weird difficulty spikes. The first 'map' of the dungeon is made for level 1 players but has CR 3+ encounters, monsters with the Fiendish template, and traps that will delete players immediately around most corners and doors. Any adventurer with a sound head on their shoulders would leave immediately, kicking the giant corpse on the way out.

If anyone is stupid enough to keep going they would find themselves in the next area which is full of Balance checks, rooms that seal when players enter with one only odd way out (or just turning around and tossing checks at the door to force it back open) and a host of monsters that will deal significant damage to a party that's having to spend resources to even get through more than two non-combat encounters. The monsters here are also extremely difficult with extra feats and in some cases class abilities. This theme would continue through the entire dungeon.

The way the dungeon is put together means you may not even go to the right region first, walking into an area where the party is under leveled and can get immediately wasted in the first encounter or trap they stumble upon. This is the issue my friends and I encountered when I tried to run it straight using 3.5 (which it was intended for), even after they had stumbled through the first map with half of the party replaced and a new found hatred of traps, they ended up going to the 'wrong' section which resulted in the first trap instantly killing the party's fighter through HP loss. Correcting course they went to the other attached map, only to find that the encounters were still brutal and the dungeon's own level of bullshit made them wonder if there was a third option.

I have tried to do a write up for this book but it's too terrible to even stomach anymore. A great tear down of this pile of shit can be found at the link below, where someone had the time and stomach to put into words just how horrible this is. Oriongates, you get a shout out for doing what needed to be done.

FATAL and Friends - The World's Largest Dungeon

These days the book rests on my shelf, forgotten in the closet. The maps are all nicely folded up and kept in a sleeve, as I do rather enjoy the map. I almost want to track down the World's Largest City but I am sure that the map is the only decent part of that mess as well.

About the only thing it is good for is keeping other books off of the ground