Little idea I had at work: for GMs comfortable with improvising:
Dungeon Seeds
The demon lord Anarazel delights in greed, bloodlust, and recklessness that adventurers so often fall prey to, and so fashioned these items to give them endless opportunities to practice said vices. They appear as small coins of an unknown black metal, polished to a mirror finish. If a word is spoken to one, and it is buried in the earth, some time later an entrance will emerge to a dungeon themed by the word in question: “fire” will produce a fire dungeon, “spiders” will produce a spider dungeon, etc.
Most coins produce relatively small dungeons: a single level with 5-7 rooms in them. Roughly 1 in 6 produce greater dungeons: 5-7 levels deep, and 1 in 6 of those (or 1 in 36 overall) will produce megadungeons consisting of 5-7 full dungeon “branches”. Small dungeons will take a few minutes to “grow”, greater dungeons will take a few hours, and megadungeons will take a few days. Almost all dungeons will result in thematically appropriate monsters, traps, tricks, and treasure. Usually, any treasure will be commensurate with the risk involved: a “harmless” dungeon might only have a few copper coins scattered through: contrariwise, attempting to cash in with the word “gold” might result in a dungeon filled with lethal golden constructs and deathtraps.
Ooooh. I like this a lot! Thanks for the idea.
Cool! having a warlock in the party he might even be tempted with an offering of coins… evil grin
THIS HAD BETTER HAPPEN IN OUR GAME.
Little relevant plot hook that came to me as I woke up today:
The Adventurer’s Guild Hall is still very much under construction, so when a strange old man offered magic “building seeds” at a reasonable but not suspiciously low price, the guild leadership was happy to accept. Instant library! Instant wine cellar! Instant temple! Except the library’s a deathtrap, the wine cellar is full of monsters, and the less said about the new ecumenical temple, the better. If you can clear at least ONE of these out, you’ll be made guild members in full standing with no need to pay dues for the rest of your natural life, in addition to making a valuable resource available to all guild members. Sound like a deal?
FUCKING DEAL.
This is enough for a TV series. Million dollar idea.