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Dungeon of the Fire Opal
🕑 Added 2023-11-17 16:56:44 +0000 UTCMost old-timers are more than a bit familiar with this dungeon – but almost every generation of D&D Dungeon Master has probably brushed against it. It originally appeared in the AD&D1e Dungeon Master’s Guide in 1979, and then appeared again in the 3e DMG in 2000, and the 5e DMG in 2014. In the 1979 and 2000 versions, it was also accompanied by a description of what playing through a small part of the dungeon could be like.
For this version, I also referenced Jonathan Tweet’s full write-up of the dungeon from Dungeon Magazine issue 84 where it was keyed for level 3 characters in the early days of Third Edition. I used this adventure as a guide to placing details in the various rooms and hallways, but not so much so that one would have to use that adventure to make up cool stuff for each area.
Two of my favourite parts of the whole map are the descriptions of the secret door in 3 and the secret door in room 28.
Room 3 has a secret door that is significantly above floor level, and a series of notches in the wall just beneath it. The notches used to hold up the wooden raised platform on the south side of the room (the wooden beams would be pushed into the notches to hold the structure up) and the secret door was meant to access this raised platform. It’s this kind of background that makes me think harder when drawing and detailing my own maps.
Room 28 has a secret door that leads in two distinctly different directions – depending on how you open it. Just finding the secret door and triggering it to open will lead to room 29, but knowing the extra-secret triggering mechanism will open it up instead to the stairs at area 30 – the real treasure room of the monastery dungeon.
The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 10,500 pixels (35 squares) wide. To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the suggested 10′ squares to match the original) – so resizing it to either 2,450 pixels wide or 4,900 pixels wide, respectively.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2023/11/17/dungeon-of-the-fire-opal/
Comments
Dyson Logos
I haven't checked. They are the numbers from the original (1979) and definitely the same as the 3e version.
Marc Majcher
Those ghouls!
Joe Barzilai
Do the numbers here correspond to the 5e DMG?
