“Built by priests of Amon-Gorloth, this dungeon was constructed and adapted from existing caverns following their dreams channeled from Amon-Gorloth itself—making them a twisted and nightmarish version of the convoluted mausoleums under the desert sands where Amon-Gorloth sleeps and dreams.”—Dyson Logos

For a minimum-preparation D&D campaign, use The Deep Halls of Amon-Gorloth with the rules of your choice and some method to generate monster encounters.

This is one of my favorite maps from the map god mere mortals call Dyson Logos.¹ Every time I look at it, a voice in my head screams, “Bluebook D&D!”

Today, I’m doing it.

You might run it as a seven-level dungeon. Without counting encounter areas per color, though, I’m guessing there aren’t enough to stock a whole level of experience points for even a single character to level-up. So I group the colors into “logical” levels of two or three colors each.²

“To make it a bit easier to navigate, I’ve also provided a pair of colour-coded versions of the maps indicating the depth of each individual level. This is based on the excellent work of Michael Prescott who colourized a photograph of the original map before I had scanned it.”

Applying the “Stone Mountain” nomenclature from Holmes to Prescott’s colors, we get the following three-level dungeon.

Even at two or three colors each, XP per level will be tight. A fun solution to the problem is to throw treasure at it. See “Monty Haul” below.

Mine is a solo campaign, so I don’t trouble myself with placed encounters. As the PCs explore the dungeon, I roll on the tables in Monster & Treasure Assortment Set One: Levels One-Three. This random generation fits the dungeon’s “dreams of Amon-Gorloth” theme.

I say, “What’s next?” and the voice says, “Three-dee-six in order…”

A “Monty Haul” Dungeon

There might be a line between “giving away treasure” and what we used to call a “Monty Haul” dungeon. If the PCs open a door to a ten-by-ten room and see piles of gold and platinum coins counted in the thousands, littered with gems and jewelry, and “one of every magic item in the book,”³ that’s giving away treasure.

To maintain the thrill in treasure-finding, the DM might put constraints on treasure placement by establishing a method. Your “Monty Haul” method might be anything, but keep to it.

My own “Monty Haul” method is simple: triple, quadruple, or quintuple any treasure, guarded and unguarded alike.

See also “The Origin of Monty Haul” by self-professed “Monty Haul” DM Jim Ward.

Notes

¹ Dyson Logos has been making the most awesome hand-drawn maps since 2009. He makes them available for free under a Creative Commons license on his blog. He also has a Patreon, where you can support the creator.

² For a tougher dungeon, make each level only two colors. Violet becomes the fourth level.

³ “…one of every magic item in the book.”—Yours truly, circa 1983.