Origins of the Concept of the Mega-Dungeon 002

Here are a few more links and references:

Xabloyan wrote:

Jules Verne - Journey to the Centre of the Earth - 1864.

kveldulf wrote:

Huh - when I saw the thread title I thought the reference was going to be to the semi-ruined castle complex in "Red Nails" (think that was the one).

As references for megadungeons of various sorts, I'd submit:
- Castle Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake (1950), a seemingly endless expanse of decaying fortress inhabited by eccentric folks. Somewhat later than Howard, but a good archetype for the vast castles like Greyhawk, Blackmoor and El Raja Key that defined the earliest campaign settings. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gormenghast_(novel)
- The vast pyramid in William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land" (1912), last redoubt of humanity in a post-apocalyptic landscape infested with otherwordly monsters. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land
- The shadowy supernatural labyrinths of Arthur Machen's "The White People" (1904). The story is also notable for its influence on H.P. Lovecraft and the possible inspiration of its fictional "Green Book" on Lovecraft's later creations of the Necronomicon and similar tomes. More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_People
- The underground city in Edward Bulwer-Lyttons' "The Coming Race" (1871). More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vril

harami2000 wrote:

Thanks for the quote: layered labyrinths does rather indicate an older heritage, don't you think?

Verne isn't on EGG's list but Burroughs' Pellucidar series is, of course.

Plenty scope for Gormenghast-inspired megadungeoning, even if more for flavor in the above examples rather than explicitly invoked, afaik.

Regardless, that wasn't exactly new territory in JRRT's time (and rather lacking in encounters - both in number and variety - in a D&D context, too )
Good flavoring again for various options, though.

Also, for an obvious example from one of the authors JRRT cited as influential to his own works;
<<
These mountains were full of hollow places underneath; huge caverns, and winding ways, some with water running through them, and some shining with all colours of the rainbow when a light was taken in. There would not have been much known about them, had there not been mines there, great deep pits, with long galleries and passages running off from them, which had been dug to get at the ore of which the mountains were full. In the course of digging, the miners came upon many of these natural caverns. A few of them had far-off openings out on the side of a mountain, or into a ravine.

Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings, called by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a legend current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity, in some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented and most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance. But I suspect those who said so had mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins themselves,of which more by and by. The goblins themselves were not so far removed from the human as such a description would imply. And as they grew misshapen in body they had grown in knowledge and cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the people who lived in the open-air storey above them. They had enough of affection left for each other to preserve them from being absolutely cruel for cruelty's sake to those that came in their way; but still they so heartily cherished the ancestral grudge against those who occupied their former possessions and especially against the descendants of the king who had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity of tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and although dwarfed and misshapen, they had strength equal to their cunning. In the process of time they had got a king and a government of their own, whose chief business, beyond their own simple affairs, was to devise trouble for their neighbours.

This last quote just above is from a Tolkien favorite - George MacDonald.

Gord wrote:

 The minotaur and the labyrinth are from Greek mythology.

So here are a few more to think about, does anyone have any others?