Colossal Caves

In 1982 I drafted up my first mega-dungeon, or what stood in for a mega dungeon at the time.  I called it the “Colossal Caves”. I got the name from a popular computer game of the time. It was a Basic D&D (1981 Rules) dungeon crawl. The players arrive at a village destroyed by a black dragon named Scatha that has come down from a nearby extinct volcano. Heading up into the mountains they enter the Colossal Caves, a warren of orcs, bandits, goblins, you name it. All lorded over by an evil wizard and his small, black dragon.

The players made it almost to the encounter with the dragon and then had to retreat. They were so annoyed at not having gotten the dragon that I wrote a “Return to the Colossal Caves” adventure.

The pencil and paper original map is here. Also here is a digital map I created years later.

Original Dungeon Map 1982

Digital Map