D&D’s most original addition to fantasy is the dungeon: an underground nightmare maze, a place with alien rules that must be mastered if you are to survive, a place that has no good reason for existing, a place that you explore for its own sake.
In its 45 years, D&D has spawned a video game industry that’s worth more than either the movie or the book industry. Dungeons, dragons, leveling, character classes, and loot drops define video game design space. But books, movies, and TV shows haven’t absorbed much from D&D that wasn’t in Tolkien.
In medieval and modern fantasy literature, you’ll frequently find magic swords, but no magic armor; wizards, but no clerics; and dragons, but no dungeons.
It’s the dungeons I miss.
I’d watch a TV show or read a modern book about people exploring a torchlit, hostile megadungeon: solving puzzles, bashing down doors, fighting strange and terrifying monsters. I’m not talking about a show with a set-piece in a tomb or sewer: there are plenty of those. I’m talking about the dungeon as a main character.
There’s just not that much content like that. Even most of the D&D novels I’ve read are more likely to spend more time on Tolkienesque wilderness quests than on dungeoneering, with maybe a few set pieces in a tomb.
So here’s where I need your help. I just had knee surgery and I’m stuck in bed. I’m looking for book, TV, and movie recommendations featuring dungeons.
Here’s the well-known, post-D&D fiction that I can think of with dungeon-crawl settings. Let me know what I missed.
Labyrinth: This is a pretty pure example of the breed. It takes place almost entirely in a dungeon. There are puzzles and weird monsters. The rules of the labyrinth are consistent but weird.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: The series as a whole is a travelogue, although the dungeon sequences are so good that they transcend set piece. Still, Temple of Doom is the only installment which really can be described as a dungeon crawl.
Cube: Cube is set entirely in a classic death trap dungeon. It’s got the puzzle solving, the location as the main adversary, and the claustrophobic dread that comes from knowing you’re a first level character in a module for levels 8-12.
Stranger Things: (mild spoilers ahead) Stranger Things is explicitly about D&D, and in season 2 they do dungeons pretty well. The tunnels of the Upside Down teach you to keep an eye on the ceiling; to use a map instead of a trail of crumbs; and to bring lots of flaming oil. That’s pretty D&D. Still, the dungeoneering-per-minute ratio is low.
Dungeon series: During my D&D-obsessed youth, I started reading the Dungeon series, edited by Philip Jose Farmer. I couldn’t get into it. It’s called the Dungeon series, though, so I suppose it’s probably got dungeons in it?
Maze Runner: A young adult book where teens have to learn to navigate a dungeon. Fits the bill even though the protagonists spend a lot of time in the safe central camp, having teen feelings, and not out there runnin’ the maze like I want them to.
I have no clue about anime. I suppose there must be some show which is exactly what I’m looking for, right?
OK guys, what have I missed? What are the great examples of dungeoncrawl literature of the past 50 years? Again, I’m looking for something where the characters’ primary activity is exploring a series of dangerous interior spaces. Does literature like this exist?
Hi Paul! I hope you haven’t read this yet, because you are in for a treat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicious_in_Dungeon
All volumes available in excellent English translation on Amazon.
Have a speedy recovery!
Jake
I’ll refrain from offering detail here, but in The Tombs of Atuan, the second of Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea novels, the protagonist spends really quite a lot of time in the titular tombs.
There’s a pretty great dungeoncrawl in the second half of The 13th Warrior; I was pleasantly surprised by it.
Sign of the Labrys by Margaret St. Clair predates D&D, and Gygax included it in Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. It has what would eventually be called classic dungeoncrawling. In fact, I’m sure the book helped inspire concepts like wandering monsters, odd traps, and ubiquitous fungus that has a variety of effects. St. Clair’s The Shadow People also has a delve into a dark maze-like location, including an interesting way to enter it. These two books are overlooked, maybe because they’re not as flashy as Elric and the rest, but theyre great reads.
Clark Ashton Smith has a couple short stories that take place in tombs, although not very large dungeon complexes. “The Weaver in the Vault” is probably more popular, although I quite like “The Tomb Spawn.” And of course there’s a whirlwind megadungeon tour, so quick you can hardly catch your breath, in “The Seven Geases.”
Midcentury, you get Algis Burdrys’s “Rogue Moon” and Robert Silverberg’s novel “The Man in the Maze” – which are both cruel dungeons and seem to prefigure early video games like Mario and Mega Man.
More recently, Lev Grossman’s novel “The Magicians” includes a megadungeon complex in its second half.
TV Tropes has a page with a fair number of examples. Doesn’t seem like it’s likely to be complete, but it has a fair amount of stuff. I was expecting more in the anime section if I’m honest. I’ve watched the first three or four episodes of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? when I’ve been particularly plagued by insomnia. The first three or four episodes have disappointingly little dungeon.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DungeonCrawling
Web comics and web originals are probably easy to check out for free.
Robert Heinlein’s Glory Road has some good dungeon crawling and some neat ideas (if you can get past the sexism.)
The movie Legend with a young Tom Cruise is a great D&D style adventure culminating in the boss monster’s dungeon lair.
For something more modern, how about Pan’s Labyrinth? There is also Hellboy which has visits to a couple of dungeons.
For anime try “Record of Lodoss War” (fantasy world based on a DnD game the creators played back in the 80’s), or the first “Sword Art Online” (people end up stuck in an MMO and the entire idea of raiding dungeons is how they work towards the exit), or even try “Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?” (fantasy world were to be an adventurer, you have to follow a god, and the main character ends up with a god that only has him for a follower). For the last one, you will need to wait through the build up, because as CaduceusIV stated, its starts slow but gets better later on.
There are others but those pop into my head right now.
Tales of Peril: The Complete Boinger and Zereth Stories by John Eric Holmes (editor of the original Basic D&D set) is dungeon-crawling par excellence. It is most satisfying, and reflects D&D dungeon-crawling at its earliest and, perhaps, best.
“Red Nails,” the REH Conan story, is classic dungeon-crawling; also, “The Scarlet Citadel,” which I feel was the Conan story ready by Dave Arneson that was part of what inspired him to do the first Blackmoor delve.
I can also recommend “Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?” and “Delicious Dungeon”. “Tower of Druaga” is another anime which is a good dungeon themed adventure. “Fairy Tale” has some dungeon oriented episodes although there are lots of outdoor adventures as well.
The second season of the netflix show the OA features a house-that-is-a-dungeon. The fifth episode in particular features the exploration of said house,
Hi, I hope you get better soon.
The Mazerunner books have been made into movies as well, in case you didn’t know.
There are some science fiction options.
Alien vs Predator has the dungeon under the antarctic ice.
Even Aliens has the nuclear reactor through the whole movie.
Star Wars obviously has the death star.
I have to say the web comic The Order of the Stick.
You could also try the movies The Cave and The Descent.
The final Riverworld novel (Farmer) has a dungeon-like complex near the end. Just getting to it is an adventure too.
The house on the borderland (Hodgson) has a short section involving exploration of some caverns which are certainly hostile and dungeon-like.
Jim Hines’ Goblin Quest trilogy begins with an explicitly D&D style dungeon crawl, though most of the first book is outside the dungeon and I never read the second and third books.
Saberhagen’s Book of Swords series has a good dungeon, but I read an omnibus so I’m not sure which book it was. The gimmick is great — the entrance chamber of halls rotates, so you have to keep track of time as well as physical mapping.
Avram Davidson’s The phoenix and the mirror begins with a very promising trip through an ancient sewer but ends up being more of a mystery/adventure story.
Going really obscure, Kinross’ The Fearsome Island features a very dungeon-like mansion filled with traps.
And you can’t possibly overlook the fairly recent movie Dave Made a Maze!
I would love to see a dungeon-centered TV series. Maybe an anthology type series with different characters every episode, or several rival parties with different motives like get the treasure/kill the big bad/seal the dungeon off/rescue someone/solve the mystery of the dungeon etc.
Search on YouTube for Goblin Slayer. It’s all about killing goblins in dungeons. It’s a great anime.
I have to echo the recommendations for Sword Art Online and Delicious Dungeon and Danmachi (is it wrong to pick up girls, etc). They all have various other plot elements that are involved but they play out across dungeons.
SAO is about people who get trapped in a video game and the video game has dungeons. They have to get to level 100 of the dungeon to escape alive.
Delicious Dungeon is about an adventuring party that delves dungeons to use the monsters for different food dishes.
Danmachi is a standard “adventure guild” setting where you’re sponsored by gods and have to delve dungeons to represent your patron.
One last recommendation is Goblin Slayer, which is a lot darker, but it’s kind of like Game of Thrones in terms of characters getting killed off, but is about low level characters delving dungeons with goblins run in the manner of Tucker’s Kobolds.
These may not be exactly what you are looking for – they are horror novels rather than fantasy novels – but I think they have that “mythic underworld” feel:
The Mall by S. L. Grey
A young man and woman accidentally get locked in a shopping mall overnight. Trying to find a way out, they head into a basement area where things get very confusing and weird.
The Descent by Jeff Long
Bones and artifacts from a previously unknown species of hominid are discovered in some caves. An expedition sets out to explore the caves. As recommended by Patrick Stuart http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2013/04/butchering-descent.html
Both these books have sequels.
House of Leaves is a particularily weird example, but the second half is mostly a detailed, Torchbearer-style realistic delve into a labirynth.
Fritz Leiber’s “The Lords of Quarmall” (1964) in _Swords Against Wizardry_ takes place entirely underground.
Much of the Martian Underground in ERB’s first three Barsoom novels takes place in various caves, caverns, and dungeons.
Some of HPL’s stories feature similar underground complexes—“The Shadow Out of Time” and _At the Mountains of Madness_ immediately comes to mind.
Allan.
House of Leaves is basically a dungeon crawl at the end. I can’t recommend that book enough, for lots of other reasons.
If you do a search on Goodreads for ‘Dungeon-Core’, there’s apparently a whole subgenre where the main character is an intelligent dungeon.
I’m also recommending Delicious In Dungeon. I just read them recently and they are fantastic. If you mixed a dungeon crawl adventuring party with Survivor Man and Iron Chef you’d get DID.
I would also suggest Gormenghast. The whole story takes place in a sprawling castle complex. It was books first then a miniseries.
The Resident Evil movie is even more dungeony than Cube. It was traps, wandering monsters, a BBEG.
Castle Perilous is about a transdimensional castle that is always shifting and changing and picking up strays from various dimensions.
“Spiders of the Purple Mage” by Philip Jose Farmer is his one contribution to the Thieves’ World milieu in Tales From the Vulgar Uniform is a classic short dungeon crawl.
The Aching God by Mike Shel. The Daily Grind over at RoyalRoadl. Dungeoneers by Jeffrey Russell. House of Blades by Will Wight (free today on Amazon, btw). Below by Lee Gaiteri.
My movie tastes are (1) haunted locales, that have (2) secret doors and passages, and the haunting is (3) actually supernatural and not just an old dude in a mask or a hallucination.
House 2 (1987 movie). Baba Yaga’s Hut and Jumanji had a baby and it was delivered by an adventuring plumber from Cheers.
As Above, So Below (2014 movie). They go underground in Paris and horror stuff happens.
The Pyramid (2014 movie). They’ve dug an entrance into an unexplored pyramid but the rover gets attacked by something. What could be alive in there after so long?
Walled In (2009 movie).A young woman will demolish a mansion/apartment building designed by insane architect who interred victims in the walls to ensure its longevity.
moria?
sorry, i just now carefully read through your post. salvatore stupido.
so here are my takes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raid_(2011_film) – modern building as caves of chaos
A freudian funny analogy : dungeon crawling is imitating the journey of the spermatozoids in the deadly female matrix. http://yragael.free.fr/pdf/nyt/nyt144.pdf
I’m flabbergasted nobody has mentioned the single greatest dungeon crawl in literature (and film) The Mines of Moria. I mean, Moria has everything:
– Creepy vibe
– Traps (the helmet falling down the well and the walkway to the Bridge of Khazad Dum breaking)
– Big final boss
I was also recently bemoaning the lack of dungeons in fantasy and tripped across Dungeon Born by Dakota Krout. Just finished it yesterday – it’s quite good, as the story is told from the POV of the dungeon itself. Now ordering the others in the series to see how he continues the story.
https://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Born-Divine-Book/dp/B06XQ44QVK/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=divine+dungeon&qid=1565290566&s=gateway&sr=8-3
How come no one suggested Blame! ? I didn’t read it… but i think it checks everything your’ looking for in a serie. It’s a manga, but i seem to remember they made a netflix serie out of it
The first Alien vs. Predator has a dungeon crawl feel as they explore under the Antarctic.
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Post WW3 and the surface of Moscow, and most likely the entire world, is fried with radiation. Everyone LIVES under ground and even though the war is over, humanity has to survive in the dimly lit tunnels of the Russian metro system… and there be monsters!
Ghastly creatures, crazy cult worshippers, political intrigue, and lots of “dungeon crawling” as the main protagonist must make his way across the subway systems to aide another “Paladin”.
Please watch Adventure Time on cartoon network! It’s funny, cool, strange, has a lich as a bad guy, magic, post-modern. ignore that it was a kid’s show. it’s amazing.
Movie:
https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/
Made in Abyss is my anime suggestion.
Just for completeness sake, I’d include Goonies in a list of “dungeon” movies with the multiple traps, puzzles, etc, even, of course including the “Rich Stuff” at the end.
A bit more out of left field – I just finished watching Time Trap, because I’m on a bit of a kick of watching any/all movies with a time-loop/twist.
I’m a newb, so I don’t know the degree to which D&D traps/campaigns ever mess with time, but I’d still put Time Trap in the dungeon crawl category.