Research into - you guessed it - Termites!

As I learn more about termites and their mounds, it’s clear that they are the perfect creatures around which to develop a megadungeon concept… Want to read further? Check out these two sites: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/the-animal-house/the-incredible-termite-mound/7222/ and  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound-building_termites

Okay, you’re back. A few takeaways:

The worker caste is neutral, and is below the soldier caste. This means that maintenance crews are always moving around the mound, repairing, replacing and upgrading environments – even in the middle of other stuff going on. They are completely disinterested in the politics of the place; their only motivation is to keep the place together. This means that the other castes either 1) ignore them entirely, letting them go about their day, or 2) take them and manipulate them to build/repair/construct as they see fit. It would make sense that the termite overlord of flame takes a bunch of these workers, puts them in fire-retardant suits, and sends them into the middle of his inferno flux reactor to help build the darned thing; and when it blows up in the middle of testing, another batch of workers shows up (alerted to the fact that there’s been damage done to the mound) and he sticks them in suits and puts them back on the job…

Soldiers naturally fly and naturally spit a sticky slime that impedes foes. Well this is nasty, is different from other things in the game, and gives them a non-lethal attack that has a mechanical side to it. Nice.

The environment of the mound contains all of these cool elements that give it the vibe I want – Fungal gardens? Natural ventilation shafts? A huge central flume? Egg chambers? SWEET

The mound includes many entrances and exits. This is a must for a megadungeon. I just have to pick one and start building from there.

My initial thought was that I’d start with one specific clan and build its entrance. Now, I think I want to develop a neutral node that connects to four other claimed nodes, work out some random encounters (and a handful of keyed encounters) and get this thing up and running.