You Fall Down a Hole And…

— Edward Coley Burne-Jones, late 19th century

I’m once again hopping on the blog bandwagon. As my drafts folder bulges like a large sack full of 601 coins, I’m happy to have a deadline and an excuse to post something silly and unpolished.

My first ever post to this blog was a table of 100 dungeon entrances. I haven’t written another such table since, though I’ve been meaning to. I have no idea how ktrey of d4 Caltrops writes multiple in a week. Something that surprised me the first time around was that my favorite entries all came to me towards the end of the process—only after I felt I’d exhausted all inspiration. There’s something to be said for generating a bunch of related ideas; once the obvious stuff is out of the way, it’s easier to get weird and creative.

Anyway, without further ado:

You Fall Down a Hole And…

1. Bounce off several cushiony shelf mushrooms before settling onto a fungal floor.
2. Straight into quicksand.
3. Into a giant-sized pumpkin pie, which rests on a giant’s dining room table.
4. Into a pool full of bioluminescent plankton. You’ll glow bright blue for an hour.
5. It’s not that deep, actually, but you hear the click of a pressure plate when you land.
6. Into an exquisitely-tiled communal bath.
7. Die.
8. Die—only to be belched forth from a nearby bog at dawn, sodden and diminished, but alive.
9. Into a nest of giant burrowing owls.
10. Right back out again—it’s the threshold of a reverse gravity field.
11. Into a giant spiderweb—unharmed, for now.
12. It’s not that deep, actually, but the top closes over you. You’re separated from your party on a different level of the dungeon.
13. Into a gelatinous cube.
14. Into a cube of gelatin. It’s harmless but impervious to everything except biting. To free you, someone (or something) will need to eat the gelatin around you.
15. Through the velvet canopy of an opulent bed, launching its occupant from the mattress.
16. No one can knowingly aid in your rescue.
17. Into an underground river.
18. Become lodged at the point where it narrows not too far down.
19. Into a colony of giant ants.
20. Into the earth’s hollow center, where you of course find dinosaurs and an ancient civilization.
21. Find a door at the bottom. Opening the door causes the ceiling above the hole to gradually descend.
22. It’s not that deep, actually, but the top closes over you: it’s a magic mouth, and it wants the password.
23. Into a vat containing a mutagenic slurry.
24. Get shot back out again by a geyser.
25. Plummet cartoonishly through a series of goblin clotheslines until you land in a heap of goblin laundry in the middle of a goblin market.
26. Turn into a bat before you hit the ground.
27. Into a pit filled with skeletons. They won’t hurt you but will do everything they can to prevent you from leaving.
28. Into another dimension.
29. Become lodged in a fleshy sphincter. You’ll need to relax it to escape.
30. Into the weird, backwards, upside-down version of the previous dungeon level.
31. Into a pixie lair. They snuff torches and lanterns until you make amends.
32. Just keep falling. How to make it stop?
33. Into a trash compactor. The walls are slowly closing in.
34. Onto a heap of dilapidated carpets and tapestries. Moths swarm the air and will eat any fiber or textile (including ropes).
35. Die—every 24 hours, you reappear, alive, at the lip of the hole and fall to your death again.
36. It’s not that deep, actually, but it is weirdly dark. For the next hour, you can only see in near-total darkness.
37. Out of another hole elsewhere in the dungeon.
38. Land upon a straw pallet in a prison cell.
39. The emaciated, half-mad sorcerer at the bottom slows your fall with magic.
40. Into a sewer.
41. Onto a comically large (and deafeningly loud) drum. Its peals echo through the dungeon.
42. Land in the palm of a colossal hand.
43. Land safely in water, but a blade scythes through the shaft above at regular intervals, severing ropes and slaying climbers.
44. To get out again, you must leave a memory behind.
45. The hole expands to swallow the entire dungeon.
46. There’s a Rough Collie at the bottom.
47. It’s actually really nice down there—so nice that you don’t want to leave.
48. Into piranha-infested water.
49. Into a net. You’re completely entangled, and small bells strewn from the net clang erratically to alert whatever laid this trap.
50. Into the depths of hell.
51. It’s not that deep, actually, but a powerful adhesive coats its bottom.
52. Die—that is, until someone else falls into the hole, at which time you are expelled from its depths, right as rain.
53. Into a witch’s cauldron.
54. Get sucked through a twisting chute before being dumped unceremoniously in another part of the dungeon.
55. A reverse gravity field about halfway down slows your descent so that you may catch a convenient handrail at the “bottom.”
56. Into a cenote.
57. Onto a mossy heap. Mushrooms grow all along the sides of the shaft above you and release toxic spores when disturbed.
58. Into a safety net prepared by a group of rival explorers who are also trapped and all insist on being rescued before you.
59. Into a giant fondue fountain.
60. Into a crater on the moon.
61. It’s not that deep, actually, but everything in the hole weighs several times its normal weight.
62. Into the cockpit of a boring machine.
63. Into deep water. A grate seals off the shaft above you, and the water begins to rise.
64. It forms a sort of Klein bottle with the associated room or corridor.
65. Into an iridescent slime that imbues a reverse gravity effect on whatever it touches for one day.
66. It’s not that deep, actually, but contains a puddle of liquid with a stench that attracts monsters.
67. Die—only to awaken in a new body at dawn.
68. Down a waterslide, Goonies-style.
69. Into a snowdrift.
70. Into the midst of a dark ritual.
71. Lurch awake in bed, certain that your companions are still in the dungeon.
72. Into the pitcher of a massive carniverous plant.
73. Onto a patch of cushiony mushrooms with soporific spores.
74. Get drawn by a strong current through a series of water-filled chutes until you emerge in the well of the nearest town.
75. Into a cauldron of soup. The attendant cooks aren’t pleased.
76. Into a mass of vines that slowly begin to constrict you.
77. It’s actually the nostril of a colossal beast. Make it sneeze to escape.
78. Into a superchilled liquid, freezing solid within moments. You’ll be unharmed if rescued and thawed.
79. It’s not that deep, actually, but the top closes over you: it’s a magic mouth, and it wants to hear how another magic mouth elsewhere in the dungeon is doing.
80. Land safely in a pile of hay. Everyone above, however, perceives your issusory death.
81. Emerge from a hole in the ground next spring.
82. Into an underground lake.
83. Into the mouth of a colossal herbivore. It carries you in its mouth for a while before spitting you out elsewhere in the dungeon.
84. Into the faerie realm.
85. Land chest-deep in sticky mud.
86. Experience acute déjà vu.
87. A talking skull at the bottom offers to grant a wish if you take it with you.
88. You emerge impossibly clean.
89. It’s not that deep, actually, but your bones are jelly as long as you’re in the hole.
90. Onto the back of a colossal bat in mid-flight. It will swoop deeper into the dungeon before shaking you off.
91. Into a hobbit’s fireplace.
92. Into a pit of venemous snakes.
93. It’s not that deep, actually, but the top closes over you: it’s a magic mouth, and it wants you to feed it something delicious.
94. Die—until horses and men in service of the king reassemble your scattered fragments.
95. Into a net, your weight causing a grate to seal off the shaft above you.
96. It’s not that deep, actually, but it is incredibly magnetic.
97. Land in a bramble bush, tangled up but remarkably without so much as a scratch. Better keep still, though: the thorns appear wickedly sharp and quite poisonous.
98. It seems perfectly shaped to fit a massive key.
99. Into a pool of acid that only dissolves inorganic matter.
100. It’s not that deep, actually, but—unbeknownst to you and your companions—you landed one hour into the future.