I'm writing reviews of one page dungeon contest submissions that I think are interesting, fun and worth trying to throw into your home game. Among the common advice given to those starting their own sandbox, is the suggestion to throw in some one page dungeons. Never mind the staggering number of submissions and sweeping ranges of quality between them. I followed this advice and built my own fantasy hex crawl and in the process I became obsessed with one page dungeons, looking through many years worth of submissions. I feel that there are so many little hidden gems that don't get deserved praise, this series highlighting some is an attempt to undo this crime.
One of the best ways to to give a dungeon depth and complexity is to make it feel like it has a history. Squatters! written by Lee Parker, submitted to the 2010 One Page Dungeon Contest, has a colorful history, being lived in many times over. It has a gonzo but somehow logical sequence of residents that shape it, making it what it is now. "Krug's lair" has four layers of history: originally it was the dragon Krug's lair, until he physically outgrew it and moved out, next it was the illusionist Droon, who made it seem like Krug still lived there to steal tributes from the local villagers, third, it was the bugbears, hobgoblins and goblins who found the back entrance to the lair and killed Droog, and finally, the abandoned sections have been infested by large wasps who came in through the back door broken by the goblins.
Each area of the dungeon is distinct, and travelling the dungeon becomes a slightly confusing trip into the past. Best of all, each of the still residing chapters of the dungeon's history act as factions within the dungeon, with their own drives, who can be pitted against each other by clever players. They don't need to fully understand how everyone got here to know that a large wasp will probably attack a hobgoblin if they get them in the same room together. The interconnections, multiple entrances and secret passages make for a pretty wide range of routes through the dungeon, something that encourages and challenges player agency.
When I ran this dungeon, my players didn't discover the illusionists hidden lair. This is mostly because they were too distracted by the illusory flaming pool to search for secret doors. To be fair, the pool is a great introduction to the dungeon. Treasure thrown into it slowly sinks until it falls secretly into a cage full of other tributes in the dungeon room below. As I mentioned in my first One Page Dungeon Classics review, I really enjoy a good "welcome to the jungle" moment, where you get a good taste what's to come from a dungeon. When the first player dipped their hand into the pool, felt their hand slow down, and then pulled their hand out to find it still dry, they knew something weird was up.
Most of all, what impresses me about this dungeon is the way its many layers of history are so organically pieced together. Although the idea is really original, after reading it you think that there must be dungeons like this in nearly every medieval fantasy world. Dragons are constantly growing, they must eventually have to move to new lairs, and in their wake a dungeon ecosystem comes to fill the void.