If you could make a dungeon how would you do it?

[Shougun]

Anyone up for suggesting a setting or scenario? I'll go from there to add mechanics and encounters.

Two ideas I've been kicking around for various bias reasons were:

a) Taking back Sil'Dih from the zombies- the few survivors were locked away in closed off sections of the city underground and without any way to escape and dwindling supplies imbued themselves into advanced mammets to fend off the starvation and disease (Vivi/Yuke race - doesn't have to be exclusively lala yukes), with perhaps some of the lore backing to the urgency (beyond saving those trapped below) is the zombies with the help of Ascians begun to summon a dead primal from all their collective broken despair. The undead primal haunting Ul'Dah, coming with unique properties allowing it to bring despair to the city (like if you go to sleep in the city during this part of the quest your character will have nightmares). With a bit of a Dante's Inferno theme as you descend into the depths of Sil'Dih- would be cool if the story of how the city fell was told a bit in the bosses (with hints of the layers of hell told throughout, though I imagine having to combine the layers a bit or skip some).

We know the basic outline already, how the plague begun- but might have some intrigue and corruption with the master of waters accepting bribes and such. Instead of Satan at the end of course it would be birth of the undead primal (could be the primal fight but that might make a fun content of it's own). FFXIV's Anima sort of. I mentally picture the place having a sort of cavernous, wonderous, center piece that is lush of water and grandeur. Of course now messed up from all the lala zombies. Plague waters pour from the place now. Imagined part of the dungeon might have a bridge section where you're crossing through a grand open area (where normally you'd get Altissa vibes of FFXV) but instead its like a sea of moving blobs filling the water, and as you move cross the bridge the shadowy zombie forms begin to turn the sea into a physical shape and surround you- here you have to fight your way cross as a Tsunami chases you. The party having to fight the back to keep it back and the front to move forward. Perhaps an npc has to create a dome at a certain point as the liquid like mass covers the party (can see through it as it'll be transparent on top) and zombies start breaking through the dome and so then you have adds inside your fight sphere. Thought it might make a really neat Ishgard 2.0, where you get to restore Sil'Dih. Start of the content could be pretty peaceful with a few zombies coming out of the caves/rubble and attacking Ul'Dah, few nightmares, but in the end it'd be all out chaos and might even have some phasing of broken / sieged Ul'dah. At the end of it all you'd get a opulent, water theme'd, desert city.



b) Paprika (the anime movie) meets Cid stuck in a dream state. As we near Garlean's home Zenos puts Cid into a deep slumber (so he can't help us circumvent all the Garlean tech in a way we'd be unable to do otherwise, like if Cid helped design some key shield features for the empire and they're concerned he'll let us know the death star's blueprint), perhaps with the help of the consumed undead primal (via his echo). Chance to reveal some of Cid's childhood and perhaps some human touches to Zenos (young Zenos, or the fact current Zenos chose not to kill Cid but just put him to slumber), while also just going entirely nuts. It's a dream, and like Paprika logic isn't really a requirement. So like mess up gravity, things upside down, boss fights can be absolutely bonkers. Like our raid you'd be able to go through the content by yourself after winning to 'examine' everything and you could catch hidden rooms and moments that played in the background that tell a deeper story of both Cid, Zeno's, and other major characters for the Garleans (and hopefully adds some more character to Zenos than just 'ima baaaaaahhhd boi').

I've some ideas like a train ride that turns into bullet hell as the city launches all their siege at you (heading towards Garlean capital), then a giant magitek hand shatters into reality (like the screen shatter effect but in a 3d space) and lifts the train out into outer space carts flying and being crushed (the world shrinking below), some sort of fight with heavy musical beat influence you're skimming the world's atmosphere above Garlean city (boss fight here of course), and at some point Cid and Zenos fighting each other as giants (I imagine semi-nude like attack of the giants and Cid also with long glorious hair, his younger self here) in the background as players fight on the platform fighting smaller representation of whats going on behind (stage set up in such a way, or the two huge characters, that you can see them clearly occasionally as their huge bodies punch near your platform or what have you - like at some point cid's head may be near you as Zenos punches him in the face or his fist hits the ground near his head and it causes massive shock waves on your actual battle ground). As Cid wins the fight it plays a more western cowboy sort of sound (acoustic) and as Zeno wins it's more industrial / metal, and ideally if we could have them with some vocal lines both in fight and perhaps in the song... At certain peak points both would be playing together, occasionally in harmony and occasionally in opposition (answer / call). So the song would be a duel between the two.


Some vague ideas here and there for fight / gimmicks but is mostly just a shower thought still lol. No pressure if you didn't want to use either of those, but was curious what you'd do if you did lol. To be honest I feel both could work well as raids, especially the Sil'Dih since it could then be freeing Sil'Dih across the whole expansion (and allow for a fuller representation of the layers of hell, of cross not super literally but enough to add a story of the horror of people in a fun and interesting way and can include more than just Ul'Dah and Sil'Dih- like maybe some of the other city states had some unspeakable hands in what happened due to greed/bias, or at least certain people). Each raid opening up new restoration content as you go deeper, the final raid opening up huge amounts of work, and the end of the expansion rewarding players with this beautiful city (again sort of picturing Alitssa / Rivendale like features tucked against the backdrop of sand dunes, some oasis vibes and really go nuts with some high fantasy / contrast of visuals (like Clerya in FFIX was this giant tree in the desert lol)). And the dream Garlean fight because we can cause massive devastation to the Garlean capital without it actually being that in the real world (because I think it would be bad if we had to actually carpet bomb Garleans just because of some super bad apples at the head lol).

Maybe one day I'll put the ideas out in a less stream of conscious format and think through some of the holes / problems but you're the one that said 'scenario me' lol :P.