BackerKit is running Mega Dungeon Month from April 7 through May 1, and it might be the biggest coordinated crowdfunding event the tabletop RPG scene has seen. Thirty campaigns from publishers including Goodman Games, Monte Cook Games, Troll Lord Games, Kobold Press, Ghostfire Gaming, Loke Battle Mats, and Rowan, Rook and Decard are all running simultaneously, with cross-project rewards for backers who support multiple campaigns.
The headline story is the Gygax material. Troll Lord Games' Castle Zagyg Act 2 brings never-before-published dungeon levels from Gary Gygax's legendary megadungeon to Castles & Crusades, a streamlined old-school RPG with roots in AD&D. Act 2 covers dungeon levels 6 through 17, plus sub-levels, all material Gygax developed in the 1970s that has sat unpublished for half a century. The campaign funded in minutes and smashed through five stretch goals in its first 48 hours. The first act raised over $600,000 last year, so expectations are high.
Castle Wolfmoon is the other Gygax surprise. This separate project brings a dungeon Gygax created in the late 1990s with designer Chris Clark. After two earlier collaborations and the formation of their studio Hekaforge, a final instalment was set aside and forgotten. Clark recently discovered the files on an old hard drive and decided to finally bring the saga to a close, a quarter of a century after it was first created.
Beyond Gygax, the lineup is stacked. Goodman Games' Castle Whiterock is a 30-level megadungeon boxed set for D&D 5E and Dungeon Crawl Classics that has already raised over $390,000 against a $25,000 goal, passing 1,400% funded. Monte Cook Games is bringing Jewel in the Sky, a megadungeon for the Cypher System playable in either dungeon fantasy or sci-fi mode. And Rowan, Rook and Decard's DIE: Metadungeon, from designer Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, bills itself as a journey through 50 years of TTRPG history, described as "part history field trip, part punishing gauntlet, part nightmare hellscape."
Back two or more projects from participating publishers and you unlock a MEGA-exclusive bonus PDF, with each publisher contributing pages of monsters, traps, treasures, and twists. If you have ever wanted to crawl a dungeon designed by the person who invented dungeon crawling, this is your moment.
Sources: BackerKit Mega Dungeon Month | Wargamer | Tabletop Sentinel
