Wednesday, July 9, 2025

On Keeping Nanodungeons

Here's my quick glaugust take. I rolled 2d6 and got challenge four, number five, "Nanodungeon".

A brief description of the hobby
Nanodungeons
 are difficult to farm and the best ones are found in the wild. Scraped from under a snowdrift or sampled from the depths of a cave they are flat crystalline structures about a millimeter and a half long. Under a microscope small “rooms” can often be seen. High quality nanodungeons will have a more complex layout with more rooms.

If you are just starting out or have limited time, you can purchase a rack containing a few hundred nanodungeons. After acquiring it, you can place this rack somewhere cool and dark for a few months. Knowing when it is ready to be harvested is more art than science but it may glow or hum.

When you are ready, put on some thick gloves, take the rack and carefully shake it over a sturdy table. Thousands of little “creatures”, some ounces of “blood”, a few sparks, and most importantly, tiny glittering treasure will spill out from the rack. 

This sometimes nasty flotsam can be sifted through for its valuables after it has calmed down a bit. The rack can then be put away until its nanodungeons have restocked itself. If you’re industrious, you might have several such racks, though they can start to interact strangely.

 
Meta: how big is a nanodungeon?
If a reasonable dungeon is say, 40 rooms, then a nanodungeon is 0.00000004 rooms. If a room is a square 25 feet on a side then a nanodungeon is 0.000025 square feet which is 2.3 sq mm. Something like a square with 1.52mm long sides.

This is too small to fully cover a human pupil, which, though it expands and contracts, has a median diameter of about 4mm.


A close up of a honeycomb on a table
photo by Sierk Horn

On Keeping Nanodungeons

Here's my quick  glaugust take. I rolled 2d6 and got challenge four, number five, "Nanodungeon". A brief description of the h...