I am currently working a megadungeon for my group, while I have the bulk of it done, 12 theme floors and 20 random sub-levels, spread out to cover a 4-6 person party from 1-20.
The core premise is that is a new dungeon, just appearing after Iron Gods and Wrath of the Righteous adventure paths.
I am thinking of putting it in the Felldales in Numeria but the closest major city is quite far for any shopping or selling of items they find.
While the dungeon itself can generate resources through magic, the problem is how does my party get what they need through normal means.
My first option is that a town will be build at the entrance to the dungeon.
But I would like some help on a possible alternate location.
Can it be beneath a Duergar City which is itself deep underground?
These Duergar are suspicious of foreigners but their love of gold means they are open to trade.
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The "easiest" way to do this is to use the (existing) Spire of Nex as your dungeon. The multidimensional nature of the Spire means you can put pretty much anything you want in it. Your players find a new way of accessing the Spire which leads to your planned areas. (Several Campaign Setting books suggest exactly this approach for a superdungeon.)
And the Spire of Nex is right outside Absalom, so there's no issues with town size.
I did a dungeon once with shrines scattered throughout that allowed travel to and from a plane dominated by a single massive city that acted as shop/rest area
well the origin of the dungeon is that it was the 2nd largest piece that fell during the Rain of Stars that went over Numeria.
The AI in charge of that section was in charge of the terraforming operations. it used its Core to Terraform (as per the spell) a section of land into mud to land its section. the spell wore off and it was now trapped in solid rock.
It ended up in a similar situation to the other AIs but due to its alignment (Neutral) and original task (making new worlds or environments) it started turning the ship and the surrounding area into a multi-level habitat.
Each theme level is a habitat, the sub-levels mostly where it keeps the facilities it needs to support the habitats and other needs. It pulled creatures both living and undead to its domain.
One nasty side-effect of the mythic power, is the need to improve the species under its domain. The lowly goblin is a CR 1/2 with proper equipment, training. Is a lot tougher and stronger compared to normal goblins.
Movement wise the levels are linked by teleporter pads and keycards to lockout access to secure areas.
Teleportation, Divination, and Dimensional travel is blocked within a 10 mile radius of the Core. This covers the entire dungeon and surrounding area.
The extraplanar entities trapped on one of the levels find they can't get out nor can they die and return home.
Which still leaves me with the major issue on PC supplies and gear.
The closest city in the felldales where I have the dungeon initially planned is Kuratown with Aaramoor and Castle Urion both within a 100 miles. Kuratown is about 40 miles.
I have no issues moving the location of the dungeon.
Either I move it to a closer city or have the means of a town being setup at the dungeon entrance.
Which oddly enough compared to the rest of the Felldales is a very verdant area with springs of clean water coming up.
A couple of options come to mind.
1) relocate the dungeon to the eastern side of Numeria near Chessed, which has a population of 50,000+
2) leave the dungeon where it is and have a large merchant caravan park close to the dungeon. The caravan can offer support the PCs at low levels (trade for mutual benefit) and then leave later when the PCs are more powerful and independent.