Under the Dome: Designing a New Dome (A D&D post apocalyptic setting)
Worldbuilding and Adventure Design for a Post-Apocalyptic D&D Campaign
In Under the Dome, every city answers the same question differently:
Who gets to survive?
No two Domes are alike—not because the chaos storms differ, but because the people who built them did.
A Dome is not just shelter.
It is policy made physical.
It is fear given architecture.
It is a promise—and every promise excludes someone.
When designing a new Dome for your Under the Dome D&D campaign, the most important details aren’t measurements or materials.
They’re values.
The questions below are the ones that shape stories, fuel conflict, and define survival beneath the barrier.
🌩️ 1. Why Was This Dome Built?
Not how.
Why.
Every Dome is a reaction to catastrophe—but motive defines everything that follows.
Ask yourself:
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Was this Dome built to protect a population… or an investment?
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Was it a government project, a corporate experiment, or a private sanctuary?
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Was it rushed, incomplete, or quietly sabotaged?
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Who chose its location—and who was never consulted?
Design Insight:
A Dome built out of fear behaves very differently from one built for profit.
🏛️ 2. Who Controls the Dome Now?
The builders are rarely the rulers—at least not for long.
Consider:
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Who controls access, maintenance, and expansion?
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Is authority centralized, contested, or deliberately opaque?
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Is control enforced through force, contracts, magic, or dependency?
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What happens when someone challenges that control?
And the most important question:
Who benefits most from things staying exactly as they are?
Under the Dome Truth:
Power doesn’t need to be visible to be absolute.
🚪 3. Who Was Let In—and Who Was Left Out?
This question never stops echoing.
Ask:
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Was entry based on wealth, skill, loyalty, timing, or luck?
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Were “temporary exclusions” ever corrected?
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Are there people living just outside the barrier—still visible?
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Are some residents treated as conditional, provisional, or replaceable?
Every Dome has ghosts.
Some of them are alive.
Adventure Fuel:
What happens when someone proves they were promised entry—and denied?
🧱 4. How Is the Dome Physically Experienced?
People don’t live in abstractions.
They live in spaces.
Think about:
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Can residents see the Dome? Hear it? Feel it?
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Does it glow, hum, pulse, crack, or bleed magic?
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Are certain districts closer to the barrier—and more at risk?
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Does the Dome fail gracefully… or violently?
Mood Matters:
A Dome that feels alive breeds paranoia.
A Dome that feels mechanical breeds resentment.
💰 5. How Does Survival Actually Work Inside?
Ignore ideal systems. Focus on reality.
Ask:
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What resources are rationed?
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What’s hoarded?
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What’s traded illegally?
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Who profits from scarcity?
Then ask the harder questions:
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Is survival tied to labor, loyalty, wealth, or debt?
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When systems fail, who gets blamed—and who gets rich?
Key Principle:
Life under the Dome isn’t driven by need.
It’s driven by who can monetize need.
🧬 6. How Does Chaos Manifest Here?
No Dome is chaos-free.
It only decides how chaos is expressed.
Consider:
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Is mutation common, delayed, or hidden?
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Is magical drift monitored, ritualized, or ignored?
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Are certain corruptions tolerated if they’re useful?
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What does this Dome consider “acceptable damage”?
Narrative Lever:
Chaos doesn’t just threaten survival—it challenges legitimacy.
👁️ 7. What Does This Dome Fear Most?
Every system has a breaking point.
Ask:
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Is the greatest fear collapse, rebellion, contamination, or exposure?
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What truths are suppressed to maintain order?
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What line cannot be crossed without severe consequences?
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Who knows too much—and how are they handled?
The strongest Domes aren’t fragile.
They’re terrified of the wrong thing.
🧠 8. How Do People Cope?
Culture forms under pressure.
Think about:
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What superstitions have taken root?
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What rituals replaced old holidays?
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What stories do children grow up hearing?
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What behaviors are considered “normal” here—but horrifying elsewhere?
These details humanize the Dome—and reveal cracks no structure can seal.
⚙️ 9. How Does This Dome Generate Adventures?
Finally, ask the most important design question of all:
What kinds of stories does this Dome want to produce?
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Political intrigue?
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Desperate survival?
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Rebellion and sabotage?
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Moral compromise?
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Exploration beyond the barrier?
Design the Dome so that conflict is inevitable, not accidental.
If things seem too stable, the Dome is lying.
🕯️ Closing Thought
A Dome is not a setting detail.
It is a philosophy with walls.
When designing a new Dome, don’t start with its size or silhouette.
Start with the choice it made when the world broke.
Because long after the storms fade, and long after the barriers crack, one question will still define life beneath it:
Who was this Dome really built for?
Thanks for reading. Until Next Time, Stay Nerdy!!
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