Mysterious Crater in Siberia

In strange news from around the world, a mysterious 80m wide crater opened up in the ground of northern Siberia. Beware, distorted audio in the later half of the video.



From the article I read, one of the leading theories is that it is related to methane gas release, likely brought on by global warming. If the region where the megadungeon takes place is experiencing a rapid period of warming then the areas that are affected by permafrost melt, making the terrain even more treacherous than you would expect.



 
It is not exactly scientific, but this warming could be triggered by increased volcanic activity in the region. What is causing this increased volcanism? That is one of the great mysteries. It also gives me an excuse to include more elemental based creatures, and have some conflict between those various forces of nature.

In the World of Darkness games that I have recently been playing, the world is mirrored by a world of spirits. Spirits are not the same thing as ghosts, they are instead abstract representations of things that exist in the real world. So you could have spirits of cold or spirits of fire, basically being parralell representations of D&D's elementals.You can also get abstract representations of other things, like spirits of faith in a place that has seen lots of worship, or spirits of pain in locations that have seen a lot of suffering. The changes in the landscape and the conflict spilling out from the spirit world into the physical will likely form one of the layers of conflict within the campaign.