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Where does the PC adventure? Often in Arlinac Town. But also in dungeons!
A dungeon is any self-contained adventure location. The sample setting for NAME has nine dungeon types, corresponding to the nine Powers.
Isolated Keeps, Caves, and trips into the Enchanted Forest are places for potential heroes and heroines to do great things.
Dragon Lairs, Ruins, and Grayscale Adventures are places in which even normal folk can adventure.
Wild Hunts, Ice Fortifications, and Mansions require defeating monsters with planning and preparation.
It is simplest to read these rules about dungeons before reading about the Powers. Try reading this page first, before following any of its links.
Adventure stories in Arlinac Town and in a dungeon typically use different types of resource management. A story in Arlinac Town usually involves planning about which people or places to go to: the order of these visits often affects which favors from influential townsfolk the PC can gain or spend. A story in a dungeon requires carefully planning what equipment to bring: the PC prepares in advance by spending wealth on special items that cannot be replaced while inside the dungeon.
What types of characteristics do dungeons have?
Little Humble loves lonely and serene natural locations. Many of the poems she writes feature the stark beauty of a barren mountain peak, the verdant rustle of a breeze across the plains, the purity of a sandy island alone in the sea, the flourishing potential of a forest glade, or the buzz of tiny insects flying above marshland reeds. She often creates one or more Fell Animals in these lonely and serene locations. She sees the activity and noise of large creatures as a focused compliment and accent to the location's innate calm and quiet—similar to bold, colorful brush strokes painted on a plain canvas.
Little Humble marks these locations as "hers" by creating a large rock of ornate shape, from the top of which bubbles a small spring of water. Often these rocks become destinations for pilgrimages. The rock's water also aids local animals and non-pilgrim travelers.
These claimed locations are sometimes threatened or used for evil. Perhaps a destructive dragon moves onto the mountain peak, a team of Ogres prey upon those traveling across the plains, a group of bandits construct a camp in the forest glade, or troublesome Witches move into the marsh and begin mentally controlling its Fell Animals. Little Humble responds to these attacks on her beloved property by creating an empty keep or tower close by. She also creates portals that allows travel to nearby the tower from a few towns and cities.
Many times the keep is claimed as a lair or den by the evil people causing the problem. Then it serves to focus heroic adventurers on where the problem is located. In these cases dealing with the enemy probably involves either progressing room-by-room through the keep, trying to keep the assault quiet enough to avoid alerting the foes in the next room, or determining in advance where the evil leaders are located and the shortest route to their rooms.
Other times the keep is not used by those causing the problem. Then the adventurers who travel through one of the portals gain the option of using the keep as their own base of operations while dealing with the nearby problem. Little Humble often stocks her keeps with food, rope, arrows, and other resources useful for opposing the enemy.
In either case the adventure normally involves some cautious scouting and planning. The evil-doers usually have a camp or base (either in the keep or at another advantageous location) protected by traps and wandering guard patrols. Eventually an approach plan bears fruit and the heroes deal with minor guards and minions until they reach a concluding conflict and principal treasure. The sense of danger does not build up, but is constantly high as the heroes try to avoid putting all the enemy forces on the alert, while themselves avoiding any ambushes or surprses.
Returning home from the keep can be a challenge. Little Humble seldom provides portals to ease the return journey.
Many Errants feel obligated, as Little Humble's champions, to resolve a problem at an Isolated Keep. But the danger and potentially long trip home cause most Errants to find at least one ally before departing through the portal.
Old and empty Isolated Keeps are among the places Story Finders visit to learn what happened there years ago.
Some stories tell of keeps that have underground rooms as well as an above-ground tower. Other stories describe portals hidden so that only children would find them: in a hole between tree roots, inside a tree fort, or inside an armoire. These portals usually are among those few that allow travel in both directions.
A keep or tower in the middle of nowhere, full of monsters and treasure, is a classic setting for a dungeon in a fantasy RPG.
The list of geographical locations (mountain, plains, island, forest, swamp) is a tribute to the card game Magic: The Gathering.
Letting children visit a troubled fantasy location by traveling through a wardrobe is an obvious reference to Narnia.
The dungeons of Speleoth are cave-complexes ripe for exploration. He creates many dungeons because he delights in providing new opportunities and challenges for his cave-exploring followers.
Many of these dungeons initially look like a normal cave. But they quickly become small underground worlds, lit by phosphorescent plants and fiery animals. Speleoth always includes many seeps and springs of water as well as many edible plants in his dungeons, since he does not want adventurers to be distracted from exploration by trips back to the surface for provisions.
Speleoth's cave dungeons have no "big picture": no building urgency, climactic conclusion or principal treasure. They are simply places to explore, for Speleoth believes exploration should be its own thrill and reward. Most tunnels and rooms are empty and unexciting. But the others contain many Gembacks and other cave creatures never before seen by any explorer.
The only traps are the natural hazards contained in any underground cave system. Initially the only treasures are gems from Gembacks. However, a famous cave dungeon may contain more treasures on the corpses of previous explorers who did not survive encountering a monster or other danger.
Unsurprisingly, exiting the cave-complex is often more physically challenging than the descent into its underground passages. However, the creatures that live in the dungeon move about slowly, so a departing adventurer will seldom meet new monsters during the ascent to the surface.
Speleoth occasionally creates dungeons that look like hewn chambers instead of natural caves. These often contain tricky puzzles whose solutions involve the use of odd items placed in the rooms and passages. A few so strongly resemble small abandoned dwellings or fortifications that Futhorc calls them "ruins" and claims them as her domain.
Many of Speleoth's caves have one of his Troggles planning and organizing its defenses. The availability of food and water in these caves makes them an attractive hideout for criminals, perhaps attracting Bounty Hunters. Frosty Kostkey's wicked Remotes enjoy ransacking and ruining his caves, turning a nourishing place of warmth and light into a barren place of cold and darkness.
Another classic setting for a dungeon in a fantasy RPG is a cave full of monsters.
How do all the creatures survive in their underground home with no balanced and sustainable ecosystem? Speleoth makes it so. All the dungeon types benefit from this "cheat" that allows the setting to contain traditional challenges without worrying about even in-game realism.
The Enchanted Forest is a magical place near Arlinac Town, about an hour away to the northeast. It has impenetrable borders except for a few paths that are sunny and clear. Inside Yarnspinner, who loves stories, creates all manner of fairy-tale-like adventures.
People who enter the Enchanted Forest without focusing on a desire or goal will travel along a boring path while encountering nothing, or perhaps find that the path engages in twists and turns that soon lead out of the forest. But travelers who enter with a desire or goal in mind soon have an adventure whose difficulty corresponds to the size and significance of their objective. Yarnspinner will also structure the story they follow and the challenges they meet so that they learn and grow more than they intended.
Many people who quest in the Enchanted Forest initially desire a goal that will not truly help them. To these adventurers Yarnspinner appears as a character in one of his own stories, wearing a gold brooch to signify dual status as character and narrator. A candid discussion about the person's life circumstances, desires, and actual needs often allows refining desires and seeking a simpler yet more effective goal.
Most adventures in the Enchanted Forest are completed (or failed) within a single day. To minimize aimless wandering, sometimes Yarnspinner provides an annotated map at the start of the adventure.
The adventures that Yarnspinner creates for seekers in the Enchanted Forest are his type of dungeon. These adventures are always isolated from the real world: a new problem or crime is being caused by a villainous person or creature who must be outwitted or fought. The quest's internal logic is clear: all goals, conflicts, potential allies, and puzzles are clear and the solution is always sensible (even if not obvious) and solvable with the resources at hand. Most conflicts are short and involve familiar monsters and predictable tropes. Treasure only appears if a part of the protagonist's goal.
When people adventure in the Enchanted Forest they face real dangers and risk real loss, injury, or even death. But the potential gain is real too: nearly any item, ability, power, or destiny can be obtained by successfully completing a quest in the Enchanted Forest.
Yarnspinner is fond of his Witches and most advetures in the Enchanted Forest involve meeting at least one. Usually the Witch is not a major part of the adventure, but provides a small reward or hindrance that makes a small side-quest more significant. Because each trip into the Enchanted Forest is a personally constructed adventure, no allies or enemies are encountered except those that are part of Yarnspinner's intended story. Even Story Finders have nothing to find in the Enchanted Forest because Yarnspinner creates new locations for each personalized story.
My favorite RuneQuest setting was Griffin Island with its large player's map delightfully annotated with handwritten rumors. Yarnspinner's annotated maps are a tribute to that masterful game supplement.
Maw Lute creates perhaps the most traditional of dungeons: large, sprawling cave-lair homes for her most faithful and active Dragons. These lairs are much larger and more elaborately guarded than typical Dragon lairs.
The Dragons for whom Maw Lute creates a special lair are very proud of their home and enjoy showing it off. About monthly they will fly to a town or city and invite whomever is willing to a one-day visit. For many who accept, the ride on a Dragon's back to and from the lair is the most exciting part because the Dragon will only take them to the main entrance and exploring past the museum-like foyer is very dangerous. Others venture deeper, knowing that any valuables past the foyer are free to take home as souveniers. At the end of the day the Dragon returns to the town or city, politely taking the visitors home or notifying their next of kin that they ventured too far towards risk and reward.
This welcoming attitude is not extended toward uninvited visitors. But treasure-seekers do journey to Maw Lute's lairs, hoping for safety and success because of their numbers and preparations.
What makes these Dragon lairs so dangerous?
Most are in remote and dangerous areas, such as mountain peaks or the middle of the Ognost Frontier. Around the entrance of the lair is a maze of false trails that lead treasure-seekers on wild goose chases through the area's dangers.
The interior of the lair is even more deadly. It has traps, guardian servants on watch or patrolling, and other hazards that boost the lair's security. These dangers not only discourage most visitors but also serve to weaken invaders and use up their resources. Similarly, secret passages hide the hoard in multiple locations so that even "successful" burglars usually take a much smaller share than they imagine.
Even though the lair lacks any cleverly constructed puzzles, progressing through it requires preparation, caution, and endurance. Exploration can be terrifying because long, empty, twisting passages and thick iron doors often prevent intruders from knowing what is just ahead while creating nerve-wracking intervals of potentially false calm between dangers. At other times a tiny crack or immense portcullus teases the adventurer with a glimpse of what lies ahead.
At the heart of the lair the resident Dragon has multiple sleeping-rooms to prevent trespassers from knowing where it might be sleeping. Nearly always the Dragon ambushes the intruders, using its most potent abilities and hoarded special items, maximizing on the advantages it enjoys as an entrenched defender in his or her lair.
Finally, hidden escape routes allow a besieged Dragon to flee and get help from other Dominion Dragons. Legends warn of "successful" treasure-hunters being killed during the return trip across that remote area as multiple Dragons swoop down from the sky.
Because Maw Lute donates much gold to the Dragons for whom she makes these lairs, the lairs often attract uninvited adventurers despite the enhanced peril. Thus Maw Lute's apparent generosity actually leads to the Dominion collecting more new treasure: the captured gear of slain treasure-seekers adds to the Dragon's hoard.
Unlike most Powers, Maw Lute's type of champion (Buskers) has nothing to do with her dungeons.
Most of the above nifty collection of qualities of a worthy dragon lair is mostly taken from this discussion at You Met in a Tavern.
Futhorc loves crumbling ruins that are being reclaimed by nature, lost cities empty of inhabitants, and abandoned buildings forsaken by townsfolk.
Futhorc often creates Puddles in ruins. This is especially likely if the ruin in threatened by people wanting to use the ruins as a source of stone.
Sometimes Futhorc turns a ruin into one of his dungeons. He creates a special doorway or gateway to a new set of rooms and chambers with similar architecture and appearance to the actual ruin. The dungeon rooms are actually in a different type of reality and need not physically fit where the special doorway leads.
A dungeon of this type is called a Ruin with a capitalized R to distinguish it from the surrounding normal ruin.
The first room of the dungeon contains a spell-book and a carved face that speaks a riddle as the dungeon's first clue. The spell-book has a handful of pages, each containing a spell that can be used once and only in that dungeon. (Some pages may be duplicates.) A spell-book vanishes when the adventure ends, although some people later create reproductions to keep as memorabilia.
The dungeon will have as many potential opponents as spells in the spell-book. Each potential opponent will know one of the spells and can use it only once. Thus the adventurer and the dungeon's opponents have matching sets of special resources, but the adventurer has more flexibility about when to use these spells.
Futhorc creates his dungeons to be harmless fun with the potential of small gain. Any "defeat" only expels the adventurer from the story with no actual harm, although any limited-use items an adventurer uses inside the dungeon do really get used up. The dungeon's traps cause complications instead of lethal damage. Its challenges are solved with observation and deduction as much as combat. No outside preparation or resources are needed to complete the dungeon, although bringing in certain equipment might make a challenge easier or trivial.
The only treasures in Futhorc's dungeons—the only items that remain after the adventure ends—are spell-scrolls. These resemble spell-book pages but endure and function in the real world. Most large towns and cities have stores selling spell-scrolls unwanted by their original owners.
Futhorc's dungeons always contains a final room that cannot be entered until the dungeon's overarching puzzle is solved. Usually the best strategy is to explore all but that last room without attempting to "finish" each room, keeping alert for clues and puzzle components. This will show a clever adventurer how to solve the smaller puzzles and gain access to the dungeon's final room. The final room contains a spell-scroll of above average value.
Unless a group of adventurers holds hands and all willingly desire to explore the dungeon together, everyone who passes through one of these special doorways enters his or her personal copy of the dungeon. Someone defeated inside a dungeon appears outside the special doorway unharmed. However, that person is unable to enter the dungeon again. His or her memories about the dungeon may be partially erased.
Sometimes Futhorc organizes competitions in which adventurers race to be the first to complete the dungeon and claim the final spell-scroll. The winner becomes a Caster, one of Futhorc's champions. Many participants rush to enter a copy of the dungeon as soon as the competition has begun. Others wait to learn from the hazy memories of defeated failures, knowing many competitive dungeons are so difficult that the contest will last for weeks before someone finally completes the dungeon. During a competition hand-holding does not work: everyone must try the dungeon solo.
Another classic setting for a dungeon in a fantasy RPG is a ruined castle or abandoned underground settlement.
The "dungeons" created by Lamia are the famous and feared Grayscale Adventures. These adventures begin with someone waking up into a strange world without color. Only the adventurer still has color, although no one else notices or can perceive this difference. The adventure happens in a town or city that is a distorted place of dream-like views, situations, betrayals, and technology. This "Grayscale World" is a maze of streets and buildings marked by stark contrasts: darkness and light; heroism and evil; urban decadence and barbaric violence; blunt, harsh men and deceptive, mesmerizing women; empty, dim streets or warehouses and crowded, garish taverns and clubs; someone with amnesia and someone who knows too much.
To escape from the Grayscale World the adventurer must defeat a villain who is motivated by greed, jealousy, or revenge to acquire or destroy a fanciful technological device or resource. The villain will be the only other person with color, and the only person exhibiting great intensity, animation, and drive in a setting otherwise saturated with ambivalence: apathetic authority figures, ignored morals and honor, uncaring fate, and depressed people surrendered to depressing circumstances. Key clues about the villain's plans or personal weakness can be found by asking the right questions in places intended for relaxation that instead have tense atmospheres ready to erupt into violence—usually these clues can be found in taverns, lounges, theatres, or gambling dens. While searching for these clues the adventurer should try to avoid fighting with seedy thugs or powerful crime lords, but the end of the adventure will feature an inevitable and destructive confrontation in an building of industrial construction—often a factory, cart repair place, shipyard, or power plant.
Grayscale Worlds have a normal supply of the useful items found in any town or city of their size. The adventurer's money will be accepted by merchants in the Grayscale World, although uncolored items will disappear when the adventurer returns back to the real world. (Similarly, an adventurer who decides to loot the uncolored city does not keep this false treasure.)
What happens after a Grayscale Adventure varies, except that the adventurer always returns to normal life with greater knowledge about avoiding unnecessary violence, less regret about necessary violence, and more ability to differentiate and do these.
Most Grayscale Adventures are inflicted upon people whom Lamia judges as needing a lesson about the suffering caused by a particular vice. The key villain in the Grayscale World will share this vice and often share some of the pupil's grudges, worries, or feuds. For example, one Grayscale World might be a lesson about kindness to a man who treats his servants harshlessly and thanklessly, with a villain on the city council who privately views all non-council cityfolk as servants. Another Grayscale World might be a lesson about greed to a woman whose pursuit of riches is causing her to neglect her own family, with a villain whose insatiable need for the illusionary security of wealth is dooming the town.
In very rare circumstances, the person subjected to a Grayscale Adventure brings someone from the colorless world back with him or her to the normal world. This "rescued" person is often initially grateful for being elevated from a temporary and imaginary creation of the Lamia's to a "real" person. However, these "Moorlost" never adapt to the world of color: they remain colorless, apathetic, and depressed. Most soon degenerate into lethargy or reckless behaviors.
Unlike most Powers, Lamia puts neither her champions, The Hiss, nor her monsters, Spiders, in her dungeons.
The Grayscale Adventures make use of certain famous elements from Noir films. (If the GM and Player wish, other characteristics not appropriate for children can also be incorporated, such as the Hardboiled treatment of violence and sexuality.)
The name "Moorlost" sounds similar to "Moorlocks", perhaps the most famous humanoid monster known for a colorless existence. However, there are no actual similarities between Moorlocks and minor characters from Noir films.
Note that Grayscale Worlds are in many ways the opposite of the adventures created by Yarnspinner in the Enchanted Forest. The setting is a fairly normal location in which normal behavior is distorted to change what is natural. The root of the conflict is hidden, the plot is a web of past and present events, stife happens when normal people to do bad things, and sometimes the bizarre or eerie intrudes inexplicably into normalcy. If the Grayscale World contains an enchanted item it will be too corrupt, dangerous, or limited to be useful to the hero or heroine who finds it.
Old Man River honors his favorite sport by organizing special hunting challenges.
All Wild Hunts are announced weeks in advance. The starting location is advertised: a field, park, or hunting lodge. No other details are shared until all participants have gathered and the hunt is about to begin. Then an appointed Master of the Hunt (often one of Old Man River's Bounty Hunters) greets the assembly, thanks everyone for participating, declares the quarry (often one of Old Man River's Lionkin), and shares what makes this particular hunt "wild".
Some types of "wildness" assist the hunters against a dangerous quarry. All hunters might be loaned a winged horse, an intelligent hound, or a magical hunting horn. Or all might be temporarily granted invisibility while outside settlements, extraordinary speed while running, or limitless endurance. Other types of "wildness" are not helpful. All the hunters might be shrunk to the size of mice, given extra arms that are difficult to control, enchanted to only be able to speak while singing rhyming couplets, or randomly paired as partners and shackled together at the ankles.
Few Wild Hunts go smoothly for all the hunters. As with any large, organized, outdoor endeavor, some participants get lost or encounter dangers tangential to the hunt.
Old Man River always rewards the winner of a Wild Hunt with a trophy cup filled with gold and pearls. The gold represents the wealth at the mountain headwaters of the Arlin River and the pearls represent the wealth where the river empties into the sea. The trophy cup is engraved with the winner's name and the message "From beginning to end you did well". This prize is the only usual reward, although hunters who get lost or meet unexpected monsters might find additional treasure.
Participants in a Wild Hunt are allowed to cooperate, but only the person who delivers the killing stroke to the quarry receives the prize and official praise.
The mythological Wild Hunt is of course the inspiration for these "dungeons".
The cold dungeons of Frosty Kostkey are ice castles or fortresses that eventually form around his temples if the local spread of Winter is not countered. These are easy to find if the Winter zone is still small. They might be well hidden if the Winter zone covers an extensive area.
The interiors of these strongholds are maze-like in layout. Remotes and Cyborgs guard the stronghold, with few rooms empty of an inhabitant. The stronghold is also an active place as squadrons of Cyborgs are equipped, trained, fed, and healed. The most powerful guardians wait at the inner temple. The walls of these strongholds are so thick that the ice is completely opaque and absorbs sounds well: invading heroes usually avoid alerting the stronghold to a state of alarm.
A young stronghold will lack treasure, except for the machines with which Frosty Kostkey is having built for his non-Cyborg servants. An old stronghold contains many treasure rooms full of the wealth and equipment claimed during the raids and conquests of the squadrons of Cyborgs based at the stronghold.
Locating and demolishing the altar (or altars) in a temple stops the creation of the zone of Winter and will soon cause the icy stronghold to melt. The inner temple is often protected by many mechanical traps as well as monsters. Unused hallways may also be trapped, although few of these exist because most parts of the stronghold are busy with activity.
Gnash has many dungeons shaped like enormous mansions. (Or sometimes other large dwellings, such as castles or barracks.) He creates these as refuges for ruthless criminals who have prayed for his aid. Sometimes those criminals also pray to become an Inevitable.
From the outside the manions appear to be normal residences. But inside they are huge and have many rooms per floor. The mansions are infinite in height: every floor contains a stairway up to the next and more dangerous floor. (If a mansion contains basement floors these may of any level of danger, or even contain bizarre features such as other-worldly merchants or basins of glowing healing potion.)
All floors contain a variety of rooms: huge rooms decorated with shining artwork, small rooms containing unsettling personal belongings, dusty rooms of furniture covered with drop cloths, storage rooms with shelves of boxes and vials, studies whose bookshelves hold sinister secrets, unrestful restrooms, bright rooms holding eerie machinery, dark rooms furnished with grim instruments of terror and pain, and kitchens whose cookbooks would cause irreparable madness if read. The hallways are also quite varied in appearance. Most hallways are empty except for artwork, furnishings, and quiet noises that are difficult to identify.
All rooms contain at least one mirror. Gnash is aware when anyone is in any of his mansions, and can taunt people from these mirrors using an appearance very like the person but wounded or disfigured.
Many rooms contain a fountain of oddly colored liquid. The first time someone drinks from that fountain he or she experiences a small benefit or detriment that lasts until exiting the mansion. Subsequent fountains of the same color cause the same effect.
The first floor is always empty of intended inhabitants, although it may be spooky, confusing, or misleading. This floor may be used as a base of operations by cultists, thieves, monster breeders, or other villains from the surrounding town or city.
The second floor is specifically designed for the criminal seeking refuge. Its layout is defensive. It has many traps and secret doors. One room contains many mirrors, which show the views afforded by all the other mirrors on the first two floors. Another room has a prison cell useful if the criminal has brought hostages into the mansion. The staircase leading up to the second floor always ends at a one-way door, preventing intruders from returning down until they have found a key (which the criminal has usually hidden or carries).
The third and higher floors have Undead occupants. Some floors have many and some floors have only a single creature. Most of the Undead are alone but some wait or wander as a group. Each higher floor is more dangerous than the previous because its Undead are from more powerful creatures. These floors continute to have many types of rooms, many portable valuables (candlesticks, vases, silverware, small statues, etc.), and traps that confine or injure. Most doors are initially closed.
The stairways between floors preternaturally muffle sound so that occupants of any floor never hear what happens on another floor. Ascending a stairway for the first time sometimes causes a momentary curse that changes the person in a harmless but frightening way.
Adventurers in the mansion who have already dealt with the occupants of the first two floors can usually safely rest and plan there. The higher floors have few safe rooms or halls because some of the Undead wander the halls and rooms, either aimlessly or on a repeating patrol route. Gnash usually makes a mansion vanish if the criminal it was created for no longer uses it and it is empty except for Undead occupants.
If a mansion is ignored by the people of the surrounding town or city then Gnash places a valuable jeweld amulet in the mansion and issues a challenge to any local rising heroes, daring them to brave the mansion and take the amulet. The amulet is on one of the higher floors, appropriate to the abilities of the local heroes.
Mansions usually contain much wealth but no useful items except food. There are usually no potential allies, but the hostages locked up by the criminal could become allies, or there could be other adventurers exploring the mansion.
As a rule of thumb the Undead on the third and higher floors have a Melee/Press skill equal to their floor level as well as a typical assortment of other skills. Note that mansions do not contain any altar or other source of necromobility: Gnash personally creates the Undead in ways that create constant danger and increasing challenge.
The general plan of a dungeon of nearly infinite levels, each with a dozen or so rooms, traveled in search of an amulet is a tribute to Rogue and its computer game descendants. The bother of identifying color-coded potion effects by trial and error is also from those games.