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hustin1
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I'm going to use this thread to expound a bit on my thoughts when it comes to dungeons, specifically how I think they can (and should) be made more interesting in this game. I posted an abbreviated version in the chat during the last dev stream, but I think it's worth elaborating to get people brainstorming and (hopefully) the devs' creative thoughts flowing.
Let me start with a short story vignette to illustrate a little:
This particular story is referencing an actual area in Temple of the Spider, one which a Whisperknife rogue can still access. That however, isn't the point. The points I'm making here follow:
1. Dungeons are old.
Rarely will players run into new construction when it comes to dungeons. In this case, "new" would mean something less than a century old. We should expect the typical dungeon to be at least a few hundred years old, and some vastly older. The oldest dungeons could have been lurking underground for ten thousand years or more. A lot can happen to a dungeon in that time.
2. The older a dungeon is, the greater the likelihood that it has had many owners over its lifespan.
Denizens come and go. Sometimes they move on; sometimes they die out, sometimes they are destroyed, and sometimes they are conquered. The dungeon they inhabited might be taken over by their enemies, or it might lie forgotten for decades or centuries before being rediscovered.
3. New tenants tend to make changes.
Dungeons might be expanded over time, and unless it is by the same owner (or same type as them), it should be evident in its construction. Old areas might be blocked off by natural disasters, or even deliberately for various reasons. Even if it is by the same owner, construction methods and styles can naturally evolve over time.
4. Dungeon ownership may be contested.
In the underground, resources necessary for life are premium real estate. It follows that a natural spring, underground river, or some kind of flora or fauna might become the nexus of a conflict between different underground denizens. Anywhere that a dungeon opens into such territory raises the possibility of players running into contested domain. Where does one dungeon end and another begin? The lines may become blurred.
Presenting players with a different "domain" in a dungeon raises the possibility of interesting storyline and quest possibilities.
- Both domains become the enemy of the players
- Each domain in the dungeon tries to employ the players to undermine the other
- Each domain in the dungeon thinks the players are working for the other
- One domain tries to use the players (without their knowledge) to undermine the other
- One domain tries to use the players to curry favor with the other (to the players' detriment)
- One domain tries to use the players as a bargaining chip against the other (to the players' detriment)
- Something discovered in the new domain opens up quests elsewhere
- One domain is unknown to the other and presents such a danger that they require the players' help (at least for the moment).
- A heretofore unknown enemy or past chain of events becomes of interest to the wider world.
5. Dungeons are expensive and difficult to both build and maintain.
This raises all kinds of issues. Barring the use of natural caverns, underground excavation is an expensive enterprise. Excavation requires foritfying aginst cave-ins, which means the need for skilled artisans. Also, building underground means having to take gravity into account in a rather special way. Water flows downhill, so dealing with groundwater is necessary if flooding is to be prevented. Likewise, carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen, so the deeper a dungeon goes the greater the need to either remove or neutralize it. Chambers with lots of algae or other flora (and appropriate lighting) become a must in the deeper areas.
6. It might be far easier to take a dungeon over than to build one from scratch.
Those looking to inhabit a dungeon as a base might find existing structures too tempting to ignore. This ties into several points above. Taking the above Temple of the Spider example, it should come as little surprise if the drow periodically came under attack from other evil enemies seeking to score some easy real estate.
7. The older a dungeon, the greater the likelihood that parts of it lie forgotten.
This isn't a hard-and-fast rule as it depends on other factors, but it assumes that a dungeon has been expanded over the ages, either deliberately or due to natural processes (erosion, earth tremors, etc.). A dungeon's denizens might be content to ignore parts that aren't useful to them, and a section that might have been valuable to a previous tenant might be completely forgotten centuries later. This is even more likely if access has been made difficult due to external factors.
8. Changes in ownership of a dungeon are ripe opportunities for storylines.
This is true even if changes occurred in the distant past. Did the drow cover up that entrance? Were they trying to close off an escape route? Were they trying to keep something terrible from entering? Or, was it that way when the drow took the area over? What might the players discover on the other side? Is it something of interest to the wider world? Might they find clues to other hidden or long-forgotten domains elsewhere?
9. A wholly excavated dungeon will have few if any unnecessary rooms.
Unless a dungeon has been taken over by a tenant with less needs, every single room in an excavated dungeon will have a specific purpose. They are simply too expensive to construct for space to go unused. Every room will be used for something, even if it isn't immediately clear what. Rooms might even have dual or multiple purposes since space will be at a premium.
10. Dungeons will be constructed with defense in mind.
Here you need to think like the person who actually built the dungeon, and this is doubly true if the dungeon was excavated. With dungeons being so valuable, whoever inhabits them *will* be thinking about how to defend them. If a dungeon is excavated, it very well might have had its defense designed in from the start. When designing a dungeon, think hard about *who* built it, *how* they built it, and how many resources the builder(s) had at their disposal. How deep were their pockets? How many enemies did they have, and what was the nature of their enemies? All this would have been taken into consideration when the dungeon was constructed. Doing these things will make your dungeon make sense to the players and naturally make it more interesting.
Let me start with a short story vignette to illustrate a little:
Thia slung her bow before stepping over the last of the drow in the latest skirmish.
"Don't you *ever* use your blades?" Tuvin asked, holding his up for illustration, his bow still slung.
Thia paused to shrug. "He didn't annoy me enough to use them." She was glad he couldn't see her expression behind her mask. She'd been hard pressed to get that shot off at point-blank range. Something about her redcap hat always seemed to bring out the crazy in her enemies. That last drow certainly qualified.
Briaxis pointed his axe farther down the slope in the tunnel. "You two done? Places to go, drow to kill, remember?"
Thia shrugged again and fell in behind the others. Hidann, their rogue, started creeping ahead to scout for more drow. The tunnel curved around and down before opening into a small cavern. At the far end loomed a giant pair of metallic doors. The intricate spider reliefs on the surface made clear that they had finally reached the entrance to the temple.
"Guess that was the last of the guards," Tuvin said.
"On the outside, at least," Percival, their paladin, said.
Hidann had started walking toward the doors when he suddenly stopped and held up a hand. After glancing around, he took out his daggers and started creeping off toward one side of the cavern.
Thia knew the signs. Quietly she unslung her bow and took out an arrow.
Hidann walked right up to the cavern wall and waved the others over. "Come look at this."
Thia followed and looked it up and down. Most of it was natural rock, but at the bottom someone had built a wall out of hewn stone and mortar. It looked like someone had then tried to conceal their work by piling large rocks and gravel in front.
Tuvin looked at Percival. "Whatcha make of this?"
Percival kicked some loose gravel on the ground. "Someone definitely tried to hide it, but looks like it must have collapsed over time. Ground tremors, probably. It happens."
"Think we can clear it?" Thia asked.
Briaxis hefted his axe. "Sure. But we aren't here for a detour, you know."
Hidann flashed a smile. "Someone hid this for a reason, Brax. Gotta be important. Maybe there's something better than drow in there."
"Or meaner," Percival said.
Briaxis sighed and started working the stone loose with his axe while Thia and the others cleared the rubble. When they were done, a bare wall with a rough entrance faced them.
"Gods, that's old," Percival said. "Like, *really* old. Look at how the mortar is crumbling apart."
Tuvin turned to Thia, who was a wood elf. "Thia, do you know how long the drow have been here?"
She thought back to what she knew. The drow were old, but they hadn't been in Rothe all that long by elven reckoning. "Maybe 800 years, give or take a couple of centuries." It was still something of a guess.
Percival slowly shook his head. "This is way older. Two millennia, at least. Probably more."
"So the drow covered it up," Thia said.
"Or someone before them," Percival said. "This place could have had many owners over time."
"Delzoun still existed two thousand years ago. I wonder," Thia said before trailing off.
"No way this is Delzoun," Percival said, pointing at the wall. It was rough by any standard. Even drow would have been embarrassed of it.
"Even more curious," Thia said.
Hidann was grinning like a schoolboy. "Come on!" He didn't even wait for a response before going through the entrance.
"Don't you *ever* use your blades?" Tuvin asked, holding his up for illustration, his bow still slung.
Thia paused to shrug. "He didn't annoy me enough to use them." She was glad he couldn't see her expression behind her mask. She'd been hard pressed to get that shot off at point-blank range. Something about her redcap hat always seemed to bring out the crazy in her enemies. That last drow certainly qualified.
Briaxis pointed his axe farther down the slope in the tunnel. "You two done? Places to go, drow to kill, remember?"
Thia shrugged again and fell in behind the others. Hidann, their rogue, started creeping ahead to scout for more drow. The tunnel curved around and down before opening into a small cavern. At the far end loomed a giant pair of metallic doors. The intricate spider reliefs on the surface made clear that they had finally reached the entrance to the temple.
"Guess that was the last of the guards," Tuvin said.
"On the outside, at least," Percival, their paladin, said.
Hidann had started walking toward the doors when he suddenly stopped and held up a hand. After glancing around, he took out his daggers and started creeping off toward one side of the cavern.
Thia knew the signs. Quietly she unslung her bow and took out an arrow.
Hidann walked right up to the cavern wall and waved the others over. "Come look at this."
Thia followed and looked it up and down. Most of it was natural rock, but at the bottom someone had built a wall out of hewn stone and mortar. It looked like someone had then tried to conceal their work by piling large rocks and gravel in front.
Tuvin looked at Percival. "Whatcha make of this?"
Percival kicked some loose gravel on the ground. "Someone definitely tried to hide it, but looks like it must have collapsed over time. Ground tremors, probably. It happens."
"Think we can clear it?" Thia asked.
Briaxis hefted his axe. "Sure. But we aren't here for a detour, you know."
Hidann flashed a smile. "Someone hid this for a reason, Brax. Gotta be important. Maybe there's something better than drow in there."
"Or meaner," Percival said.
Briaxis sighed and started working the stone loose with his axe while Thia and the others cleared the rubble. When they were done, a bare wall with a rough entrance faced them.
"Gods, that's old," Percival said. "Like, *really* old. Look at how the mortar is crumbling apart."
Tuvin turned to Thia, who was a wood elf. "Thia, do you know how long the drow have been here?"
She thought back to what she knew. The drow were old, but they hadn't been in Rothe all that long by elven reckoning. "Maybe 800 years, give or take a couple of centuries." It was still something of a guess.
Percival slowly shook his head. "This is way older. Two millennia, at least. Probably more."
"So the drow covered it up," Thia said.
"Or someone before them," Percival said. "This place could have had many owners over time."
"Delzoun still existed two thousand years ago. I wonder," Thia said before trailing off.
"No way this is Delzoun," Percival said, pointing at the wall. It was rough by any standard. Even drow would have been embarrassed of it.
"Even more curious," Thia said.
Hidann was grinning like a schoolboy. "Come on!" He didn't even wait for a response before going through the entrance.
This particular story is referencing an actual area in Temple of the Spider, one which a Whisperknife rogue can still access. That however, isn't the point. The points I'm making here follow:
1. Dungeons are old.
Rarely will players run into new construction when it comes to dungeons. In this case, "new" would mean something less than a century old. We should expect the typical dungeon to be at least a few hundred years old, and some vastly older. The oldest dungeons could have been lurking underground for ten thousand years or more. A lot can happen to a dungeon in that time.
2. The older a dungeon is, the greater the likelihood that it has had many owners over its lifespan.
Denizens come and go. Sometimes they move on; sometimes they die out, sometimes they are destroyed, and sometimes they are conquered. The dungeon they inhabited might be taken over by their enemies, or it might lie forgotten for decades or centuries before being rediscovered.
3. New tenants tend to make changes.
Dungeons might be expanded over time, and unless it is by the same owner (or same type as them), it should be evident in its construction. Old areas might be blocked off by natural disasters, or even deliberately for various reasons. Even if it is by the same owner, construction methods and styles can naturally evolve over time.
4. Dungeon ownership may be contested.
In the underground, resources necessary for life are premium real estate. It follows that a natural spring, underground river, or some kind of flora or fauna might become the nexus of a conflict between different underground denizens. Anywhere that a dungeon opens into such territory raises the possibility of players running into contested domain. Where does one dungeon end and another begin? The lines may become blurred.
Presenting players with a different "domain" in a dungeon raises the possibility of interesting storyline and quest possibilities.
- Both domains become the enemy of the players
- Each domain in the dungeon tries to employ the players to undermine the other
- Each domain in the dungeon thinks the players are working for the other
- One domain tries to use the players (without their knowledge) to undermine the other
- One domain tries to use the players to curry favor with the other (to the players' detriment)
- One domain tries to use the players as a bargaining chip against the other (to the players' detriment)
- Something discovered in the new domain opens up quests elsewhere
- One domain is unknown to the other and presents such a danger that they require the players' help (at least for the moment).
- A heretofore unknown enemy or past chain of events becomes of interest to the wider world.
5. Dungeons are expensive and difficult to both build and maintain.
This raises all kinds of issues. Barring the use of natural caverns, underground excavation is an expensive enterprise. Excavation requires foritfying aginst cave-ins, which means the need for skilled artisans. Also, building underground means having to take gravity into account in a rather special way. Water flows downhill, so dealing with groundwater is necessary if flooding is to be prevented. Likewise, carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen, so the deeper a dungeon goes the greater the need to either remove or neutralize it. Chambers with lots of algae or other flora (and appropriate lighting) become a must in the deeper areas.
6. It might be far easier to take a dungeon over than to build one from scratch.
Those looking to inhabit a dungeon as a base might find existing structures too tempting to ignore. This ties into several points above. Taking the above Temple of the Spider example, it should come as little surprise if the drow periodically came under attack from other evil enemies seeking to score some easy real estate.
7. The older a dungeon, the greater the likelihood that parts of it lie forgotten.
This isn't a hard-and-fast rule as it depends on other factors, but it assumes that a dungeon has been expanded over the ages, either deliberately or due to natural processes (erosion, earth tremors, etc.). A dungeon's denizens might be content to ignore parts that aren't useful to them, and a section that might have been valuable to a previous tenant might be completely forgotten centuries later. This is even more likely if access has been made difficult due to external factors.
8. Changes in ownership of a dungeon are ripe opportunities for storylines.
This is true even if changes occurred in the distant past. Did the drow cover up that entrance? Were they trying to close off an escape route? Were they trying to keep something terrible from entering? Or, was it that way when the drow took the area over? What might the players discover on the other side? Is it something of interest to the wider world? Might they find clues to other hidden or long-forgotten domains elsewhere?
9. A wholly excavated dungeon will have few if any unnecessary rooms.
Unless a dungeon has been taken over by a tenant with less needs, every single room in an excavated dungeon will have a specific purpose. They are simply too expensive to construct for space to go unused. Every room will be used for something, even if it isn't immediately clear what. Rooms might even have dual or multiple purposes since space will be at a premium.
10. Dungeons will be constructed with defense in mind.
Here you need to think like the person who actually built the dungeon, and this is doubly true if the dungeon was excavated. With dungeons being so valuable, whoever inhabits them *will* be thinking about how to defend them. If a dungeon is excavated, it very well might have had its defense designed in from the start. When designing a dungeon, think hard about *who* built it, *how* they built it, and how many resources the builder(s) had at their disposal. How deep were their pockets? How many enemies did they have, and what was the nature of their enemies? All this would have been taken into consideration when the dungeon was constructed. Doing these things will make your dungeon make sense to the players and naturally make it more interesting.
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My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
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My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Post edited by hustin1 on
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More recent dungeons in the middle ages were nothing more than a pit. Oubliette is a single room under the castle, which is accessible only from a hatch or hole. They seldom were built big enough to hold but a few prisoners. Sometimes structures are mislabeled sepulchers or tombs are basically underground cemeteries, also referred to as labyrinths and catacombs. Some major European cities have massive catacombs, Paris and Rome are two that come to mind.
Temples are sometime thought of as "dungeons" however seldom do you find a temple underground. An underground temple where the Thuggees worship Kali with human sacrifice is just movie magic.
As for the realm of the Faerûn and all of the massive dungeons, no one else does it better. While most are aware rooms in Undermountain were built by the mad mage Halaster Blackcloak, the dungeon existed before his lifespan. Halaster stole it from the dwarves but are we to believe the Dwarves of Clan Melairkyn built all that down there?
The Underdark is the vast subterranean "planet within the planet" but natural to Abeir-Toril. Some say the Earth has its own Underdark you can read about "Hollow Earth Theory" but don't be shocked as most find it on the same level as the Flat Earth Concept.
Meanwhile the city of Gauntlgrym was built on a massive scale by the dwarves. The closest thing we have here is the buried city under Seattle. In 1899, with the Great Seattle Fire, city planners decided to fix the problems with the Emerald City’s layout. They came up with an extremely ambitious plan. All of the streets were to be raised about 12 feet, in some areas up to 30 feet for the low-lying spots. In doing so, they created the Underground, an eerie remnant of the city before the fire.
Great job on the article!