Saturday 11 October 2014

Underground, Overground...

It was some years ago that the question was posed, as the party trudged out of the dungeon loaded down with plunder, what happens to the dungeon now that it’s empty…? The immediate thought was that some other monster would move in. After all, nice solid walls, built in traps, probably water and storage areas if the dungeon had been designed in any sort of sensible way, why would you not, it’s like squatting in a premium property.

Derailed by the youngest of us who asked “Why would they want to live somewhere when we’ve just nicked everything…?”

At the time (Being twelve) I didn’t have the answer, but I never forgot the question.

Eventually, people/monsters would see that the dungeon was still there, and might have forgotten the fate of those who initially built it, together with their motivations and treasure.  In a lot of cases, the dungeon would be repopulated simply for convenience, and without any plan to make use of it in the purpose that it was originally created for.

I should point out here that the nature of building things has always been of particular interest to me, especially when it’s no longer being used as it was intended…

In England, there’s a group of people who call themselves Subterranea Brittanica, (www.subbrit.org.uk) and they dedicate themselves to the finding and investigation of places that are abandoned and have been so for some time.  I have no doubt that there’s a number of similar groups in other countries (and indeed in other worlds), as many have the interest for finding places where once people were, together with understanding why they eventually moved out of those places and moved on to other things. 


These places, including nuclear shelters, underground stations, icehouses deep underground and long disused hospitals are places on the edge of the world where it seems inconceivable that people would ever have lived.  There are the remains of a building on top of Ben Nevis, constructed many years ago as a hotel and observatory as seen here.


Now this is all that remains of it…


Would something like this, in a place as inhospitable as this, be of interest to those who have no fixed home?  Would others consider it easier to put a few coverings or bits of wood over the top of these derelict structures to make their homes rather than having to build one from scratch.  In the case of tribes of “Monsters” that find themselves continually harassed by adventurers looking to clean them out, do they ever want to set down roots and live a normal life, or have they been on the road for so long that the nomadic lifestyle is the only one that they can live with?

Does this interest in things extend to other creatures beyond the player races? Does a Kobold consider things like the stone walls and a warm fireplace or do they just like finding somewhere that’s dry?  It’s well documented that the larger and more intelligent creatures like Dragons often choose their lair carefully, ensuring that they have a place that’s well defended from attack and comfortable for them, so why not the smaller creatures?

In Quest, the new game I’m making, there’s a place on the high plains of Elevas called the Storm Vaults, where once a number of mages plotted to do something terrible but were struck down before they could complete the task.  They left the immense underground complex there for the next person to come along and chance their arm at it.  This is when my interest was rekindled in the idea of abandoned dungeons and what can be done with them. 

There’s a difference between a barrow or cairn, where there’s about enough space for someone to sleep for the night or make a small home from, and a purpose designed dungeon where there’s dozens, maybe hundreds of rooms where there could be any number of things.  When it’s a small building of less than five rooms, I have the place populated by single intelligent creatures or small numbers of wandering monsters, because there wouldn’t be sufficient space for an intelligent creature to keep themselves safe unless they rebuilt the structure and put in safeguards to prevent creatures wandering in to kill them.

I should point out that I don’t consider creatures of below “Human” intelligence to be grouped in this, they fall more into the wandering monster category and if found in a dungeon, will either be the pets of those who actually use the dungeon, or will have just wandered in there on a whim.

So why would you want to live in a place that’s been raided before…?

Ease of use can’t be discounted, and if you can find a way to reactivate all the different traps and defensive measures, it could be a very good way of keeping things secure.  The general nature of things notwithstanding of course, there’s upkeep to handle on most dungeons, and it’s unlikely that most of them would have even the basics of damp proofing to keep things dry down there.  So unless you’ve got a reasonable amount of magic, you’re not going to want to delve too deep or too far, because getting supplies down to the lower levels unless you’ve got an army would not be the way forwards.

Hence places like Moria…


Originally a mine, invaded and overrun, and then used as a home for those who had done the overrunning, albeit with none of the knowledge of the original creators of the mine, so many parts of it had fallen into disrepair. When the fellowship first came to it, they realised almost immediately that something terrible had happened, but they were forced to travel through, and in that, revealed a lot of the reason why such places are built.  In Moria, the focus was simple…

Here be Mithril…

But when you’re putting together another massive dungeon complex, there needs to be a reason similar in importance and resonance to hold the idea of the dungeon together. Hubris notwithstanding, no one goes to that much trouble if they’re only looking for a place to rest their hat, and if they’re doing it to show themselves off, the place usually has one gigantic room with everything pointing towards the head of the table, and a number of smaller rooms where the servants are allowed to go. 

When it’s a complex, there has to be a reason, and that’s where I started with the Vaults. 

The Vaults are more than they appear, the initial levels are a set of doors that open out into a staircase leading down into the vault proper, but the doors are mounted on a plain, so anyone looking for them over a distance would not immediately see them.  In the upper levels, the power levels have dropped over the years and the non-essential equipment has been laid to waste there, leading to a number of creatures coming here to escape the terrible dry winds on the Elevas Plains. There are a number of wells within the Vaults, all of them large enough to supply all the servants on the level, so water is not a problem, and as a result, a lot of the wandering animals in the area know that there is water here, which explains their presence.

Move down a level, and there’s a low level of light coming from the ceiling, not as bright as it was a long time ago when the vaults worked at full power and there were regular recharge cycles to keep them powered up, but as time has gone by, so the power has drained, and the safeguards put in place have started to drain the power from the upper levels to make sure the lower levels still operate.  It’s not dark enough that you need torches, but something with darkvision of any sort will have a distinct advantage down here, and as the very nature of the vaults keeps it dry and heated, so other creatures have found their way down here.

Down another level and the light level has increased, rather than decreased, but that means that the defensive measures built into the vault are also there.  One of these is the mage map, a device designed to change the appearance of the area below depending on who passes through it.  While the solution to the map is very simple, you need to know the solution in advance, and getting that solution is an adventure all of its own.

Down another level and we come to the vault proper, well lit from all angles and open all the way from one end of the vault to the other.  It is lined by statues of hundreds of different creatures, both humanoid and not, some with weapons and armour still upon them.  Those who failed to penetrate the vaults defences in times past would still be made use of when their attempt had failed…

Down another level and the stairs become more and more narrow till walking single file along a suspended staircase no wider than a single person, to a door suspended in the air just beyond the end of the staircase, behind this are the truths of the vault…

And that’s as much as I’ll mention here, more to follow when the adventure comes out…

The point of it all is to ensure that the dungeon has purpose, don’t just stack random monsters in there, that’s such a waste of potential, consider where the dungeon is, consider what would want to be down there.  Consider that the original plans for these things would be, if it was just a place to hold prisoners, it’ll have lots of cells, but the areas where the guards would be will be reinforced far beyond the realms of the cells themselves, and unless the prisoners were particularly skilled or able, they wouldn’t put anything beyond simple bars on the cells. 

If it was a foodstore, there’d be a butchery and a place for all the offal and offcuts to be disposed of, there’d be channels cut in the floor to let the blood run away and not foul everything.

If animals were kept in the Dungeon, there’d be housing for them, usually away from the main resting areas.

Air…

Never forget the requirement to breathe, as the dungeon goes deeper, so you need to provide some sort of ventilation to allow fresh air down into the darkness.  Otherwise the heavier elements of air (including carbon dioxide) would fall and accumulate and without a circulation system, the air down at the lower levels would be at best, foul, and at worst, toxic…

Above all, consider the places in our world where such places already exist, the massive underground city in Turkey that could have housed more than twenty thousand people, the complex tunnel systems beneath London and other cities, and then the other places where once people lived but no longer, then ask the most interesting question about it…


What happened to make everyone leave…?

I know what happened in the Storm Vaults, but I’m the only one that does, and those that venture deep into the Vaults will find that the story reveals itself the deeper they go, just as the fellowship found more than they could have feared when they travelled deep into the stone.  The creatures that had taken up residence were not the main threat, that remained far below and only came up when roused, and so is the normal way of things.  Larger creatures often keep guards to prevent them from being disturbed all the time, and so it is no different here.

The question today then, is what is the point of dungeons, and do they still have a place in the GM’s repertoire…?


Tomorrow, Overground...