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Old 10-19-2019, 05:44 PM   #1
thrash
 
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Default dungeon fantasy evolution

In thinking about what elements make a dungeon fantasy setting (in the abstract) more plausible, I've been impressed with the idea that they are post-apocalyptic. This neatly accounts for the wide variety of lootable facilities, their variant technologies, and the low population density and minimal social organization of the rest of the setting. The only issue I have is depth of time: few real-world dark ages (whether actual power vacuums or just lack of historical records) have lasted more than two or three centuries before a new consolidating power arises. There would have to be some mechanism that causes repeated apocalypses, knocking the rising civilizations down time and again.

I am less satisfied with the suggestion that dungeons (primarily?) result from something like trench warfare -- mining and counter-mining by competing forces driven underground by lethal magics on the surface. On the one hand, this does account for the often-random nature of labyrinth maps and the prevalence of traps, On the other, though, it's hard to find spells in any system that can match the range, lethality, and sustained rate of fire of the cannon and machine-guns that drove the adoption of trench warfare in the real world. Add the many means (flying creatures, levitation, teleportation) of bypassing fixed defenses and the lack of widespread individual ranged weapons (to take the place of rifles and allow infantry to take and hold ground while spread out in skirmish lines), and the suggestion falls apart.

So, what then?

I suggest that the twin features that distinguish and generate dungeon fantasy settings are the existence of magical abilities and the presence of monsters that routinely prey on humans (used here to mean any socially organized sapients, not just Homo sapiens) and their societies.

In our world, there hasn't been any serious competition to humans since at least the Last Glacial Maximum, c. 27,000 years ago. Pre-modern humans colonized six of the seven continents and virtually all available islands, displacing large predator species and (arguably) hunting out large prey species wherever they go. Population levels have been constrained by technology (food production), rather than predation. Predator attacks on humans are on the whole rare and anomalous, driven by chance encounters or famine seasons, with true man-eaters (mostly big cats) quickly hunted down.

In a dungeon fantasy world, however, there are multitudes of creatures that are capable of challenging humans and human societies. More than a few of these are happy to make a habit of it, and to feast on the results. That's a pretty severe environment, with extreme selective pressures driving evolution. If magical abilities have a genetic component, this probably serves to establish or intensify those traits in the population (vs. our world, where they may have been lost if they ever existed). Founder effects, small and isolated populations, and selection pressures also help account for the broad range of variant but interfertile "races" in these settings -- the equivalent of dog or horse breeds, rather than distinct species.

Given that dungeon fantasy settings are typically agrarian, it seems likely that monsters appeared after the development of agriculture. Otherwise, it's hard to imagine fugitive human bands settling down long enough to invent it. This might be due to a Banestorm-style triggering event, the opening of portals to otherworldly realms, or the spawning of a fracture zone connecting multiple timelines -- or all of the above. It becomes even more plausible if the base reality was previously uninhabited by humans, with plenty of megafauna to sustain large-scale monstrous predators: a North America where the Bering land bridge was never crossed, say. The inter-universal connections would need to be large enough and persist long enough to capture breeding populations of large solitary predators (e.g., dragons or T. rex descendants), though they don't have to be frequent.

One of the objections frequently raised to dungeon fantasy settings is that magic should support modern levels of population growth and food production, which are not evident. In a setting with widespread predation, however, this "surplus" over equivalent economies on our Earth accounts for the annual casualty rate. (This is more likely due to entire villages overwhelmed and wiped out than to careless individuals getting picked off.) Fertility magic, on the other hand, allows more intensive cultivation, more consistent and better yields on smaller plots, which reduces exposure and risk.

In such a world, large gatherings of humans are all-you-can-eat buffets for any monster(s) strong enough to breach their defenses. This implies that most habitations are fortified -- a siege mentality that the inhabitants probably take for granted. The larger these settlements are, the stronger they need to be. Isolated dwellings and villages (~100 inhabitants) should be capable of withstanding the run of local wandering monsters. Towns (~1,000 inhabitants) are likely walled, with a strongly fortified citadel and underground passages connecting with the walls and prominent strongpoint buildings (guildhalls, etc.) inside the perimeter.

The largest habitations -- cities, universities, research parks, garrisons, etc. -- are almost entirely underground, to defend against the strongest class of monsters (which they inevitably attract). Here, then, is justification both for dungeons and for their eventual abandonment in the face of some threat too strong to fight. This sets up the cycle of recurring rises and falls of civilizations that seeds the landscape with ruins. The abandoned complexes attract opportunistic lesser monsters, which are preyed on in turn until equilibrium is reached, resulting in the classic dungeons we know.

This points to adventurers being a vital element of human societies, rather than a fringe group and social irritant. They are the expendable ones, who take the fight to the monsters and create a buffer zone for ordinary folks to survive. In fact, the ruling elites of the setting are adventurers, and vice versa. Adventurers, including magic-wielding types, are the armored, mounted knights or samurai of the setting -- its most effective combatants -- optimized for human-on-monster conflict. (Human-on-human raids and skirmishes still occur, naturally, but large armies in the field are strong monster attractants.) Equipping and training them is resource-intensive, supported largely through paid quests, looting, and ruthless attrition.

The situation is too unstable for entrenched hereditary aristocracies to develop. Instead, there is a cycle: the most successful adventurers gather followers, establish or rehabilitate fortresses in the wilderness, clear a region around them of monsters, and conduct anti-monster patrols to make them attractive to colonists. These holdings eventually get wiped out when conditions worsen, monster populations increase, or their heirs fail to remain equally strong and vigilant. Less accomplished adventurers settle for being the followers, or become the guardians and leaders of smaller settlements (villages and towns).
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Old 10-19-2019, 06:57 PM   #2
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Default Re: dungeon fantasy evolution

The "Wellsprings of Creation" setting (originally in web-Pyramid, now available again in a significantly revised form in the Pyramid Dungeon Collection) partakes of aspects of this, but rather than being strictly post-apocalyptic, it posits an endless boom and bust cycle. When things are good, they're very good. Powerful wizards and mighty warriors can keep monsters at bay, magically assisted agriculture can feed lots of people, and new peoples appear from time to time, created by raw magical forces to fill in any gaps. But when things are bad, they're very bad. Eventually, magical catastrophes wipe out fast-growing and previously secure nations at their height, but only after a few centuries of having a pretty good run. This leaves behind layers and layers of magical artifacts, caverns and tunnels, buried treasures, curses, monsters in the form of twisted magical hybrids or critters created out of nothingness by ambient magic, and so on, and there's enough localized tension between chaos and order that dungeon-delving heroes are never without something to do.
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Old 10-19-2019, 07:21 PM   #3
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Default Re: dungeon fantasy evolution

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Originally Posted by thrash View Post
In thinking about what elements make a dungeon fantasy setting (in the abstract) more plausible, I've been impressed with the idea that they are post-apocalyptic.
This was actually pretty obvious in both Lord of the Rings and Conan. Elric added the "ancient civilization that's almost succumbed to dcadence" meme. Even ERB had fallen ciovilizations from a previous age on Barsoom.

You do need a rebounding civilization that's advanced enoguh to have towns fro advnturers to dwell in between quests and produce enough economic surpluss to buy the stuff that's not directly useful.

So almost 40 years ago I had an ancient civilization that blew itself to bits in some mysterious catastrophy. It occupied an island continent with a large central plateau that had been the center of the ancient civilization with what were overgrown fishing villages on the coast. These coastal communities were what survived and a few centuries later they had grown into small city-states whiel the central uplands were a magically afflicted wilderness.

This semi=aplocalyptic meme survies to this day with as just one example Eberron (a 5e book for it is being released next month) where you have remnant civilizations surving around the core of a destroyed ancient land.

Soem of this is found in Douglas Cole's Nordlonds setting as well with adventurers from a young but vibrant civiliation picking through the ruins of much older but fallen realms.
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Old 10-19-2019, 07:52 PM   #4
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Default Re: dungeon fantasy evolution

I'd add magical beasts and curses to the mix. Especially creatures that hibernate for a long time, and need souls rather than flesh to survive. It gives a diverse feel to it all (and DF is nothing if not diverse), and lets you run a more complex ecology, with different types of city defending from different kinds of monster.

Its a nice idea. You have me thinking up ideas for the highest classes of monsters, those capable of wrecking Cities by themselves.
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Old 10-19-2019, 09:16 PM   #5
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Default Re: dungeon fantasy evolution

I would consider having the source of monsters in waves; during the peaks, monsters rise up and destroy civilization, during the troughs there are far fewer monsters, and those that do need to hide out in places where the monstrous energies puddled, or perhaps were collected; this is mostly underground.
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Old 10-20-2019, 08:59 AM   #6
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Default Re: dungeon fantasy evolution

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I would consider having the source of monsters in waves; during the peaks, monsters rise up and destroy civilization, during the troughs there are far fewer monsters, and those that do need to hide out in places where the monstrous energies puddled, or perhaps were collected; this is mostly underground.
I'm partial to naturalistic explanations wherever possible, saving the supernatural elements for special cases. (The extreme is a science fictional dungeon fantasy setting based strictly on transfers among parallel worlds, without magic, but this is probably fun only as a thought experiment.)

To the degree that monsters prey exclusively on humans (vs. a mix of humans and other species), cycles superficially like these fall naturally out of predator-prey population dynamics. Monsters that share prey (e.g., bison or mastodons) with humans would see a shift to other prey species as the humans die off and back to humans as their numbers increase. A sudden drop in other prey populations -- due to a drought or abnormally harsh winter, say -- would send the resulting overpopulation of monsters into human settlements as the kind of wave you describe.
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Old 10-20-2019, 12:25 PM   #7
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A sudden drop in other prey populations -- due to a drought or abnormally harsh winter, say -- would send the resulting overpopulation of monsters into human settlements as the kind of wave you describe.
Yes, but it would tend to produce local catastrophes with fairly short cycles, which isn't enough to cause a fall of civilization. You need something that is quite large area and pretty long cycle, though it doesn't need to be supernatural per se (for example, Pern's Red Star is unrealistic but not actually described as supernatural).

I wanted areas where the malign essence puddled because that gives you dungeons that persist after a wave has passed.
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Old 10-19-2019, 09:29 PM   #8
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Default Re: dungeon fantasy evolution

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I'd add magical beasts and curses to the mix. Especially creatures that hibernate for a long time, and need souls rather than flesh to survive. It gives a diverse feel to it all (and DF is nothing if not diverse), and lets you run a more complex ecology, with different types of city defending from different kinds of monster.

Its a nice idea. You have me thinking up ideas for the highest classes of monsters, those capable of wrecking Cities by themselves.
Time of the Annihilator by John Morressey has such an entity. Sleep for ages to give humans time to repopulate and then set the apocalypse in motion. He feeds on the dying, panicked souls...
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Old 10-20-2019, 08:35 AM   #9
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Default Re: dungeon fantasy evolution

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You have me thinking up ideas for the highest classes of monsters, those capable of wrecking Cities by themselves.
It's an interesting question. Due to clearing humans out of a fortified dungeon complex, I was imagining liches with hordes of undead, organized invasions by demons (does that make them devils?) or your non-corporeal soul-suckers, or something like the xenomorphs from Aliens, but there's plenty of room for variation. A dragon or kaijuu-type might depopulate the surface and starve the city out, instead.

You could also categorize monsters by the level of damage they do without having to refer to a specific game system, e.g.:

Class............Threat
Nuisance.......No threat to healthy, aware adult.
Danger..........Threat to single adult.
Hazard..........Threat to group of armed adults.
Disaster.........Threat to fortified village or local area.
Catastrophe...Threat to fortified town or entire region.
Apocalypse....Threat to fortified dungeon/city or entire society.

I also like the effect this has on architecture. Dungeons don't just spring up out of nowhere. There's a continuous scale from village up to city complex with stronger and more subterranean defenses. Since they are living spaces rather than strictly defensive, there is justification for a mix of wide (for bringing in oversized items) and twisty narrow corridors. Fortified surface structures exist, but probably owe more to Vauban fortresses than medieval European or Japanese castles.
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Old 10-22-2019, 09:59 AM   #10
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Default Re: dungeon fantasy evolution

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Originally Posted by thrash View Post
It's an interesting question. Due to clearing humans out of a fortified dungeon complex, I was imagining liches with hordes of undead, organized invasions by demons (does that make them devils?) or your non-corporeal soul-suckers, or something like the xenomorphs from Aliens, but there's plenty of room for variation. A dragon or kaijuu-type might depopulate the surface and starve the city out, instead.
Dragons should 100% make the list of city-ending threats. They force you to do so much with architecture, they can be difficult to counter, and they're already in the public consciousness.

Infectious monstrosities are a likely city-killer. Imagine a monster like a werewolf that turns everyone bitten into a killer. In the wild, its just a simple monster that has an odd reproductive cycle and is unlikely to do well. In a community, its going to tear through the population, decimating their numbers and destroying their social cooperation at the same time. Slow diseases that take longer to overwhelm a population are a possibility as well.

We need city killers that are defeated by sunlight. We have reasons for dungeons to exist, but we also need monsters that kill the dungeons but don't threaten the above-ground cities. Make the city pick their poison.

Insubstantial threats need to be considered. When the cities have wrapped themselves in a protective blanket of walls, hunters come that can walk right through them. I'm not sure how you turn that into a city-killing threat though.

Demons could work as an organized threat, I suppose.
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