GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

A-way a-way down
Under the sun, underground
You'll find my hometown

— Master Bard Sivel

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy has a lot of "implied setting": the Frozen North, Forbidden East, and Steamy South border the King's realm, home to a host of guilds that control settlements where the Town Watch keeps the peace and everybody knows about Hell Gnomes, The Devil, Elder Things, and other menaces. Yet it's all extremely generic. When names are dropped (like the mysterious "Teclá" mentioned in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1, and the locales in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1: Mirror of the Fire Demon), they're left there for the GM to pick up.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown is the first of what we hope will become a series aimed at changing that. It details a town that can serve as a brief stopover between quests, the focus of an adventure or three, or even the heroes' home base. While it remains generic enough to fit into the majority of existing Dungeon Fantasy campaigns, it also names specific people, places, things, and events . . . and certainly, it's anything but typical! Did I mention that it's underground, sustained by magic, and at the heart of a huge dungeon complex?

But Caverntown has more to offer than just an interesting premise and a bunch of hard-to-pronounce fantasy names. It's the first supplement in the Dungeon Fantasy series to discuss how civilization survives and enforces its laws in the face of monsters – and delvers. To cover searching for, modifying, and ordering gear (including magic items). To offer costs for magical services such as healing and magic-item identification. To present rules for settling down and buying property.

A-well a-well a-welcome to Caverntown!

—

Store Link: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-0343

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I like the way this book is laid out. It also gave me lots of ideas for my Dungeon Fantasy campaign that's been going for the past couple years. I'm about to have the party being introduced into a city that actually exists in hell. This book gave me great ways of going about setting up the city.

Thanks for this!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Kromm's writing is excellent as always, and the introduction to the town is hilarious. It seems quite comprehensive in covering information that delvers and GMs need to know. It's a little light on things for PCs to do, but there is no shortage of adventure seeds for the GM to elaborate on.

Overall, well written, an enjoyable read, and a welcome addition to the Dungeon Fantasy line. Hopefully, we'll see more such setting materials in the future, both as adventuring locales and as places to visit between adventures.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I loved the book.
Good setting and info for the town but a lot of work was added that works for most towns so its worthwhile for most fantasy games.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Great news! I'll have to check it out.

This appears to be more in the direction I prefer: supporting game "pieces" that I can apply to play rather than just more rules that I have to integrate before play.

Thank you.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Yeah, I like new crunch but too many rules (especially if scattered or hard to remember where they are) can be a drawback.
I almost never use a setting as is either so skip most of them.
However ones like this are good for mining ideas to use elsewhere and those are the ones I buy.
It also was a pleasant read.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Thank you all for the kind words. I wrote this during a tough time in my life (ongoing), so it's great to hear it isn't a flop.

Ultimately, that was my goal – I want the heroes to get the heck out of town and have adventures. But if they stay, be sure to take a closer look at Other Entrances (p. 8), Other Weirdness (p. 10), Visitors (p. 12), Urban Dangers (p. 25), Deputy Delver (p. 27), Settling Down (pp. 28-29), Random Events (p. 30), and Undertown (p. 35) for at least a few ideas.

Almost all of Chapter 4 and large parts of Chapter 3 are fairly portable to pretty much any fantasy city that's intended as a base for professional adventurers.

To be fair, there are more rules here – but yes, most can be added in during play. Nothing here adds an "essential" new character type, overpowered gear, or options that are likely to destroy the campaign economy.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Yes, in general, there are many rough patches in life. And in general, the world could use more support from fellow humans.

I hope you manage the best you can with whatever you are going through at the moment Kromm.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Seconded.

I wish you all the best, Sean.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

It certainly isn't. It's twistedly ingenious, and interesting even to someone who isn't that much into dungeon fantasy.

I hope your real life issues are resolved well.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Also hoping for the best for you.
As for a flop, I dont recall anything of yours that qualifies.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

You know, I've been wondering when we'd see something like this for a while.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Ah! I'm so excited about this - I snapped it up right away, and just started reading it. Much fun!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

My congratulations to Kromm for getting the rarefied vocab of monadnock and inselberg into a gaming product, a trick that not even the polysllabic EGG ever managed*. If only he had managed to work bornhardt into the list of things it is not... but that would be asking too much.

Anyway, it is a great product and I am very happy to see it. Unfortunately my DF game is on hiatus until the summer, but that gives me all the more time to ponder how to get the PCs here.



*C'mon, where did most of us learn dweomer, weal, demiurge, geas, and milieu?

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Ha! I laughed at those, too. The whole first chapter is quietly hilarious, in my humble opinion, partly because (rightly or wrongly) it gave me a strong sense that the author had had fun writing it....

It's also a really fun setting for a game, and could totally be run "straight", without the humor, if one preferred. But the writing itself is quite funny, IMHO.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I have t finished reading it, but I like what I see so far. Surprisingly there aren't many products like this. Typically you get books on whole nations or adventures, rather than just one city. D&D 4th ed did one product like this and it was probably one of the best ones it did. This compares quite favorably

It's fascinating to see the tone which is equal parts irreverent and equal parts old school Greyhawk.

I'm working on my own DF home base, and this has me thinking of ways to help liven it up. Like Caverntown (which is a ridiculous name but it works and I like the touch of other names trying to be used officially but the locals were just like "Nah") I've got a gold rush mentality for adventuring, but this book helps give me ideas on how the local farmers and thatchers react to this sudden influx of adventurers.
.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Published a review on my blog:

https://blindmapmaker.wordpress.com/...ng-caverntown/
Warning: May contain ads, depending on your ad-blocker settings (really should make my own site I know). It's only Wordpress, though.

I agree with the things said so far, but I want to stress one thing in particular: This is basically the plug-and-play setting folks have been clamouring for for ages. Go buy it! And if you do, maybe we get a couple of those dungeons fleshed out in a while.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Ahhhh, this is a delicacy!

I read the first 15 pages last night, falling asleep while mulling the Royal Embassy and Deep Rangers.

One of my favorite bits so far was the potential for wealthy "tourists" to provide quest opportunities:

Both of these tourist roles sound fun. I can imagine creating a recurring dilettante NPC who begins by simply asking for stories (and paying for mementos), proceeds to suggest increasingly challenging quests or dares, and finally asks to come along on an absurdly dangerous journey.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Oh, yeah.Kind of like some Safari types from back in the day.
Imagine the fun with a dilettante monster slayer using the PCs as 'Guides' and they have to keep him from getting killed while making him look good so he comes back with a trophy and great stories.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Assuming the rough default of a 1.25mi (2km) on a side space for Caverntown, and not fiddling with the ratio of height to x-y dimensions, how high is the dome ceiling of the cavern?
I'm noodling around with making a model of caverntown in Blender, but PCs will inevitably want to fly or unleash a giant flying monster or both. How much clearance over houses and how high you can get and make guards/PCs get big range penalties to hit you is interesting (And as always, falling damage! PCs will find a way to take falling damage even on the arctic tundra. True story).

Height also indirectly controls how tall the buildings are going to get. If e.g. the ceiling is 30', and people have a roof patio, they're never getting more than 2 floors (including ground floor, not counting on top the roof) "above ground" and you'll not have a lot of space to maneuver over parapets and any roof-top gazebos. It will also cramp the style of the druids trees.

If the ceiling is 600' you can get some classy aerial dogfights going, and PCs make a satisfying splat noise if they fall.

Side note: The stairs to the surface around the shaft seem to be about 60-odd flights [1], so presuming a 10' rise per flight, the ceiling isn't 600 feet. But that's still an awe-inspiring mental picture.

[1] Someone with a move of 7 and a high enough HT or Running that they didn't have to make significant rest stops can run the steps up the shaft in about 7m 9s. The winner of the Empire State Building stair climb did 86 flights of stairs in 10m 16s, let's say he's our Move 7/healthy runner. That suggests the steps are ~60.5 flights of stairs. Unless I have my math wrong, which I could. It might be 390' instead of 600 ft.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Do it! That would be fun to see. I must admit that, despite all the reasons not to make a map of the place (reasons which Kromm goes through in the supplement itself), I'd still find a map more helpful than harmful.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

The cavern is described as a "vast hemisphere" and we know that it is circular because the walls are 500 yards from each of the four gates to the square city. Since we know that the city is 2200 yards across (1.25 miles), the diameter of the cavern is 3200 yards. If the cavern is a true hemisphere, then the ceiling should rise half that height from the center of town (the shaft). So that's 1600 yards, 4800 feet, or about 0.9 miles. Plenty of room for dogfights and satisfying splats.

There is one wrinkle in the description: it says that the floor "meets the dome's descending sides at an acute angle." This suggests that the cavern might be somewhat less than a perfect hemisphere (with the floor above the "equator" of the theoretical sphere). So one could take 1600 yards as the maximum ceiling height of the default cavern, but you could reduce it if it seems too spacious.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I don't have nearly the math chops of some of the folks around here, but a hemisphere is at my level of napkin trig. (Still, I hope someone checks my work!)

Based on the hemisphere radius of 1600 yards, I calculated the ceiling height at the corner towers (50 yards from the cavern edge, 1550 yards from the center) to be roughly 400 yards or 1200 feet. So no problem having tall towers. Above the gates at the center of each wall (500 yards from the cavern edge, 1100 yards from the center), the height would be 1162 yards / 3500 feet.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

The default city plan is a perfect square 1.25 miles on a side (Where's the Map?, p. 6). That's an even 2,200 yards across. The gates in the center of each side of the Barricade (p. 7) are described as being "about 500 yards from the cavern walls." That gives the Great Cavern a diameter of ~3,200 yards.

(You could also look at the diagonal: √(1.25² + 1.25²) = 1.76 miles = 3,098 yards. The four corners are described as being "a mere 50 yards from it." That gives a cavern diameter of 3,198 yards . . . which is still ~3,200 yards at the assumed precision.)

If the Great Cavern were a true hemisphere with the city sitting on a plane slicing a sphere in two, that would make the ceiling ~1,600 yards tall (i.e., equal to the cavern's radius). However, "the cavern floor [...] meets the dome's descending sides at an acute angle" (The Great Cavern, p. 6), so it isn't that spacious. That is, the cavern floor isn't a plane that slices a sphere in half. While the ceiling and walls describe "the surface of a vast hemisphere," it's never stated what percentage of that hemisphere is open space.

Looking at the stairs described under The Shaft (p. 6), I assumed the walking speed of a fit person marching with purpose – i.e., a guard or adventurer – is Move 2 (2 yards/second, or ~4 miles/hour), which tends to be what GURPS assumes elsewhere is a brisk walk (see, for instance, Invisibility Art, p. B202). I further used the standard approximation that stairs cost +1 movement point per hex (p. B387), with the idea that as in ranged combat, the implied slope is around 45°. Thus, Move 2 behaves like Move 1 upward and Move 1 forward, and so the stated 25-minute journey is a climb of 25 minutes × 60 seconds/minute × 1 yard/second = 1,500 yards, not 1,600 yards.

Moreover, some of that distance is passage through the Great Cavern's stone ceiling. That isn't thin, because it's mountainside that supports forts and so on despite being riddled with tunnels and caverns. Still, we don't want that acute angle to be too acute or you'll be bumping your head! So the part of the stairs that disappears up into a little hole in the ceiling spans at least a few stories. I'd put the zenith of the cavern ceiling – above Town Square – at between 1,400 and 1,500 yards.

As Where's the Map? notes, "The GM may adjust the ratio of cavern diameter to height, too; the greater this is, the more oppressive the space will feel." Thus, it's up to the GM to decide whether caverns nearly a mile deep make sense in the setting. That said, note that this isn't the same as "almost a mile below sea level" – Fort Caverntown is up a mountain and well above sea level! Rather, it's "almost a mile below the surface."

For those preoccupied with atmospheric effects: At GURPS' resolution, you would run into these only if the fort were at least 2,000 yards above sea level (p. B429) or the cavern floor were at least a mile below sea level (GURPS Underground Adventures, p. 13). So if you split the difference and have the fort be 800 yards above sea level (comparable to São Paulo) and the cavern floor be 800 yards below sea level, you could accommodate the above assumptions without worrying excessively about pressure at the resolution likely to matter for hack 'n' slash fantasy.

In short, there's really nothing preventing impressive magically built skyscrapers in Caverntown. As Buildings (p. 7) notes, "most structures rise at least two stories above the street. Many are higher, their height reflecting the owners' wealth and status." The only restriction, if you want to call it that, is that the Wizards' Guild tower remain the "tallest structure after The Shaft and the Eight Titans" (p. 21). Likewise, aerial adventures above the city are entirely plausible, and there's even a flying species native to the Great Cavern (p. 12).

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Now that's what I call support for all the niche interests.

For me it's more important to know when it is permitted to use the stairs? Because the staircase is described as auxiliary and off-limits to visitors in the Fort Caverntown section. Does that mean native inhabitants of Caverntown may use it or is it open only to guards and in emergencies? And what kind of emergencies would that be? If the town is attacked, you probably don't want citizens gallivanting on the perfect sniper platform. It certainly would make for an epicspot to watch a zombie apocalpyse unfold and engulf the town.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

My review is up.
https://refplace.blogspot.com/2018/0...averntown.html

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Bought and downloaded - will post thoughts later.

I just wanted to echo the others in wishing Dr. Punch a speedy resolution to any of his difficulties, and thanks for continuing to feed our ravening appetites for all things GURPS.

Also, it's pretty amazing that Denis Loubet is illustrating GURPS products. I first saw his illustrations in the player's guide to the Ultima IV video game...

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

How much of "Traits for Town" from Pyramid #3/58: Urban Fantasy is covered in this volume?

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Very little. That material went into GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 17: Guilds, which is highly recommended as a companion to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown. (In fact, I mention it something like 20 times!)

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Thanks, everyone . . . and sorry to do what would be called "vaguebooking" over in Zuckerland. My intention was to express thanks for the positive reception, not to drum up concern! It suffices to say that I'm not coping with health problems or a loved one's death, but rather tribulations of a more emotional, social, and fiscal nature (and thus not stuff I'm inclined to splash all over these forums).

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Dragging out obscure vocabulary in the tradition of the early days of the hobby is just part of the Dungeon Fantasy experience. ;)

I had a lot of fun writing this one. Setting admits a lot more creativity than rules. It isn't my strength, but it's definitely a welcome break from checking the math on templates, complicated ability builds, etc.

I think "The Adventures of Mr. Azure Blue" would make for a great campaign premise! The party would be assembled not in response to rumors of treasure or a call for adventurers to undertake a quest, nor to battle Evil, nor to escort a caravan, nor for any other reason that has become "traditional" in hack 'n slash. Rather, it would be hired by a wealthy incompetent whose idea of fun is to see real dragons and run around with a loaded crossbow, pretending to be the great hunter.

This would make every encounter, however harmless to 250-point heroes, a little trickier – especially if Mr. Blue's only talents aside from being extraordinarily rich and well-connected in town were being Indomitable and Unfazeable. He would insist on being in charge, and his survival would be essential to mission success. The delvers would require an unusual set of abilities, and the players would have to develop unorthodox operating procedures.

It would also be fun to motivate players not with loot but with large, guaranteed payoffs in town after each quest ("Exhilarating, hey, wot? Bonuses, I say – bonuses for all, paid in gold! Now this next quest involves something called a lick or lech or some such thing – a dry old skeleton, anyway, so how hard could it be? But this Forbidden Tome thingy . . . well, I want it as a centerpiece for my library."). Their patron could even loan them powerful gear ("Before we head to the Tombs of the Restless Horde, does anyone want the Holy Sword of Ultimate Undead Slaying. 'Twas my great-grand uncle's, but I find it ugly and far too clumsy for me."). It would be an amusing change of pace.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

That actually means the walls at the edge of the cavern aren't meeting the floor at a terribly acute angle, all things considered. Taking an aggressive height of 1400 yards, the slope at the edge at PC height is roughly 1' horizontal to 6' vertical.

It also means the Giants being 10' wide look... spindly. Even upgrading them to 10 yards wide they look frail to my eyes. I know they're magically strong so there's no realism concerns, it's just... they visually get drowned out by the size of the cavern.

Fortunately 3D being the forgiving medium that it is, I should be able to make two versions of the model, one with 10' pillars and one with stout ones with stouter ones and a note with how wide they end up.

I'm debating between making the Barricade walls a magically fortified 100' tall or a "tall but historical" 40'. After a certain point (you want it for fending off ground bound and giant critters), the wall feels a little futile because of the problem of flight.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Nope. But knowing how gamers like to analyze things, I wasn't going to say anything but "acute angle." ;)

That's intended! The idea is that the Eight Titans are totally fantastic and beyond any sensible explanation. That's why I draw attention to the fact that "Where The Shaft fills most of a block, the Eight Titans are only 10' thick," and go on to note that "The pillars themselves are effectively indestructible." It may help to think of them as Essential Stone, which means they have 3× the HP . . . which in turn means 27 times the mass . . . which for fixed length means 27 times the cross-sectional area and thus 5.2 times the diameter. So they'd need to be 17+ yards thick if they were natural.

Also intended. The idea is that you can see most everything from The Shaft. I didn't want huge blind spots, geometrically or aesthetically (i.e., cluttering up the vista).

It's "one Climbing roll tall," so canonically no more than 60' tall (per p. B349, a 60' vertical stone wall would take even a fast climber 300 seconds, or five minutes, and thus demand a second Climbing roll). The biggest standard ground-pounding monsters – and thus the ones people who build walls would know and care about – have SM +5 and therefore a maximum extent of around 45' all stretched out. A wall significantly taller than this is unlikely to be worth the trouble, especially as flight really does make that pointless (which probably helps to explain why the Mayor is obsessed with bigger and better crossbows and scorpions). So I'd peg height at between 45' and 60'.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Now that's a GMPC concept I can get behind!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Fundamentally, this is the premise of Hall of Judgment/Lost Hall of Tyr. There's something that is extremely valuable to one group of people - the priesthood of the God of Law and War - that is effectively worthless to others. They want it, and for Reasons, don't have the wherewithal to get it themselves.[1]

It also echoes the basic premise of one of The Deed of Paksenarrion books (I read it as a compilation, so I don't know the individual book titles): go on a long, perilous journey to obtain a relic that brings you closer to God.

For medieval, or even faux-medieval, societies where communing with the divine is accessible but not routine, this would be a big deal.

It also helps answer the question of "so . . . we're supposed to get the +5 sword of awesome . . . let's keep it."

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

A permanent NPC party member who mostly serves to make the PCs look good and, if they succeed, get rich is probably unlikely to cause problems.

(Well, unless the NPC gets so annoying that somebody knifes him.)

Still, I rather like the idea of a rich, well-connected, and outgoing NPC who's utterly incompetent at all delving tasks save for succeeding at Fright Checks ("Why are you all standing there? It's just some sort of portal with a big squid oozing through."). Especially if that NPC is a bottomless source of quests (a result of "well-connected," not skill) and random heirlooms of considerable power (see "rich"). Bonus points if – after a dozen quests – said NPC happens to mention the dungeon in the basement of the family mansion, doubtless horribly dangerous and filled with 101 reasons why his dead ancestors needed those heirlooms ("Bother, my map dealer is away for the month. I suppose we could go take a look at the boring old dungeon in the cellar.").

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Do the PCs actually have to undertake a career of dragging along and protecting an NPC who pays huge rewards between adventures but who's a huge resource soak on adventures? That's the fun part: The idea that you have to protect someone who can't just "take a few hits," survive area damage, climb, sneak, resist spells, or in fact do anything but be a target . . . yet who insists on wading in. And if that person dies, there goes your paycheck, plus you'll probably be criminals in town after that because you can't prove it wasn't you who killed him. That would be quite the mission in itself!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

*reduced to tears laughing* Evil twist if the PCs started selling off the heirlooms for cash-money: They're all needed to tackle the Big Bad - to get to the big bad, to defend from some horrible weapon, to crack some impossible defense, to match it in mobility, whatever.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

This is what CRPGs call an 'escort quest' and most gamers hate them with a burning passion. I doubt it would be any more popular in a tabletop game.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

No . . . but they could. Hmmm.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Part of the frustration in a CRPG is that it takes more sophisticated AI to be a not-enraging escortee than to be a random monster, but they get barely any better AI (if not actually worse, due to the developers inexperience writing AI for this kind of character).

As an example: Escort Quests in World of Warcraft were horrible for the longest time because the NPC used the generic "patrolling monster" AI, and marched robotically [1] along a fixed path at a fixed rate, regardless of whether you were anywhere nearby or were stuck behind fighting monsters, if monsters were blatantly visible up ahead and attacking, if a gigantic demon T-Rex were trashing the zone at the time, nada.

Salt liberally with usually having a very limited set of dialogue that they spout inanely and repeatedly, and with little relationship to events in the environment, and eventually you want to stab them in their little low polygon pixelated faces.

Totally brainless, to a level that it's extremely difficult to replicate by a GM if the NPC is meant to be some kind of "person", even one with a low sense of self preservation and poor obedience.

[1] Word used deliberately. Not even as smart as a roomba.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Yeah, CRPG escort quests are not the same thing at all. I've played many (far too many) CRPGs, and those sorts of quests aren't really what I've been writing about here. There, you basically have a squishy monster magnet over whom the player has zero influence. I'm talking about an NPC who could be persuaded to go along with plans through good roleplaying rather than mechanical Influence rolls, which is essentially not within the realm of even the best AI at the moment.

"Okay, this plan all comes down to you, Mr. Blue. When the monsters show up over there, you have to pull this rope back here right on cue, or we're doomed. We'll leave Father Aesculapius with you to watch your back, but that's all we can spare – you're going to have to hold out with almost no support. Our fate is in your hands!"

Of course, the rope mostly just triggers a trap that gives the group a small advantage. Its real value is keeping Mr. Blue 20 yards back from the battle lines. And Father Aesculapius is there to buff and heal Blue so much that he'd have to actively try to die. But Blue doesn't need to know any of that, and his Indomitable won't matter because he has Gullibility and the explanation seems to make sense.

I'm really talking more about a character who would be an NPC quest-giver but who wants to come along for the ride rather than sending the PCs off to do their work. The NPC would participate, just not all that usefully. But in pure GURPS terms, the NPC could still be worth quite a few points in the form of Contacts, Indomitable, Multimillionaire, high Status, Unfazeable, and hopefully a bit of Luck.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Love it!
And spot on for the difference between a CRPG moronic AI vs, what the GM can do with a buffon like NPC.
I dont think I ever ran a safari type quest but I have done the escort type stuff and usually the PCs like it.
Its more fun when one of the players want to kill the nuisance and the rest try to convince them they cant.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Now I've finished the book, I suspect that Caverntown is where the Gnomish Army Knife originated. Swiss tropes probably work for the place in general, actually.

There's also a delightful scam to be run in selling "special" Adventurer's Guild memberships to "select" (new in town) delvers.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

As long as it doesn't end there with TPK and the players need to track down and reclaim the sold heirlooms – I bet some player would be like "I'm glad we sold those, I love this campaign, I don't want it to end just yet."

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Reminds me of the Eye of Larn in the Larn roguelike game (very old).

Larn had a super-weapon that killed with a single hit. It was super expensive.
Larn had a two stage dungeon. In stage 1, you went into a dungeon to find the Eye of Larn. Said eye sold for enough to buy the super weapon. However, the stage two dungeon had a bunch of invisible monsters, and you could only see them with the eye...

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Ok, I've geeked out on this more than usual. I created a Google spreadsheet that does all the dome math for different radiuses and heights. It even produces a graph that approximates the shape of the dome. (Though, the graph scale needs to be tweaked if you adjust the radius.) The default radius of 1600 matches Kromm's details and I've put 1400 yards as the starting height. You can edit the values to adjust. If you want to mess with the rest of the sheet, feel free to make a copy. Here it is:

Caverntown Dome Calculator

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Your mention of "family" here suggests other potential plot complications. Perhaps Mr. Blue has relations who don't want him indulging in his mad, near-suicidal quests. They would be opposed to the delvers and might make life difficult for them. Meanwhile, another faction (the Sackville-Blues?) might stand to gain if rich Uncle Blue were to die, so they might encourage the delvers, downplay the danger of a perilous quest, or sabotage gear. This campaign would provide plenty of action for the more socially oriented characters.

One could also, of course, have competing delvers in the mix. Could be another team slaying the dragon before you arrive, spoiling your photo op. Or delvers hired by one of the two family factions ("bring Blue back alive; we don't care what happens to those ne'er-do-wells" or "make sure Blue gets eaten by the dragon, preferably with all witnesses").

So many fun opportunities with this!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Of course! And anybody rich, well-connected, and living in the ancestral mansion has not just family, or even Family, but FAMILY. Your ideas of overprotective family or envious family, acting directly or indirectly, are great. A few further options:

Shady Family. They don't care about Mr. Blue's welfare; they care about his assets, but they're already the true masters of the clan wealth. They use their naïve relative as an inoffensive front and fall guy for illicit activities, and are torn between wanting to eliminate his canny adventurer "friends" before they spot the shadiness, and wanting to exploit those people in some fashion. The PCs may find their golden goose unable to pay them . . . or meet relations who obsequiously laud the party's efforts as Mr. Blue's minders as they quietly provide Mr. Blue with new quests that see the delvers serving sinister purposes (like recovering the Forbidden Tome, which will be "stolen" the day after Mr. Blue puts it in his library). Mr. Blue's heirlooms might be dangerous items these criminals want to see tested at a safe distance.

Family Shades. Maybe Mr. Blue retains wealth and influence despite his uselessness because he's the last living member – and thus heir – of a great family. Old houses have ghosts, however, and heirlooms such as holy swords and forbidden books suggest the rest of the family didn't die in bed. That is, the Blues aren't dead, just not quite alive. This might be irrelevant at first . . . but then great-grand uncle doesn't want the PCs using his sword, or Mr. Blue is manipulated into the Forbidden Tome quest because undead granny in the attic wants the book for reasons. That dungeon in the basement could hold endless generations of zombie or wraith ancestors who can only be laid to rest on home soil by a descendant's hand: "Blue, we need you on the front line with that sword!"

Political Blues. The Blue clan might have a history of filling important roles over the centuries: commanders, guild masters, high priests, etc. That's how the family got rich and well-connected. Now out-of-town relations want to secure control of the town as part of a larger power play, and intend to put Mr. Blue in some influential post (perhaps even Mayor), propping him up with their competence. The PCs might be invited on board directly and hired as bodyguards, in which case their future holds extra money (whatever Mr. Blue pays and the family's thanks) but also extra danger (assassins in town) – and extra consequences for failure (if Mr. Blue dies, they lose their meal ticket and acquire an enemy). Or they might be left in the dark, facing extra danger from assassins and family enemies with no idea why.

If the campaign is going to be built around this NPC, it could be fun to use it all at once. The Tiffany Blues just want Mr. Blue out of the way to get at his money. The Federal Blues want to keep him around a political tool, while the Byzantine Blues want to keep him around as a criminal front. The True Blues despise all of the above (and probably the PCs), and actually care about Mr. Blue. But whichever faction is currently in the lead, the Midnight Blues are down there in the basement, waiting patiently.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Just posting it here before I forget.
Small typo on p. 37, on the 4th bullet in the aside. "rotherhood."

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Thanks for finding that! I've sent it to our errata coordinator. I can't promise when we'll get a fixed version of this — we're all knee-deep in keeping other bits of the GURPS train moving — but I'm hoping it'll be in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, if any other errata pops up with this, feel free to let me know or email it to our errata coordinator directly!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I've bumped this supplement to the top of my to-get pile. I already have an idea of where I'd plop this into a setting. And even the non-fluff bits sound really useful, too. I hope I can grab this soon.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

That must have happened late in the layout process . . . it wasn't in my review PDF. Sorry about that!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

That's matching up with what I'm getting out of Blender (I'm also using 1400 yards as the height). When you add in the walls, even at a generous 60 feet / 20 yards plus some more for the crenelations on top of the wall, it really hits home how... tiny flat caverntown is compared to the Dome.

I should have a rough sketch of a view from one of the Gates towards the Barricade gate tonight; it's a view from the side so I can handwave the street layout and just have random buildings poking over the wall.

I'm still struggling on how best to populate the city's buildings without having to hand place every single one, but still reflect the 8 spoke roads and the Perimeter road and the 9 major courtyards. Technical cheats are great and everything, but it's amazing how much planning you need to put into being lazy.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Yep. The idea is that the Great Cavern is so freakin' huge that it's basically the sky. Down at ant level, with all that godly sunlight beating down, it's probably impossible to be sure that you're not outdoors under a slightly hazy sky that diffuses the light. The cavern ceiling isn't really meant to be close overhead, though you can drop it as much as you want to trigger PCs with Claustrophobia.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

This was a great book. The setting is really useful. Anyone want to sit Hellsgate in the next big cavern over?

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

That's a nice little town you've got there. Sure would be a shame if something ... happened to it.

Seriously, as beautifully as this fits the niche for The Dungeon Town, I find myself thinking that the overrun ruins of Caverntown would themselves be an epic adventure setting.

A) +1 week. "Fort Caverntown sent a courier. Some sort of zombie plague hit the town, and we need you to find out what happened and if anybody survived. On the assumption that the Mayor is dead, we've appointed Countess Plotpointe here the new Mayor. Get her to the great golems so she can activate them, and figure it out from there."

B) +10 years. "The disputed royal succession and the ensuing civil war set the various factions and power centers in Caverntown against each other. When the coleopterans invaded, they weren't prepared, and the town fell. But the beetles haven't looted the town like humans or goblins would - there are reports that some shops are almost untouched if you can sneak or fight your way past the bugs."

C) +800 years. "I'm telling you, I think we can get out this way. There are stories of a dwarven cave-town that traded with the surface, inside a huge hemispherical cave created by a demonic invasion. Look at the geometry of this place and tell me I'm wrong. Somewhere over that barricade wall is a way to the surface."

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Zombies: Day One would be a nice supplement to run that concept!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

there is a tutorial of Blender Guru aboult how to make a city landscape using basic modeling and particles system.

it will make your work easy

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I've got that, and it's very helpful, but it doesn't work quite so simply for streets on a sort of squashed pie shaped layout instead of a grid. Caverntown naturally is a squashed pie.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

And, as ordained by prophecy, this has been fixed.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Is that not the standard? I've nearly always had the PCs hired to do a deed, with the recovery of loot as added bonus.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

In the early days, you mostly found dungeons, raided them, and dragged back loot. What the quest-giver did was provide a rumor and/or a map; that person sometimes even insisted on being paid for the information, which was the opposite of paying a reward! Story elements have since become more common, and most groups prefer adventures set in a larger context, with both a reason and a reward, but I'm not sure I'd call that standard. It's still pretty rare for, say, the temple hiring the PCs to take out an evil lich to offer the heroes a greater prize than "the entire fortune of an immortal wizard, including several lifetimes worth of accumulated magic items and a vast library of scrolls and spellbooks."

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

That varies; I usually have it vary even from adventure to adventure. For small dungeons, I find either one patron with a quest, or simple "rumors of treasure" is enough, but for larger dungeons I like to follow the World of Warcraft and Skyrim model of having minor "side quests" available in Town (if the PCs can find them). The main "purpose" of the dungeon may be a big quest with a reward back in town, or a big treasure in the dungeon, but there's opportunities to pad the take either way with rewards for e.g. each werewolf head brought back, or some rare alchemical bit, or that one obscure book that the wizard wants.

Some of these quest items can be identified in dungeon as "probably a quest item" with use of Knowledge skills, and then they have to go on a quest to find who wants to give them extra money for it :) If you find a magic item and Hidden Lore: Magic Items tells you it's a 600 year old wand from a set of 12 wands made by the great wizard Garry Hotter with equally great collectors value, then finding out who has the other wands and might want to pay 3x value to get another wand for their set is a "quest". Noncombat quest, but quest.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Chalk it up to another case of "old school dungeon crawl" not being a part of my nostalgia.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Also be aware that a lot of new players coming to hack 'n' slash dungeon-crawl games have no memory of "old school" times when dungeons were generated almost at random, without rhyme or reason, using dice (as emulated here) or computer code. Nor do they remember the more story-oriented games that came later, or the computer games based on them. They're coming from digital games where random monsters can drop epic items of incredible power, and where the quest rewards in town are often lackluster by comparison. I remember generally selling the quest prizes in every incarnation of Diablo, because they were lame next to the great stuff the tougher monsters could drop. Other games let you craft things, which once again requires you to farm monsters.

So . . .

If that is your background, it will seem new and unexpected when the NPC quest-giver is actually paying you more gold than you looted and handing you cool items you want to keep in place of the ones you found. That will be an inversion of your expectations. Instead of, "Let's do this guy's quest so we can fight liches and find awesome magic stuff. Oh, look, he gave us a magic knife – how quaint. Anybody mind if I sell it?", it's, "Let's do this guy's quest. We'll have to fight liches and we'll probably find nothing but more dusty tomes we can't read, but he'll raid the family museum and give us a few more artifact-level items."

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I feel obligated to point out the Dungeons on Automatic project, where we aim to produce just this kind of dungeon, with GURPS stuff embedded. We're planning on extending it to do things like produce rumors about the dungeon, mysterious maps for sale that lead to the dungeon or are of the inside of the dungeon, and most relevant to the conversation, generate quests in Town linked to the dungeon, with quest rewards. Right now, however, if you want quests linked to the dungeon, you have to come up with it yourself.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Under the Repairs and Refits heading, p. 46, in the Fixer-Uppers section, the rules state: "Craftspeople can also . . . restring a bow to a new ST[.] Cost is 10% of mundane artifact value; time is a week."

If one found a Balanced, fine, elven composite bow worth $22,800, how much would it cost to make it a lower strength?

Would it cost $2,800—10% of the bow minus any enchantments—or would it cost $90—10% of the cost of a plain composite bow?

Thanks!

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I'm pretty sure the intent is $2800. "Mundane" is contrasted with "magical" not with "fancy" (or "more adjectives"). A Balanced, Fine, Elven Composite Bow With Feathers And A Fringe And Gold Inlay And Elaborate Enamel Scenes with no enchantments is a mundane object, even if it's not something you can get in "the real world".

There's a point of debate about whether something made of Implausible Materials (a la DF8), such as a bow made of sky, or the songs of angels, would be "mundane" but the adjustment in cost for an implausible material is pretty modest so I'd count it anyways.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Correct. "Mundane" means "not special in a supernatural sense" – that is, not enchanted, blessed, made of pure thought, imbued with chi, or otherwise impossible without extraordinary powers. "Nonmagical" wouldn't quite cut it because lots of artifacts aren't strictly speaking "magical" but aren't "mundane," either.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Oh, and yes, the intent is that it costs more to work on something with an ungodly high CF than to work on the same basic item without – that is, if you want your item to come back with its modifiers intact. If you don't mind the craftsperson messing up the balance, damaging the materials that make the thing fine, chipping off the gold, etc., you can get the work done for less. You'll also lose all modifiers you didn't include in the price calculation for the work. So if you're okay with your bow coming back as a plain old composite bow but with the ST you want, feel free to pay $90.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

I got it the other day and just finished reading it. Love it! I see adventure everywhere when I read it. The thing with tourists joining experienced and battle-scarred delvers and ending up in trouble deep in the dungeon, full of Elder Things and goo... made me all giggly. A nice twist would be that later it turns out that one of the tourists is a royal family member, spelling big trouble for the delvers if everyone does not returns well and alive.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

Thank you!

I must confess that this item is four pages longer than its first draft because I added 3,000+ words of adventure ideas that occurred to me later . . . Not the big, obvious adventure seeds on p. 12 and pp. 33-35, but the little hints shoehorned in all over the place.

"Escorting the silly tourists" is the one I'd most like to play, were somebody running a game with me as a player rather than GM. :)

Keeping the tourists alive is the beating heart of such an adventure (or side-quest, if the adventure has other, more-serious objectives) . . . and the GM needs some way to make that important. Making a tourist a royal is one. Other options include having a tourist be an influential Hospitality Guild member preparing a travel guide for other insane tourists, a fantastically wealthy person who will pay outrageously if they survive (if they don't survive, the family may bribe the officials to treat it as murder, take the money and run, or hire assassins), or a formerly competent but now nearly invalid ex-delver who wants one last look at "the life" (and who promises a map to some serious treasure upon returning afterward).

For fun plot twists, make one of the tourists (not necessarily the same one, if there are several) a monster in disguise who wants to be escorted back home – or even an avatar of a god testing the heroes' resolve to protect the weak!

It could be interesting to have one tourist per delver, each with a twist:

• The knight's charge is most straightforward: a member of the King's family who wants to play hero. This fop loves to give orders and brandish a sword he can't use properly. He's also a menace with a crossbow – a menace to the PCs, that is. Keep him alive and you get rich, and maybe even earn a Reputation; lose him and you lose your head.
  
  
• The cleric's responsibility is a devout but otherwise ordinary person who has decided to face hardship as penance for their sins. They're really an avatar of the priest's god, testing the cleric's (and perhaps the whole group's) devotion to protecting the weak. This tourist can't actually die, but if a mortal in their place would have perished, there may be consequences – at least for the cleric. Doing well might earn a blessing.
  
  
• The thief's albatross is a Hospitality Guild official preparing a travel guide. Specifically, it's Mala Badapple, who runs the Adventurers' Guild's official tavern. She's the sister of Scrump, master of the Adventurers' Guild. Scrump takes family seriously, and will put a hit out on the party if they lose his sister. But doing well means free lodgings for life in Caverntown, and maybe even the favor of Scrump.
  
  
• The wizard is stuck with a sage who paid the Wizards' Guild handsomely for an armed escort while they work on an illustrated guide to monsters. This person is actually a shapeshifted monster seeking safe passage home. The Guild is ostensibly interested in the research . . . but given they're powerful wizards, it's a safe bet they know the truth. If the heroes discover it, the Guild might make them an offer they can't refuse, because if they say "no," the Guild will let Cavertown's officials learn the delvers escorted a monster spy.
  
  
• The barbarian has to protect a wizened tribe member. In their day, 100 years ago, they were among the greatest of warriors; now they can barely walk. This elder simply wants to live the delving life one last time, and claims to know the secret of a great treasure. The trick is keeping them alive to talk about it . . . especially as they aren't right in the head, and tend to think they're 18 again.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

My sporadic DF game is in progress again (online for Covid-19 reasons) and the players may soon be at Caverntown, which prompted me to pull the PDF out again and reread it.

It is still great, and while I know the reasons for a certain looseness of dimension here (as in the Where’s The Map text box), I keep coming back to the height. The section on The Shaft tells us that climbing the steps “involves a 25-minute walk or 50/Move minutes at a run” which seems well and good, except that it is hard to reconcile with the heights we hear. A reasonably brisk delver (the ninja in my current group) would be up in seven minutes or so, and she is no speed demon.

My gaming group is in southern Ontario and we have all ascended the CN Tower at one point or another. I daresay it is our basic shared referent for A Tall Thing. Each year there is a charity run up the stairs: the world record is slightly under eight minutes, and a more typical pace is 30-40 minutes. These are pretty much in line with The Shaft stairs figures: trouble is, the observation deck on the CN Tower is an even 374 yards up, or almost exactly one-quarter the figures we are working with in this thread with Kromm’s mention of “I'd put the zenith of the cavern ceiling – above Town Square – at between 1,400 and 1,500 yards.” It’s going to be a hard sell for verisimilitude for my players when the basic figures seem to be off by a factor of four.

Am I missing something*?

*Besides joie de vivre, obviously.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

This is heroic fantasy, not real life. Heroes just about always have enough HT and FP that, were we caring about them getting tired, they could run 1,400 to 1,500 yards.

That makes the base time 1,400/Move to 1,500/Move seconds, which is 23/Move to 25/Move minutes. But: stairs. You move up by moving forward, and even the rules in full-on GURPS ignore Pythagoras; per p. B387, it's "Stairs (up or down): +1 movement point per hex." That doubles the time to 46/Move to 50/Move minutes . . . assuming no breaks. That's where 50/Move comes from.

Is that plausible? Well, a Move 5 runner (average person, or fast adventurer in armor) could do it at a Move 6 sprint (33 HT rolls) or Move 3 paced run (16 HT rolls). Even wheezy heroes have HT 11 (costs 12 FP or 6 FP), and most have HT 12+ (costs 8 or fewer FP or 4 or fewer FP), so rather than require lots of rolls, I assumed something between those paces and decided not to worry about HT rolls or FP costs.

As for a walk, GURPS assumes a slow walk is Move 1 and a brisk walk but not a run is Move 2, so the 25-minute figure is just 50/2 = 25 in the above formula.

Note that GURPS doesn't assess special FP costs for stair-climbing at any pace. The "extra cost" comes in through the extra distance (doubled!) and thus extra time (also doubled!). Hiking costs a few FP per hour, so fatigue just won't be an issue here.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown
 

This is, I suppose, the heart of it: though GURPS is plenty robust, I am not sure anyone at any stage from 1986 onward has given much thought to how well the mechanics capture the situation when a character is running up essentially a mile of vertical staircase. With all due respect to your calculations, I think I will go for something more plausible, heroic fantasy or no.