A World for Dungeon Fantasy

[mehrkat]

I know Dungeon Fantasy is designed to not really need a world but to be a romp into old fashioned delving but I'm definately a top down Game Master. For me the dungeon fantasy needs a world to shape the concepts. I was trying to think about a world a country and a city that would support the adventurer template and give plenty of stretch for dungeon adventures but gives plenty of flexibility for adventures at all levels. Some of the world concepts are based on a game world idea that I have played with for quite a while what happens to the worlds left behind by the great mages who control armies in magic the gathering. I moved the history a bit nicer a few heroes at the right time.

---- (a very short tale) --
The old man surveyed the youngsters in front of him. Steadying himself on his cane he cleared his throat. The steady hum of conversation ceased in the hall. He had to admit a certain enjoyment in that moment. He stood in front of them and began to speak the story that only he was charged to tell.
"Many centuries ago so the legends say so long ago that the even Elven memory grows dim our world was one of great magic. So great it says that the world shaped to our will. So great that we drew the attention of the war mages. The war mages traveled the dimensions looking to take possession of worlds like ours using the world and its inhabitants to defeat the interests of others of their ilk. No one knows how long they lived on our world long enough to twist the magic of our world. No longer was magic our friend responding to all. Now it was a wild beast responding only to those who completed the appropriate rituals perfectly. When this perfection was not completed sometimes the magic did not work when most needed and sometimes the magic twisted and reeled out of control.
"This was not the only price to pay. The dreaded mana storms where magic ran wild twisting and turning in a tornado of wind, rain and power could be counted on to travel our land constantly. And though it would be centuries before anyone knew this the war mages had set the seeds of the destruction of our world. Only by the intervention of one of war mages trapped and asleep in our world and the concerted effort of great heroes from many different paths was our world saved. This rescue came with a price, however, and that price is The Waste and The Boundary.
"As we have been forced to accept our magic has been twisted beyond any hope of quick repair. The Waste is 50 mile long and 50 mile wide expanse that no one in our land may make a home on. The Waste is an area that changes and connects to other worlds. We have many the theories about why the waste connects to such worlds of darkness. Maybe it was necessary due to the laws of the twisted magics of our lands or maybe the war mages who saved our world saved us so he can be amused by watching the warriors who delve into its depths."
-----
Now for the nonstory information.

The adventurers base of operation is the kingdom of Keyes. The kingdom is about the size of Mississippi and pretty similar as far as climate and environment is concerned. Keyes has one large city (RiversEnd) and mostly small hamlets and forests. Prior to the creation of the Waste RiversEnd was a port city at the base of three rivers. When the waste came into being they began to specialize in delving into the collected lands because their port was replaced by the Waste and the river's still make for interesting trade situation.
The Waste is basically a 50 mile long 50 mile wide location to place dungeons, goblin hordes, denizens of Hell or anything else you want to put there. The Waste changes once per month on the night of the full moon the waste changes to a different world when the moon comes again the Waste changes and whatever was on it goes with it to who knows where. One month it might be a frozen waste with a dungeon at the base of a simmering volcano the next it might be a deser with a keep of undead and a lich lord in the center. All the worlds that it changes to seem well suited to fantasy adventures. But the month doesn't give a lot of time for serious moblizing of troops and its a fairly small space so the hordes don't seem to get out very far in significant numbers.

RiversEnd is ruled by Guilds. These are the four most powerful guilds:
The Adventurer's Guild. This is a collection of dungeon delvers and retired delvers. Dungeon delving without guild approval is a bad idea. They help set the prices of the treasure they find and deal with the power of the
The Merchant's Guild. The Merchant's Guild are the guild that controls the travel up and down the river as well as selling caravans. A very powerful faction within the merchants guild sells magical items and potions.
The Mage's Guild. The Mages guild helps protect RiversEnd and the surrounding areas from things in the Waste. In exchange they recieve payment from other guilds.
The Archivist's Guild. The Archivist's Guild controls the Library at RiversEnd and spends much effort researching the creatures that come through the Waste. As the creatures tend to be similar (allowing knowledge and research skills to be useful)

The Guild's Council is the ruling body. The guilds buy seats on the council each and use those funds to support city projects. This also includes smaller guilds working together to purchase a single seat. The Guilds Council has 12 members.

The continent is ripe for additional adventures and makes good fodder for selling off the things you sold. Any thoughts anyone done anything similar.

[Blood Legend]

A good primer for 'why the heck is all of this here?' can be ripped off of many other sources.

"The moon has been casting mutating magical energies" "There's a great terrible mist twisting nature and raising the dead" "The energy stream of all life has been tainted and the world is heading into a downward spiral of chaos both supernatural and terrible."

Ok that explains the monsters.

Now the dungeons: "This has been the main grounds of many a war in ancients past." full or ruins, temples of many odd religions , forts, outposts, you get the idea.. The continent finally decided to give up on this area because most if not all of the wars always met with stalemates. Mostly all of them being the kind of stalemate that has lots of terrible loss of men and equipment that ends because of a complete lack of morale on both sides.

Righto so now we have a reason for there to be loads of stuff in strange environments. Because people just gave up trying to get it. Naturally this place will be inhabited by those magically twisted monsters.

Bam, you got a setting. This is probably how those hacks at square enix do it but hey it works.

lastly; Motivation. Why are the players going into these places of horror and treasure? Well to get rich quick, to find some lost sacred holy relic of their church, to disban the creatures from ruining their crops or whatever.

(Dont have Dungeon Fantasy by the way, they might have a different way of doing it but if I was doing a dungeon crawl it'd look something like this.)

[vitruvian]

Now the dungeons: "This has been the main grounds of many a war in ancients past." full or ruins, temples of many odd religions , forts, outposts, you get the idea.. The continent finally decided to give up on this area because most if not all of the wars always met with stalemates. Mostly all of them being the kind of stalemate that has lots of terrible loss of men and equipment that ends because of a complete lack of moral on both sides.

Righto so now we have a reason for there to be loads of stuff in strange environments. Because people just gave up trying to get it. Naturally this place will be inhabited by those magically twisted monsters.

I'm partial to the post-apocalyptic raiding the ruins and storehouses of the Ancients explanation, too. Let the wards on many of these sites have only recently dropped, explain that they had cheap stasis enchantments (so you can have 'pet' monsters in 10' by 10' rooms with no food), and there you go.

Of course, you end up with a situation where a ridiculous portion of any local economy may be dependent on dungeon-delving, and you can have periodic bouts of hyperinflation whenever a really major haul is made, but that can actually fit into delaying a party's transition to trying to make their own strongholds, etc.

[DoctorRomulus]

This is excellent!!

Good going Mehrkat!

[David Johnston2]

I don't have dungeon stuff either having gotten more into the sf and superhero end of things with 4th edition. But I have given such things a bit of thought. Justifications for "dungeons":

• Earth magic makes it easy to create stable tunnel systems
• An abundance of aerial predators and air capable militaries makes the surface world inhospitable and reduces the effectiveness of conventional fortifications
• A class of plant-life that can metabolise mana means they are not dependant on sunlight to thrive. However a steady diet of these plants may lead to some "odd" offspring

[Agemegos]

I designed a world specifically for dungeon-delving at the time of WotC's great setting quest. Though of course it didn't get as far as Jürgen's Urbis.

My idea was that there had formerly been a benevolent but authoritarian empire ruling most civilised lands, and that this had been staffed by elves. These had run manorial agriculture on a communal basis, organised 'responsions' of excess and specialist products, and established stockpiles of magic items for use against plagues, monsters, and accidental deaths. But the whole thing had collapsed: there had been fighting between Law and Chaos, invasions by humanoids and monsters, secession, irredentism in the Dwarvish Marches and so forth when the elves lost interest in it and attempted reforms. So the institution to make all this stuff were broken up, but there were stacks of magical items in ruins, monster's lairs, orcish yurts etc. all over the place. And at the higher levels, struggles between Law and Chaos (rather than between Good and Evil) over control of the successor states and over 'recovered' public assets.

[mehrkat]

Hi All
thanks for all your replies.

The Dungeon Fantasy game is (in my opinion) focused on simplicity of a single concept. It gives you ready to use templates worth most character points in a single reference and a few monsters to throw at them. You can run a dungeon crawl game without the slightest thought to where they are go out and by some dungeon classic in a used book store read through it a few times and think a little about power level and with the templates you probably can run the game then next week go get a new one out of the stack and start over with no real need for continuity but the characters.

But I like a little continuity. I like the characters going into the same bar because the owner invented Strawberry milkshakes and meeting the Gargoyle that escaped out of one of the dungeons and discovered he liked bartending (Any Robert Asprin, Myth series fans). Or the characters that go into the same jewelry shop to sell all the jewelry they find because the sales woman always flirts with the skinny mage and complements him on his "muscle tone" and the barbarian thinks if he can get the mage some female attention he will turn into a "real man". Or the little street thief that always throws eggs at the bard in the party because the bard is her cousin and he's "gitin' too big for his briches"

That kind of depth takes time but if you only have one such place then you can slowly develop it and let some of it develop on the fly over time during game. If you travel in a medieval fantasy world then travel times make bases of operation difficult to justify without years between visits or you have a quick way to travel. One time I gave the PC's a flying ship to accommodate this. This means I can concentrate my efforts on making cool dungeons.


To keep them in the same area I need a few things:
1. Ready source of dungeons with new challenges and interesting things
2. An economic system that supports delving into them
3. Some other noneconomic reasons for the party to want to stay in the area.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by mehrkat

But I like a little continuity. I like the characters going into the same bar because the owner invented Strawberry milkshakes and meeting the Gargoyle that escaped out of one of the dungeons and discovered he liked bartending (Any Robert Asprin, Myth series fans). Or the characters that go into the same jewelry shop to sell all the jewelry they find because the sales woman always flirts with the skinny mage and complements him on his "muscle tone" and the barbarian thinks if he can get the mage some female attention he will turn into a "real man". Or the little street thief that always throws eggs at the bard in the party because the bard is her cousin and he's "gitin' too big for his briches"

The effort of adding some depth and sense here is praiseworthy.

We can remember how entire campaigns spawned themselves -unawarely for us- from small and simplistic details about the PCs and their often rude interactions with the world around them. A bit of "heart" provides here what is needed.

I find 4e Fantasy as a cool reference work for this, besides non-gaming mythological sources.

[vitruvian]

Don't know if this is anything like what you're looking for:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=32438

If so, I would probably just elaborate on it by setting up a wider variety of lost empires from which given ruins could come. This seems to be somewhat the approach actual D&D is going to take with their 4th edition, based on the preview books. You could have ruins and remnants from:

An empire run by dragons.

An empire run by titans and giants.

An ancient elven empire.

An empire of the undead.

The empire run by the gods themselves on Earth before they retreated and left mankind to their own devices.

An empire that made liberal use of the Soul Jar spell to preserve the wisdom of their elders just before death. Somewhere there are catacombs full of crystal globes (or skulls) whose inhabitants, if they aren't gibbering from insanity, can speak to you when you hold them. Of course, some few of them might actually know Exchange Bodies at 20 or better, therefore able to cast without hands or a real voice; or they might have golems waiting for their commands with convenient cavities for the globes. Bonus points for calling their leader Sargon...

An empire that made extensive use of elemental magics in particular, including actual treaties with elemental spirits (kind of like Jim Butcher's Alera in some ways).

An empire that perfected the use of the Suspended Animation (or maybe just Entombment) spells, leaving living remnants all over the place.

The possibilities are endless.

[Extrarius]

Personally, I think it'd be more appropriate for DF to have 'scenario generation tables' for plot ideas, plot twists, maze generation, and so on. Something like ~30 pages of die-driven dungeon-delving 'mad libs' could be fun =-)