History Main / DungeonBasedEconomy

* Maze City from ''Lightnovel/IAmBehemothOfTheSRankButIAmMistakenAsACatAndILiveAsAPetOfElfGirl'' was built with massive walls to stop the labyrinth's monsters from swarming the world. The city prospers because adventurers go into the labyrinth dungeon to get materials that merchants use for various things, or sell in trade to other countries.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has gone to varying lengths to justify this or not in its settings. The history of any given D&D world is packed full of fallen ancient empires rich in magic and gold, and while modern economies are largely self-sufficient, adventurers are a known factor who occasionally drag in hauls of fantastic wealth. The ''TabletopGame/TombOfHorrors'' novelization justified the dungeon-delving plot as an expedition funded by the nation of [[TabletopGame/{{Greyhawk}} Nyrond]], [[SchmuckBait chasing rumors of ancient wealth]] after being impoverished by the Greyhawk Wars.

** RealityEnsues in the True Ending for the first game, [[spoiler:as the loss of the dungeon via destruction of the berserk Yggdrasil Core means that the inhabitants of the base camp town would drift off to other locations with the loss of a steady income of materials. The remake fixes this, instead having you save the woodsfolk from a deadly disease, stopping a pointless apocalypse started from a rogue AI (due to it deciding bullheadedly to fire the Gungir despite there being too much collateral damage from its blast), and capping it all by destroying the EldritchAbomination lurking at the final bottom of the dungeon (The aforementioned Berserk Yggdrasil Core that the Gungnir was meant to terminate in the event of the Core going crazy)]].

The most common facilities found in such economies include Guild Halls (which provide room and board for Adventurers, in addition to assisting in administrative services like hiring/firing and registering Quests), Taverns (which deal in information and Sidequests, as well as booze), Training Halls (where the town's guardsmen train and where veteran instructors teach vital skills), Item Shops (selling consumables like potions and escape ropes), Armories and Smithies (selling weapons, armor, and reforging services), Medical Facilities (providing training for party healers and helping to put your team back together in the event someone gets mauled/fried/squashed), Churches (for the party clerics and actual resurrections), and Wizard/Witch Shops (where magic users can trade spells and reagants).

* ''WebComic/{{Nodwick}}'' is all around this trope. Adventurers have the whole "bring everything nailed to the ground" mentality and the henchmen to carry it out. It is a plot point in some adventures. Not to mention the building where all the stuff gets sold is called the Tomb Depot.

* ''Stormbringer/Elric'' supplement ''Stormbringer Companion'', adventure "The Hall of Risk". A section at the end lists further adventuring possibilities, such as setting up businesses outside of the Hall to cater to adventurers going inside.

* Goodman Games' ''X-Crawl'' setting takes place in a world that is "modern-day" except for the fantasy races and magic and that has made dungeon crawling its most lucrative extreme sport, a DeadlyGame and ImmoralRealityShow in which the people that survive the longest (and are more spectacular in their survival) are bound to get better sponsorship opportunities.

* In the world of ''LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'', The dungeon works like a coal mine. Adventurers go into the dungeon and harvest the magic stones from monsters, which are then used by the guild to produce power sources for appliances and other purposes.

This trope manifests differently depending on the medium. In some video games this can take AnEconomyIsYou to the logical conclusion; the player can invest wealth from the dungeon (or from quest rewards from requests posted by rich patrons that require trips into said dungeon) to improve the town's facilities, gradually building a tiny hamlet into a thriving town where, naturally, almost every business caters primarily to adventurers who explore dungeons. On the other hand, more narrative based settings involve towns situated over and around enormous dungeon complexes with thriving communities of delvers and associated businesses.

* In ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'', delving the sunken kingdom is a mainstay of the island's economy, including supporting niche industries like body recovery, tourism, and maintaining campgrounds. Slightly deconstructed in that the upper levels of the dungeon have been picked clean already, so most of the wealth is from searching for secret passages, harvesting monster parts, or trading with the orcs and outlaws that decided to live in the dungeon.
** Even more interestingly, a flashback with Marcille shows that dungeons are a natural phenomenon. Building one, even a tiny one in a glass jar, will generate magic, which will then spawn monsters. Falin reveals she's extremely good at it, even carefully cultivating a cave's ecology to be a self-sustaining source of magic. The economy is based on making dungeons, not just looting them!

[[folder: Film]]

[[folder: TabletopGame]]

[[folder: VideoGame]]

[[folder: WebComic]]

** RealityEnsues in the True Ending for the first game, [[spoiler:as the loss of the dungeon means that the inhabitants of the base camp town would drift off to other locations with the loss of a steady income of materials. The remake fixes this, instead having you save the woodsfolk from a deadly disease, stopping a pointless apocalypse started from a rogue AI, and capping it all by destroying the EldritchAbomination lurking at the final bottom of the dungeon]].

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'''s second edition features a campaign set in the fallen dwarfhold of Karak Azgal, an {{expy}} of [[Literature/TheHobbit Erebor]] that was laired by a dragon. The dragon is long gone, but the vast underground city is filled with monsters and dwarfen wealth, resulting in a BoomTown of opportunistic treasure hunters and adventurers known as Skalf's Hold (named for and founded by the dwarf hero who slew the dragon). The dwarfs maintain strict control over access to the underground; dungeon delvers are required to pay a toll to enter and a tax on any relics they find. Over time the influx of explorers and immigrants grew so large that a second boom town called Deadgate sprang up outside of Skalf's Hold, filled with merchants and diversions extracting coin from adventurers.

OrganDrops are often a cornerstone of such an economy, as many monsters (and dungeon-native plants) would logically have useful body parts that can be processed for weapons, armor, and potion-brewing, or otherwise serve as active reagants for local spellcasters and alchemists. Logically, some of the shops that buy these monster parts may also make profits on exporting the 'loot' to artisans and smithys from other neighboring towns.

The most common facilities found in such economies include Guild Halls (which provide room and board for Adventurers, in addition to assisting in administrative services like hiring/firing and registering Quests), Taverns (which deal in information and Sidequests, as well as booze), Training Halls (where the town's guardsmen train and where veteran instructors teach vital skills), Item Shops (selling consumables like potions and escape ropes), Armories and Smithies (selling weapons, armor, and reforging services), Medical Facilities (providing training for party healers and helping to put your team back together in the event someone gets mauled/fried/squashed), Churches (for the party clerics), and Wizard/Witch Shops (where magic users can trade spells and reagants).

The most common facilities found in such economies include Guild Halls (which provide room and board for Adventurers, in addition to assisting in administrative services like hiring/firing and registering Quests), Taverns (which deal in information and Sidequests), Training Halls (where the town's guardsmen train and where veteran instructors teach vital skills), Item Shops (selling consumables like potions and escape ropes), Armories and Smithies (selling weapons, armor, and reforging services), Medical Facilities (providing training for party healers and helping to put your team back together in the event someone gets mauled/fried/squashed), Churches (for the party clerics), and Wizard/Witch Shops (where magic users can trade spells and reagants).

This trope manifests differently depending on the medium. In some video games this can take AnEconomyIsYou to the logical conclusion; the player can invest wealth from the dungeon to improve the town's facilities, gradually building a tiny hamlet into a thriving town where, naturally, almost every business caters primarily to adventurers who explore dungeons. On the other hand, more narrative based settings involve towns situated over and around enormous dungeon complexes with thriving communities of delvers and associated businesses.

Often the result of a PlayerGeneratedEconomy or an RPGMechanicsVerse. If war breaks out, this might lead to an ArchaeologicalArmsRace. OrganDrops are often a cornerstone of such an economy.

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' has base camp towns at the entrance of dungeons that become more prosperous and better-equipped as adventurers recover valuable materials and OrganDrops from within. The hard bits of monsters can be crafted into equipment, and chemicals derived from plant material can be used to concoct healing potions and such, for example.

* In ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', Jakku is a scavenger economy living off the remains of old battles. People travel the desert looking for derelict machine parts they can salvage and sell or trade for food.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'', the city of Stormreach bases a not-insignificant part of its economy on the artefact trade out of the ruins of the ancient giant civilization across Xen'drik, along with other forms of exploitation of the continent's resources. As a result, the people of Sharn back on Khorvaire also turn a pleasant profit from the Xen'drik trade (in both directions), as Sharn is the closest safe port to Stormreach.

** 5th Edition's ''Tales From The Yawning Portal'' (a series of modules including an updated ''Tomb of Horrors'') talks about eponymous Yawning Portal tavern, so named because it includes a massive pit that leads to huge underground dungeon. [[YouAllMeetInAnInn Not only does it provide an excellent place to meet fellow adventurers and quest-givers]], you pay to travel down the pit and into tge dungeon. . . either just to pop right back up and say you did it, or to actually tackle the dungeon and haul out some treasure.