What rols can dungeon cores serve in a soceity?

A prolly stupid question, but I am wondering what role would the locations assigned the moniker of Dungeon would serve in nearby civilization.

I understand that such places tend to already have a purpose such as being fortresses, the ruins of a bygone age, or such, but those seem tangental to its "gameplay" purposes of being a place where players-as-adventurers do to slay monsters and get better gear and resources, and begs questions pertaining to dungeons that are "born" who seem to generally lack such purposes to begin with.

I make this thread specifically for such cases. What can a sentient dungeon do as a part of the society that inhabits its surroundings (or itself) and could they become more than just a place where people go to get stronger through fighting monsters and looting

(this can extent to the non sentient versions, but in that case the questions become "what state does society have to be in for dungeon looting to be considered a viable way of life" and "what purpose does the practice do on a watsonian macroeconomic and societal scale")

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 1st 2023 at 9:48:10 AM

They might just be leftovers/ruins/abandoned areas.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Dungeons were originally training facilities with infinite respawning enemy facsimilies. Each floor was a rank of assessment so getting to the 10th floor would rank you as 10th Dan or rank. They even generate small rewards out of the nearby minerals to encourage trainees.

Unfortunately, many dungeons are positively ancient and have gone centuries without maintenance. The safeties are glitchy and the user interfaces are semi-functional.

Or serve as "bomb shelters" by swallowing up the entire town surrounding them into itself whenever a massive disaster passes through right over the area and then let the town back up on the surface whenever the disaster has passed and the danger at the time being is over.

Or just keep the whole town inside of itself permanently in case of, like for example, the island it's located in sinks into the ocean, a world permanently stuck in an arctic blizzard or a massive sink-hole swallowed up the town and the dungeon miles and miles underground.

"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."

I think an obvious role would be a habitat for creatures/monsters. Like, “better they stay in there than come-out here.”

I always kind of imagine that in a realistic setting, dungeons would have been hallowed-out of treasure within a century so the only real loot you’d find in ancient ruins would be on the corpse of a would be adventurer. I did that for a D&D game at one point and the players found it amusing. I also had those characters arrested for grave robbery for clearing a dungeon. They found that less amusing.

Edited by Woosmo on Oct 2nd 2023 at 8:48:43 AM

Frankly, i would argue there are three separate questions with three separate answers.

Practically speaking dungeons are simply prisons. There's really nothing fancy about that. Dungeons and Dragons gave them the meaning you refer to, which is any broad place adventurers go to do story. There's also a bit of synergy in that a prison houses dangerous people and so the deeper you go, the more dangerous the people housed -it's sort of a built-in logical sorting system.

That's because lots of stories simply don't bother. D&D knockoff stories tend to take those elements as given, rather than elements of a living world. That being said, the idea here is simply a Tomb. Tombs are places important people are buried, which is why they tend to have loot. Lots of civilizations buried people with valuables. The problem here is that in a game, a tomb has perpetually restocking monsters and valuables whereas in an actual setting, they would run out. Although some stories run with it and have genuine gameplay elements as a setting.

This is a bit of a different question than before, but a sentient dungeon could both serve as the aforementioned - if this world has tomb raiders, then a sentient dungeon may fulfill its original purpose as a tomb, or a burial ground. After all, a sentient dungeon could protect its contents and if raiders exist, an unprotected dungeon would be easy to crack.

The same logic applies to a cell. You'd need to imprison dangerous people still, and a sentient dungeon could deal with all the wacky magic and artefacts its prisoners may have.

It could also be a cell for monsters and other beings. If the undead exist, they might not be easy to kill, and easier to imprison. If undead can spontaneously occur (even when corpses are burned), you might want a place to seal them away.

Edited by devak on Oct 2nd 2023 at 7:08:56 PM

Here are some counter-questions:

• How are you defining a "dungeon", specifically a subterranean area, or any dangerous area with monsters?
• Are dungeons made by someone or do they occur naturally?
• What necessary or useful resources exist in these dungeons?

a dangerous place with monsters, both, and gear and valuables (Gold, Jewels etc) as the respective answers.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 4th 2023 at 10:40:59 AM

Well, precious metals and stones are typically mined, so I'm guessing your dungeons are subterranean, or just mines that have added monsters for more danger. My thinking was more about what resources do the monster corpses provide? That way monster-hunting can go beyond "clearing a roadblock" to being an actual goal.

For natural dungeons, your question is a moot point. A natural place simply exists and likely predates society. You would not ask, "What role does a forest/desert/cave serve in society?" to rationalize its existence. If you want to rationalize natural dungeons, I think the more productive route is to develop them as biomes, i.e. what flora and fauna live there, what kind of environment they have, etc.

At some point you also want to think about the relationship between humans and monsters. Are humans no longer the dominant species and scraping by or do adventurers have some sort of superpowers or magic to even the playing field?

Your question makes more sense for crafted dungeons. Now you have to answer:

• Who made them? What kind of person(s) were they? Good or evil? Accepted in society or social pariah?
• Why were they made? What was their original purpose?
• What kind of powers does a person need to have to make them?
• How were they made?
• When were they made in comparison the time the story takes place?
• Are dungeon monsters natural creatures or artificial?

Discovering what a "crafted dungeon" is all about should lead to what role they can serve.

Edited by shiro_okami on Oct 4th 2023 at 10:07:07 AM

Alright. I'll see about getting some answers to these questions to hone them.

• Who made them? What kind of person(s) were they? Good or evil? Accepted in society or social pariah?
  • Respectively, the answers are, "The System", varies, varies and generally accepted in society because it runs on a Dungeon-Based Economy (explained as them being the most efficient means of getting pre made stuff or the materials for said stuff, and that manufacture and agriculture exists only to fill in the gaps nearby dugneons could not, and/or were done by the dugneons themselves anyway)
• Why were they made? What was their original purpose?
  • That is a question I'm still hashing out. But the tentative answer might be "created as a result of an old conflict and a means to train adventurers for a repeat of said conflict"
• What kind of powers does a person need to have to make them?
  • A very advanced degree in soul manipulation would be a good starting point.
• How were they made?
  • "The System" generates new dungeons by two means. As you specific crafted dungeons The relevant one is taking a remote un-inhabited area and molding it to a new building that is the dungeon, with rare resocues to match. The cores themselves are creafted from souls from worlds beyond the setting. (basicaly a result of Reincarnate in Another World)
  • As an aside I'm also adding a type of dungeon that is based off Disgaea's item world. Where each piece of gear has a micro dungeon built in, that people can go into strengthen the item. But their respective cores (or rather the consciousnesses therein) seem to be generated from the memoirs of the items past wields or creators, including the dungeon that spawned them. This should also go into the purview of crafted dungeon as weapons and armors are themselves processed (and the ones that are natural already have a consciousness attached :P)
• When were they made in comparison the time the story takes place?
  • The earliest instances were over a few millennia ago. But new dungeons are generated periodically even in the present.
• Are dungeon monsters natural creatures or artificial?
  • both columns. The artificial ones are called Cells and Constructs, the natural ones are living or conscious beings that took up residency there and are thus predisposed to protecting their new home (though they may still be modified by the dungeon).

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 6th 2023 at 3:54:21 AM

Is "the system" the creator of the world? Or force/entity separate from its creator? If the former, there technically isn't a difference between "natural" and "crafted" if they are both made by the same person/thing.

Perhaps natural dungeons are made by a creator god as a way to provide resources to the world's inhabitants. They are not "dungeons" in the technical sense but simply environments that are more dangerous than normal (in part due to the presence of natural monsters) and have natural boundaries (rivers, mountains, canyons, etc.) that are difficult to cross and thus prevent their dangers from spilling over into adjacent territories.

The dungeons crafted by "the system" are closer to the actual definition, actually being buildings (either above or below ground) and contain the Cells and Constructs you mentioned, treasures, and bosses.

Comparing it to an RPG, natural dungeons would be general areas on your "overworld map" and crafted dungeons would be specific places on the map to explore.

This idea sounds interesting. What would adventurers gain from this "training", just experience alone or also knowledge, gear, or powers?

Edited by shiro_okami on Oct 6th 2023 at 9:30:29 AM

Wouldn't your problem be vastly simpler if dungeons were really just Old World Constructs fitting their intended purpose?

Like the local "Dungeon" that provides ores and gems is really just an old abandoned mine that reaches towards easily accessible ores. Or, as mentioned before, a prison that houses PO Ws or criminals of those past eras. You could have underground farms, factories, etc.

After all, there might be natural defense systems (robots, essentially) protecting these machines, AND there would be creatures moving in to live there. We put a lot of effort in IRL to keep buildings free of animal infestations, a thousands-year-old factory would be rife with wild plant growth and animals.

experience in an abstract non-gamified sense, as well as gear, crafting mats and mana (which I'm still hashing out the exact details of, aside from the fact that dungeons need and generate mana as well)

For the distinction, I was thinking along the following lines

• Natural Dungeons are pre-existing areas that had been mutated by a dungeon core taking a host.
• Constricted Dungeons would instead be created out of who cloth as a "shell" around the dungeon core, who would need to get an avatar to interact with the outside world.

I'm aware the terms could be better and am looking for better terminology.

Good idea, will consider that.

Dungeons were created as economic infrastructure by powerful mage Precursors. The power of the dungeon core generates monsters (whose Organ Drops serve as spell components), as well as gemstones (also spell components) and precious metals (useful for trading with people who aren't part of the magical economy). They were originally "tame," harvested by the mage-lords' servants on a regular basis and not a serious challenge (and indeed a good way to level up their apprentices).

Now that the Precursors are gone, they've run feral. Raiding them is still a major economic activity, and fuels several towns built near dungeons, but it's a dangerous business now and adventurers get rich quick or (more likely) die trying. Other dungeons have their cores permanently destroyed by noble heroes, because if dungeons' populations are not controlled, you get outbreaks and incursions of monsters into the wild.