The Crude Sketch of the Living Dungeon
Made a grid in GIMP, then moved to Krita and sketched a layout.
I also started on the lore:
“So, you are thinking of heading out to Aklov’s Masterwork, are you?” the grizzled old bear of a man questioned his way into a group of adventurers who realized that they had probably been talking too loudly for a quiet inn. “You know why they call it the Living Dungeon?”
“Every delve needs a colorful name?” guessed the little “scout”.
The man laughed. There was humor in his laugh, but darker currents underneath. He had scars that suggested that he’d only lived to show them by giving back far worse.
“There’s some truth in that, but it’s rather more literal than that.”
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed an androgynous humanoid who was as beautifully handsome as handsomely beautiful. “It isn’t one of those ghastly giant monsters that you have to go running through the guts of to kill, is it? That’s so nasty! I’d rather raid the Crimson Hells.”
“No, no. Not as bad as that. It isn’t some huge monster that you run through like a dungeon crawl. It is an actual dungeon, stone floors, walls, and ceilings. Mostly. There’s creatures inside and treasure, too. It is alive, though. A living, thinking thing that lies immobile in the earth, just waiting for you to come inside and feed it.”
“Feed it?” the hairy one that was as wide as he was tall asked. “I thought you said it wasn’t a beast.”
“It is not. As I said, it is truly a dungeon, but to stay at full health, it needs to gather outside energies to fuel its functions. It cares not whether you kill the inhabitants or they kill you. Either way, inert organic matter will be left available for what passes for the dungeon’s digestive functions. It’s all analogies to biological processes we don’t much understand. I’ve seen a shiny silver and white city on another plane where they claimed to understand the innermost workings of life. Me, I spent my education more in learning the ways of death.”
“I can respect that,” the hairy one said. “It just wants some corpses, then? We can provide those. We just want to loot them before the dungeon does what it wants with them.”
“One way or another, if you enter Aklov’s Masterwork, you will surely provide corpses. If you live, you should be well supplied with treasure. Optimistic fools of all kinds go in, carrying their own little treasures. They pile up in time, until someone succeeds in removing them.”
“How do you know all this?” asked the mysterious man in black, dark except for the shine of his polished metal buckles and his intense eyes.
“How do I know? From experience. Aklov was a crazy old wizard three hundred or so years ago and he made the Living Dungeon as a final go at a lasting legacy. So many have gone in, heroes, mercenaries, drifters, wandering encounters, bands of bandits, gobs of goblins, shambling beasts, and curious little cats. Some of them come out again. Actually, I think those that live there are free to come and go. Intruders have to go through to the rear exit in order to depart, to ensure a good bit of nourishing violence.”
The feline female, last of the group to address the stranger, asked, “This cat is not so little, but she is curious. What else can you tell us? And what is your price?”
“No price. I invested wisely after I made it out alive. A few other profitable ventures and a few more investments resulted in my being one of the richest men in the wooded hill country. I can’t tell you much of value. It has been too long, much probably will have changed. There are analogies to a normal living thing in that place, but it is all analogies, not exact matches. Watch out for the acid pit. That is likely still there. I cannot offer much in the way of theory or even technical observations. I was not the brains of the outfit, I was the brawn.”
“And the brains?” the “scout” asked.
“Only two of us made it out again. The other is known as Mad Bloody Axe Phillip the Bone-Bedecked, so you might guess he was brawn as well. Last I heard, he was settled into life as a supervisory pillager with the Ouskvin raiders. He’d tell you the same as I, the one thing you need to be clear on before you go in. The only way out is through. Don’t think you’ll be able to retreat halfway in. That’s what happened to us. We ran out of healing potions, buffing herbs, and raw spell power in the middle of the dive. We’d gotten used to hit-and-retreat tactics and did not come adequately prepared nor did we nurse our resources. You need to do both if you hope to fare better.”
The man turned to go, but added a few more words as he went.
“If you do manage to do so, look up Darin Trollwreaker when you go by Ravensburg. I’d like to hear what the old place is like these days, and maybe you’ll even have learned a few of its secrets. I’ll throw the survivors a celebratory feast.”
### Latest WIP ###
Originally Posted by rdanhenry
