Dungeon Lore

Dungeons are a term referring to partially underground magical structures in the world of Drase. This kind of structure occurs naturally in the world of Drase. Scholars consider them to be nodes of excess mana that have converged in the world and manifested in physical form, by becoming a physical portal to another realm. Dungeons contain monsters - manifestations of excessive magical energy, materials, and magical structures.

They often represent a certain theme, and are associated with a certain elemental school - a dungeon leading to the underground, a dungeon of death, a dungeon of nature. Dungeons exist partially within our world - its entrance and entrance rooms often replace materials - but the rest of the dungeons do not physically exist in the realm - as excavation of the dungeon's surroundings has proved.

Dungeons are valuable, frequent natural resources that are exploited in the world of Drase and are an important part of the economy fueling the presence of adventurers.

In short, to be considered a dungeon instead of a regular place to raid:

• It must mostly exist outside of our world / dimension.
• It must have regenerating, recurring resources whether it is immaterials or monsters.

Creation, Destruction, Lifespan & Suppression

Creation

Dungeons only appear where there is low density of living human beings nearby - usually at least a few miles away from any concentration of humanoid settlements, though dungeons appearing in sparsely populated farmland and outskirts are a semi-regular occurrence and cause troubles until they can be contained.

When a dungeon is created - there’s usually no visible sign outside of a hundred meters or so, and there are no credible witness reports are known of a dungeon being created in front of a sapient, intelligent being’s eyes - though many claim to have seen it. The first sign of a dungeon being discovered is someone running into it - or monsters appearing in the outskirts.

A dungeon’s creation is a destructive process - the part that intrudes into our world replaces what used to be in our world. There are, however, some memories of what used to be there - if a dungeon is destroyed or expires, the world seemingly restores what used to be there - though imperfectly. For example, a dungeon that appeared in a burial site and then was destroyed won’t restore the original content of the site.

Frequency

Dungeons usually occur at a fixed density per land area - reducing in frequency the more densely populated it is - they never appear in urban concentration - though former ruined cities often contain an unusually high density of them.

In general, one dungeon can be found for every 1000 square kilometers in the world (Around 385 square miles, or 245k acres). These are the standard tiny or small dungeons. At the population density of the medieval world, this is more dungeons than adventurers that can be supported reasonably - even if 1% of the population are adventurers (And the ratio is much lower). As a result, small dungeons are often ignored - destroyed if they present a nuisance, and occasionally present a danger to settlements.

Large Dungeons are about two orders of magnitude rarer than usual, and Megadungeons are another two orders of magnitude rarer. Megadungeon are so rare that an entire city or boom town can be built around it to support the people who dive inside.

Dungeon Size	Occurrence	Approximate in Salvainia
Small / Tiny (50 / 50% chance)	Every 1k square km.	4500 small / tiny dungeons
Large	Every 100k square km.	45 large dungeons
Megadungeon	Every 1 million square km.	0.5 megadungeon.

Destruction

To “destroy” a dungeon, a dungeon’s external part that links to our world - usually measuring around a room in size for a small one or five in size for a large one, or as large as multiple acres for a megadungeon, must be destroyed to the point it is no longer structurally sound - the structure must be collapsed onto themselves. The structure that is in our world is often covered by multiple meters thick stone walls made out of stones that are distinctively not of the local layer. The walls must be induced to collapse onto itself and block out any entrances - if this is done for sufficiently long, say for a period of a week for a small dungeon or up to a year for a megadungeon, the dungeon would eventually disappear.

The non-local material stones would disappear overtime - while where the dungeon intruded into our world - dirt, stone, or the original layering material would regenerate, leaving no traces of what used to be there.

A dungeon is often destroyed with adventurers or soldiers escorting and protecting the workers who excavate and often crack the walls by heat shock. It is a common line of work - and the noises often reverberate through the dungeon and attract its inhabitant to the surfaces, as if the dungeon is attempting to protect itself. Luckily - destroying a dangerous dungeon usually doesn't attract the deepest layer’s inhabitants - only the surface layers, but sufficient military force is needed to hold the choke point should the inhabitant be angered.  

If there are beings foreign to the dungeon inside when it was destroyed - to be exact - when its connection to the outside world were severed, the beings would experience the world seemingly shifting and wrapping around them, and phase out of existence within the dungeon’s dimension. Within a matter of an hour or two, the foreigners would be thrown out of the dungeon’s dimension with their equipment and belongings - sometimes whatever they are holding onto, usually in the same spot and within 10 kilometers of the dungeon. Party members can be scattered this way and they will need to find their way back. This seldomly occurs - but is a physical possibility.

Sealing & Pacification

Sometime a dungeon is too troublesome to destroy, in that case, a dungeon may be sealed by simply blocking its entrance - for example burying it in dirt, blocking it with a large boulder - in that case, the dungeon’s inhabitant would be unable to leave unless they can physically remove the barrier. Given enough dirt, no one in the dungeon can ignore the law of physics and destroy it.

A dungeon can also be pacified - which takes place on a per floor basis. If there’s a sufficient density of sapient human beings  living in a floor - like a small family for a typical small dungeon’s floor, the dungeon’s pacified and could not magically generate any creatures on that floor.

This is a common technique used by inhabitants of this world - just posting a garrison to clear out a dungeon and extract its resources. Sometimes, inhabiting and suppressing a dungeon permanently is forbidden explicitly because the inhabitants are considered a valuable renewable resource. However, if the dungeon has other purposes - such as a valuable portal or vein, authority may decide to suppress and post a permanent garrison to exploit its resources.

A dungeon floor can be partially suppressed - it is known that if a high amount of foreign sapient beings regularly live and camp in a dungeon floor, then the frequency where monsters appear and their aggressiveness greatly reduce. This is commonly seen in megadungeon - the first floors are often heavily inhabited or even completely pacified.

The primary deterrence against completely pacifying a megadungeon are largely the difficulty and casualties taken to clear out the lower floors - and the incentives to only partially clear and fortify an area and leave the rest to be harvested regularly.

Lifespan

Dungeons have a lifespan usually proportional to their size - as adventurers or soldiers extract more and more resources, the dungeon eventually deplete. They become unstable, and small cracks would appear where blue glowing mana would pierce through. Then, at some point, it will start crumbling slowly, throwing out any foreign beings that don’t belong in the dungeon out - just like if the dungeon was destroyed - no one was able to stay in a dungeon’s dimension while coming from outside it.

A typical tiny dungeon would last for around ten years, small dungeon around forty, large dungeon - hundred, and megadungeon - up to ten centuries. The death of a megadungeon or large dungeon sometime means that the surrounding town or city’s decline, as the economy would greatly depend on its extraction. Small boom villages sometimes form around small dungeons that have valuable exploitable resources. Without good resources - dungeons are often suppressed and destroyed.

Structure & Characteristics

A dungeon has different characteristics.

Structure

There’s two types of structure prevalent for a dungeon - the first type is labyrinthe - which means the dungeon consists of a series of interconnecting rooms or cavities. The second types are “open”, which means the dungeon consists of large open floors filled with objects of different kinds and its own ceiling - often with artificial, magical illumination above depending on the nature of the dungeon.

Bounding Stone

Each floor of a dungeon is bounded by a nigh-indestructible rock with the texture of granite - they can be chipped away at, but they inevitably grow back within matters of days and never lead anywhere permanent - a sufficiently large dungeon may not have its inhabitants reach its edge.

Labyrinthe Dungeon

Labyrinthe Dungeon consists of a large solid enclosed area filled with rock, granite, or other materials the dungeon are made out of - alongside rooms and passage carved out in it - most dungeons already have naturally generated cave structure, but more can be excavated and made by its inhabitants - or intruders within its structure. Those dungeons may or may not have magical lighting that glows from the top and illuminates its rooms - usually determined by whether the creatures or plants in the dungeon require light.

Open Dungeon

Open Dungeon tends to be larger than labyrinthe dungeon on the surface - and is bounded by a tall, often invisible roof. It is not unheard of for an open dungeon to have a ceiling hundred of meters high, alongside clouds and its own weather system similar to the real world - these processes are sustained magically. At the edge of the dungeon are the bounding stones which prevent anyone from breaking out of the dungeon.

School Association

A dungeon is often associated with at least one type of element - the entrance often resembles or has characteristics of the school that it is associated with. Most smaller dungeons are often only associated with one element, while larger dungeons often have multiple layers associated with different elements. A dungeon is almost always associated with a magical school that exists in the world:

• Astral Dungeon: To be done.
• Aero Dungeon: Often only appears in mountains or in high places - Aero dungeon’s entrance often consists of a structure that floats up to fifty meters off the ground, and detaches visibly from surrounding landscape - taking up to an acre of land with it. It is unknown how they float, but an attempt to destroy the aero dungeon’s entrance has resulted in the lifted ground promptly falling off with disastrous results for workers who worked on destroying them. The interior of aero dungeons consists of floating islands and islets. They are extremely rare. Their inhabitants are often capable of magical flight or hovering.
• Alchemical Dungeon: Alchemical Dungeons usually have a regular orderly entrance similar to that of a building and regular underground structure. However, they are absolutely full of slimes and other kinds of artificial horrors. There might be regenerating metals or ingredients and herbs within, and they sometimes contain overgrown creatures. Alchemical dungeons occur more frequently in the vicinity of “Civilized” countries.
• Aqua Dungeon: Aqua Dungeons are almost inevitably underwater and consist of aquatic creatures - most of their rooms are waterlogged, if not the entirety, and they occur in shallow bodies or water - but never moving water like a river. Unusually high concentration of aquatic monsters often prompt a dive to discover any possible aqua dungeons. They’re all over the place in the Arcane Seas, with density almost an order of magnitude higher than the proper dimension. Aqua Dungeons at their deepest level sometimes have two-way entrances to the Arcane Seas, which map to the corresponding spot within the Arcane Seas if an Arcane Gate existed there - these portals are always dry and lead to a parallel, possibly smaller / bigger dungeon on the other side. However they are seldomly used due to the danger of popping up in the middle of an ocean in nowhere - near the bottom, and they cannot transport any meaningful amount of goods. Luckily, being crushed by pressure is not an issue due to the Arcane Sea’s universally shallow nature.
• Artifice Dungeon: Artifice Dungeon has orderly, architectural entrances that are extremely durable and often made of the best building material - though the architectural styles are often out of sync with the contemporary style in its locale - but always of local origin. Its population consists of artificial constructs, animated armor, and they are a treasure trove often containing rare metals or veins in its deepest level. These dungeons are full of Rube Goldberg magical machines that move for absolutely no reason - or dangerous, unreliable traps. Artifice dungeons occur more frequently near advanced civilization, and can’t occur near civilization that is incapable of building complex structures or constructs.
• Faith Dungeon: Faith Dungeons are rare - and are always associated with a specific religion or faith system. They tend to be built in two ways - either similar to temples of that faith with depiction of religious events, or as metaphorical trials with dangerous monsters of all mixed kinds. Faith Dungeon’s monsters never wander out, and it is the only type of dungeon where its population can be entirely benign. Faith Dungeons never appear for insignificant religion - if it appears, the religion it is associated with must’ve been significant at some point in the region’s history. Faith Dungeon associated with obscure or extinct religion tends to have more hostile inhabitants, while those associated with existing religion are often guarded by followers - with diving in and victory associated with paladin hood, or alternatively - monopolized by local religious authority who trade with the inhabitants for needed goods using offerings.
• Fire Dungeon: Fire Dungeons are thankfully - not entirely on fire, but usually have regular orderly structure or underground staircase for its entrance, and are not elaborate. Fire dungeons are never dark - and tend to be well lit magically, though the light sources are not necessarily extractable - regular stone simply gives off light within the dungeon itself. The dungeons itself is full of fire-associated elementals and monsters. They often appear in deserts and have a selection of local creatures. The deeper levels are sources of fire gems, sulfur, pyrites, ruby and other “fire” associated elements. Like petroleum.  
• Geo Dungeon: Geo Dungeons appear to be caves, sinkholes or cave-ins within hills or mountains, or sometimes even just flat ground. They consist of a cave-like, labyrinth structure - and in deeper levels, may take on the characteristics of the Cavern (The dimension), with corresponding types of creatures. At shallow levels, it may have the characteristics of the upper cavern - and lower level, that of the lower cavern, almost a mirror, but often smaller. The cavern-like level occasionally, but very rarely have portals that lead directly into the Cavern dimension - such cases are rare and such finds are extremely valuable - often leading to the entire dungeons being cleared out and a passage created for underground exploitation and commerce. Most Geo dungeons are not connected to the underground - occurrence is like a one in a hundred chance.  Geo dungeons are inhabited by a mixture of elementals, stone golems and underground creatures.
• Nature Dungeon: The only type of dungeon that does not necessarily have an underground portion - nature dungeons are full of mutated animals, trees, and sapient animals of all kinds. Nature Dungeons do not have small, enclosed labyrinthe rooms - instead consisting of one after another large areas at least an acre or larger covered in trees - in short, like grassland, forest or jungle. Trees tower way above their natural size, and regrow quickly - with wood from a nature dungeon often having supernatural quality - like being unusually hard, resilient, light, or fire and rot proof. Nature Dungeons have their own “consciousness”, however, and tend to be tolerant of small amounts of resource extracting - but the more resources are taken from it, the more the dungeon responds in anger by sending its inhabitants after the interloper.
• Necromantic Dungeon: Necromantic Dungeons are generally styled as crypt, tombs, or any grandiose “resting” place of the dead. They’re almost always underground or partially underground. Pre-existing crypts or tombs cannot turn into a necromantic dungeon - delving into a structure where actual dead people were buried is known as grave robbing, and is a crime. The necromantic dungeon’s population consists of undeads, vampires, and they are often found with valuables or burial goods typical of local traditions. Necromantic Dungeons are rare - often only found in places where necromantic magic were practiced, or in historical mass graves or battle sites - in those cases, the population will resemble those who were or used to be buried there. It is not unheard of that battle site based Necromantic Dungeon would often have the undead engaging in endless battles against each other. The inhabitants are almost universally hostile to all but necromancer or lich - and as a result necromantic dungeons are often destroyed on the spot due to its inhabitants tendency to wander out and destroy things for absolutely no discernible reason - and the fact that its inhabitants are terrifying and spooky to fight for monetary gain unlike other dungeons.

Size

Dungeons come in different sizes, and are often larger than a single dungeon:

• Tiny: Consisting of a small cave or dungeon with a single or two floors and no more than the rooms in a small apartment complex in modern day. Carrying capacity is close to maybe 20 - 100 humanoid creatures. Most common, and their inhabitants are seldomly dangerous.
• Small: Small dungeons often have 2 - 6 floors and each floor can consist of an entire acre of total areas - they are considerably bigger than tiny dungeons, and the deeper floors tend to consist of dangerous monsters - and great rewards.
• Large: Large dungeons usually have no less than ten floors and two acres of surface area on average per floor, and can carry perhaps two hundred living humanoid creatures per floor - with them being bigger or more dangerous per floor - often with its own complex social structure. Such dungeons are often a significant economic anchor of a local region.
• Megadungeon: Megadungeon are humongous - often consisting of twenty+ floors, each floor spanning multiple square kilometers in area, with multiple entrances spanning over a single square kilometer or more on the surface - large structures are often built over it to support the megadungeon. Megadungeon are never single-themed, and can often lead into multiple smaller sub dungeons - dungeons within dungeons - though the level of dungeon nesting is thankfully never more than one. Megadungeon and its sub dungeon also uniquely never have entrances to other realms as far as we are aware of - and only exist attached to a single realm. Their uniquely large area is able to support multiple adventurers’ livelihood and generate copious amounts of goods, with multiple floors - each often more difficult than others, means that megadungeon are highly coveted and often have large settlements built around it.

Population

Dungeons almost always carry a living population - a dungeon’s population have a very high productive capability - with its population refilling to near its carrying capacity between every 30 days to a year.

Population are separated into two types:

Organic

Organic creatures in this case refer to living breathing beings that consume calories to sustain their living. Organic creatures are created magically and “seeded” by a dungeon, with often multiple mating pairs of the creatures created when the dungeons are made and a creation cycle occurs. The organic creatures however, must find food to sustain themselves with - dungeons often have natural food production with the magical energy creating food that grows much faster than the outside world, and the amount of food a dungeon naturally generates is often enough to sustain 80% of the maximum creatures it can create.

If organic creatures reproduce too much or more are created than they can sustain, those organic creatures will often wander outside to hunt for food - causing troubles and devastation around and disrupting the local ecosystem.

In a conventional dungeon where the primary population is organic, each acre can sustain the life of up to 10 - 20 human-sized creatures. Bigger dungeons are more likely to have dedicated “foodstuff” areas which are competed over by its inhabitants.

Magical

Magical creatures include undead, golems, or elementals that do not obtain food or consume them normally. These creatures are sustained magically by the dungeon’s inherent energy - and the maximum population is generally proportional to the dungeon’s size. Those creatures are incapable of existing too far away from the dungeon for long - in those cases, they would often fall apart and disappear if they stray for too long.

Resources

Dungeons too, contain renewing resources. The deeper the floor is - the more valuable the resources are, and the less likely there are adventurers regularly exploring the place. Other than foodstuffs, minerals, metals and other substances necessary for its inhabitants to live on would be present - alongside magical gems and superior magical materials.

Most of the harvested resources are organic - taken literally from the dead bodies of the inhabitants. There are several types of renewable resources that is not harvested from the inhabitants:

• Fountains: Fountains are small structures where liquid flows forward endlessly - unused liquid is removed. Those fountains are necessary for the sustenance of some of the creatures - providing a source of water. Some other fountains however have healing or mana restorative properties - and are extremely valuable - though they always provide liquid in a small amount and if overindulged in, can be deadly.
• Spring: A spring generally refers to a water source - almost always complemented with a drain at the other end of the dungeon where excessive liquid drains away - They are universally magical / portal-like and liquid that doesn't belong cannot enter or exit through the spring. Most springs hold water, but springs with liquid like petroleum can also be found - which are often used for fuel or for warming. Strangely enough, some dungeons have springs or fountains that are made of food items.
• Orchard: Orchard refers to areas where plants - trees, food or such grows naturally. They often grow multiple times faster than plants on the surface - usually by an order of magnitude or two, and are illuminated magically by the walls, with no risk of nutrient depletion. Those plants are harvested and eaten by the dungeon’s inhabitants, but if the dungeon is cleared out, they can be extracted from. If they are wood, they can provide a vital source of high quality magical materials.
• Unending Vein: Unending vein being an area, often cave-like where minerals regenerate over time after being mined - securing those places and allowing miners to mine them are often part of an adventurer’s job. They can be depleted and often appear in a different place of the dungeon.

History

Dungeons have always existed in the world of Drase. However, in the past 500 years, the world has been undergoing what is known as a “Dungeon Drought” - pre-existing dungeons collapsed and disappeared at rates faster than they used to be, and the few known megadungeons disappeared - bringing down the local economy. Dungeons were exploited and explored by adventurers, and were preferred to being a sellsword or fighting in war for others as it is often seen as (situationally) safer - more exciting, with more fighting - though looting opportunities are often better if you are on the winning side of a war.

In the last twenty years, dungeon sightings have gone up - bringing in new troubles with wandering and stray monsters, but also new opportunities as adventurers flock to new megadungeons.

List of Significant Dungeon

List of significant dungeons known in the world. Only megadungeons or large dungeons are included.

Megadungeons

• List to be filled in

(Megadungeons are a major lore event and creation / discovery / destruction need approval)

Large Dungeons

• To be added