Excerpts from the writings of the globe-trotting Adventurer Sherry Rosotz

List of Current Titans (3rd Edition)

Though the uninformed often doubt their existence, most Adventurers will have at least one encounter with a Titan, or a Dungeon attempting to become a Titan in their lives. As such, for those of us who travel the dangerous wilderness slaying monsters and honing our skills in Dungeons, the existence of Titans is a concrete reality. As such, I have taken to compiling notes about all currently known Titans, as well as some whose existence is as yet only rumor. I shall start with the confirmed Titans first, before moving on to unsubstantiated reports.

Confirmed Titan: Storm Titan

Age: 195 years

Dungeon Theme: Thunderous Castle

Mana Source: Persistent Supercell Thunderstorm

The Storm Titan is one of the older Titans around, period, and is beginning to show the signs of old age that often plague Dungeons approaching their 200th year. They exist on the aptly named Stormy Isle, one of the largest surface territories known to be free of Grand Dragons. The reason for the absence of said Dragons is because if they even approach the island, the Storm Titan shreds their wings with extreme weather conditions before moving in for the kill in close combat. For this purpose, the Storm Titan is known to use a chassis greatly resembling a massive stone bear with a castle built on top.

Sadly, in order to move the Storm Titan needs to be constantly struck by lightning from the storm they command, meaning they cannot practically cross the oceans surrounding their island. Even crossing on the surface of the waves would be impractical, due to the chaotic wind currents and waves produced by the storm that they draw power from.

The Storm Titan is known to be trying to groom one of the Dungeons on his island into a successor, so as to keep it free of Grand Dragons once they pass.

Confirmed Titan: Titan of Wood

Age: 89 years

Dungeon Theme: Mystic Forest

Mana Source: Tree Of Life

The Titan of Wood is one of the only Titans known who willingly allows Adventurers to board and visit them. This is admittedly a tendency strictly limited to the uppermost levels, but it is a distinctly noteworthy one. Notably, instead of building their power source, the Titan of Wood was gifted a Tree Of Life sapling by a sympathetic adventuring party, which may explain their significantly less antagonistic relationship.

The Titan of Wood prefers a quadrupedal chassis that many have compared to a turtle-centaur with a massive tree growing out of their back. That said, if the tree is ever broken, the Titan of Wood will need to grow a new one all over again. This puts a major damper on this particular Titan's combat capabilities.

Confirmed Titan: Titan of Smoke

Age: 121 years

Dungeon Theme: Burning Clockwork

Mana Source: Combustion Heat Engine

The Titan of Smoke is one of the smaller Titans on record, and for good reason. In order to power itself, the Titan of Smoke has turned to nonmagical fire as a primary energy source. This both limits its primary roaming area to forested areas with an ample supply of fuel, and limits its practical maximum size based on the amount of fuel it needs to consume daily. This also limits it to non-legged means of transportation due to the need to be close to the ground for fuel harvesting, as such the Titan of Smoke makes use of a wheeled suspension.

In combat against similar-scale threats, the Titan of Smoke makes use of a heavy battery of rifled cannon firing high explosive shells.

Confirmed Titan: Aether Titan

Age: 41 years

Dungeon Theme: Aetherial Crystal

Mana Source: Planar Rift to Realm of Souls

Often considered to be the most colorful Titan, the Aether Titan is a jagged mass of crystals greatly resembling stained glass. Even on the exterior, the bright light of the Titan's power source can be clearly seen shining through, with multi-colored light scattering all over the general area they occupy.

Worth noting is that this is one of only two Titans to never be boarded by Adventurers; the backwash from the planar rift disrupts teleportation attempts, the Titan never lands, making it impossible for anyone who can't also fly to reach it, and an intense disintegration force field around the entrance blocks any Adventurers from coming aboard.

Confirmed Titan: Titan of Bone

Age: at least 80 years

Dungeon Theme: Necrosis (Subtype Unknown)

Mana Source: Long-Range Wide Area Life-Siphon

The Titan of Bone is quite possibly one of the most dangerous Titans on record, simply due to the means it uses to power itself. Anywhere within a radius of around two hundred miles of this Titan is vulnerable to the Titan of Bone's life drain ability, with the region they are currently in the center of being commonly known as the Dead Wastes. Fortunately, the life drain field draws such an immense amount of mana in its own right that it quickly ran out of life force to drain, and wound up helplessly stricken in the middle of a massive radius of inhospitable wasteland.

This is the other Titan that has never been boarded by Adventurers, for reasons that should hopefully be obvious.

Rumored Titan: Titan of Steel

Age: <1 year

Dungeon Theme: Not entirely known, but probably a modified form of Clockwork

Mana Source: Unknown, no external components required

Unsubstantiated reports of this Titan have trickled in from southern Regno; confirmation has been greatly frustrated by the fact that according to all reports, the Titan of Steel is not only capable of flight, but began flying as soon as it could, directly towards the Dead Wastes. All reports are, however, quite clear that the Titan of Steel was making use of a humanoid chassis profile.

NOTE: The Titan of Steel's existence has since been confirmed by several dozen adventuring parties during their boarding of its exo-atmospheric chassis; their theme is Atomic Clockwork, which apparently involves throwing around bona fide Dragonfire, along with sheer brute force and plenty of invisible damaging hazards. Presumably, their source of Mana is also artificial Dragonfire.

List Of Dungeon Themes (14th edition)

For the benefit of new adventurers, it is often useful to explain the types of Dungeon one is likely to come across. Most mature Dungeons have some sort of cohesive theme which informs a canny observer what sorts of threats and monsters can be found inside. Generally speaking, themes come in two parts; first there is the base, which defines the basic architecture of the Dungeon along with some of the general types of monsters one is likely to encounter. Then, there are one or more modifiers, which add on some special twist. There are five currently known accepted 'base' themes, listed below.

Castle

Often what people think of when they hear 'Dungeon', Castle dungeons are easily distinguished by the stonework surfaces studded with the occasional light source that make up most of their structure. As far as threats go, Castle dungeons have a bit of everything, but don't really specialize overmuch; you can find skilled humanoid guards, ravenous monsters, absurd deathtraps, and utterly bizarre magic effects all throughout one of these Dungeons.

As Castle Dungeons are such generalists, it is often hard to come up with a skill set perfectly designed to counter them; on the other hand, they cannot excel in any one field to the same degree as the other Dungeon types, which means that the threats inside are a bit less dangerous overall.

Clockwork

One of the biggest dead giveaways for a Clockwork Dungeon is how everything is made of metal. Seriously, no other Dungeon type makes literally everything out of metal. Clockwork Dungeons are also one of the only places one can find the eponymous Clockworks, mechanical constructs powered by Mana (NOTE: Clockworks may very rarely also be found in Castle Dungeons).

When it comes to the threats found inside a Clockwork Dungeon, they can usually be summarized as brute force, with the occasional difficult puzzle. That said, while the Dungeon's traps are brute force, they are also omnipresent; all exposed surfaces should be considered trapped until proven otherwise.

Crystal

Usually, the most obvious sign of being in a Crystal Dungeon is the crystals everywhere, though it is not unknown for significant parts of the structure to be ordinary stonework. In any case, it is not unusual for Crystal Dungeons to have relatively humanoid inhabitants, though they often sport truly bizarre magical abilities.

The main hazards inside of a Crystal Dungeon actually have more to do with its layout and architecture than they necessarily do conventional traps or monsters. It is not uncommon to encounter annoying things like four-dimensional mirror mazes or other, even weirder architectural features. That said, the monsters and traps are certainly present, and they often have bizarre abilities of their own, so don't think a good sense of direction will be enough to get you through one on your own.

Forest/Nature

Nature Dungeons are a bit odd, as it's easily possible to mistakenly think you're outdoors while inside one. Terrain features can include rivers, lakes, large stands of trees, deserts, and many other biomes. Very often, the insides of Nature Dungeons have breathtaking scenery that means they are often visited by Adventurers who just want to relax.

As far as hazards go, there aren't too many traps inside of Nature Dungeons, but you should avoid taste-testing any of the flora or fungi without making sure you have some serious poison resistance. On the other hand, Nature Dungeons have some of the most ridiculously dangerous biological monsters yet encountered. Many an adventurer has entered an ill-tempered Nature Dungeon and come out severely mauled, if they were lucky enough to come out at all.

Necrosis

If the walls seem to be made out of exposed gory tissue, or there are bones used as significant structural components, chances are you're in a Necrosis dungeon. Generally speaking, Necrosis Dungeons are filled to the brim with undead of all sorts, and they have several much more insidious hazards meaning that all but the most experienced of Adventurers are strongly discouraged from entering. To be more specific, they are more than happy to both infect Adventuring parties with lethal and contagious diseases that can devastate the surrounding region, or if they feel peckish for Mana they will rip your soul straight out of your body and devour it.

Given the extreme threat presented by Necrosis dungeons, even without them going down the route of the Titan of Bone, they should be immediately reported to the Global Adventurers' Union for termination.

Basic Daemonology

I have only one word of advice for anyone who wants to go down the route of a Daemon summoner. That word is DON'T. It doesn't matter what purposes you intend to summon a Daemon for; they will stall and offer excuses not to do anything even remotely benevolent for an indefinite length of time, and during that time their mere presence will slowly twist you into a being just as corrupt and malevolent as the Daemon themselves. So far, the only observed defenses against this corruption involve being typed with antithetical thematics (in which case you would never want to summon a Daemon in the first place), killing the Daemon immediately before it has a chance to corrupt you, or outright not having a soul whatsoever.

As such, no directions for carrying out a Daemon summoning will be provided in this text. Below, some of the more common varieties of Daemon you might have the misfortune of meeting on an adventure are listed, along with the most effective ways of killing them.

Scourges

By far the smallest of Daemons, Scourges are around four inches tall, fly using small wings attached to their backside, and are incredibly ill-tempered. They don't have much in the way of magical or combat prowess save for a mildly venomous bite, meaning that they aren't too much of a threat. That said, if encountered in large numbers, it is advised to use wide-area fire or poison effects, as it can be hard to noticeably deplete a swarm with normal weapons.

Deceivers

By far one of the most paranoia-inducing types of Daemon, Deceivers are around human size and shape, and have an illusion ability that allows them to impersonate people they encounter. They use this to frame innocents for heinous crimes, avoid liability for their own misdeeds, and leave unfortunate mortals impregnated with Daemonspawn. The children resulting from this are fortunately not Daemons themselves, but they will need to spend their formative years in a mana-rich environment themed with something antithetical to Daemonic presence to avoid growing up to become Daemons. Regardless, they will still grow horns, batlike wings, and a barbed tail as they mature.

(NOTES: Proven antithetical thematic elements include Holy, Benevolence, and Nature)

Fortunately, since a Deceiver's disguise is purely an illusion effect, they can be detected with anything that can penetrate illusions. Aside from physical capabilities capable of matching a low-mid level Adventurer, Deceivers have no other defenses, meaning they go down relatively easily.

Carilists

The 'Basic Footsoldier Daemon' as far as such things go, Carilists are fairly straightforward as far as their abilities go. They carry some manner of nasty melee weapon from which they are able to cast fire and lightning, they are fairly resistant to most forms of damage, and they are fairly smart tacticians. If at all possible, you want to take a Carilist down hard and fast; in the event of a prolonged melee engagement, treat a Carilist as a mid-level adventurer specialized in melee combat.