Doyle mentally shrugs and thinks [show dungeon type options]. This is enough for the system and a gigantic screen with a scrollbar appears. They both look it over, but 99 percent of the options are grayed out. Options like Dragon Bone Mountain and Sun Orbital. All of them have various requirements which lock them off. Such things as already having the bones of a dragon large enough to be a mountain or your starting location being in close orbit to a sun. With this amount of nonsense Ally suggests they put some filters on it. Doyle agrees and sets it to [remove locked options]
After a moment, all the locked options are gone but the list is still many pages long. Much too much to sort through, and Doyle had to admit to himself he was never good at choosing from so many choices. For the next couple minutes he brainstorms some more filters with Ally. In the end they add on the restrictions of [remove options that humans can’t survive in], [remove options with a religious theme], [remove options any intergalactic organization is bent on destroying], and [remove limited options]. Sure, they lost some things like anything lava based, devil themed, and all undead options, but Doyle wasn’t particularly sad about that. The few interesting ones like solid clouds were not worth sorting through the others. Of course the number of options left still shocked him, but Ally had an excellent suggestion.
Instead of trying to filter something else, they both just read over the list and handpicked options they didn’t like the sound of. Stuff like Sludge Swamp and Searing Desert hit the cutting room floor with this step. After a couple rounds of this, it left them with a much more concise list to go over.
{Basic Dungeon
Description: Basic caves and caverns setup with stairs leading ever deeper. Even terrain meant to look worked will be rough. At deeper levels, the option for underground lakes and ravines will open up.
Changes: Everything is cheaper depending on how generic it is to appear in a dungeon
Verdant Plains
Description: Instead of claustrophobic corridors, the dungeon is made of enormous fields of tall grass. There is a false sky that at deeper levels will be higher up and more realistic.
Changes: Remove underground structures, Earlier unlocks for all surface based monsters and traps, Surface buildings available right away, Skew random rewards toward surface and sky themed options
Dwarven Mountain Home
Description: While similar to the Basic Dungeon every surface is smoothed and rooms are precise rectangles and squares. It will generate ornate carvings in special rooms and along oft traveled hallways. These carvings will be based upon what has happened. At deeper levels, underground lakes and ravines still appear as well as magma chambers and massive caverns which come with a special mushroom based environment.
Changes: Creating spaces costs more, Dwarven equipment becomes available without having examined them before, Dwarven traps will replace the generic equivalents, Earlier unlocks for all engineering based structures
Animal Den
Description: As Basic Dungeon but all monsters are animal based.
Changes: Complete removal of sapient monsters, Only worked terrain available are those dug out by animals, Object creation restricted to things directly related to animals, Much earlier unlocks for all animals, Ecosystem will naturally fill in, Animals evolve into a wider selection of creatures
War Camp
Description: Based around a central location in which semi-sapient monsters have built a base. The surrounding terrain has little effect and can vary greatly. While the monsters will form patrols, most will gather at the base. Deeper floors will have sub camps develop around the main one.
Changes: Limit monster selection to semi-sapient monsters and those tamed by them as work and war beasts, Semi-sapient monsters develop a culture right from the start, non-sapient monsters may only be summoned if a handler type monsters exists, Semi-sapient monsters rank up easier to fill in the base command structure though after those spots are filled it becomes much harder, Crafting structures manned by monsters will cause newly summoned monsters to be better equipped
Abandoned Space Station
Description: Everything is made of metal and artificial materials. The environment will cater to whatever party has entered the earliest and is still in the dungeon. High levels of technology, either science and/or magic based, will be everywhere.
Changes: Limit monster selection to robots, All traps are mechanical, Costs of everything is much higher than average, Advanced technology unlocked from the start, Holes in outer dungeon walls open up to a void and airlocks will slam shut as the room evacuates, Basic dungeon structures unable to be removed from dungeon
Infested Space Station
Description: As Abandoned Space Station but a single selected species of invasive monsters will have invaded it. Depending on the selected monster, organic structures may be available.
Changes: Limit monster selection to robots and a single species of monster, All traps are mechanical or bio based, Advanced technology unlocked from the start, Holes in outer dungeon walls open up to a void and airlocks will slam shut as the room evacuates, Non-bio based dungeon structures unable to be removed from dungeon
Cityscape
Description: A city that has been abandoned, either recently or ages ago. From floor to floor it can vary whether it is a burned out husk or a pristine city, though not within the same floor. This type of terrain has a high degree of verticality.
Changes: Buildings can be marked as flimsy which makes them easier to collapse, Sewers are available as separate floors that directly follow a city floor, Mutated monsters are cheaper and unlock sooner, Normal monsters are more likely to evolve into a Mutant}
And it goes on and on like that. They might have cut a lot out but there are still just under 60 distinct dungeon types to choose from. Besides that there are some basic types like the space station which just had modifiers added. If counted, they would inflate the number well beyond a hundred to choose from.
Ally and Doyle debate what to go with for a while. At first Ally had wanted one of the more exotic options but Doyle talked her down from it. Space stations are cool, but the costs are too great, especially for a world new to the system. Who knows how many people will explore a dungeon when things are still in flux. Plus he had a very good point that his entrance is a portal. Whatever type they choose, it will be set dressing. If he was a space station dungeon, he wouldn’t be literally floating out in space.
What was at the core of their choice was variety. While a dungeon can use other types, it is very hard to do. So instead of something like a cityscape which was always just one city after another, they chose a mod of the basic dungeon type.
{Strange Caverns
Description: While similar to a basic dungeon the deeper a floor is the stranger the options become. Giant caverns, ancient ruins, mushroom forests, regular forests adapted to be underground, and more can be used once deep enough.
Changes: Rare and strange monsters are weighted in random draws, Monsters that evolve and rank up are more likely to end up with less common options, Areas of the dungeon can become stranger over time}
Ally claps, “that is a good one and it should provide fun some options later on while still having a vanilla start. For a world new to the system, it should be the best at attracting people. A simple corridor and room based floor is easier to deal with. Now don’t tell him I said this but Flisle took so long to grow not just because of the cost of his floors. Rather, unless a race has some innate flight ability, his dungeon is terrifying. Only high level adventurers would trek through him and a sub ten floor dungeon didn’t attract them.”
“Anyway, next up is to choose our starting monsters. Should just be the common spread as it sounds like things only get strange after the first few floors. Also, when it comes to monsters, there are a few things to be aware of. First is that you only choose monsters that are an actual threat. While horned rabbits could stab a child they won’t be on the list. Instead, when you pick a monster, you also receive the patterns for some of their supporting ecology. For instance, if you get a wolf then you might receive the pattern for a horned rabbit and clover. It is not enough to make a real ecology but provides the start of it.”
“After your starting monsters, you get a new choice of monsters when you reach a certain number of floors. This however is not the primary way to gain new patterns. Instead, you can gather them from the animals and plants that may enter your dungeon alive and don’t make it out. That method will dry up as well, especially if your entrance is somewhere more populated.”
“Though I should mention, yes system I see the note on the quest screen, is you cannot spawn sapient creatures sorta? Anyway, all the mystical energies make it a lot easier to judge if a creature is actually a person or just an animal or thing. It boils down to if it has a soul or not. The only beings out there that manage to call it into question are some of the AIs. Especially since when an AI advances enough it can gain a soul, so what do you call the AI just moments before it gains a soul? How about a day before it gets it a soul? Quite the blurry line for them.”
“Back to dungeon spawns. In general they do not have a soul no matter how clever they seem. Goblins are a good example of this. They can create vast empires if an infestation isn’t taken care of. If you look closely, it is all the same thing over and over. Their so-called society is very strict, not because of a totalitarian leaning. Instead, they are on a very basic level subservient to higher rank goblinoids. Sure, sometimes a high level goblin can evolve into having a soul, but that is rare.”
“With all that I said you only sorta couldn’t have sapient creatures. You have three ways to gain monsters with a soul. Either a contract to bring a sapient into the fold. A monster lives long enough to be recognized and gain a name from the system. Most common is to make a boss monster. That first one on the other hand is the least common way to gain a monster with a soul. It is important though, because that is the only way to have any of the classic sapient races join you. Humans and other similar races require a soul to live and so a dungeon is unable to ever spawn them.”
“The one way that you can’t get a monster with a soul is evolution. Out in the wild, like I mentioned with the goblins, monsters can evolve into having a soul. To gain a soul during evolution, there needs to be a soul nearby to get mixed in. In dungeons, the souls of dead adventurers are drawn out and unable to stick around. Since you can’t create souls, this puts a damper on gaining monsters that are able to take initiative instead of just following orders.”
“The only reason your bosses and named monsters can get a soul is that when one is created, your dungeon sends out a lure. That lure pulls in a soul which will match the monster. After all, it would suck to create a giant-sized boss monster only to have the soul of a pacifist mouse take up residence. That and the other upside is because your dungeon hooked the soul you gain the ability to re-summon them. In fact, if you do it quickly enough the memories impressed on the soul won’t have faded much. This can end up a problem if a boss becomes too powerful for the floor it is on but this doesn’t happen often. Even with their combat experience a low level body is still low level. Named monsters can of course just move to a new floor.”
It’s really concerning that he can create animals and monsters that are less than animals xD. This is something that MANY people are misstaken about and it even happens in movies. Sentient = having instincts and so on (aka animals) while sapient (as in homo sapient) = being able to think and reason. That some dungeon constructs are semi sentient would be quite interesting as an concept. Like how would that apply? Anyway have a nice day
Dang nabbit. That is a tiny bit of editing I will have to do at some point.
Ha, space station dungeon, interesting. If I ended up as one I would probalby make traps that break the walls.
Spacing your enemies is an excellent low level solution. After a certain point people either become resistant to the rigors of space or have gear for it. I didn't plan much out for the space station dungeon but I have to assume that after a certain point even low level adventurers would have magical space suits and whoever is in charge of the area having some emergency drones to pick up those who get spaced (for a nominal fee of course). It is an interest dungeon idea though I think I would go for the city dungeon first. There are "city dungeons" which are dungeons trying to be a working city but I haven't seen a dungeon where the floors are a city.
@Akhier Yes high levels are probably capable of resiting the pull of the vented atmosphere and/or capable of surviving space. In this case however the outside would be void, so i'd think that would be still effective, as surviving in the void is probably at least a few levels harder than space. At that point the hardest thing would probalby be to get them out, so you'd have to add stuff that throws/drags them outside. Or you just make a trap room that just collapses into the void.
That would be a hilarious last room (after the boss before the core): "Upon entering this room you will be treated as enemy of the dungeon, be warned that this will get you 'Nowhere'."
@Al93we It would actually be harder to space them into the void. Part of the reason people can't just leave their home multiverse on a whim is that existence and true void repels one another. The void isn't a vacuum but a complete lack of everything including space and time. Part of why I don't go too much into the void is that last one. I don't want to touch time nonsense with a ten foot pole, at least not this early on. Of course if he did manage to push them into the void that would be the ultimate death trap because only true immortal level nonsense can survive out there. Anytime a normal civilization says they have traveled to another universe it is near certain that what they have actually done is traveled to another dimension in their current multiverse. A good example of this would be how D&D has stuff like the elemental plane of fire. Under D'sP's cosmology the entirety of D&D is one multiverse. Though there is actually hints of this sort of thing in the D&D lore already as there are entities that come from beyond the D&D cosmology.
With a void based space station dungeon what would likely happen is either when someone is spaced they are actually going through a portal into real space or the dungeon hasn't filled in the extra space with stone and so it is just a vacuum to throw people into. That last one isn't the safest thing for the dungeon as the more "reality" is between the core and the outside the better because the void isn't a dead place even if what lives there would not count as alive in any traditional sense.
@Akhier Ah, I got the same definition for void, I just like to think universes etc. that exist withing the void have some kind of barrier that keeps most of the void out. If said barrier is damaged the void will 'spill' in an erase everything till the hole repairs itself (if it is not to big). The void is endless and everything that is something is finite, so everything that is not especially protected will dillute into nothing if it gets into direct contact with the void. So a breach to the void would result in a decompression even worse than with space, as its something vs literally nothing.
As atoms are basically 99% empty space I like the concept that existence is just 'slightly' dilluted Nothing, which allows for the use of void magic that can be savely used within worlds as it is just dilluted and not 'true void'.
It would still be hard to travel between universes as firstly you'd need a save way to pass the world's barrier and secondly you'd need to traverse the void and still find a place to go to.
The thing with voidbeasts would be to get them to think of the dungeon as 'food dispencer'( vented intruders) so they won't attack. Bonus if you could train them to go after Intruders if the dungeon is Breached and then just leave the cleared room.
Also I don't think Void would really lead to time fuckery as it's just no time exists: you won't have time which equals stopping to exist as there is no longer a 'when' for your existence. So you either protect yourself from the void or i'd erase your what and when, so you'd kinda have to make a barrier containing a proper 'space-time' you can exist in. You could always say that altering the timeflow while in the void will result in you getting lost forever 'cause it'd desyinc you from standard time or something.
@Al93we First, I am going to edit my last comment a little bit because I used some of my own terminology wrong. The short and sweet of it is D&D is a multiverse/cosmology and people can travel between universes/dimensions in a multiverse. That means my elemental plane example was wrong because the plane of fire and the material plane are different dimensions however they are connected so you don't have to travel through the void to go between them as they are in the same multiverse. I will post a long quote from another comment I did that explains existences.
As for the time nonsense I don't want to mess with, it isn't travel to the past. That doesn't happen. There are two directions you can go in, the present (pausing time and true teleportation) and the future. While time does not exist in the void when someone becomes a true immortal they anchor their own timeline to their existence. Before any true immortal visits or develops in a multiverse a true immortal can enter it at any point in time (most immortals choose to enter it relatively early on in its existence). After that though the multiverse and true immortal's timeline are synced up. The same happens whenever a true immortal meets another true immortal. That means if an immortal has never met any immortal that has visited a certain multiverse or any immortal who through whatever chain of connections has met one of those immortals they can enter the multiverse starting at any point in time after the first immortal visited it and then their timelines are synced. The time nonsense I don't want to deal with is in relation to pausing and going forward. Basically I don't want to add any kinks in the timeline to make my life of writing the story easier.
Anyway below is a comment I made elsewhere explaining my stories existence.
The terms are a bit loose in the story at the moment as Doyle doesn't really have to deal with it but there isn't really any secret to it so take a seat and let me explain.
On the smallest scale we have universes/dimensions. This is the smallest unit because within a dimension the rules are constant. Even in Doyle's universe this is true. Despite the introduction of magic the basic laws of it are constant. This is why when magic comes to a section of space everything is rent down to the most basic particles. It is like you had and item with little to now electricity in it and suddenly flooded it with all the lightning. The particles just aren't able to stick together under that onslaught. The size, shape, and basic structure of each dimension can vary wildly and with no order from one to another. Technically there is a smaller thing but those are the artificial dimensions (this is what Doyle's dungeon counts as at the moment) and will, at least to start with, share all the basic laws of whatever dimension they formed from (the dimension Doyle lived in is what his dungeon takes after and thus why the system is in it as well).
Next up from the dimension is the, well I don't have a word for it yet. If you are familiar with D&D and its planes this is the next unit in the multiverse. D&D calls it it's "Cosmology". Basically a gathering of dimensions which overlap. In D&D you have all these 'planes' which just about anyone with the right ritual, spell, or magic item can travel to. Things like the plane of fire or the beastlands. If a dimension was compared to a world then this organizational unit would be a solar system. It could be as small as two dimensions with no real upper bounds. Though generally not getting too big and after a certain point it will tend towards being an artificial creation. The most common way this comes about is through gods. A god's or pantheon's afterlife will tend to be an artificial dimension and after a certain point can develop into a real dimension if cared for properly. Same with dungeons though of the dimensions out there dungeons are the most mobile so some don't count them because they can just pick up and leave once they are a true dimension.
If you note I specifically mentioned that in a dimensional solar system just about anyone can travel between them. This is because they are connected. But what you might ask is between dimensions that aren't connected? Well here is where I steal liberally from Magic the Gathering. Between dimensions is a void that is counter to existance. True immortals are like planeswalkers before WoTC nerfed them so they could make them into cards. See, I've read and own most pre-time spiral block novels. However there are differences of course. I also take a lot from cultivation novels. This can be seen in how instead of requiring luck to be born with a 'spark' you instead need to train to become an immortal. The great void between extends outward in all directions forever, or at least as far as any immortal can tell. Occasionally an immortal will pass through the local area who has been traveling in one direction for an uncountable amount of time yet had heard of no end.
Speaking of local area that is the final practical unit of scale. Compare it to the observable universe. Basically the area of the multiverse which a normal immortal can observe. Of course technically for each immortal this observable multiverse will be different however there are recognized areas based on a special type of dimensional solar system. I found the idea used in other stories and have adapted it for my stories. Rarely in the void a dimension will seem to start to grow without end, absorbing other nearby dimensions. If long dying dimensions are a popular place to have a house for immortals than these special dimensions are where they set up shop. Called wonderlands they, not as a rule but more as a matter of how rare they are, will not be close to another. This means that they tend to be put as the center of the 'local area' where ever one happens to crop up. A wonderland is not an 'immortal' dimension so they can die, however there is one quirk to them. They can grow faster than they die if properly tended. So while they have a technical end, a wonderland can outlive many 'generations' of immortals. To have a wonderland fall basically requires either all the local immortals to die or a more powerful group of immortals deciding they don't want it to be there anymore.
One final thing to add to this is souls and reincarnation. As mentioned at the very start of this story, souls don't really care about space or time. While a soul will tend to stay in the same area or even the same dimension this isn't always the case. The only two things that seems to constrain a soul is them being in one place at a time and a dimensions internal consistency. Past lives will have always happened in the past. It doesn't matter if the soul decides to flit off an almost infinite distance away and live an almost infinite number of lives over there, if it comes back to the original dimension it will reincarnate at some point after it last lived there. Basically these two rules are me drawing a line in the sand. You won't 'meet' yourself, whether through time travel or someone with your soul. If someone does manage to travel back in time then no matter what they try their soul will never have been alive during that point because it is already there in themselves.
Also time travel is one of those technically possible things that from a practical standpoint doesn't happen. Or rather travel to the past doesn't happen. This isn't one of those multiverses where you can have time travel to the past because the place you go to is actually a new dimension just like yours except you popped into existence at some point in the past. Time travel is possible in the other two directions. The present (pausing time or teleportation) and the future. Also while you can't travel back in time, powerful entities can gaze back into the past. They can't change anything of course but there are ways around this (starting the time travel when the past is the present but letting the guy in the future pay most of the cost). I could go on but this is like the second final paragraph and it is past 2am for me and I need to go to bed.