Doyle interrupts Ally at this point, ‘yep, I got it. Souls are cool and what not. Let’s look at what options I have for starting monsters. [Show starting monster options.]’
{Choose 1 main and 2 secondary starting monsters
Dungeon Wolf
S[5] A[7] C[3] I[3] W[5] P[8]
Skills: Teamwork lv5, Harrying Bite lv3
Description: A wolf adapted to live in the early levels of a dungeon. While similar in most ways to normal wolves, they are smaller and have traded strength for agility. The smaller size also reduces their constitution and presence. One interesting quirk to them is they are randomly colored like any other species of wolf.
Ecology: horned rabbits, clover
Kobold
S[4] A[7] C[4] I[6] W[6] P[6]
Skills: Heavy Bash lv3, Improvise Trap lv3
Description: One of the classic humanoid monsters. Some claim they are dog like and others that they are related to dragons. An easy mistake to make as the truth is weirder. They are actually a branch of the monotremes, most famous for the platypus. What appears to be scales is actually a type of specialized quill. Though as always when it comes to dragons, there may be some truth to them being related. The kobolds ability to improvise traps will be limited because of the nature of dungeon monsters. Each trap has an energy upkeep cost paid by the kobold.
Ecology: horned rabbits, clover
Giant Rat
S[2] A[4] C[2] I[1] W[1] P[3]
Skills: Swarm Sense lv2
Description: Giant as in the size of an average cat. A weak swarming monster most useful in tight corridors. One of the easiest starting monsters to create a breeding population as they require the least amount of energy to start reproducing.
Ecology: giant cave cricket, dungeon fungus
Goat
S[5] A[6] C[6] I[3] W[5] P[5]
Skills: Escape Artist lv3, Climbing lv3
Description: It’s a goat. Unlike what some may believe, both the males and females have horns.
Ecology: shrubbery, vines
Assassin Vine
S[10] A[2] C[8]
Skills: Grapple lv5
Description: A large and semi-mobile plant known for making its own fertilizer by force. While capable of moving, they will tend to stay in the same place for days at a time. The berries produced by the plant grow in bunches and make a fine wine with uses in potion brewing.
Ecology: shrubbery, vines
Giant Centipede
S[3] A[10] C[7] I[1] W[1] P[5]
Skills: Venomous Bite lv3
Description: A centipede of impressive size. The venom in their bite is unlikely to kill anything bigger than a horned rabbit, but can paralyze a human. While not a social insect, they can end up in swarms if no easy prey are in the area.
Ecology: horned rabbit, clover
Raven
S[2] A[10] C[3] I[4] W[5] P[6]
Skills: Mimic Sound lv5
Description: The common raven, while not the biggest threat to adventurers their ability to mimic sounds has found many a party confused. Best used with ambush monsters and traps or as a swarm if you have an open enough area.
Ecology: mice, millipede, shrubbery
Giant Weasel
S[5] A[7] C[4] I[2] W[2] P[3]
Skills: Keen Hearing lv3
Description: A big weasel which has kept the exceptional hearing ability of their smaller cousins. Rarely one will spawn with a pure white winter coat which is quite prized. The current season has no effect on this chance.
Ecology: horned rabbits, clover
Copper-hide Boar
S[8] A[3] C[10] I[3] W[2] P[4]
Skills: Charge lv4
Description: Boars already have a tough hide and this dungeon monster doubles down on it. The hide has a toughness similar to copper armor, though at the cost of maneuverability.
Ecology: shrubbery, clover
Violet Fungus
S[2] A[2] C[5]
Skills: Disguise lv4
Description: A fungus able to grow to man size. While capable of moving, it prefers to stay in the same place if there is enough prey. It uses tentacles covered in a poison that causes necrosis to hunt. When still it appears like a normal fungus.
Ecology: fungus, horned rabbits, clover
Venomous Snake
S[3] A[10] C[3] I[1] W[3] P[8]
Skills: Venomous Bite lv4
Description: This snake once was recognizable as a surface species, but over the years many dungeons have added bits of other venomous snakes to it. Now it is a unique species all of its own. A very handy species at that as this mixed origin allows this small snake to evolve into almost any higher ranked venom based snake.
Ecology: mice, shrubbery}
Ally glances over the list, “ooh, nice selection you have there. There are even a plant and a fungus based monster right off the bat! Those things are rare this early on.” Doyle was reading the entries one by one but jumped to the Assassin Vine when she mentioned it. He noticed something and had to ask, ‘what is up with their stats? Most of them have six, while this plant only has three. Also, what is up with the kobolds traps?’
She claps, “Good catch there though you missed something else. They all lack destiny, karma, and luck. This is because they don’t have a soul, and those are the stats that represents the soul. The thing you missed was that there are no paths. This also connects back to their lack of a soul. Only sapient creatures can travel their own path after all. Of course any monsters you get with a soul will gain those stats and their own paths.”
“As for the kobolds traps? That has to do with how monsters in a dungeon work. Same with the giant rats mention of a breeding population. You create all of your summoned monsters from pure energy. The problem is that living creatures are crazy complex and there is a massive amount of meaning put into them. If a new dungeon tried to summon anything bigger than a single cell organism, it would take more energy than they could control. Instead, what dungeons create could be compared to a balloon except in four dimensions.”
“This is why when a monster is defeated, their body will disappear and leave behind their loot. It will condense all its energy down into that drop. Rare loot comes about when a monster survives for a time in your dungeon. See, your monsters will passively absorb energy to reinforce their pattern. Along with that, if they battle an adventurer, it will funnel some of the resulting purified energy to them. This is where the traps and breeding comes into play.”
“A balloon can’t breed, obviously. To get a breeding population, you need the monsters to absorb enough energy so they become close to real. Giant rats are easy because a core part of their identity is how fast they reproduce. This means their pattern is primed for it already and a lot of their absorbed energy goes to getting that working.”
“The kobold’s traps are an extension of this concept. To make a trap, you need materials and you don’t exactly have that stuff just lying around in a dungeon. For kobolds to use their improvise trap skill, they pull upon their excess energy to materialize what they need. This means a newly summoned kobold cannot set a trap yet. Even with energy though, they generally can only manage a single trap each. A side effect of this is that when a kobold that was maintaining a trap dies, the trap goes away. Of course, these are just for the traps your kobolds make. Any traps you personally place will be there till you remove them.”
As Ally explained that all Doyle had taken the time to finish reading the list. Another quick once over but he still can’t find something vitally important to his decision, ‘hey Ally, what does it cost to summon them? In fact, what do I use to summon them in the first place? You said energy but you also mentioned stuff like mana and qi.’
Ally shrugs, “for you they might as well be the same thing. There are innumerable types of energy out there with their own unique twists and turns. For instance, there is mana and then there is fire mana which is different from sun mana and neither are the same as yang mana. Luckily your world delved deep enough into science that this is easy to explain to you. Mana and qi along with all their variants are made up of a base energy. This is like how all matter is made of atoms with different amounts of protons, neutrons, and electrons. The biggest difference is the base types such as mana act more like light. So through the prism that is the universe you get the rainbow of mana types or qi types.”
“What you on some unconscious level play around with is that base energy. Dungeon cores are actually one of the few to do so. This is because part of what the mental cruft that gets left on energy does is form the energy into stuff like qi. Not even gods can get around this and in some ways they have a harder time if they try. Their mere presence converts any free energy around them into some divine variant.”
“As for what summoning various monsters will cost you? It depends on so many factors that the system is unable to figure it out till you finish your setup. Oh, and just to note, Systems are one of the other entities able to use pure energy. This is how they are able to provide rewards to anyone and power everyone up. Anyway, you already know of an option that can change the cost of summoning monsters. A few of the dungeon types while not specifically mentioning it do so. For instance, the animal den type would reduce the cost of natural animals.”
“The reason this happens though is not a system effect. Rather, the more you align with something on a conceptual level the easier time you will have forming energy into it. Think of it like making a crystal. If you start with a seed crystal to grow it from, things will be a lot easier. On the other hand, the less like something you are, the more energy it will take. This can get to where some older dungeons are just not able to summon monsters that don’t fit their theme.”
“We can see an example of this in the universe my court came from. There was a fire dungeon there that used to spawn some rock based monsters early on to ease adventurers into the environment. After they developed past a few hundred floors, the cost to summon those early rock monsters ballooned. Right at the end before they just could not summon them anymore it would cost them more to summon a small rock hound than a patriarch salamander.”
“We can actually see this as a warning for you. After they couldn’t keep low threat monsters stocked weaker adventurers stopped showing up. Sure, strong adventurers provide a lot of cruft for you to take, but there are less of them and their visits sporadic. If it wasn’t for a local sect of fire cultivators who used them as a training ground, they would have starved to death by now. Morale of the story? Don’t make your early levels inhospitable. In fact, you should probably do stuff to encourage low level adventurers to keep coming back. But all that aside, have you decided what monsters you want?”
Doyle bobbles in the air, ‘yeah, I think I have. Out of all those options I want kobolds, goats, and the assassin vines. Though I don’t know what the difference between a main monster and a secondary one is so if you could explain that it would be nice.’
.
Yay! Goats!
Goats for days!
I'm happy we past the info dump section and moving into the dungeon building sections..
There really aren't that much dungeon stories out there that actually that decent, so hoping this one turn out great, it been good so far.
It isn't that there aren't decent dungeon stories, they just all die young.
@Akhier touche
@Davion To be fair, some just go on an eternal hiatus.
Again, can't say i like how restrictive this system is. To the point that, apparently, the stronger a dungeon gets, the more costly it becomes to create something the dungeon theme isn't supposed to have. Basically, the stronger a dungeon is, the more shackled they become to their theme, instead of becoming more free with what they can achieve. Dream of having a robotic city one day? Forget about it, because you are a volcano dungeon hurdur. Even if you become stronger than most gods, just forget about it. Just be a good boy and keep creating those mountain sized lava golems. Or was it planet sized? Eh who cares, imagination be damned, just keep creating something that got to do with lava and ash, nothing else...
Another restrictive part is that, dungeons can only grow with eating the mental waste or whatever from the sentients with soul. Which means, they are basically restricted to how powerful the sentients around them is. They can't ever grow stronger if there ain't increasingly stronger sentients around them to feed the dungeon. Instead, they probably just starve to death...
Dungeons don't normally grow infinitely. They grow until the point where the local population can't support further growth. If that population dies they will die with it. It takes special circumstances for a dungeon to break past those natural limits.
Way back in my day, kobolds were made of chihuahuas... and then World of Warcraft came along and turned them into rat men... and nowadays they're wannabe dragons that are more like lizardmen skinks.
Oh how the kobolds have evolved over the years. Nobody can decide what they really are, so it varies. lol
I personally prefer the chihuahua version.
I have a slight preference for the dragon version but as I've deep dived on D&D's history the changes they have gone through has been interesting. The only reason I didn't go with the dragon version here is because at some point I had through to this angle and it really caught me.
@Akhier Hey, kudos for inventing a new type of kobold. Add that to the list of Water-based kobolds, and the hilarious snow-bolds.
So many choices and he takes the Standart Kobold,.... damn
Hey, it isn't the standard Kobold. This is my version of the kobold where they are not just a lizard/dragon/dog thing. These are monotremes like the platypus. But yeah, kobolds. I have a thing for them.
@Akhier ok, i m curios of the differences;)
By the way, great Story so far, only the beginning though, keep it up ;D
@Ekbuel Honestly there isn't much of a difference yet. However it is definitely something that will play more of a role once a certain event in the future happens. As it is at the moment all monsters in the dungeon, not just the kobolds, are just easily replaced cogs in a machine. Once souls start getting into the mix more personality can be added. I know it is a personal limitation I have written into the story but I feel it will work out for the better that way.
@Akhier indeed. It means you can make waifus without having to deal with pesky extras.
@TRNRLogan I just never liked when stories with relatively normal dungeons had every single monster put on a show and dance with how it was its own unique snowflake. Generic Horned Rabbit from section B number 3 does not need its own little song and dance for how it is different from Generic Horned Rabbit from section B number 2. Some dungeons can make it work, most can't.
@Akhier by the way, when is the next chapter coming?? (Hopefully soon;D)
@Ekbuel Chapters release on Friday at 6am est. I also have two chapters free on my Patreon and even more beyond that for patrons.