In Defence Of Dungeons
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Why do Dungeons appear across our fantasy worlds, but only those that we play in? Why are our gaming worlds littered with dungeons of every environment, but our fantasy worlds have them so conspicuously absent (except ancient ruins)? Does this make sense?
#fantasy #dndworldbuilding #worldbuilding #dungeonsanddragons #dungeons
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Dragons. In a world where Dragons exists above ground. Making shelters underground makes a lot more sense.
That's a solid idea for a setting. A dragon empire above ground and a humanoid civilization in a megadungeon below ground
I would image:
In a world with dragons and similary things in the air, would it be more likely, to hide underground. Or, to live in forest, where the trees cover the air.
Or, to not live, where dragons hunt (by there standard size is it likely, that they hunt bigger beeings. Questionable, if human would be on there eating list (more or less small and thin, whe would probably be more the prey for smaller dragons)
I could image that adult dragon may let their offspring live in their territorium as the adult’s aura would keep out predator big enough to kill a young dragon while the young dragon could guard the ness against predator to small for the adult notice or be to time consuming
All it would take is one canny green dragon and your underground fortress is gassed like a wasp's nest before the polymorphed dragon wanders in, removes the bodies and helps it'self to an all you can eat human buffet.
@Quotheraving The question would be, if a Dragon would even look into the caves for food.
First: would the entrace maybe be to small for them (ok, they lives in caves to). In addition is the path maybe to long, as that the poison Gas would reach the underground bases.
Second:
Would it probably much easier, to hunt bigger targets on the surface. Large animals, like bears/owl Bears or horses, as example.
this is basically a Dwarf Fortress beginner strategy guide
No the real way how to teach that game is "dying is fun" hahaha
@ShizaruBloodrayne yeah but on the other hand you kinda need a tutorial at least to learn the controls (well I've heard the new UI is more discoverable, but it also sucks hard)
"Oh, is this a dungeon? It looks like some kind of blasted hellsca- What the-"
"Welcome to Boatmrdered, here's your pickaxe, here's your chore list, go go go go!"
"Oh no, this wasn't a dungeon, this was a Dwarf Fortress! :o "
Well it's about time, I suck at dwarf fortress
@@swampcooler8332 EVERYONE sucks at dwarf fortress. that's a badge of honor, sir.
Reminds me of a quote for Minecraft: "By day we build, By night we dig."
Diggy hole.
to quote a smart man 'Diggy Diggy Hole'
You dig in minecraft?
I'm working on a sci-fi setting that uses wrecked spaceships and abandoned asteroid colonies as "dungeons."
I used an abandoned Dwarven citadel, which in Spelljammer is an asteroid spaceship, as a megadungeon.
I LOVE this! I want to create such a world as well! 🌟
No gravity hard sci-fi dungeon would be a ton of fun, I imagine.
With a Thing like monsters 🤤
Sounds like a fun setting, hope the game you run it goes well.
Destiny (2) does this pretty well.
I have a different take on the classic dnd dungeon with seemingly random rooms, winding corridors, traps, puzzles, etc. In my homebrew world I'm working on, there are great eldritch worm-like creatures from the far realm that tunnel through reality like termites in wood. Their otherworldly nature causes the tunnels they leave behind to warp and shift chaotically, even bleeding through to other planes of existence. One of the byproducts of these creatures are reality cores, large motes of pure creation that can do all sorts of wonderous things that several factions of intelligent beings compete for. My players are pretty excited about it.
What did you pull that from I remember reading some great books with that set up. But can't remember the name
Nice!
Stealing and incorporating this
This is a really cool concept, thanks for sharing
AWESOME! 💥
I've always viewed the classic D&D dungeon as abandoned ruins (probably of dwarven origin) where the ore played out, so the dwarves moved on. And once the mine was abandoned, other critters and beings moved in, and made improvements over time. Quite a lot of "monsters" are human level intelligent or smarter, so improving a found structure would be normal. And they might be killed off by successive monster or player invasions, leaving the dungeon empty and ready for the next group of monsters to find.
Personally, i've been a big fan, as a player, to keep a good dungeon for my own use. Add guards (which might be monsters or NPC's), traps, etc. and you have a good place to store extra loot. Did this in one campaign while saving up gold and magical items for when i build my own castle. Worked a treat.
What i found hilarious was the other players were always passing on the +1 weapons and armor, and i was snatching it up. So once i started the castle build (building a castle takes YEARS of time), all of my NPC guards and castle staff were equipped with magical weapons, armor and other gear. So not only was i getting a stronger defensive force for my nascent castle, i was also getting loyalty bonuses for "gifting" the NPC's magical items.
Medieval fantasy is based on the middle ages. The dark ages. The period of time between the high points in civilization and development that were the Bronze Age and the Renaissance.
As a result, all Medieval fantasy settings need at least one lost ancient civilization that made all the magic artifacts and ruins the PCs/main characters are scavenging for.
There are dungeons everywhere because the ancient lost civilization built structures everywhere, and they left their trash everywhere.
This isn't a 5-room dungeon. It's the basement of an ancient three story villa that no longer exists.
This isn't a mega dungeon. This is the underground complex built by the umbrella corporation right before they "ended" the world.
This isn't just any crypt. This is the necropolis that holds all the dead warlords of the lost age and the most elite members of their warbands.
I am pretty sure one of the guidebooks straight up says that without modifications, the DnD world is full of ruins of old empires that has come and gone hundreds and thousands of years ago, and that most of the wilderness is unexplored and full of monsters
Most medieval fantasy has pretty much naught to do with the actual Middle Ages and far more to do with pulp fantasy and 18th century, and American frontier/Victorian society and thinking.
I was just thinking that dungeons could be anything that used to be important, but are now home to monsters
@@alalalus7692I find the presumptions of the D&D past to be amusing, because most of the conceits of player abilities assume science fiction post scarcity rather than post apocalyptic grim darkness.
Between the Bronze Age and the Renaissance? Buddy, you're missing around 17 centuries of history there.
Elves live in forests camouflaged with the trees, dwarves live in mountains, gnomes live in hills... humans are kinda getting edged out so...
Humans live in the plains and grasslands, you know, like how we first did irl.
@@polarknight5376I’m just trying to figure out hobbits. Do they fight humans for land or do they separate by habitat somehow?
@@highlorddarkstar What are Hobbits? Do you mean Halflings? Which are absolutely legally distinct from and are NOT Hobbits? Halflings live alongside other races, integrating into their societies.
@@polarknight5376 so a commensal species?
@@highlorddarkstar sure, though some may consider them more as parasites.
Someone's played Dwarf Fortress a little too much! These are great ideas though and useful to guide both the necessity of dungeons in a society and the implementation of them in a historical and cultural context to the game world. Thank you for these videos as always!
It also provides some useful alternatives to the wizard tower, considering how long they're able to extend their lives for. Ancient wizards that have lived so long, their earliest homes, that they may or may not still live in, being such long-lost subterranean hideaways before they were powerful enough to not need it.
The best Fantasy story ever had a dungeon with an epic boss battle at the end of the dungeon. YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
❤🔥
>Best Fantasy
>T*lkien(bum)'s work
Berserk, Kirkbride ES, Malazan and Dresdenverse: LMAO.
That wasn’t the best fantasy story ever. It was a lame story stitched together on the fly to showcase a campaign setting you fool.
The mines of Moria make up 0.1% of the story. 99,9% they are in woods, mountains, plains or towns. They even roleplay like with NOC and with each other.
5:31 I hate to be that guy, but apex predators are predators that aren’t preyed on by anything, not predators that eat predators.
Another gem of food for thought!
Regarding the covered chimneys illustrated, maybe thatch would be a natural choice of material, allowing smoke to filter out while performing as a great cover. I could imagine them being covered or woven with branches and such for camouflage.
I would imagine that most humanoid civilization would use a combination of above and below ground construction, with many food sources needing light and being easier to maintain in the open air. Excavated stone may mean more solid surface dwellings and fortifications but i still think that the ease of construction would mean plenty of traditional homes would still be made, such as wood, wattle and daub, etc. Tornado alley is a prime example of such flimsy housing being quickly rebuilt despite ongoing threats, with most relying on a bunker like escape option.
In addition to cultural changes, i see warfare being significantly different, with settlements that could retreat entirely underground, cavalry would be usefull for catching opponents before they go below, then utterly useless after that. Siege would be the next consideration, blocking entrances to starve or suffocate occupants in their cramped, smokey holes but breaking in would require some elite, one on one tunnel fighters that would be at risk from deliberate cave-ins, encouraging a plethora of heroic individuals to defend or assail the underground civilization. Defenders would no doubt want plenty of hidden exits to avoid entrapment or suffocation. Failure to do so could create a grisly dungeon to explore, especially if necromantic magic was involved!
According to the rulebooks for 2014 (I forget which), a dungeon is more or less any somewhat enclosed environment which players can explore. It needn't be underground. A building which is above ground and is filled with enemies could still act as a dungeon.
wow this a masterpiece! You not only had the opposite view as I thought you would on the odd abundance of "dungeons" in a fantasy setting but you did a fantastic job at defending their existence. Bravo!
Can't wait to see what you think up next! You are extraordinarily creative and insightful and I have loved watching every video you make.
Also great twist ending with an actual real world example!
I don't think the classic dungeon would start out as a dungeon but when the inhabitants move out or die they would become them
Grandma
Dungeons started out as tombs and other such, wealth filled secure places for cultures long passed. Adventurers delve in and collect the treasure. Then, to keep their treasure safe, they build their own dungeons. And adventurers try to plunder them. Thus creating the dungeon adventure cycle and explaining why dungeons often have so many traps and wacky puzzles
I can definitely get underground settlements, fortresses and organization secure sites
That still kinda leaves the question, why make any defense system any different from a bank vault or security gate with turrets that only lets you in specifically, with a password of sorts, instead of booby-trapped puzzles? Unless it's purposefully built so others "deemed worthy" could get in, why use puzzles and riddles vulnerable to logic and knowledge at all if it is really meant to deter thieves or attackers? That's the really weird part about typical dungeons for me, handling original use, inhabitants and crazy architecture and interior design
They could just be lost settlements - we are still finding long abandoned cities. Such structures might have started above ground, but shifting river beds or changing wind patterns could leave them buried. Now, another shift reveals a roof or two. Perhaps when the PCs descend into the dark they find tunnels dug between buildings...
I've once done a basement tour in a city in germany. The old basements, dug in the stone are connected with small tunnels. We basically went through half of the old city without going up to the surface.
We also have real life examples of many underground structures.
Of course there's subways and modern (or premodern) sewers but also older examples such as the Paris catacombs, other tombs and many underground temples.
A setting thousands of years old, more magical and less populated might have more unoccupied 'dungeons'.
And they're not just in fantasy but also post apocalyptic settings such Fallout shelters and Metro tunnels.
There are ancient, subterranean cities in Turkey and Jordan. Doesn't mean you can have 5 orcs in room #1 and a red dragon squeezed into the room nextdoor.
Ooooh, this video gave me a lot to think about. So far, I've only shown one settlement in my story; a town build into a cave system in an oceanside cliff. Since its residents are semi-aquatic, it doesn't matter to them that the extreme tidal forces of this world flood the whole town on occasion. This is the kind of town that would eventually turn into a dungeon if left vacant. And the more I've thought of this world's natural conditions and creatures, the more clear it's become to me that its humanoid people are not in positions of great control over their environment. The people of this world would need highly defensible settlements, and the magic system was literally made for terraforming, so carving settlements into the ground is probably commonplace.
When you think about it, many of the earth and stone shaping magic might have had their origins in the creation of such underground complexs.
There are plenty of historical examples of underground living in history. Ruins typically found in desert areas that also had plenty stone to carve in. Also often found in or near water eroded canyons but later abandon often because of weather changes and water drying up. Which often had people wondering why such huge structures and settlements were built in the middle of no where but geological records show that during the time they were made the land was more fertile and had flowing water in the area.
A lot of times in fantasy they often have stories of some great war or dramatic event that lead to the ruins but a lot of times it is mundane things. Like water flow changing so river becomes a creek and then nothing. Or land going bad such as locals unintentionally putting toxics in the soil resulting in crop failures. Or getting hold of toxic metals like Lead and more direct poisoning by mistake. Other times a natural resources dries up so no more gold/silver/etc and town dies. Or trade routes shift and an important trade hub because the back end of nowhere once again.
Even if a civilization is still around and didn't fall or have some other major negative event the civilization is an organism like an ant colony. You see clusters of ants stemming out in multiple directions the way a city might with trade routes to nearby farms/mines/etc. As those resource nodes dry up it branches to new areas. If the area becomes too hostile the whole colony may simply pack up and move leaving behind the many pathways it has carved. Time marches on and such places are not considered useful which is why they were abandon to begin with and eventually forgotten to time.
I think having more places like this simply forgot to time make a setting feel more real and lived in rather than the, oh another ruin before the ancient mage war or cataclysm or whatever. It's like nope just an old copper mine that's abandon. Or old underground trade city ruins from back when the pass through mountains was the main trade route before underground highway, magic teleport, water routes, or whatever took over.
I have two types of dungeons in my games.
"Strongholds": a vaguely fortified location littered with enemies and treasure. Not strictly a dungeon per-se, just a point of interest.
"Dungeon" (capital D): a rift in space that opens into a classic dungeon format. These are often far more threatening than Strongholds, if only because the monsters aren't actual monsters. They're magical constructs that... respawn. Like antibodies trying to force the would-be conquerers out. They're living beings, like a Bag of Devouring.
"Lair" = a nest of monsters that need to be erradicated. Usually migrated from _The Underground™_ biome.
"Spire" = a structured training ground with progressivly harder challenges separated onto each floor. "boss monsters" on each floor to give adventurers a feel for the difficulty level of higher floors.
One of my favorite facts is that the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known written story, starts its poem by setting it in the then ancient past.
To the ancient Sumerians there were still more ancient peoples. Civilization is built upon the corpses of civilizations. Dungeons are the gameified version of that idea.
The old story was wizards would build them to attract monsters to protect them, and also so the wizard could harvest spell ingredients and parts from them.
My personal favorite dnd lore is the answer to the question of "why do orcs seem to live in the roughest, most remote areas?"
When the gods divided the material plane for the mortal races, the orc god Gruumsh wasn't initially invited, and when he did arrive he found the world had already been claimed, so Gruumsh drew his weapon and scourged the world, and announced these new areas, these ravines and canyons, would be the lands of his people.
That, and the fact that Corellon (Highest god of the elves) managed to stab out one of Gruumsh's eyes is why orcs have such a hatred for elves.
So i base my world in faerun. But 800 or so years after everything that has happened. Gone through a couple golden ages and reverted back due to the mortals falling out. But the last remaining grand cities are the sea elves, and dwarves+gnomes (pretty much for the reasons you state) most other cities either have a dark secret or magical intervention to keep them safe from big threats. It makes great plot hooks for when the party arrives at a new, seemingly normal to us, town
"humans are smart" he said 10 seconds after informing us that some village forgot it had an underground city
Sure, makes sense. At least for high-magic (Well, high-monster) fantasy settings. As you move away from that Classical Dungeons make less and less sense, but, while I know you deliberately weren't going this route with the video, I think it's worth stating:
From a game design perspective - from a running games perspective - dungeons are any physical location that confines the scope to a single location. If the party can't just turn the other way and leave, you have a dungeon. Which, yes, includes classic D&D dungeons, catacombs and the like, but also hospitals in Silent Hill, haunted houses, so knowing how to design good, enjoyable, dungeons for the purpose of gameplay is useful if you run more grounded settings, or the game you're making isn't going for a high magic fantasy setting.
So basicly primitive humans in a fantasy world were like early mammals in the age of the dinosaurs😅😅😅
But jokes aside, this does make a lot of sence when you think about it. In a world populated by Dragons, Giants, Trolls, Roc's, Giant spiders and all maner of other monsters, early human development and culture as we've experiaced on out own earth would be inposibble.
It makes sense that early man ( and likely a lot of other humanoid races) would have there initial development in more isolated secluted regions, or ( as this video explains) underground " dungions" and then start to for kingdoms and widespread civilization in the open once there technological and magical advances far enough down the line.
Id quite enjoy a setting where the only humanoids around are burrower types like goblins and the world is full of giant dangerous things bad for thier health. Highlight tennacity and cooperation
You are disregarding the possibility that Intelligent Powerful Beings may have aided, guided, and protected early Humans. Perhaps Ancient Highly Magical Elves or Ancient Good Dragons or some Fey Beings. Therefore with that the Humans developed more rapidly or in a different way.
2:20 I know whenever I can't find or craft a bed my first night in Minecraft, a hole in the ground works just fine
My problem with dungeons is not whether they would be built, but whether they would be preserved. If it's not a structure that is constantly inhabited in maintained, it will tend to deteriorate. Walls will crumble due to erosion, natural tremors, or broken by tree roots, corridors will be filled with rubble or sediments (if an underground stream find its way inn), etc. The result may end up being disappointed from a fantasy adventurer. Imagine that you're set to recover an ancient artifact that is essential for saving the realm, only to discover that the place where it was kept has crumbled, and you need to dig through tons of rock and rubble or sift through layers of sediment to get to it.
Absolutely true, and a fair consideration. We'd only see structures survive that were built to last. Invasive roots and water would likely be very common in certain regions, but there's a reason 2 of my examples were worked into stone - because that's what remains, more often than not.
I think there's room for a mix of excavation and preservation, but my undercities video makes a good case for the former.
The monsters are the ones maintaining the dungeon. They live there, after all, of course they'd want to keep the place in good shape.
I already made a comment, but bad guys go underground to hide from the normal guys above. So these systems would be maintained by monsters and dark magics. My main example of this is all of HP Lovecraft.
Usually his characters form manic obsessions. They will spend all their time and money building their lairs or labs or whatever. Usually they also always get minions to do their bidding.
If an old lair was abandoned usually his characters will just refurnish them for their needs.
I am trying to think of all examples, but he had stories of necromancy where zombies were being hidden underground, demon type monsters, ghouls, etc.
Usually if there are legit RUINS they are well maintained because they use some alien materials or some unholy demonic materials. There are too many to even reference. He has stories about underground cities to worship dead gods, he has cities that has sunk over time, cities that have been plunged into the ocean, cities frozen in ice, cities under the desert, he has underground cults.... It goes on and on.
Usually modern towns end up getting built over the ruins of some ancient civilization.
Dungeons are not the ONLY way adventurers discover such treasures, anyway. What you described is doing so through archaeology. (ie. Indiana Jones style) Not to mention the adventurer past-time of doing so through outright crimes like grave-robbing or theft.
I would point out that some of the catacombs under Rome were only rediscovered in the _1950s_ , after more than a millenium of neglect.
One problem with 'hidden underground habitation' is it's a LOT harder to hide agriculture and animal husbandry, which is required for large settlements and - importantly - specialization. Living underground is good for defense, not so much for hiding, unless it's a very small settlement that can import most of its needs (or use magic to replace imports).
That said, all the reasons you give for living underground also apply to building stone buildings and strong stone walls (and even solid domes/rooftops of stone). It's less effort to quarry stone from the surface and construct buildings above ground than it is to carve out tunnels into a hillside, at least if the rock you're dealing with is decently hard. Monsters would definitely change how settlements were built (basically all settlements would have a curtain wall) and the effort required would limit the ability of humanoids to expand.
Hell, I go out of my way to put a ton of vast old ruins into any fantasy story I come up with, because I genuinely love ruin exploration and dungeon crawling.
In one I'm working on now there's this absurdly huge underground superstructure spanning continents and nobody knows who built it. In another setting the gods once fought a huge war that rearranged the whole world so people are still finding old buried fortress complexes full of weird stuff from the old times, and dungeon crawling for old artifacts is an actual job. I even had this one idea where the _whole setting_ was just a seemingly endless series of structures and caves, and as far as anyone could tell it constituted that entire universe.
Of course it's contrived, but that can be said for a lot of stuff in fiction. What matters is that it's something you put into the setting because that's part of the story.
I think PF2 did that really well by having the star fall cataclysm. Everyone went underground so they didn’t just die.
My concept is. Adventurers hear rumors and attack a persons home. The person responds by defending their home and takes the gear, gold, and so on as compensation to fix the damages. But it just keeps cycling as Adventurers fall and the person creates traps and tames monsters to try and scare off or get people to leave them alone. But Adventurers always as aggressive explorers and gold tempted people insist on pushing forwards. Lead to dungeons forming as the person tries to keep them out and away
I find the concept of dungeons in fiction very comfy and I love the countless different takes and twists on it.
Endless hellish labyrinth where people have to live? Ruins of a Fallen empire, twisted by some foul dark magic? "Living" dungeons, that grow and devour eachother, attracting monsters and adventurers to feed on them? Bandit/secret organization hideout? Or simply a den of monsters, such as wild animals, or tribalistic goblins/orcs?
We've got it all, and I love it all.
The first in the Dungeon typically body-checks the traps they fail to notice...maybe I should come back and watch this later...
there is indeed a sneaky trap somewhere in the video
Such a lovely and very thoughtful essay! Thank you, Tom!
Die Hard is a DnD movie now
You know, I wasn't fully sold until you said "and then when the humans who were once chased into burrows rose to the surface, the monsters fled to their now-abandoned burrows." But that's just so incredibly evocative.
Great video, perhaps you could start a whole series with other justifications for dungeons, since there are a lot of options here. "THIS IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOUR" is one of my favorites for 5e specifically, since in a world with tons of artifacts and anctient evils, some places will have to be safes for wizards, guarded by their gelatinous cubes.
Oh my gods "This is not a place of honor" is one of my favourite tropes.
Dungeons for prisoners are actually very rare in the Middle Ages because imprisonment makes no sense. The oubliette as in throw the prisoner in and forget about him (hence the name) is mostly from the modern era.
It simply makes no sense. If a peasant does something criminal he usually pays a fine, for particular crimes he gets leashed or put to death. The lord has no reason to imprison a healthy worker and feed him.
For nobles they were basically imprisoned in court or at home on a honor basis, since honor is everything in this era, they actually followed it.
I personally love the Morrowind and Skyrim use of underground tombs because they say a lot about their cultures and how they treat the dead (mostly, they revive their ancestors in some way to guard the tombs from looters and necromancers), then there are abandoned mines, abandoned "farm" mines, natural grottos and very rarely, purpose-built shelters meant for living, bunkers and stock rooms.
i dont know about morrowind but draugr in skyrim arent raised “to defend the tombs”
i believe the reason every tomb in skyrim is filled with undead is because of the dragons returning, the dragon cult is also returning from their slumber to serve alduin (aside from dungeons where it is simply caused by a necromancer or curse or whatever)
@monochrome_soft9472 huh, I guess I need to check on the lore again.
I'm most fresh off of Morrowind these days so what I remember the best are the drsugr in Solstheim, and one point specifically about a guy choosing to become a draugr to defend a place along with his posse. It could easily be a freak case like all interesting stories.
Mark my words, this is right up there with Shad's Back-scabbard in revolutionizing fantasy/adventure genre history.
the classic Dungeon-delving Christmas movie, Diehard.
Here, in real life, without any source of magic, dragons, or other common fantasy elements we are constantly finding new places where people lived underground. If theres a hole in a rock there is a 100% chance that eventually a human will make it bigger and try to live in it. UA-cam is full of spelunking, exploring, and adventuring videos showing off these things. Dungeons are *literally* everywhere right now, in real life. If you wanted to be an adventurer in modern day and explore/document these old oubliettes you absolutely can. The downside is that the treasure is all long gone and there are no dragons, just crevasses, pitfalls, cave ins, dead air, and still water.
Oh man I went to Cappadocia years ago and it was so cool, what a perfect example.
I like making forests as dungeons too. Each 'room' is an area of the dungeon
I never felt a need to justify dungeons being underground, many ancient ruins we find are at least somewhat covered by soil because of subsidence. Over time ancient ruins would end up underground no matter where they were placed.
Of course there is another answer very much used in RE Howard's Conan stories: Ruins of previous civilizations. Seems like half his adventures included some forgotten ruin. So even if your previous civilization was mostly surface dwelling, they'd still have subterranean service tunnels, sewers etc.
Edit: I got so frustrated that I didn't even finish the video 🤦♀️🤦♀️
Very embarrassing for me, I apologise 🙇♀️
Also the poison gas thing probably isn't true, I read it somewhere but I don't remember the details so it's probably bs...
But in a fantasy setting having a system like that very much could be done and it would be a very cool feature!
I cant believe you haven't talked about Derinkuyu!! Both in your underground city video and in this one it is so relevant!!!
If you don't know, please look it up, it's fascinating!
Derinkuyu is an ancient underground city in Turkey. It was cut into very soft stone and was part of a series of underground cities that were all connected through a series of tunnels. They had several exits and an advanced ventilation and water system to ensure they could not be poisoned from the surface but rather could shut off access from above.
It was huge and could house several thousands of people and had everything a city would need. Storage, schools, stables, all of this!! It's so cool!! It was "lost" for several hundred years but was found again by a farmer whose chicken accidentally walked into one.
Derinkuyu wasn't a self contained habitation.
It contained a stables, pens and stores but was clearly intended as a refuge.
Livestock was grazed outside, food was grown outside and the majority of the populace probably lived outside as well given that it was surrounded by villages.
It may have been proof against the human raiders it was intended to stymie but to claim that it would be proof to a poison gas attack in a time when the best a desert raider could manage was smoky fires seems too great a leap.
Both Derinkuyu and Kaymakli would very much be prone to lightning attacks by predators picking off the villagers and do not have ventilation sufficient to support an industry (wine presses don't count).
In short although both are good examples of fortified underground dwellings neither provide the required protection against constant predation or unconventional forms of attack.
Mentioned at 26:50.
he talks about it in the video... granted it's very long so maybe you didn't watch it, but it's in here
@@QuotheravingThere are multiple places in Turkey that were mentioned by Classical Greek and Roman historians and geographers as famously building their homes into the rock.
There are places in southern Italy that do the same thing, and its not that rare globally.
Sure some are just poor outskirts or refuges from danger, but a lot were just taking advantage of the right kind of rock being in a livable place and saving the time, effort and resources from building completely from scratch
The entire last example of the video is Derinkuyu
Everybody needs a bunker! Some survival hole in the ground.
Might be a good video idea. Do giants know what insects look like? Given their immense stature, i don't think they would perceive insects as anything beyond annoying dust motes. At our size, we can barely make out details on their bodies. Imagine a giant trying to study a bee. He wouldn't even be able to pick the thing up
thank you for perfectly answering a very good and sensible question that never even occurred to me was an issue until now
please keep doing so, you're awesome at it
The thing about intelligent creatures’ settlements in fantasy is that they are capable of adapting to challenging environments by implementing complex solutions and techniques to maintain their homes. What this means for these as explorable ruins is that without maintenance, they could be harder to find or explore compared to a settlement built by the instincts of a less-intelligent animal (of similar size ofc)
I always figured with many fantasy worlds being post apocalyptic, six or seven times over, there would be more ruins about then scratch built settlements. If a particular city, first settled in the stone age, changed hands between cultures over a hundred times, burned down several times from accident and monster attack, and even utterly destroyed by an invading army a couple times before being resettled, then there might be a dungeon or two in the area as while you can tear down walls and houses, it's a lot more work to completely fill in underground structures in the area.
Them being underground, used or not, might be the main things that survive when compared to stuff on the surface that are more easily recycled, reused, and destroyed by uncaring foes. A region might become littered with underground graves and stores and siege tunnels and bank vaults and safety rooms, and long abandoned settlements who have, typically, dug into each other during construction, and walled off others that don't need to be accessible.
22:58 They did this in Ethiopia! You should check out the rock cut churches there, very cool! Also I can see above ground dwellers living in communities of sod houses that provide a bit of protection from fire and camouflage, like I have in my campaign. The valley that does that might have a reason for doing it other than cultural, you have inspired me, maybe there was a REALLY bad Dragon attack.
The actual techniques needed to overcome heating, cooling, ventilation and plumbing can be hand waved in a world where magic exists.
One thing g that could be a great addition to this world building is to ask what sorts of supernatural creatures people would create a symbiosis with. Maybe we befriend some form of fire elementals for keeping furnaces and kilns hot. Maybe earth elementals aid in our tunneling. But then, these creatures might replace tigers and bears as our predatory concerns.
Heating and cooling isn't an issue. Caves have a pretty consistent temperature all year round. Thick layers of rock or dirt acts quite well as insulation.
The symbiotic relationships is a good idea. It doesn't even have to be "befriending", it might be creatures that aren't overly intelligent, and can be "domesticated". Humans are very good at domesticating animals and plants when the opportunity arises.
Which makes me think of plants and not just animals... there are plenty of plants where we eat the parts underground. Potatoes, carrots, peanuts... I could imagine people domesticating and selective breeding these plants to get the roots going deeper and deeper, so they can harvest the food from within the cave.
i have used that underground city for inspiration in my own game, the forgotten city under the city where a cult leader had his secret palace.
Those concepts for old subterranean settlements are really creative.
I imagine that any subsequent settlers would repair and retrofit the old tunnels to fit their own needs.
Definitely using these ideas in my game
Real examples for your other two scenarios:
* Mountain? The Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA. Population topped out around 100 people, which is a respectable neolithic village.
* Riverside? The sod houses common to the ancient British isles. Grass still grew on top and its roots helped hold the structure together. Chimney hole in the center of the roof, and a single doorway-presumably closed with a hide blanket or loose-fitting wood door-that kept air circulating. The small ones would sleep a dozen or so humans, especially if they were close together for warmth. Good odds that from a distance, the village would look like just another few hills and a smoldering underground peat fire.
I don't think that this is plausible unless something is different about your fantasy world that makes being able to see in the dark less of an issue, like innate darkvision or fuel being exponentially more plentiful.
For most of real-world human history, fuel was an expensive resource. People didn't slaughter livestock until they were at the end of their useful labor life. A family might have, like, one pig that they've been fattening up for slaughter all year - how much lamp oil are they going to get out of it? Thus, most people couldn't afford to artificially light their homes on a daily basis. Work, both indoors and outdoors, stopped when the sun went down, and they went to sleep to get up with the sunrise the next day.
Some regions of the world, like Iceland and Europe, used up their trees and had to find alternative fuel sources like peat, or import fuel and lumber from abroad. And good luck trading with anyone if you aren't near a significant body of water, since there wouldn't be any roads.
And if it was like this for people who lived on the surface, how much worse of a problem would it be if most people are living underground?
Another factor I don't think you considered was that all of the rock people are digging up has to go somewhere. Your little cave opening in the side of a hill might not be so well-hidden if there's a huge pile of shattered stone near the entrance.
Hey brother the video concept is really cool but I have to click off because the sound quality is too unbalanced. Level audio, cut low frequencies, and use a de-esser. Keep up the good work my man 👍
Imagine living in a city underground were if one person burns something or starts a fire in the wrong space it burns up all the O2 in some areas and entire blocks and rooms of people start to die
In my DnD homebrew setting, dungeons were slowly working their way up to the surface just about anywhere. Many were not built, but spawned, cropped off, or left behind by huge living, moving, megadungeons deep under the Underdark.
I really like the idea of radically increasing the amount of dungeons in the world. Typically, dungeons are the "Villain Lair," so they are very rare. The world becomes more interesting when you have hundreds of bunkers for smaller creatures to hide from large predators. Two pieces of trivia: 1) The ancient Romans added volcanic ash to their mortar to make waterproof docks. 2) Prairie dogs build a pair of chimneys of different heights, and air passing over the higher chimney vacuums air out while the lower chimney gives new air... So if you have people/monsters living underground, they have to be either immune to suffocation or have a ventilation gimmick.
Especially in a High Magic Fantasy setting, the Humans could build in Stone including their houses within Walls. Therefore, Dragonfire wouldn't be as concerning. Also the walls could be designed in a way that makes climbing them harder. What's more; if there are also Good Dragons/Powerful Beings they could aid, guide, & defend the Humans as well as other Lesser-Races.
Finally, above ground structures/ruins could be considered Dungeons as well. With your River concern you could design structures that are on Stilts/Floatable which works with flooding. In fact if you built your city within the middle of a huge lake that adds very good additional protection from many enemies especially in a Magical Fantasy Worlds.
This was exactly the inspiration I needed for my homebrew campaign. Thank you!
@17:25; Coating the inside of the walls with fiber-reinforced clay, one could simply light the whole place on fire after construction, baking the clay and reinforcing the walls. Cobb houses have stood for centuries without being fired, as well.
Dungeon Core novels can make it make sense. The dungeon is ALIVE and wants to feed upon adventurers to grow.
This is a great exploration of ideas I've skirted before. My next step is to try to figure out an evolutionary path for humanoids amongst monsters like that. Of course, magic complicates natural evolution, but still, there are interesting takes to be found in working out all those kinks. Basically, the question is "How do humanoids even evolve in the first place if there are so many monsters around?" My answer falls into two categories: 1. Many monsters are magical corruptions of humanoids, so they didn't exist before humanoids. 2. Humanoids and/or the monsters came from somewhere else when humanoids had already evolved most of the way to their modern forms.
You can look at how animals differ in size in the real world and scale that up to your fantasy setting. If you assume humans to be the size of common rodents, then dragons become the size of cats and foxes, with the truly ancient ones reaching the size of lions. The bigger giants would then be the size of human toddlers. You can go on from there to infer how people would live when confronted with super predators like these. Perhaps revisiting Guliver's Travels is in order.
We were just discussing Cenotes, sink holes filled with fresh water and salt water below. A great example for dungeons everywhere
I was kind on the fence about this idea, but the example of Derinkuyu (and the other underground cities in Cappadocia) really convinced. I hadn't heard of them before, and they're really cool, so thanks for making me aware of them!
That is an adorable dragon plushie you have atop the mysterious soft white orb! I do believe I've used the same pattern!
Couldn't agree less.
Underground fortified dwellings have more disadvantages than advantages.
Firstly there's carbon monoxide or other gasses which have the tendency to pool in the depths and could kill entire settlements.
Secondly there's the many burrowing creatures that could easily bypass your bottlenecks.
Third there's the fact that burrows without multiple exits are deathtraps allowing hungry beasts to corral or contain large numbers of people and burrows with exits or chimneys are harder to defend.
In short, no underground fortresses have ever really worked in practise and would be even more of a disadvantage in a fantasy world.
Underground spaces can indeed have bad air. Mines are probably worse than natural caves. Natural caves were typically formed by flowing water or flowing rock (in lava tubes), or wave action in sea caves. Through-flows imply both entrance and exit, and a possibility of natural air flow. Also, some caves and tunnels "breathe" due to changes back and forth in the air pressure outside them.
I suppose a fantasy burrowing creature could also get under and past a town wall or castle wall readily enough. A defense might be to settle on a small island far offshore, supposing the tunneling critters do not fly or swim.
I agree that multiple ways in and out are valuable. This is true of surface installations too, to a lesser degree.
Historically, some settlements or strongholds have been in caves or hollows in the faces of cliffs. See Mesa Verde in the USA. Quite a few castles employ natural caves when they can, Predjama in Slovenia being a prime example.
As for underground fortresses, I submit that France's Maginot Line was so imposing that it was not ever seriously attacked. Did it "really work in practise"? Sort of. Bear in mind that it was not completed as planned. And the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in the USA is a fortress of sorts, definitely underground and also never yet attacked. And the military tunnels of Gibraltar must be counted as an underground fortress, with historical success against attack.
@@davidtownsend8875 All good points. And yes burrowing creatures like Purple worms or Umber Hulks are potentially a problem for any stronghold.
The only advantage Forts may have is that they are typically built on raised ground which may be off-putting for a burrowing creature as it would feel like a cull-de sac to their tremor sense.
Additionally being largely composed of stone blocks there would be less direct contact with the bedrock muffling the signs of it's inhabitants.
Militarily speaking tunnels and underground fortresses are very different.
Tunnel complexes such as Gibraltar or more recently Gaza are more about concealment and movement than just defence, while the tunnels used in the World wars were mainly used for attacking across no-man's land.
You could also have mentioned Bunkers such as Nuclear shelters though in this case the threat is very different.
I've said it before but for a standard 'Dungeon' to exist it must already have failed as a fortress.
Bunkers seem to work pretty well. With magic you could easily filter the air.
Humans would likely struggle to set up any sort of civilization, remaining nomadic until other races like dwarves had become well established. It could be that elves and dwarves usually establish thier civilizations first in a fantasy world because they could avoid predation in treetops and mountain homes. Only armed with the weapons and magic from the other humanoid races could humans eventually make a home for themselves, and then because they had adapted to short, brutal lives they rapidly explode in population across the surface world.
Many aboveground locations can be dungeons of various sizes.
Examples:
Large hedge mazes
Enemy warships
A towered fortification that guards/blocks off a mountain pass
The back alleys of a cramped city slum controlled by a thieves guild
An abandoned temple complex
Castles
Treetop village of a hostile tribe of wood elves
A dark, dense forest littered with razorvine, that limits the width and number of trails into it
By far my video of yours. Watched it a few times already and taken notes. Will reference again for making dungeons.
Really enjoyed this video! Keep up the content!
I remember reading somewhere that -before FR was adopted as the 'default' setting- dungeons were periodically created by the god of magic to introduce magic (items) into the world and drive up his own worship, or something like that
I try to treat everything like a dungeon, even cities and landscapes, with 1-6 "rooms" and really condense and refine what those rooms need to be. I think I got it from Final Fantasy 12 and how they could condense even a massive city like Rabanastre into basically a 3 room dungeon/zone.
Your Dwarven Mountain Hold for instance I would make 3 rooms.
1- Combining the entry, both guard posts, and a bedroom into a more elaborate room.
2- Combing the dining hall, craftroom, and the storage like a sort of open pantry. Making a large dwarven oven/forge hybrid the centerpiece.
3- Shrine and worship chamber are fine. Though it needs a function other than worship... maybe they pan for gold, or mining into the spring idk.
There could be up to 3 exits: the entrance, a secret drop where the spring drops into the terraces, and there could be like a cove-ceiling over the forge-oven with a large shield covering the hole like a giant chimney cap hidden by stonecunning.
Gotta keep in mind that waters travels in weird ways underground… it’d have to be closely observed throughout the whole process of settling in and would result in your rooms having different shapes than the bunker-looking one you showed.
Great trick to hide the smoke, would be to have a lonely cabin or small ruin built over the chimney. So any smoke would be attitude to a traveler or the like staying there occasionally.
Great video. Dungeons suddenly make a LOT more sense. It also made me rethink how I'll be designing future dungeons. Laying them out more like a settlement will.create some.really interesting designs I think.
This changes the way I am making my homebrew setting. I like the idea of the majority of settlements being underground. It makes sense.
There's something worth thinking about that I have honestly really never seen addressed in any fantasy setting - Mining tails. The more you dig underground, the more tails there should be. A really big mine in the vain of moria would have created a whole massive mountain of loose stone.
They could have used those for other structures, perhaps it was a combination of Quarries & Mines. Maybe separate the stone from the ores in a precise way, and sell what that mining Race aren't using to other Races.
Stone age people absolutely did dig massive tunnelsystems for salt and flint and precious stones. They usually filled them back in as soon as a new tunnel needed to be dug over the centuries, but it is quite fascinating to imagine such cramped environments being the first bastions of humans.
I immensely enjoy your archaeological approach to fantasy world building and like to apply it myself. My only problem with it is that it prevents me from actually getting any world building done, because I'm drowning in detail
Maybe the reason dwarves still live underground and in the mountains is because they're so stubborn and stuck in the old ways, and refuse to abandon that lifestyle. Also, one thing I was wondering was how the farms would work and be maintained. It seems like farming would be a pretty dangerous job because it requires going outside where the monsters are. How are the crops protected from pests and other animals trying to eat them? And wouldn't they expose the underground settlement that they're trying to hide?
A shame I can't subscribe twice, these videos provide something to think on well after the video itself has ended.
This is a phenomenal video, thank you!
I like this approach. instead of saying "this doesn't make sense, therefore dumb," you instead come up with a reason for it to make sense.
I love all the ideas here. I am so using some of this for some campaign ideas
An interesting way I have found to integrate these into fantasy stories without it being intrusive is to let the antagonists deal with them in a few scenes when there is downtime for the protagonist PoV, and for what lays at the end to be part of the protagonists' objective too, so the antagonists end up handling the dungeon grind while the protagonists swoop in near the end to try and steal their reward.
Very interesting ideas.
Another one that works is buried ruins, whether by windborn dust over eons or by one big landslide (the first Dragonlance module comes to mind). I'll probably include a mix going forward.
How funny would it be to have the lost Dwarven civilization actually be an early human civilization? I can imagine the readers or players having that eureka moment when they figure out why there aren't any dwarves in a setting :)
Wow! Really insightful video. The potential for Dead Malls as dungeons is potent!
You've basically just described the EarthDawn campaign setting. Though with just the everyday D&D monsters instead of an invasion of the extradimensional Horrors. It's the same principle, though. Living on the surface is a lot less feasible when man-eating monsters are roaming the land, so big underground shelters are the way to go.
I like this, and fully approve the well thought out lore explaining it
There are other reasons to dig in though. One would be extremes of weather. The Dark Sun setting has people surviving on a planet that survived a magical apocalypse. Temps were up to 130 degrees F. A cave system would be both shelter and defense. Also its easier to build in some scenarios. For instance, in the American West they build dugout homes because they were cheap, fast, hidden, and comfortable temperature wise. So you could conceivably build a whole town that way with connecting tunnels and escape routes. Also consider Japanese and Vietnamese underground tunnel networks. I'd bet anything a lot of those tunnels are still down there in Vietnam.
Genius idea: disguise the smoke ventilation systems above ground as mushrooms.
My go to Rimworld setup is to dig into a mountain or set up between two or three big rocks