As I write this I have a nail gun, an electric saw, hammering and banging going on in the room next to me as my contractor is working fairly late tonight. And it got me thinking - all this work to close up a doorway and build some shelves - how much work is there to building a dungeon (let alone a mega-dungeon).
Sure, magic helps - I'm sure rock to mud is awesome at clearing out hallways and rooms, but all that mud had to go somewhere. Not to mention the doors.
Actually, I was listening to +Vincent Florio on his Roll for Initiative podcast the other night talking about doors, and that had also got me thinking - dungeon doors are not like the doors we have in our homes or apartments. Dungeon doors keep shit in or keep shit out - it truly is an amazing thing that is often overlooked when we describe or think of dungeon trappings.
Ack, I'm all over the pace with this post. I'm going to blame the allergies and the amazing wine I have sitting next to me that I have yet to drink. Well, I hope it's amazing.
I'll try and be a bit more coherent later on tonight, but for now, I'm thinking of doors, or in this case, the removal of a door and the conversion of the space.
GURPS Swashbucklers (First Edition) (1988)
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From the back cover:
Adventure in a World of Gallantry & Grace
Come to the age of the Swashbuckler, when the world was wide and fortunes
could be made i...
30 minutes ago
I would think that if one had enough money to excavate a dungeon in the first place, one would have 10 g.p. to spend on each door. (That's the cost listed in the DMG.)
ReplyDeleteThird time trying to post this... The doors product really makes you think.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing what you can accomplish in a short amount of time with an inexhaustible supply of slaves. Just look at what Dubai's been able to accomplish in the last decade alone.
ReplyDeleteI lime to think of different building styles. dwarven walls and doors are gonna be first rate craftsmanship and cost a bit of time and money but last forever (and perhaps require ducking to avoid lnocking your forehead) while Goblin or other construction probably consists of tunneling through the softest soil and shoring it up with rickety beams or drystone. Much less safe for crazy manuevers and firebslls
ReplyDeleteBottom line. Builder and purpose matter and the players should see thst difference in the detIls.
How did that sprawling dungeon get built? Pick one:
ReplyDelete1. Races much better at mining and construction than humans (dwarves, elves, dark elves, goblins, kobolds, etc.).
2. Magic.
3. Gods.
And that's not even considering the amazing things actually built by real world humans with fairly crude tools (Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, etc.).
I always think of that part in the Book of the New Sun where Severin is climbing up a crevasse made from strata of the Urth's many previous cultures, compacted detritus of a hundred cities layered atop each other.
ReplyDelete