How do you explain dungeons from a lore perspective in your setting, Veeky Forums? I mean, for real...

How do you explain dungeons from a lore perspective in your setting, Veeky Forums? I mean, for real, how can you explain a hole in the ground filled with monsters and loot with something meaningful to the setting?

A wizard did it.

There used to be a bigger civilization, but now it's all ruined. Characters scavenge in the monster haunted wilderness.

This, but it's all for reality television.

Thousands of years ago, someone built it. Hundreds of years later, they ate it. Now, we delve it. Not that hard, user.

My current game has them as magical science labs, from a fallen magical empire. They have failed experiments locked up from before the calendar was a thing, and they're spread out in case something breaks containment.

1. occupied natural cave network
2. dug out occupation (possibly repurposed any number of times)
3. dwarves

kobolds kobolds kobolds

5e DMG pgs. 99 -101.

The lore in my world allows it pretty easily. Basically a while ago there was a war fought, and part of the area they were fighting on/over go so absolutely ravaged by the fighting (with magic and all being around) that everyone living there had to leave to a seperate part of the continent, leaving ruins behind. The population in the current time period in the campaign is still low enough that moving into the "Forgotten Soils" isn't necessary yet, so eventually the ecosystem started to put itself back together, and all the monsters and shit moved into the ruins since there aren't any other humanoids around.

Depends on what the dungeon's structure looks like. I usually write about a paragraph for each dungeon I make or use just so I have a way to answer basic questions the players may have.

Well, it depends on who made it. My go-to's are ancient ruins that have mostly crumbled or been lost to time. They're my go-to because the ruins could be from a civilization the adventurers may be trying to resurrect, emulate, or learn about. or they might have had widespread power that has been diminishing and so the ruins are old forgotten holdings that even the more current neighbors have lost track of.

Fissures creating entrances to previously unknown cave systems are always fun to throw new monsters the party hasnt seen into.

Burial chambers which have been taken over by new residents are also pretty good and can have a nice mix of traps and monsters both ancient and new.

Finally, there is the basic its just a small-ish cave that turned into a larger cave by excavation of the more subterranean or night-dwelling creatures like goblins, deep gnomes/dwarves, etc.

Don't: Build a generic dungeon and then try to justify it.
Do: Come up with an interesting idea that stands on its own and expand from there. For instance:

>old country manor overrun by dangerous plant life
>dwarven foundry evacuated due to malfunctioning portal connected to the plane of fire
>labyrinth built by mad king
>castle built by crusading knights, now well outside of the bounds of civilization
>mystic !Buddhist temple high in the mountains
>ancient tomb of a sorcerous emperor built by slave labor

It doesn't make a difference how "reasonable" or "realistic" it is. It just needs a built-in story.

DESU, in my settings they pop up for one of three reasons;

1) The original inhabitants are long dead and wildlife takes over
2) Magical Space Wedgies create them and Monsters, Outsiders, and Magical Beasts are drawn to the excess energy
3) Bandits, Mercenaries, and Armies fortify them and add on to them as a forward operating base or some such.

>How do you explain dungeons from a lore perspective in your setting, Veeky Forums?
not all my settings use this explanation, but it's probably the most common one;

gameswithothers.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/other-frontiers-dungeons-megadungeons.html

I unironically love this.

Most dungeons aren't anything special: dwarf ruins, old tombs, abandoned castles and whatnot. However.

My donut steel mythic underworld bullshit is a big jumble of forgotten places, remembered only by the dead. It's basically the sum of a bunch of dead people's magical realms and memories mashed together and piled on top of each other. This is normally where the dead would just kinda hang out, but it has of course been breached by greedy mortals, and is now scavenged by the brave, stupid, and the brave and stupid for ancient treasures long-forgotten, blah blah blah.

This idea is intended to justify a bunch of random fun while still getting to world-build, since theoretically the group is exploring through different places, times, and events within a "normal" dungeon setting of rooms, hallways, and doors.

Just give it a backstory, how to host a dungeon is a pretty good for inspiration

Current dungeons my PCs are heading into is a lab/home of an exiled mad dwarven artificer/alchemist and his followers.

Strangely, 'mad' as he's supposed to be, thus far the dungeon layout is still fairly reasonable. The first floor is built mostly with odds and ends and to confuse intruders, also loaded with traps that can sensibly be reset on their own (or possess enough ammo to to last), plus automated guards.

The next lower floor is living spaces, a central lab, a workshop area, and then a hallway with lifts leading down into specimen chambers.

I generally try to have my dungeons have some explanation in-universe and fulfill a function.

Dungeons are either
>Places where monsters have taken refuge and breed
Or
>Places where the barrier between the light and dark world is weak and demons are slipping through.

Isn't that XCrawl?

A result of the Kobold and Dwarf wars that raged far below the surface. They both dug in increasingly more complex tubbels in order to get the drop on one another, often establishing underground fortressess (Dungeons) to hold certain lines. Eventually the war ended because both forces eventually struck monster inhabited caverns deep below, forcing the Kobolds and Dwarves to work together to defeat the common foe. Naturally neither of them were able to hold all of the forts so that's the main reason why they are populated with monsters.

1. Magic
2. Old town sewers, inhabitated by monsters
3. Abandoned fortification/hideout/underground settlement infested by monsters
4. Ruins of a forgotten city or religious cult, either underground build or sunken by earthquake
5. Natural cave system
6. Secret lair build by a villian an his minions
7. Crash landed UFO

The things that are hard to explain are why its so massive or big.
Besides dungeons doesnt mean it has to be underground. It even could mean its a old city or ruins.

There's a certain amount of "just accept it and don't pick it apart" going on, but the basic idea is that there was a great empire that collapsed one to five centuries ago (depending on where you are in the world, and where you draw the line at for "collapsed").* So you've got a "Dark Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire" vibe going on. Instead of Germanic tribes, you have hordes of chaos (humanoid savages and outright monsters). Chaos and civilization are almost forces of nature that constantly struggle against each other. Anyway, these hordes of chaos aren't creative forces, like civilization is. They don't, for the most part, build, construct or innovate. They only invade, take, and tear down. And they are like water, filling any crack or cranny they come into contact with. It won't be long before any abandoned structure that is left unguarded will be occupied by as many denizens as it can reasonably house. And they will use it as a base of operations from which to launch forays to kill, plunder, and seize new territory.

*And a thousand plus years before that, they was an even greater civilization with magic and technology of undreamed of since.

My dungeons are normaly mines overrun by monsters because they need somewhere to live. Then they raid the nearby towns. And If I want that in this dungeon thre are only mindless beasts: First the mine got overrun by bandits they raided the nearby villages for loot.Then got overrun by said mindless beasts and nobody managed or tried to get the loot back. With higher level partys it's normaly an ancient ruin made by some long forgoten race (in my setting the eladrin) that was used for a) as a prison and now all the monsters captured are free. Or a well guarded cave which was used as a save by a bank from said ancient race and now only the security roboty are still running

Do remember, that even today we still have a bunch of ruins from previous civilizations just lying around burried despite the fact that we know precisely where they are thanks to satellite and seismological data.
I'd be surprised if some crazy billionaire never organized a covert expedition to Iraq to loot a tomb in the middle of the desert and now has an actually complete Epic of Gilgamesh on his private collection.

>he needs a reason to kill monsters and get loot.

It's supernatural. Dungeons are formed out of a primordial ooze. They don't need to make sense. They just need treasure to lure in the souls they take to expand their labrynths.

>Dungeons = Elder Mimic

I can dig it.

During the fall of the old world humans dug out numerous underground shelters. After they got their shit together and started repopulating the surface they abandoned the shelters. Then creatures or criminals and whatever moved in.

fpbp