Myths

Using How to Host a Dungeon for #Dungeon23

“Not playing through it, I use the rules booklet as a reference work. Tony Dowler’s dungeon-building game provides primordial nexuses, ancient civilizations, and master villains to fill out the dungeon’s space and history should need arise.”

—on How to Host a Dungeon, Inspiration, “Campaign Hook: ‘To All Who Enterin—DOOM’”

As a prelude to some future rendition of Deep Dungeon Doom, I’ll play through an extravagant run of How to Host a Dungeon to establish a robust and detailed history for the 24-level adventure locale. By extravagant, I mean: instead of eight, the dungeon spans 24 strata; not one but a few nexus points are planted within; instead of one each, I’ll run several ages of civilization, monsters, and villainy. Even greater in scope than Wyrm Dawn, it’s a dream project for another day.

Book cover, How to Host a Dungeon: The Solo Game of Dungeon Creation, by Tony Dowler
How to Host a Dungeon: The Solo Game of Dungeon Creation, 2nd Edition, Tony Dowler, Planet Thirteen, 2019.

Meanwhile, for this outing, we adhere to #Gygax75 and #Dungeon23’s prime directive: “Don’t overthink it!” How to Host a Dungeon is a reference work. I use elements from the game’s various “ages” as focal points. So, “rooms” that might be built during civilization and villainous periods become sections of the dungeon, principle characters become major historical figures, and a brief outline of history based on the successive ages becomes the framework for hanging past events on a time line.

“The (unobserved) past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.”

—Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design

Working Framework for Historical Events in Deep Dungeon Doom

The following table outlines the major historical periods in the dungeon. This is how I see the time line now. Other—perhaps many other—civilizations, monster ages, and villainous periods, certain to have taken place, may be inserted as the campaign progresses. A thing is malleable until it is observed, that is, used in play.

Time Line—Deep Dungeon Doom

AgesPrimordial NexusesCivilizationsVillains
Prehistory
Void
Primordial Monsters
Alien (Illmind)
Cyclopean Complex
Godthrone
Gateway (Abyss)
Demon
Devil (empire)
Bronze Age
Drow
Iron Age
Dwarven
Giant (empire)
Dark Age
Medieval Age
Magician (Lore Kings)
Fearthoht (empire)
[Present]?

This historical framework is mostly for the DM, so to maintain some coherence as I build out dungeon areas. The process also informs the present situation in the dungeon. Player characters might learn some of the dungeon’s history as they explore it, but they are not obliged to. Players themselves may not much care.

Illmind

The Illmind is a sinister collective of hyperintelligent, extra-dimensional beings. It is responsible for the Rending—the cosmic cataclysm that is the campaign world’s origin. (See Song of the World Dragon.) After the cataclysm, the Illmind established a colony at this location. The colony, whose objective is not yet known to me, grew into the dungeon’s first civilization.

The Illmind civilization ends with the construction of the Godthrone (Megastructure) and the Gateway (Uplift Facility). The latter gates in demons to destroy alien works. The former is now called “Godthrone,” but its true purpose is unknown.

Lyceum Arcanum

To get straight into the thick of things, I want to start the campaign with something about the wizards. Looking at the magician civilization’s constructions, I am attracted to “Lyceum Arcanum.” According to How to Host a Dungeon1, this large structure is built at a nexus point either above or below ground (16). I place it on the surface, knowing that, at civilization’s end, it is buried under a new surface level. For the required nexus, I choose Ley Lines, which is one attraction for the immigrant magicians and later generations.

Lore Kings

As it may be of immediate usefulness, we sketch the history of the magician civilization. It is important to note that, when referring here to ages and civilizations and empires, we speak of the local dungeon and its environs. Other ages, civilizations, and empires take place in the greater world, in parallel and at greater scale.

During the dark age that followed the fall of the Giant Empire, mages were drawn to the donjon, a towering remnant of the Greater Ones from before the Rending. As they grew in power, the mages formed a civilization that brought the dark age to an end.

The magician civilization was ruled by a succession of monarchs, who sought arcane lore lost in the Rending. The Lore Kings discovered much but lost it again in their own apocalypse, which sages now call the Time of Vengeance.

Sometime later, Fearthoht Doommaker rose to dominate the dungeon in an age of villainy that ended with her imprisonment. Now, the dungeon has fallen into another age of monsters, in which the Doommaker Cult attempts to free Fearthoht and promote her to godhood.

Meanwhile, other monster groups vie for power—either through amassing wealth or increasing their numbers—in order to become the dungeon’s next master villain. To determine which monsters form what factions would be overthinking it. Details spill from play.

1 Dowler credits Philip LaRose for the Magician Civilization.

Song of the World Dragon

Song of the World Dragon is a narrative poem. It is a creation myth of Earth’s far future—a world with magic, monsters, and a ring around it, with stars that aren’t fixed but dance and swirl.

DONJON LANDS is a far-future fantasy role-playing game setting.

I.

In the void between all things,
Surrounded by darkness and cold,
A faraway light shone dim.
The dragon lay dreaming in the void,
And naught else was in the void
But the dragon who lay dreaming and the light.
And in its dream the dragon dreamt
Of a world that was known as Earth.…

Continue reading: Song of the World Dragon

Atlantis of the Clay

A few months ago I was looking at some old Dutch maps—as one does, when I ran across an article called “Maps of Meaning.” In it, authors Meggy Lennaerts and Jan van der Molen of the University of Groningen Library tell the story of German cartographer Ubbo Emmius, who advocated for historical accuracy in mapmaking in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Incredible to us in our days of satellite imagery, half a millennium ago maps were rarely accurate and often based on less than fact. One such historical inaccuracy, which is discussed in the article, is the bay now called Dollart and the myth of the Atlantis of the Clay.

Sixteenth-century maps showed, correctly, the Dollart, an inlet that formed the west coast of East Frisia (Frisiea Orientalis). Today, the water is so shallow as to reveal the mud at low tide. Many early cartographers included an inset, showing the area of the bay as a lowland dotted with villages. The insets were labeled “the Reiderland,” and indicated a flood which occurred in the year 1277. The information was based on a 1574 map by Jacob Vermeersch.

“[Ubbo Emmius] criticized [established cartographers] for affording local folklore a credibility that it did not merit.” Emmius omitted the deluge in his 1616 map of the area, discounting fables and legends, preferring to rely on primary sources.

According to the myth of the Atlantis of the Clay, the Reiderland was submerged beneath the sea due to the transgressions of its inhabitants. We have discovered since that, while the land did indeed suffer inundation, the flood occurred in 1509—only 65 years before the first map showing it to have been three hundred years prior.

Tabula Frisiae Orientalis - Ubbo Emmius (1730)
Tabula Frisiae Orientalis, Ubbo Emmius, 1730.

What caught my eye was Emmius’s 1730 (posthumous) map. We see the Reiderland flood inset (lower right), added by the publisher after the cartographer’s death in 1625. We note, as well, nicely delineated borders dividing a landmass surrounded by an island-strewn sea. We remark additional insets in the upper corners: one a city (left), the other a fortress (right). When we identify these two, respectively, as base town and ruined castle, the historical map transforms into something more magic. That is, a map depicting an area we may explore in a fantasy adventure campaign.

When we identify these two, respectively, as base town and ruined castle, the historical map transforms into something more magic.

While the date is incorrect, and the flood’s cause may have more to do with nature’s whim than human foible, still, the Reiderland’s 33 villages lie beneath the silt of the tidal flat in this Atlantis of the Clay.

The Myth of Amon-Gorloth

In “Channeling Amon-Gorloth,” we took a first look at what we can divine from the map god’s text. Now, I want to mine the sleeping god’s name for clues to its mythology. Here we deconstruct the name, and drawing inspiration from the constituent parts, we make the myth.

Deconstructing Amon-Gorloth

Amon, from Egyptian mythology, is god of air, fertility, and the creative spark. The name means “invisible” or “the hidden one.” Amon began as a tutelary god, protecting a city and its region. The Egyptian Amon later merged with Ra to become Amon-Ra, chief god of the pantheon.1, 2, 3

Gor appears in ancient Armenia and India. According to baby name websites, Gor has various meanings: “shout, attack, word,” “proud,” and “wild ass, grave, desert.”4, 5, 6

Loth, in English, is another spelling of loath, which means “reluctant.” It comes from an Old English word for “hateful.”7, 8

The Myth

The following myth is commonly known among all people. The text is vulnerable to a redraft, but the essential is there.

Amon

In the time before Gor united the peoples who lived by the Great River, the Hidden One moved across the land. The god came to a river’s edge, where grew the papyrus grass. It breathed upon the surface of the waters and so held the Great River in its bed.

To the people there the Hidden One spoke: “You shall build here beside Ankhet’s waters a city. You will till the soil and reap the harvest. You will have many children, and your children’s children and their children after them will be prosperous. The city will be called House of Amon, and Amon shall be your god.

And so it was that the city named Amwan, which means “House of Amon,” grew. Amwan’s people worshiped Amon as their god. With its breath, Amon held Ankhet, the Great River, in its bed and brought the rains but kept the floods away. Amon bestowed upon the people the creative spark, and Amwan became a great producer of crafts, arts, and engineering, and so was prosperous. From among the clans, Amon chose a line of kings. The kings worshiped Amon, and Amwan became a powerful city-state.

Gor

Then came Gor. Returning from long travels, the hero-mage, heir to the throne, entered the city riding an ass.9 When Gor came into the kingship, he sought ever greater power. He united the peoples who lived either side of the Great River and up and down its length. The whole land became known as Amwan.

Amon-Gor

Gor became the most powerful king the land had ever known, but he was filled with pride. He wanted more. Leaving the city one day, Gor entered the wilderness. After forty days, Amon found him among the brambles and brush grass.

The god addressed the hero-mage. “Why do you seek me in the wilderness?”

Gor said, “Make me a god and let me live in your House.”

But the god refused, saying, “These things are not for the vessel of man.”

Gor replied, “Then I will destroy you and take your place in the House of Amon.”

And the hero-mage and the Hidden One fought. Gor shouted a word of power that would have destroyed the god, but Amon poured its spirit into Gor’s body. Thereby, the god lived in the vessel of man.

But a man’s life force was not sufficient to sustain the god. Weakened, Amon-Gor rested, falling into slumber.

When the people discovered Gor’s body in the wilderness, limp as though without life, they mourned his death and buried him in the mausoleums of his forefathers.

When the Great River dried up the next year and flooded the year after, the people of Amwan knew their god had deserted them. The Great River Ankhet left its bed and no longer flowed by the city-state that was once the House of Amon. The people departed, and the city fell to ruin.

Amon-Gorloth

Now, the people worship the Solar Goddess. The Amwan is ruled from Irthmalq, the great city-state whose name means “Throne of the Sun King.” The Sun King embodies the Goddess’s divine power, and he is ever vigilant.

For while Amon-Gor slept, it appeared to Amon’s priests in their dreams. These priests formed a cult, who now seek to wake the sleeping god, whom they call Amon-Gorloth, which means “the Hidden One, Word of Power, the Loathe,” for the god is reluctant to wake from its dreams.

The priests now lie in the mausoleums where sleeps the dreaming god. Through dark magic, they channel Amon-Gorloth’s dreams and restore its power. When wakened, Amon-Gorloth shall make terrible war on the Solar Goddess.

The Amwan - Outdoor Survival Map Board
“The Amwan,” Land of the House of Amon.
Map from Outdoor Survival. Scale five miles to the hex.
The ancient city-state Amwan lies in ruins within the central forest (Base 5). The Sun King resides at Irthmalq, the city-state on the banks of the Great River Ankhet (Base 3). The other bases are town-sized capitals of subordinate regions, called nomes, each governed by a nomarch, who is appointed by the king. The campaign begins in [yet unnamed town] (Base 2). In the adjacent hex northwest, the dreaming priests constructed the twisted halls, of which the cyclopean original is somewhere in the Valley of Kings, the central desert region.

Notes 1 through 8 are tertiary sources found on the web. Though uncertain, they are good enough for our game purpose. I cite them for easy reference.

1 Amun on GodChecker

2 Ra on GodChecker

3 Amun-Ra on GodChecker

4 Gor on Behind the Name

5 Gor on the Bump

6 Gor on Mom Junction

7 Loth on Merriam-Webster

8 Loth on Wiktionary

9 Buried in the myth, though not lost in the campaign setting, Gor is credited with the domestication of the ass. Using pack animals instead of human labor (possibly slaves) to carry trade goods is more efficient, both less expensive and with a greater range. Here “riding an ass” implies that Gor united the land of Amwan, not by conquest but through trade. Compare Narmer.

Myths and Legends

Myths

In the dream of the dragon, Earth
Was ruled by the Greater Ones,
Who created magic and with it
Made themselves from Men, the First Race.
From the flesh-blood of Men did make
The Greater Ones they themselves.
For nothing on Earth was beyond
Their power with the magic they created.

—excerpt from Song of the World Dragon

Song of the World Dragon is an ancient text, one of the earliest non-magical written works, which recounts the myths of the world’s origin. Here I summarize three.

Greater Ones

A superintelligent species of beings once lived in a world known as Earth. Called the Greater Ones, its members wielded power as gods. They created magic, and they built the donjons, whose spires, now in ruins, still punctuate the horizon. They also created the demihuman species and monsters. The Greater Ones did not survive the Rending.

The Rending

The Earth of the Greater Ones ended in a cataclysmic apocalypse—an explosion so powerful as to tear the world to pieces and rip a hole in space and time. The perpetrator was the Illmind, a sinister collective of hyperintelligent, extra-dimensional beings.

World Dragon

Through the rent was thrown one part of Earth. The Ershard fell into a void, where there was only a far away light and a cosmic dragon. The dragon knew that the few surviving creatures would not long live in the void so far from any energy source. So, the dragon took the Ershard on its back and carried it toward the light. Now, the Ershard, still on the dragon’s back, orbits the light.

Legends

These legends, known in the north, are told about the Throrgrmir dungeon. The authoritative source for these legends, among many others, is Viggo Eskilsson’s Histories of Throrgrmir From Great Wyrm to Age of Dragons.

Ormr and Wyrmlings

When the Throrgrmir dwarves dug too deep, they awoke a primordial wyrm. She crept from the depths into their underground city and fed on its populace. The dwarves fought the wyrm back to her lair.

But, now nourished, the primordial wyrm descended to the Underside of the Ershard, where she mated with the World Dragon. In her lair below the dwarven city, she laid seven eggs. Six hatched.

Named Ormr by the dwarves, the primordial mother is also know as the Great Wyrm. Her spawn, as wyrmlings.

Six wyrmlings scurried into the dwarven domain. They devoured any dwarves who stood in their way, but what they sought was treasure. They stole the dwarves’ gold, gems, and fine-made works and took them back to the wyrm’s lair.

Since Stardark’s End, naught is known about the Great Wyrm. Perhaps she died in her lair, deep below the surface. But some say she left the dungeon, flying on wings to the cold northern ends of the Ershard. Others say she descended again to the Underside to mate once more with the World Dragon.

The wyrmling clutch was decimated during the Stardark Empire. The last wyrmling, after delivering its touch, was killed by Faerunduine’s claws.

Wyrm-Touched Dragons

During the reign of Dagrun Stardark, the wyrmlings continued their scavenging for treasure. They stole from any creature possessing wealth: ogres, giants, demons, as well as dragons. But a wyrmling’s touch effected dragons. It made them stronger, more intelligent, more ferocious.

Three dragons were so touched:

  • Ixmundyr: Red dragon. Made his lair in a magma chamber. Slain.
  • Gullhringr: Gold dragon. Lair unknown. Disappeared with all the dungeon’s inhabitants at Stardark’s End.
  • Faerunduine: Green dragon. Lairs in the Deepmost Caverns. Recently gained a cult following. A temple at the Throrgardr Gate is dedicated to her.

The Seventh

No one knows whatever happened to the Great Wyrm’s unhatched egg. In antique texts—most by Stardark’s mages and by the fiend Murtax, it is called “the Seventh.”

Wyrmwyrd

The Throrgrmir dwarves made a device called the Wyrmwryd to control dragons. During her reign, Dagrun Stardark used the Wyrmwyrd to subdue the Great Wyrm.

Wyrm-Touched Dragons Ixmundyr Gullhringr and Faerunduine
Wyrm-Touched Dragons: Ixmundyr (deceased), Gullhringr (unknown), and Faerunduine (extant).

Stardark’s End

No one knows how long was the reign of Dagrun Stardark or how her empire ended. Few clues remain, and while these are much debated in scholarly circles, no consensus has been reached.

Sages refer to the period as “Stardark’s End.” Among them, it is generally accepted that the dungeon was abandoned until its reinvestment by Faerunduine, and that, as of the beginning of the Wyrmwyrd campaign, no treasures from the age have yet been recovered.

For the mysterious end to the Stardark Empire, I am inspired by the Bronze Age Collapse of our own world’s ancient history. Around 1200 BC, we find in the archaeological record, eastern Mediterranean cities deserted and destroyed, most by fire or other violent means. Trade was disrupted and few written works were produced for a couple hundred years. During this period, called the Greek Dark Age, Mediterranean civilization seems to have taken a break.

Historians and archaeologists have proposed many theories for the cause of the disruption, among them earthquake, famine, war, or invasion by the otherwise unknown “Sea Peoples.” Some are more likely than others. None proved.

So for the moment, we let Stardark’s End remain a mystery. Clues may offer themselves as we play out the wider history of DONJON LANDS.

The Wyrm Prophecy

“Where the Great Wyrm’s spawn prowl the tenebrous depths, the Age of Dragons begins.”

When dragons learn of the primordial wyrm and her offspring, they come to the dungeon, seeking to fulfill the Wyrm Prophecy.

In the Age of Monsters, the Dragon card is among the initial monster groups in play.

If the Dragon does not survive, its card is not reshuffled into the deck. Instead, it is placed on top, to be drawn next.

The Dragon card represents the most powerful dragon in the dungeon at the time. Each time the Dragon card enters the game, name the dragon.

The Dragon Card
The Dragon Card.

Primordial Wyrm

Using How to Host a Dungeon, the game map is divided into eight “strata” (enumerated on the right, map below). Each game stratum is made up of one or more geologic strata. I use the same term for both, I think without too much confusion. Each enumerated stratum also contains a feature. In Wyrm Dawn’s primordial age, many features are created by two rivers—one surface, another subsurface—and an earthquake.

Primordial Wyrm
Wyrm Dawn Campaign Map Cross-Section.
We are looking north. To the right is east; left west.

Here I describe each enumerated stratum. A table below summarizes.

1. Surface

A languid river meanders across its floodplain carved in a limestone bed. It deposits rich soil on its banks and seeps through porous rock to form a subterranean stream (stratum 4). From the soil grow lush grasses and primeval woods: deciduous on the flood plain, conifer higher up.

2. Dead Caves

Where the river spares the limestone, hills remain. Beneath them, limestone caverns, formed by river water in an earlier epoch, are now dry.1

3. Gold Vein

The result of an earthquake deep below the surface, the fissure struck through a layer of granite and quartz, forming the gold vein in an instant.2

4. Crystal Caverns

The subterranean stream comes out in this limestone layer to create these caverns. When the river runs nearer the hills, another stream gives into the western cave.3 A previous water line is still visible throughout the complex. Even where the stream doesn’t run, the caverns are still damp, creating selenite crystals.4, 5

5. Subterranean River

This subterranean river etches a course through limestone. It is swift but navigable from the east to where it falls through basalt (stratum 6).

6. Gem Deposits

A stratum of basalt contains gem deposits.

7. Magma Chamber

The earthquake also opened a fissure in this granite stratum from a magma source far below.

8. Mother of Dragons

Earth, shuddering in her labor, opened this large cavern complex to spawn a primordial wyrm. The parthenogenic creature emerged fully grown into the earth. She now seeks nourishment, so to lay her eggs.

Strata Summary

Stratum Primary rock Feature
1 Soil Biomes: deciduous and conifer woods, river, grassland, hills
2 Limestone, green6 Caves: connected caverns
3 Granite, quartz Ore: gold vein
4 Limestone, blue6 Biome: crystal caverns
5 Limestone, yellow6 Water: river
6 Basalt Gems: deposits
7 Granite Magma: chamber
8 Limestone, red6 Nexus: mother of monsters—dragons

 

The stage now set, the Age of Civilization begins.

Notes

1 A tunnel from the surface leads to the dead caves’ western cavern.
2 It seems our mundane world still wields much magic. A study described in this Nature article proposes that a gold vein can indeed be formed by an earthquake “in an instant.”
3 Like the dead caves above, a tunnel from the surface must lead down to the western cave mouth in the crystal caverns, while a tunnel to the eastern mouth is submerged. I’d look for a whirlpool in the surface river.
4 For the crystal caverns, I’m inspired by the selenite crystals from Mexico’s Naica cave.
5 Selenite, a variety of gypsum, is transparent and colorless, but impurities can give it a tinge of color, including blue and magenta, like a certain pair of game boxes—I’m going with that.
6 Who knew limestone comes in different colors? Savvy explorers might know how deep they have ventured by the kind and color of rock.