Living_Dungeons

OOC Foreword
This is for roleplays where either you play as an adventurer or group of adventurers (or multiple groups even) delving into a dungeon in the hopes of acquiring loot, or you will play a living, sentient dungeon, trying to gain influence, grow in power and spread longer, attempting to take advantage of any adventurer foolish enough to set foot in your borders. Naturally with some kind of starting partner or subordinates to help guide you along. Maybe a gift from an older dungeon.

Please note, there is not a specific dungeon for this profile. It is tailored around the idea of dungeons themselves basically being intelligent, sentient things. So if I'm playing a dungeon, we'll need to discuss what kind of dungeon you want.

Again, to be clear. A dungeon is a living, sentient being. A living, intelligent labyrinth and complex that creates loot and monsters and materials to lure in outsiders to grow stronger.
Monsters, monster girls, or a mix of both are available. Please have an idea of what you'd prefer in that regard when you approach me.

End of foreword


Dungeons are a staple of adventurer life. Strange, labyrinthine enigmas, there are as many types of dungeons as there are types of magic. Gloomy, fungus filled dungeons aligned with wood. Burning, heated dungeons aligned with fire or magma. Holy, brilliant lairs of righteous power, and dark, abyssal dungeons where horrors lurk, and so much, much more. They come in many sizes and shapes, but certain qualities are shared among all Dungeons. The most notable is that they are inherently magical places that constantly shift, change and grow as time passes. A dungeon could start off as a series of three rooms, with a few dangerous, biting mushrooms, maybe a few shooting thorns that could harm an unprotected body, and then over years, months or weeks depending on activity, grow into a multi-level labyrinth with all manner of traps and strange beasts scattered across it.

Most people have no idea how a dungeon forms, they just...appear, with no real indication or rationale as to why they form or where. Only experienced and learned individuals understand how. Every dungeon, starts with a Dungeon Core, a kind of gemstone or similar object with the soul of a beast or creature drawn inside of it. Overtime, the gem leeches power from the environment around it, too slowly to notice and often in obscure places that people rarely visit. Eventually the gem acquires sentience, able to think, form its own words and thoughts and take note of its environment. From here, it will start to more actively leech energy from the sources of power most attuned to its form of magic, water, earth, wind, celestial, infernal or other types, even mixed types, like magma from fire and earth. As it devours energy and essence from objects and living things, it can use the gathered power to create them. A dungeon could have perpetually regenerating iron veins, ensuring miners always wish to take advantage of it. It could grow hefty supplies of basil, moss, mint or useful herbs that there is great demand for, and of course,they can spawn creatures.

Conjuring things with magic is hardly anything new. Mages have been able to conjure water, feasts, and create weapons and armor, temporary or no, for ages. A dungeon core is simply capable of this on a grander and greater scale. In essence, one can consider the entire territory of a dungeon to literally be the body of the core, with the core itself being both heart and brain of a much larger magical lifeform. Every creature created could be considered a cell or cellular group. Often after a mob is destroyed, its essence is reabsorbed and used to create a new mob, and the longer a mob survives, the longer a dungeon can leech essence off of that mob passively and without harming it. So, where do adventurers come into this? Are they an aid, or a hindrance? A bit of both really.

An adventurer comes into a dungeon to grow stronger, harnessing the essence within as they journey through and fight the threats, and as they grow stronger, the dungeon itself leeches off of the essence the adventurer absorbs and generates, and if an adventurer dies, the dungeon gets quite a nice boost from their essence being absorbed directly. More importantly, the dungeon's ability to learn to manifest and replicate things it has absorbed extends to items, coins, armor, clothing, weapons. They can manifest these things too, although that's usually not all that threatening, so why do it? To lure in more adventurers, for the prospect of them dying, and giving the dungeon more essence, more power, and more tools in its creator's kit.

Adventurer's for their part rarely try to destroy dungeons. Dungeon Cores are valuable components for incredibly powerful spells and alchemy, but most people don't know they exist, and cant' do much, and dungeons can be immeasurably profitable both as a place to train and grow and also for the components, materials, ores, plants, and who knows what else a dungeon can provide. Provided the dungeon isn't a den of demons, infernal creatures, or regularly disgorging monsters to ravage the landscape around, they can become the centers of entire towns focused entirely on the profit the dungeon provides. Sure, people die...but well, people die all the time. It's an occupational hazard and since most people don't have any idea that dungeons are intelligent themselves...well obviously it's the adventurer's own fault for dying in the first place, right?

So what about the mobs in the dungeons? Are they all just mindless drones following orders? Well...not exactly. Most are. Most are just basic creatures created by the core to defend its territory, but if they live long enough, or the core is powerful enough, mobs can become intelligent, and even have the strength to venture outside of the dungeon and survive without the core's support. Generally these are rarer mobs, or represent particularly powerful and experienced dungeons. Sometimes mobs can have very interesting relationships with their core too. Especially since a core can hijack a mob's body and control it directly.