Dungeon

Adventurers were valued because of their innovative methods for exploring dungeons.

This article is about the ruins of adventure. For the magazine, see Dungeon magazine.

A dungeon was a kind of environment or structure found on Toril, in Realmspace, and other distant planes. Though often hard to find and extremely dangerous, they were a much sought-after source of treasure for adventurers, tales for bards, and lore for scholars. They also served as the homes of bandits and monsters, repositories of long-lost magic, and the tombs of long-dead gods.

Definition

The original definition of a dungeon in Faerûn was that of a place used as a prison, but as adventurers explored ruins old and new, the term "dungeon" came to broaden immensely and included any resilient old place of stone that involved monsters, treasure, and exploration. As a result, it was commonly understood in Faerûn that dungeons could be anything from the cellars of ruined homes to vast underground labyrinths.

The eyes of Moloch's statues were exceptionally tantalizing prizes for adventurers.

In the Realms, most dungeons were quite ancient and often continuously inhabited over the centuries by various creatures, intelligent or otherwise. This led to them becoming some combination of battlefield, ruin, biosphere, and habitation that separated them from a common ruin or animal den and created a distinct place often far removed from the surrounding natural or urban environment.

Dominion over dungeons and underground spaces was originally held by Ibrandul, the Skulking God, though he was killed by Shar during the Time of Troubles due to her jealous possessiveness over dark places. She proceeded to take over his portfolio and impersonate him, controlled his priesthood, and otherwise ruled over dungeons and the subterranean world using his name.

Ultimately, a dungeon was a confined space filled with danger and treasure in which adventurers practiced their trade, though exceptions to this existed. This common understanding and acceptance led to the High Sun Games of Neverwinter in the 1490s DR, which used an imitation-dungeon arena stocked with real monsters such as mimics, displacer beasts, and gelatinous cubes.

Notable Dungeons

Undermountain lay just a short distance away from the average Waterdhavian.

Some dungeons were extremely well known in the Realms, or had extraordinary properties compared to their fellows:

• Dragonspear Castle, a great castle on the edge of the High Moor overtaken by successive invaders.
• Glaur, a fortress in Laerakond built for the Dawn War before the separation of Abeir from Toril.
• The Haunted Halls, an extensive fortified hideout in northern Cormyr.
• The House of Stone, a dwarven citadel and lethal trap.
• Myth Drannor, the legendary ruins of the greatest elven city in Faerûn.
• The Paths of the Doomed, a bizarre magical labyrinth beneath the Thaymount of Thay.
• Shoonach, the vast sprawling urban ruins of the massive capital of the Shoon Imperium.
• Stardock, an inhabited asteroid in the Tears of Selûne taken over by successive groups.
• The Tomb of the Nine Gods, an extensive and malevolent death trap hidden under the ruins of Omu.
• Undermountain, perhaps the most famous and elaborate dungeon (or series of dungeons) in all of Faerûn.

Dungeons could even be found in entirely different worlds, with some of them gaining legendary fame (or infamy):

• Castle Greyhawk and the Ghost Tower of Inverness on Oerth.
• Castle Ravenloft in Barovia.
• Mordain's Hall on Eberron.
• The Bleeding Citadel in Avernus.
• The many death-traps built by Acererak, such as his Tomb of Horrors.

Naming

Magic mouth allowed wizards to make dungeons even more weird than usual.

Many dungeons possessed their original names thanks to being well-known or at least well-researched. Places such as Dragonspear Castle and Shoonach were never lost to time and remained well known, while others were complete mysteries to all but the most well-informed sages. Those that were forgotten then gained new names based on their new inhabitants or some distinguishing feature that explorers noted on the way in and out. The Crumbling Stair was named for the sole above-ground remnant of its structure, while the Halls of the Hammer were named for the prominent animated, flying warhammer that patrolled it.

Some dungeons were explicitly named as dungeons, usually because their original name and history were long lost. Those included the Dungeon of Death, Dungeon of Swords, Dungeons of Torment, Dungeon of the Crypt, Dungeon of the Hark, Dungeon of the Ruins, Dungeon of the Shield, Dwarven Dungeons, and Nameless Dungeon. The Dungeon of the Inquisitor was a proper dungeon used for prisoners, but also contained dangerous, uncontrolled tunnels that were home to monsters.

Dungeons often took on multiple names as different groups discovered and inhabited them. For example, the dwarven hold of Andalbruin was peacefully abandoned, then later Netherese settlers built atop it and named it Selskartur before it too fell to ruin. When it was finally rediscovered, it was known simply as the Dungeon of the Ruins.

Types of Dungeons

Builders

Mithral Hall was a dwarven city turned dungeon.

Dwarves

Dwarves built many of the most famous and complex underground structures of Faerûn both on the surface and deep in the Underdark. Their cities, fortresses, temples, and mines could be found across the world, and their sturdy construction meant that they weathered the millennia better than any others. As they were intended to permanently support large populations, most dwarven dungeons were extremely defensible and contained the infrastructure needed to provide housing, food, and water, making them extremely desirable for later occupants. Great dwarven cities like Gauntlgrym and Mithral Hall became massive dungeons, while the military tunnels beneath Fell Pass made for smaller but no less intricate delves.

The duergar built cities in the Underdark every bit as grand as their cousins, and layered them with fortifications and redoubts. Their imperious hostile stance with most of their neighbors ensured constant conflict, demanding that their settlements and colonies be extremely well defended.

Elves

Surface elves rarely built extensively underground, but the ruins of their ancient fortresses, tombs, and cities resulted in many dungeons regardless. The Ardeep Forest was dotted with small ruins, while the High Forest region contained the lost fortress of Nar Kerymhoarth, the ruins of Glaurachyndaar, and Nithrithvinae's Tomb.

Drow-built dungeons were notable in that they tunnelled from the Underdark up to the surface, rather than the other way around. These utilitarian outposts served as fortified trade posts, or military bases for raids on enemies. As both these tasks involved the transfer of prisoners and slaves, they were well-equipped with holding pens.

Dragons

Dragons lived in spacious lairs that housed themselves, their eggs, and their hoard in safety. Though they sometimes excavated spaces by their own efforts, they were far more likely to move into pre-existing natural caverns or forcefully take over dungeons built by others. Every dragon's lair contained at least one large central chamber that they could fly and fight in, and (unless the dragon could teleport) a hidden access tunnel that the dragon could fly or swim through to reach the outside world. Any draconic servants lived in connected caverns or nearby surface villages.

Beholders

Sarrukh ruins were exceptionally spooky.

Beholders built elaborate, expansive lairs to fulfil their sense of paranoia and grandeur, and store their many trophies and treasures. They enslaved creatures using their charm eye beams, and carved out large areas themselves using their disintegrate beams. These lairs contained vertical shafts and other architecture designed for the beholder to float along, making them much harder to navigate for non-flying intruders. They also tended to contain small armies of minions such as humans, kobolds, goblinoids, ogres, and orcs, as well as collections of exotic pets such as basilisks, otyughs, and smaller, weaker beholderkin like gazers.

Creator Races

The creator races built the oldest surviving dungeons in the Realms. Their ancient strongholds were hidden and went largely unnoticed by the world, containing ancient lore and artifacts guarded by powerful liches and armies of servitors. Hidden outposts like Oreme and the Hall of Mists served as dangerous remnants of those long-gone ancient empires.

Eccentric individuals and conspiratorial groups built hidden strongholds that were strongly defended against the outside world. Wealthy adventurers built fortified homes, reclusive mages created magically-warded studies and laboratories, and organizations such as the Cult of the Dragon and Zhentarim maintained networks of hidden bases to operate from in hostile territory. These dungeons were typically well-designed and well-appointed with both defenses and treasures, and were linked via portals to allow rapid and secret access.

Halflings & Gnomes

Halflings and gnomes were not famous dungeon-builders, but they did tend to build shallow underground homes, mines, and redoubts hidden in the sides of hills. Though hardly as elaborate or massive as others, on the occasions that they were abandoned they made fine enough dungeons.

Humans

Humans and other surface-dwelling civilizations were less likely to build elaborate underground complexes, but dungeons did emerge from the ruins of their fallen castles, cities and tombs. Many of these smaller dungeons were the cellars and catacombs of surface structures, and had the potential to be extremely dangerous due to the ill-kept ruins collapsing in on themselves. In contrast, the great ancient magical empires of humanity—including Netheril, Jhaamdath, Narfell, and Imaskar—built many of the most incredible dungeons known in later ages, such as Dun-Tharos, the Celestial Nadir, and Ythryn.

Intents

Dungeon denizens could use cunning to overcome invaders instead of force.

Many dungeons were the abandoned and ruined remnants of larger structures, fallen to disrepair and home to new inhabitants. Castles, temples, and tombs were often made of sturdy stone, built into well-designed underground spaces, and intended to withstand warfare, disasters, and the passage of time, and so survived physically after they were abandoned and forgotten. Many dungeons were thus the incidental remnants of the past, their original purpose long lost.

• Cragmaw Castle consisted of a single large structure that had partially collapsed, though intact enough to have distinct internal areas.
• Sarbreen was a great dwarven city that was destroyed by orcs, and its ruins were then built atop by the city of Ravens Bluff. Sarbreen remained partially intact beneath the new city, and still contained treasures and monsters within its secret passages.

Other dungeons were created wholesale as defensive structures, intended to dissuade intruders and kill those who pressed on. These could be the secure vaults of temples and palaces, the warded towers of wizards, sanctified tombs, sturdy fortifications, or the lairs of powerful creatures such as dragons and beholders. Whether or not in continual use by the builders, they were home to well-designed defensive architecture, ingenious mechanisms and traps, and magical defenses such as simple alarms, summoned monsters, and warding against scrying and teleportation.

• The dooms of liches were built to act as the home, study, stronghold and vault of the resident lich. As the final redoubt of powerful and often mad spellcasters, they were equipped with equally fearsome traps, monsters, spells, and servants dedicated to defending the lich's treasures and phylactery.
• The underground fortress of Karak was an immense, abandoned structure, filled with treasures and monsters.

In a dungeon designed by Acererak, even nothing could kill you.

Some rare dungeons were specifically created to lure in and kill intruders. This could be for strategic goals, or the personal malevolent fancies of the builder.

• The lich Acererak created dungeons across many worlds, stocked them with treasures and monsters, and used them to attract adventurers and heroes. Whether for his curiosity, cruelty, or fuelling his phylactery with their souls, the intruders would invariably be destroyed by the defenses within. The Tomb of Nine Gods was a prominent example in Chult of Faerûn.
• The House of Stone was a dwarven fortress that intentionally invited invading armies inside so that they could be destroyed by traps, hostile architecture, and a small team of defenders. Even after its abandonment, it remained a formidable challenge for explorers and looters.
• Xammux and the Library of Tarchamus was an elaborate, spiteful trap devised by the Netherese arcanist Tarchamus that was intended to lure in and kill his rivals, and anyone else who was unlucky enough to explore it.

Forms

An illithid dungeon master.

The archetypal dungeon was a ruined surface or underground structure that survived by virtue of its sturdy construction. Underground passages could be specifically excavated for the dungeon's function, repurposed from old mines, or be built into existing natural caverns.

• The Temple of the Splendor of Splendors was a large underground temple in Chessenta that was overtaken by many successive groups of people and monsters.
• Warlock's Crypt was the fallen Netherese enclave of Orbedal, reclaimed by the lich Larloch and turned into his lair.
• Wave Echo Cave was a prime example of a dungeon, as it was a surface-linked dwarven mine that took advantage of existing natural cave formations.

Some dungeons were simply natural formations that were convenient to inhabit. These were usually caves carved out by natural forces, then inhabited by successive creatures ranging from common bandits, to gangs of trolls, to dragons. They could have artificial workings, but their form was defined by twisting tunnels and chambers, potentially leading deep underground to the Underdark.

• The Caverns of the Claws attracted trolls from the Stonelands to lair in its depths.
• The Dragon's Eye was a winding network of volcanic tunnels and caverns in Icewind Dale, whose warmth drew lizardfolk and other creatures.
• The Endless Caverns beneath the Star Mounts were home to dragons and other creatures.

Surface dungeons were also found in the Realms. They originated as expansive structures or even whole cities that fell to ruin and formed a maze of overgrown streets, wide foundations, crumbling stone walls, and partially intact buildings. Thanks to their sheer size they could contain smaller dungeons within their greater whole.

• Balanzia in T'u Lung was a great ruined city, destroyed by war and haunted by its former inhabitants.
• Mussum in Chondath was abandoned due to plague and never re-inhabited. The ruins remained untouched due to the sickness persisting over centuries.
• Omu in Chult was destroyed when its people were enslaved by the lich Acererak then buried alive in the Tomb of the Nine Gods.
• Tempat Larang was the southern capital of Anok-Imaskar, and was buried by volcanic ash and lava.

Dungeons could also be contained within extradimensional demiplanes as a means of ensuring security and gaining additional room to work with, or made up of physically disconnected spaces linked by portals. Though rare, their unusual origins typically meant that they were stocked with magical defenses, enchanted treasures, arcane lore, and terrifying guardians. They could also have extreme, unintended changes to their form, as the demiplanes or portals took on new properties due to their magic warping or failing over time.

• The Celestial Nadir was an Imaskari demiplane used for experimentation, storage, and transport.
• Holdfast was an ancient elven hideout made up of portal-connected spaces, protected by magic and constructs.
• The Wizard's Pit beneath the ruins of Crownpost was made up of numerous portal-connected spaces.

Ecology

Mimics were perfectly adapted to ambush prey in dungeons.

Unusual creatures often made their homes in dungeons, as they were able to exploit the peculiarities of a dungeon environment to the fullest extent. The bizarre biology of such creatures meant that they were rarely found elsewhere, though dungeons were also inhabited by common surface creatures such as rats, small insects, and bats. Larger surface animals were also known to adapt to deep and spacious dungeons, with packs of wolves and flocks of birds living part-time or full-time underground, while underground pools, rivers, and lakes were home to home to fish and other aquatic animals. After many generations of living in darkness, they tended to develop darkvision or other adaptions that helped them survive.

The builders of dungeons sometimes kept exotic zoological or botanical collections that could escape their confines once the dungeon fell to ruin. Likewise, if a dungeon included portals that connected to distant locales, it could be home to incongruous creatures that wandered through and laired in the new location. Many dungeons were connected to the Underdark, and so were inhabited by subterranean monsters close to the surface.

• Carrion crawlers enjoyed moist, dark, and filthy spaces, and so often lived inside of dungeons.
• Cave fishers were well-adepted to ambushing prey in the Underdark, and this translated to dungeons that gave them enough space to lurk in.
• Darkmantles disguised themselves as rocky stalagmites before attacking.
• Gelatinous cubes filled a cubic space and were well-adapted to slowly travelling along regular stone passages, digesting any edible matter found along the way.
• Lurkers hid and ambushed prey from the ceilings of caves and tunnels.
• Mimics used their shapechanging to hunt, and had the intelligence to take the form of attractive objects such as treasure chests that adventurers and looters would be drawn to.
• Oozes such as gray oozes, ochre jellies, and black puddings often inhabited dungeons. They lurked in choice areas and allowed prey to blunder into them, removing the need for active hunting.
• Otyughs made their homes in middens and sewers, and would happily devour unfortunate explorers.
• Piercers were almost indistinguishable from stalactites and could only hunt from an overhead ceiling, limiting them to underground caverns and structures.
• Ropers resembled stalagmites, and ambushed prey from this disguise.
• Rust monsters were pacifistic and devoured metals, finding ideal homes in treasure-stocked dungeons visited by metal-carrying intruders. Though unlikely to kill adventurers on their own, they were feared and despised for their habit of destroying the weapons and armor used to fend off other threats.
• Trappers could use limited shapeshifting to disguise themselves as entire floors, walls, and ceilings, and then surround and crush prey.

Ascomoids were unusually mobile for fungi.

Molds, slimes, and fungi were omnipresent in dark spaces with a modicum of damp, and were especially prevalent in natural caverns. The wide variety of mushrooms, yeasts, and mildews were the basic food supply for grazing herbivores and omnivores, and could also act as phosphorescent light sources or be dangerously toxic to eat. Some had extraordinary abilities and posed potentially lethal threats to adventurers or anything else that lived underground:

• Brown mold fed on heat, and could suck the warmth out of living creatures.
• Green slime was feared and hated, as it dripped down on prey and quickly reproduced, devouring all organic matter.
• Shrieker mushrooms grew underground and used their piercing scream to attract creatures that would then be killed by other predators. They were sometimes cultivated by residents as living alarm systems.
• Violet fungi often cohabited with shriekers and used their flailing tentacles to poison nearby prey.
• Yellow mold expelled a cloud of poisonous spores that could fill entire tunnels.

Tools

A full set of tools were well advised.

In addition to weapons, healing supplies, and a good supply of food and water, dungeon-delvers were well advised to bring specialized equipment along to explore and survive:

• 10-foot poles and collapsible poles, to probe the way ahead and test for traps.
• Ball bearings, to test for slopes and other irregularities, or slip up foes.
• Chalk, to mark paths and leave messages.
• Climber's kits, to safely ascend or descend perilous heights.
• Crowbars, to force open doors, boxes and other obstacles.
• Drills, for boring through wood or even metal and stone given enough time.
• Holy water, for destroying fiends and undead, or reconsecrating holy sites.
• Magnets, for manipulating small metal objects.
• Silver or steel mirrors, for looking around corners, avoiding visual petrification, or signalling with light.
• Oil, to fuel lights, burn obstacles, and finish off trolls.
• Rope, chain, wire, and twine, for climbing, securing items and captives, or making traps.
• Rubbing kits, to make copies of graven text and images for later investigation.
• Scroll cases, for protecting maps, records, and magical scrolls from water damage.
• Spikes and pitons, to jam doors shut or use as climbing aids.
• Thieves' tools, to finesse locks, traps, and other mechanical devices.
• Tongs, for safely grabbing and manipulating things at a distance.
• Tools such as shovels picks, hammers, and saws, for breaking through obstables or building new constructions.
• Torches, candles, or lanterns (bullseye, hooded, or regular) to light the way and start fires.

Magical items had an unending number of uses in dungeons, but some proved more reliably useful than others.

• Bag of tricks, to produce an animal servant on the spot.
• Bag of holding or portable hole, to easily carry in large amounts of supplies and carry out large amounts of treasure.
• Dust of dryness, to reduce flooding and store water for later.
• Immovable rod, to provide the perfect anchor point.
• Nolzur's marvelous pigments, for producing quick solutions to problems.
• Ring of X-ray vision, to see through walls and doors safely.
• Sovereign glue, to definitively bind or seal a door or mechanism.

Traps & Hazards

Dungeons often contained simple and complex mechanical traps.

Traps were used to passively deal with intruders to dungeons, and could be of magical or mechanical design. Most dungeons contained chokepoints like doors and narrow passages, and so provided many opportunities for cunning trapcraft. The simplest traps like bell-alarms and mounted crossbows found use by practical-minded kobolds and bandits, while elaborate devices like rotating drum chambers and summoned outsiders were the domain of those with too much time and money. They were were best used to support active defenders who were intimately familiar with the battleground and could lure attackers into prepared positions and force them to deal with both at the same time. Magical dangers included the unpredictable phenomena caused by the decay or malfunction of magical traps and defenses, and living spells could be found roaming dungeons as magic ran rampant or experimentations went awry.

Artificial constructs were mostly found in the ruins of temples, palaces, and wizard towers, as they were an expensive but durable defense that avoided many of the weaknesses of living defenders, while being more proactive and adaptive than traps. Creations like golems and helmed horrors were often limited to attacking intruders that approached their designated area, and remained there until finally destroyed.

The undead were a common threat found in dungeons, whether animated by stray magical energies, part of an intended defensive measure, or raised by opportunistic necromancers. Zombies, skeletons, shadows, and ghosts could be found haunting the tombs where they were interred or wandering the sites that they died, while ghouls and ghasts lurked in hidden lairs while searching for carrion. More powerful and intelligent undead such as wights, vampires, mummies, and liches tended to take over or build entire dungeons to serve their purposes, and used legions of lesser undead as their servants.

Environmental Dangers

Undead were a persistent threat in dungeons, as they didn't need to eat or breathe.

Enclosed underground dungeons were prone to natural and incidental dangers, many of which were shared in common with the Underdark, especially if the complex linked to or was inside the Underdark.

• Cave-ins were a threat anywhere underground, capable of crushing or trapping creatures. They could be triggered by natural geological shifts, or more dramatically as part of magical battles that caused great shocks and impacts. Natural caverns and poorly-shored mines were the most likely to collapse in on themselves, while well-designed underground habitation such as dwarven cities were usually quite resistant to structural failure.
• Falls were a worry in proximity to the edges of monolithic structures and deep chasms. These dangers were exacerbated if combat broke out in such a location.
• Fires posed a threat not only for the burns they could inflict, but for the consumption of oxygen in confined spaces that could suffocate living creatures. Fortunately, as many dungeons were long-abandoned or carved directly out of the earth, burnable materials such as wood were not necessarily present.
• Flooding was a terrible threat in confined spaces, particularly underground. Air-breathers (which included most adventurers) could easily be drowned as chambers and tunnels filled with water.
• Temperatures could vary wildly throughout underground dungeons, even without accounting for magical effects. Underdark lakes could be numbingly cold, while geothermal heat could raise temperatures to lethal highs.
• Toxic gases could disorient, incapacitate, or kill living creatures, especially in confined spaces. Gas could occur naturally from the environment such as volcanism, or be from artifice such as traps. Some noxious gases could even explode, threatening to start fires and cause structural collapse.
• Volcanism caused a variety of dangers in addition to the obvious threat of exposed magma or lava flows. Volcanism led to earthquakes and cave-ins, toxic gases, bursts of steam, and bodies of superheated water.

Appendix

Behind the Scenes

Reaching the end of a dungeon or a wiki article was often a gruelling and lonely task.

“

A generic term for any castle, location, or ruin that serves as the site of an underground adventure.

”

— Dungeon Masters Guide 1st edition Glossary

Dungeons are used within the context of Dungeons & Dragons as a means of presenting adventure gameplay such as puzzles, traps, combat encounters, and social interactions in a series of discrete scenes much like a flowchart. This allows the Dungeon Master to plan, anticipate, and respond to the players more effectively, as there is a semi-linear order to these scenes. The conceit of a classic dungeon as a series of underground rooms connected by hallways with obstacles such as locked doors, traps, and monsters along the way is intended to facilitate this gameplay style, and it can be extended to structures that are very much not dungeons. This guided, semi-constrained gameplay separates dungeons from the random encounters and freeform exploration that could take place elsewhere in the "open world."

Gallery

Dungeons often provided extremely novel and unpleasant ways to die.

Dungeons were often home to hostile forces that actively worked against intruders.