Tacca had been told that the sheer number of choices meant that it was extremely rare for two dungeons to have the same sort of creature, let alone the same Variant. The likelihood of similar selections increased as the dungeon expanded and grew, when they could choose more creatures for their dungeons, but that didn’t change the fact that most brand-new dungeons were relatively unique.
Originally during her school exercise, Tacca had determined that a Gnoll Scout Variant – in the Bipedals category – would be the perfect choice for her.
Gnoll Scout
These humanoid-looking hyenas have excellent hearing and sense of smell, though their eyesight has a lot to be desired. Like many Bipedals, Gnolls can use weapons of almost any kind, though the Scout Variant prefers to use bows or crossbows to attack from range, though they can easily use the sling they originally come equipped with. That’s not to say that they cannot be forced into a melee role, but they suffer from a penalty to their attack damage and defense rating.
Cost (Level 1): 100 DF
Control Requirement (Level 1): 4
Creation Time (Level 1): 35 Minutes
Equipment: Sling (Ranged Attack +2), Basic Leather Cuirass (Physical Defense +2)
Physical Attack: 2
Ranged Attack: 4
Physical Defense: 4
Ranged Defense: 2
Elemental Resistance: 0
Specials: Bonus to sensing those hidden by invisibility spells and effects
Overall, the Gnoll Scout was a good mixture of attributes that didn’t seem that powerful, but when you considered the ranged aspect of its attacks it worked quite well with the right combination of traps. Being able to attack from range was something of a rarity except for a few specific creatures, and most of them were quite a bit higher in cost. There were some in the Plant category, for instance, that could shoot out poisoned thorns that inflicted a bit of damage – but they were immobile, had horrible defense, and as soon as a Raider closed with the Thornthrowers they were basically useless.
The Gnoll Scouts, on the other hand, could be equipped with melee weapons, and though they weren’t as effective with them they could at least defend themselves. For their cost of 100 Dungeon Force, they were also inexpensive enough during the starting stages of a new Core’s existence that they could be produced rapidly and in enough quantity to present a significant threat to any Raiders coming inside her dungeon.
Why such a basic creature type when she could potentially have something even more powerful? Such as the Dragonling Variant that her former Core, Jeff, had chosen that could fly and breathe fire? Well, there were three main reasons for that: Cost, Time, and Control Limit.
Firebreath Dragonling
The fire-breathing Variant of the small winged lizard, the Firebreath Dragonling, is a powerful creature that can attack from the air, staying at a slight range to attack. Its fire-breath attack can burn targets up to five feet away, though its razor-sharp claws can be employed to attack in a direct physical altercation. While it’s highly maneuverable in the air, if the Firebreath Dragonling is grounded, it suffers from a penalty to both its attack and defense.
Cost (Level 1): 1000 DF
Control Requirement (Level 1): 20
Creation Time (Level 1): 7 Hours
Equipment: N/A
Physical Attack: 5
Ranged Attack: 12
Physical Defense: 5
Ranged Defense: 8
Elemental Resistance: +50% Fire, +50% Air
Specials: Flying
Fire-breath attack that can effectively reach up to 5 feet with a 2-foot spread
First, the Dragonling Variant that Jeff had chosen took 1,000 Dungeon Force to create – which was also the maximum that a brand-new Core could hold at one time. After a few Core Improvements, that amount wasn’t as significant because more Force was available, but initially it was entirely too much to waste on a single creature.
Second, the time it took to create something like that was measured in hours instead of minutes. The Gnoll Scout, for example, required 35 minutes to create; the Dragonling – 7 hours. For a dungeon that could potentially exist for thousands of years, 7 hours didn’t seem like a long time, of course; however, time was extremely important to a new dungeon just starting up. Experience was awarded for the length of time Raiders spent in your dungeon and having your place up and running quickly after an invasion was key to getting that precious resource early and often. If groups of Raiders had to wait days or weeks to fight through your dungeon – or worse, fight through when you only had a single creature defending it because they took so long to recreate – then you wouldn’t be getting much in the way of Core Improvement.
The third reason was a little harder to comprehend, but the Control Limit had to do with how many creatures a Dungeon Core could “control” in their dungeon. Just like everything else, that Limit would increase as the Core improved, but at the start the Control Limit was 100; while more creatures could theoretically be created past that, those new ones would be “wild” – as in they could do anything. If they weren’t controlled by the Core, they could attack the other creatures, attack the Core, or even wander out of the dungeon and into the world.
When you considered the Control Limit of each creature, each of the Gnolls only required 4 points from that Limit, meaning that she could safely create 25 of them; the Dragonlings, on the other hand, she could only create 5 of because they contributed 20 points to the Control Limit. Even though they were distinctly less powerful and dangerous, she’d rather have 25 Gnolls instead of just 5 Dragonlings; the ways the greater quantity could be employed were numerous and they could be used in conjunction with each other, while she would be averse to having two of the winged lizards together, because if a single spell or effect took them both out at the same time she would be out 40% of her defensive force.
There were other personal reasons why she didn’t want a Dragonling, though – like them being able to snatch her out of the air if she wasn’t paying attention. Or, at least, they could’ve done that when she was still a Fairy, but that would be unlikely in her current state.
Therefore, the Gnoll Scout seemed like a perfect choice…before everything that had happened to her. After seeing the various ways that her Cores had failed in the creation or execution of their dungeons – or non-creation or execution, as it were – she had a better understanding of what might work. She didn’t want to make it too dangerous, not dangerous enough, or have a lack of or too many rewards; in addition, it couldn’t be boring or disorienting, it shouldn’t be difficult to navigate (one of her Cores decided that having tunnels between rooms that were 50-foot drops with tiny handholds was a good idea), and – above all else – it had to be something that would make Raiders want to come back, time and time again.
In short, she needed to create something that was unique, exciting, slightly dangerous – at least for the first few rooms, then she could ramp up the difficulty level – and dynamic. Almost all of the dungeons Tacca had learned about did the same thing; create some rooms leading to the surface, stock them with creatures and traps, and then when they improved they would dig down deeper and add more rooms, keeping the first ones basically intact the way they always were.
For example, she had heard about a dungeon that was over 2,000 years old that still had the original rooms it had built when it was newly created, still with the Goblin Fighters and few traps it had in the beginning – and nothing was ever changed after it was built. It was successful for so many years because it was constructed with thought and quality, but the Core was eventually destroyed because – even though it was challenging to make it all the way through…it was boring. With its static construction and deployment of various creatures and traps – and rewards – the Raiders got fed up with it because it became too easy to progress through.
Rationally, she thought that would be ideal, so that they would result in fewer deaths and easier rewards – but Raiders were obviously irrational. From
what she could determine, they thrived on change, on finding the newest thing, or even challenging themselves to the brink of what they could handle; they were obviously crazy, but she could – sort of – understand that. She would probably get bored after centuries as an Assistant with a Core, which was one of the reasons they had the Hibernate Ability, so that they could pass the time in between major events; with it, a century might only seem like a few months – if she slept through the normal operations of the dungeon and was only awake when she was needed.
Their irrationality also had another objective, though; whereas Dungeon Cores – and by extension Dungeon Assistants – got Experience in specifically regular measurements based upon what they did, Raiders improved themselves by other methods. A large room of a specific size that was built would return 5 Experience, no matter how many of them were constructed or how powerful the Core was; a Raider, though, received something similar to Experience called “Reserve Points” or “RPs” that was variable depending on the circumstances.
For instance, if they killed a Level 1 Gnoll Scout when they were just beginning to invade dungeons, they might receive 10 RPs; if they kept doing that for a while and got a lot stronger, then killed the same type of creature, they may only get 1 RP – or nothing at all. Apparently, from what she was told, relative strength was a major factor in how much they received, but so was variety and originality.
When you looked at the 2,000-year-old dungeon that was destroyed – while following all of the rules and regulations put forth by the DPRC – from that perspective, then it sadly made sense. For the powerful Raiders that wanted to challenge themselves with some of the newer, deadlier rooms near the end of the Core’s dungeon, they had to fight their way through hours’ worth of boring previous rooms that they’d probably fought through dozens of times before – and probably not receive any RPs for it. Sure, they got rewards, but it was just a side benefit for improving themselves; if it took too long or was too difficult to improve themselves, then all the gold or enchantment scrolls would be relatively useless trinkets.
That right there was the crux of the matter: Dungeon Cores were dependent upon Raiders to improve themselves just as much as Raiders were dependent upon Dungeon Cores. The problem, however, was that – despite having enormous power at their control to dictate what their dungeons looked like – Cores were taught to conform to the rules and regulations of the DPRC. For the short-term and even average-term, it worked amazingly well to ensure that the Cores weren’t destroyed, and that growth was steady and constant. In the really long-term, however, there was a distinct lack of instruction there; it was almost as if they wanted the older dungeons to be destroyed for some reason.
The oldest Core that she had heard about had been just under 3,000 years old, but many didn’t even make it over a millennium before they were destroyed. She didn’t know for sure, but she was fairly confident that most of them had probably been destroyed because they were considered stagnant, boring, and unchanging. Tacca wanted to be an exception to all of that.
She wanted to live for much longer than 3,000 years; if she had her way, she would live until she was around for 30,000 years or more.
To do that, she needed to keep her dungeon fresh and exciting and rewarding – and not just in material rewards, but Reserve Points as well. She wasn’t really concerned about what the DPRC had to say, because she knew all of the “rules” by heart; as much as it seemed unfair, she needed to give the Raiders what they wanted, instead of just what was acceptable. She knew that those that invaded dungeons expanded their own natural lifespan when they got stronger, so in order to keep those same people happy for centuries – and so that they wouldn’t go anywhere else – she had to prove that she was worth keeping around. She had watched and felt so many Cores being destroyed that she didn’t want to be just another casualty.
Tacca took some time to go over what she knew about the potential choices she had ahead of her and tried to strategize using her newfound outlook. To say it was hard was an understatement; taking the safest and initially most productive route was so ingrained into her that it was hard to get past that. She eventually had to toss that all out and start from scratch, keeping her eventual goal in mind.
It initially meant that her growth would be slow to come at first, but once she got up to speed with everything, she had a feeling that her development would explode. As long as her ideas caught on, of course; fortunately, she had an advantage that she wasn’t afraid to benefit from: she was from this world, and probably knew it better than any other Dungeon Core in history. Not only that, but she was an expert in the Dungeon Core systems despite never having accessed them before; it was that knowledge that she was going to lean on and do some things that had never been done before.
She couldn’t help but think that even if some of what she had been taught had been somewhat deceitful regarding the long-term survival of a Dungeon Core, everything else was likely correct – otherwise there would be many, many more destroyed Cores in the world than just the ones that she had Bonded with.
With that in mind, she started making choices from her available options…
Chapter 11
There were a number of choices that a brand-new Dungeon Core had to make before it can actually do anything; each selection dictated the direction that the dungeon would take for the immediate future – if not far beyond that. It was one of the reasons Dungeon Assistants were Placed first thing when the Cores become aware of the world around them, so as to prevent uninformed choices and so that the Cores won’t be stuck with something made in poor judgement for the rest of their existence. While they would be able to make additional choices when they improved their Cores, bad initial decisions could haunt a Core for centuries…which made what Tacca planned to do a bit insane if there was another Dungeon Assistant nearby to see her doing it.
Five major choices stood between great success and abject failure, though on the surface they didn’t seem too difficult.
Initial Starting Creature Species:
Initial Starting Creature Variant:
Trap Specialization:
Environmental Access:
Special Characteristics (Choose up to 3):
With only the slightest hesitation based on her own knowledge and assumptions, Tacca dove right into the Dungeon Creation Selection Menu again and chose Beasts; from there, she found the Canines category…and then stayed there, concentrating on it. She wasn’t sure if it would work like she thought it might, but eventually some information about the Canine family came up.
Canines
The Canine family ranges from domesticated dog species, foxes, jackals, coyotes, and wolves.
Cost Range (Level 1): 2 - 250 DF
Control Requirement (Level 1): 1 - 20
Creation Time (Level 1): 3 - 90 Minutes
Equipment: N/A
Physical Attack: 0 - 6
Ranged Attack: 0
Physical Defense: 1 - 5
Ranged Defense: 1 - 3
Elemental Resistance: Dependent upon Variants
Specials: Bonus to sensing those hidden by invisibility spells and effects
Now, normally this information was provided to Dungeon Cores so that they could get a feel for the category they were looking at without having to dig into it and see what it contained; the Canines were a popular family of creatures, if only for one in particular – the Wolf and its Variants. However, there was something that was little known outside of the DPRC and the Dungeon Assistant school she attended; when a Core picked a creature to use in their dungeon, they technically weren’t limited to picking a single species – they could actually pick an entire family of species.
The only problem with that, however, was that although they could pick a “family of species” such as Canines, that didn’t automatically give them access to create whatever they wanted. They couldn’t just select “Canine” as their choice and then create something of their choosing, because the Create Creature option didn’t
work with general families; it was for this reason that Dungeon Assistants didn’t advertise this option – because it ultimately did them no good. Any Core choosing a “family” instead of a specific species wouldn’t be able to create even a single creature until they improved their Core and were able to select another creature – if they lived that long.
Even knowing this, Tacca selected Canines as her initial starting creature – because she had some unique plans. The next step was usually to choose a Variant, which was where a Core could specialize their creature to their liking. For instance, her Gnoll Scout example from earlier was a Variant of a “Gnoll” – which didn’t have any special bonuses to anything and was just average – and instead of Scout she could’ve chosen it to be a Fighter, Brawler, Thief, Brigand, Caster, or any number of different Variants. Some – like a Gnoll Caster, for example – were very expensive in terms of Dungeon Force and Control Requirements and couldn’t even be used by a brand-new Core, while others – like a Gnoll Merchant – were practically useless in the normal operation of a dungeon.
So, why choose a bunch of Canines over a Gnoll Scout or any of the other choices available to her? Well, that all had to do with one of her future selections; that, and she still planned on acquiring a Gnoll for her dungeon in the future…
Anyway, since she had chosen a family of species instead of a solitary species, the Variant step was completely bypassed. Tacca had been expecting that, however, so moving onto the Trap Specialization options immediately wasn’t surprising.
Trap Specialization
The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) Page 10
