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Dungeons are an integral part of fantasy. They are major milestones in the story, where the hero receives something that will help him defeat the villain at the story’s climax. This is the beginning of another series, this time focusing on the different kinds of dungeons you see in the genre. While this series is more geared towards video games, since players can explore them and interact with what they encounter in dungeons, they still have a presence in other media. The first one we’ll look at is the forest dungeon.
What will this series cover? Each type of dungeon we look at will be broken in three parts:
Everyone knows that dungeons serve as a testing ground for the hero, where he must confront a series of challenges, whether they be enemies or puzzles, before facing off against its boss. Depending on where they’re placed in the story, dungeons can be fairly easy with only a few challenges, or difficult with many powerful enemies and tough puzzles.
At its heart, a dungeon is just a series of interconnected rooms that the hero must navigate in order to unearth its secrets and find the boss’s room so he can fight him and restore the dungeon to what it was before.
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A forest dungeon takes place in, well a forest. Some of the greatest of this kind took place within trees — think of Inside the Deku Tree in Ocarina of Time or the Forest Temple in Twilight Princess.
Using a tree to serve as a forest dungeon works thematically. On the surface level, it makes perfect sense. You’re introduced to wholly forest elements and you can’t help but wonder how a tree can have all these expansive rooms inside it. If you’re making a forest dungeon, you can’t go wrong with using a tree!
If you think that designating a tree as a forest dungeon’s been overdone, feel free to go in another direction. Be willing to experiment with different things to make a memorable dungeon of the forest.
Think about what comes to mind when you think of a forest. Obviously trees but push a little deeper than that. Lean into an element that’s associated with it. Maybe it’s haunted or there’s a great cave nestled deep within the trees.
Haunted forests appear in many worlds and they work quite well. Forests are spooky in nighttime with only the light of the moon shimmering. You can apply that to creating a forest dungeon. Have an abandoned house or castle or something else where the ghosts of the forest roam around aimlessly, their moaning and wailing being heard from far away. This can scare people and provides a great, clever twist in how to utilize a forest dungeon.
Using a cave as a forest dungeon is a good idea. For starters, a forest hides many secrets, notwithstanding a cave. The cave can go deep underground the trees. By crafting a forest cave, you have a mixture of two elements that you don’t see together all too often.
Moving into the inside proper, what you see isn’t the only important factor to take into consideration when designing a forest dungeon. The atmosphere plays a key role in setting the dungeon’s tone and nowhere is this more evident than the first room you step in after entering it. This room sets the mood for all the others that come after it so getting it right matters.
What’s the usual atmosphere for a forest dungeon? You feel like you’ve been transported in an exotic, fantastical realm that you never knew existed. There’s vines growing on the walls, the ground is either soft from the dirt or hard from tree bark and there’s wild plants all over. It’s as if you stepped in a long-forgotten world.
Since forests are synonymous with nature, there’s an earthiness to the ambience. You feel it in the air and your body as you move from room to room. Nothing about it suggests it’s man-made, which is ironic, given that the dungeon is an artificial creation.
The ambience of a forest dungeon depends on what kind it is. While earthiness is the go-to, you can go in a wholly different direction. For instance, if it’s in a haunted setting, a gloomy atmosphere is perfect. You want to feel a sense of dread and forbidding that only escalates the deeper you delve into the dungeon.
If you opt to go with a cave in the forest as the dungeon, you can use its darkness to create uncertainty. The darkness generates tension, since there’s no way of knowing what’s lurking in the dark. Additionally, it plays off against the fear of the unknown which can cause your mind to trick you into imagining things that aren’t there.
The color tones you use to design the dungeon should accentuate the feeling you want your viewers to feel as they explore its hallways and rooms, whether they’re playing a video game or reading about it. You want them to be part of the action.
A forest dungeon is full of many enemies that are unique to it. You can’t go wrong with using some of the many beasts you see in a forest to place in the dungeon. If you like, you can put an unique spin on them by maybe giving them an unusual appearance or new form of attack. This gives you a great opportunity to come up with monsters that leave a lasting impression for your audience.
Bugs are the first thing that you associate with a forest. Bees, spiders, and centipedes are excellent insects to sprinkle in a forest dungeon. Even better, make them larger than life like the Skulltulas in The Legend of Zelda. Fighting oversized insects who want to eat you for breakfast takes a while to forget. One advantage about putting large bugs in a forest dungeon is you don’t have to have them on the floor, you can put them on the wall or the ceiling!
As to be expected, plant-based enemies dominate a forest dungeon. Due to their nature, most of them are stationery, meaning you only ever fight one in one spot, though there are some plants capable of moving around. They all like to bite and usually their mouth is drenched in poison. Another way they attack is to spit seeds from afar. True to their name, plants are found mostly on the floor with only very few on the wall and ceiling.
If you’re going with a haunted forest dungeon, you have to have ghosts! Otherwise, what’s the point? These phantoms strike fear in the heart as they float around from room to room, moaning and groaning, always searching for someone whose soul they can devour.
For a forest cave dungeon, sure you could go with using bats, since they’re an important part of the cave ecosystem. What if you took advantage of the darkness of the cave to put monsters who thrive in it, beasts like orcs or goblins? Wolves work well here as well.
Last and not the least, every dungeon has a boss. For the forest dungeon, the boss comes in several varieties, which is heavily cognizant on what kind the dungeon is. If it’s a tree-based one, either a large vicious plant or savage insect will suffice. For the haunted one, go with a ghost or another type of spirit. A troll, massive bat, or a huge worm fits right in the forest cave.
While a forest dungeon isn’t as glamorous as some others cough like fire cough, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take advantage of what it has to offer. On the contrary, you ought to go full-throttle in creating a fantastic forest dungeon.
When it comes to designing one, you have many options to choose from. While many take place in a tree, you can’t go wrong with using a haunted building or a cave. Heck, you can come up with your own spin on it!
The ambience is equally important as the design. No matter which avenue you choose, the atmosphere needs to match the design, otherwise everything falls flat. At best, you have a mediocre dungeon. Make whatever adjustments you need to make it work.
The enemies and the boss the hero encounters as he makes his way through the forest dungeon matter too. Insects, evil plants, ghosts, and so on are all great choices to put in such a place. Take your time to create enemies that fit right in home in a forest dungeon.
If your story features dungeons, you should have one based on a forest in it! If you put a lot of work into creating one that leaves a positive impression on your audience, they’ll want to come back for more!
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Thanks for reading this and until the next time,
Sunfire
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