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Dungeons are unique environments in that they offer multifaceted challenges. They’re where you explore every nook and cranny, searching for clues to the location of the big bad boss who’s waiting for you. You must also defeat waves of enemies who seek to stop you and solve many different kinds of puzzles. All these mechanics and more you can find in the ice dungeon.
Out of the many various types of dungeons, the ice dungeon is one of the most challenging to explore since you have to contend with slippery floors. These slick-laden surfaces make traversing treacherous since it’s difficult to control yourself. Add dynamic combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving and you have the makings of one of the most frustrating dungeons to investigate.
Such frustration is outweighed by the beauty of the ice dungeon. It’s one of the most breathtaking, especially on the outside where you can see the exterior from afar. While it’s commonly found in cold places, it so seamlessly fits in with its surroundings you never feel its out of place.
Its beauty masks a cold, forbidding aesthetic. The ice dungeon is associated with cold, so it comes to no surprise that it excels in that area. Its frostiness seeps in each room, the ceiling, and the floor. There’s no escaping its bitterness; you have to learn to adapt to it in order to conquer it.
The ice dungeon is home to cold-blooded fiends. They’ve learned to survive in low temperatures and have no compunctions about going after undesired guests who interlope upon their home, even going so far as to commit murder.
This is the eighth in the series looking at the various types of dungeons. If you like this one and want to read more, you can find them on our blog page.
If there’s one word to describe what the typical ice dungeon looks like from the outside, it would be mesmerizing. It calls out to you, as if beckoning you to come inside from afar, like a siren. Little do you know, it intends to push you to your breaking point and it won’t stop there.
Found in cold locales like the tundra or snowy mountains, the ice dungeon’s appearance comes from what’s around it. It’s built to withstand the subzero temperatures and climate all year-round. That’s why ice is one of the most-used materials that go into constructing it.
Using ice as the top material enables designs you can’t replicate with any other element. You can go with a crystal-like castle or temple that will never melt, even during the hot days of summer. Going down this route ensures the dungeon will stand out prominently among its surroundings, as your eyes can’t help but be drawn to it.
Besides ice, rock is also a common building material of the ice dungeon. Some designs show a mixture of both ice and rock and one such example is the ice cave. No matter where you are in the cave, you’ll see some ice glazed over some rocks, icicles hanging from the ceiling, or parts of the ground will be icy.
Another design to incorporate both is to carve the outside into a mountainside. The outside can take the appearance of a revered figure, serving as a tribute to the deity of those living nearby. It can also be a castle that’s partially etched into the mountain and goes in where it’s fully built with nothing but rock and ice.
If you want to make an ice dungeon truly stand out, you can go with a design that features elements from other places like a haunted mansion or glacial volcano. How many times do you get the chance to trek through a volcano that’s belching snow to to find the temple somewhere in its depths or dive into freezing water where a large fish-shaped cathedral-like building sits on the bottom of a lake?
The interior of the ice dungeon is the same as on the outside: cold and forbidding. It’s a place where warmness comes to die. A sense of melancholy pervades the area and you cannot help but feel despair in your heart the first moment you enter this place.
The feeling of helplessness ever gnaws at you as you examine the first room of the ice dungeon. You know this is but a taste of what’s to come in this place and you lament at how such a forsaken place could exist in the world. Everything you feel is all by design, it’s meant to drive you out so you can’t discover its many secrets, the least of which is how it became the way it is now.
The coldness dominates all. You feel it in every breath you take. Your body shivers as you struggle fruitlessly to warm up. Everything your fingers touch is either too cold or frozen to the point you can’t even feel it. The frigidness is meant to deter you from the many dangers of this place, so you don’t even realize it until it’s too late.
There’s little light in the ice dungeon, which only makes it even more forbidding. The lack of light means many shadows line the corridors and the rooms. These shadows show how the dungeon’s fallen under the darkness. The hostile atmosphere means you need to be on your guard, despite the dungeon attempting to lull you into a false sense of of security.
Combining the melancholic, cold, and forbidding ambience of the ice dungeon results in a place tinged with palpable tension. Everything’s conspiring against you, from the elements to the enemies and slick surface. The tension in the air spurs you to go forward as you work your way through the dungeon, hoping to get to the source of its problems.
You would think that a place like the ice dungeon would be bereft of life but it wouldn’t be a dungeon if there were no enemies. The monsters you come across haven’t just learned how to survive in such a cold place, they’ve flourished and will do everything they can to stop intruders from encroaching upon their territory.
There are two main groups of monsters in the ice dungeon: organic and inorganic. The former are lifeforms who are cold-blooded, which enables them to live in subzero temperatures and can reproduce whereas the latter features creatures created through magic or other means and can’t reproduce. You see a mixture of both throughout the many rooms and hallways.
Organic monsters include lizards and snow serpents. These reptiles, unlike their warm brethren, adapted to life in a desolate place and use their fangs to attack and kill their prey. Sometimes you have underwater areas in the ice dungeon, which features fish and other underwater creatures who aren’t affected by the freezing water. You see other monsters like bats and rats.
The inorganic lifeforms in the ice dungeon come in a wide variety. You have evil floating ice crystals who dart towards you the moment they spot you. Resurrected corpses stand stationery, waiting for you to get close to where they can seize you and suck your blood. Evil snow monsters pelt you with snowballs from afar and attack with their hands if you’re too close.
The prize for slogging through one of the most challenging areas the hero will explore in his journey is a battle against a vicious beast, the boss of the ice dungeon. That beast comes in many forms and different shapes. Some can be large lizards like a dragon who can spit ice. Others can be massive ice crystals that use magic to change shape. It’s up to you, the creator, to come up with a fantastic design that not only fits in with the dungeon but serves as its final test.
In conclusion, the ice dungeon is a great place to test the hero’s resolve. It throws everything at him, from the elements to the cold-blooded beasts lurking in the darkness of its halls. Passing all these tests only makes him stronger, more determined to stop the villain from destroying the world.
The ice dungeon has some amazing designs that entice you from afar. Using ice as the main building material leads you to come up with wild designs that you can’t find anywhere else. Who wouldn’t want to go in a place that’s completely encased in ice?
The outside of the ice dungeon pulls you in so that what’s inside can take you out. The cold, forbidding ambience depresses you, making you feel like getting to the end is impossible. It’s meant to get you to surrender and only those who possess great inner strength can push it aside and conquer it.
Glacial enemies are all over the ice dungeon. Cold-blooded lizards and evil snowmen stand in your way as you unravel the dungeon’s secrets and defeating all these monsters will clear the path to the boss. You’ll need to act quickly, for they can freeze you in a number of seconds.
If you’re creating a story where dungeons play an important role, you should include the ice version in it! It tests the hero in many ways, from combat and puzzle-solving to conquering his demons and fears. In the end, he’ll be all the better for it, for he’ll come out stronger than he was when he went in.
Only you can come up with an ice dungeon that becomes a mega-hit with your audience, making them want to come back for more!
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Sunfire
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