While exploring the dark world, the man spotted something that stood out amid the rocks. It was a large stone face with a mouth that looked open, as if you could go in. The traveler made a beeline towards the mouth and took his first step in the pitch-black darkness. He saw a torch flickering in the distance and headed over there to retrieve it. When he took it off the wall, he held it up, seeing that the cavern he was in was more expansive than he thought. It turned out he was in a fantasy dungeon!
One of many fantasy environments, the dungeon is the most intriguing because there’s so many variations of it, meaning no two are ever the same. It’s easily customizable and you can put it just about anywhere.
While the fantasy dungeon is seen more in video games, it gets its fair share of use in books and other media. The reason why it’s so prevalent in video games is that it offers a challenge for players that tests their courage and spirit. They must confront dangerous beasts and solve easy-to-difficult puzzles.
Many different types of enemies pop up in the dungeon. This makes each one fun to explore for you never know what’s lurking in the next room, let alone the next corner! These beasts are considerably more dangerous than the ones outside.
The fantasy dungeon plays a great role in the story. It’s a setting the hero must explore to solve its puzzles, defeat the monsters, and vanquish the boss who’s guarding something powerful he needs in order to defeat the villain of the tale.
This is the twenty-sixth article in the series chronicling the different kinds of fantasy environments. If you end up liking this article and want to read more, you can go to our blog page.
Let’s grab a sword and shield and prepare to step foot in this most mysterious environment!
A fantasy dungeon is a place of interest in the world. It can be a castle, a cave entrance, or holy temple where people pray to the deities of the world. Or it can be something else. That’s one thing that makes it so fascinating!
The dungeon works with just about any environment, whether it’s a forest or volcano or graveyard. The trick is to make it feel like it fits right in with its surroundings. You see this all the time in video games and it works. Where you find one tells you a preview of what you expect to see inside.
While a fantasy dungeon is a natural extension of what’s around it, there are new elements inside that you must work out before you face off against the boss. These elements come in the form of puzzles that the hero must use something at his disposal to solve before he can move on.
Puzzles are a centerpiece of the dungeon. Some are quite simple like pressing a switch that opens a door. Others are far more complicated, such as manipulating the terrain to your advantage to reach a higher or lower floor. Each dungeon has a signature puzzle that the hero must unravel before moving onto the boss.
A fantasy dungeon is expansive, spanning multiple floors. Basic ones have either one or two floors whereas complex ones have more than five. The scope and difficulty of the puzzles and the number of floors reflect how challenging a dungeon is.
The ambience in one differs from another. You can have one that makes you feel like you’re inside a tree or one where you’re exploring the ruins of an abandoned castle with sand dripping all over. The ambience sets the tone for the dungeon and foreshadows the challenges waiting for the hero.
Many monsters roam the halls of the fantasy dungeon, regardless of where it’s located. While many of them can be found outside, there’s a few rare ones who only live in it. The monsters make traversing one difficult since one little mistake can very well cost everything.
Vicious beasts like bats love the dungeon since it’s a great place for them to hide out in. They don’t have to worry about predators; they can just wait for their prey to wander right in and they can attack them. They like to overwhelm their prey with their great numbers.
A number of evil plants make their nests in the dungeon. They like the darkness and will zealously guard their home from outsiders since they view them as a threat. They attack with their vines, hoping to choke them, or bite them with their poisonous teeth.
One rare creature you expect to see in a fantasy dungeon is the undead. The dungeon is the perfect place for them, since there’s little light, which is the one thing they’re weak to. Though they move slow, they’re capable of draining the life out of someone and they do so by biting them.
You also have possessed monsters. Formless spirits take control of an object or another creature and use it to attack someone. They continue possessing them until either their bodies are destroyed or they’re forced out. After the bodies are defeated, the spirits need to be obliterated and only light can smite such demons.
We can’t forget about the big bad ol’ boss, the guardian of the dungeon. Bosses come in all kinds. Some are simply larger versions of some enemies found within the dungeon. Others are wholly unique species. They’re the most powerful enemy, featuring attacks not found anywhere in the dungeon. One trait all bosses have in common is that they feel like they belong in the places where you face them. This helps maintain the audience’s immersion in the world.
And there’s so many more than the ones mentioned here! It’s up to you, the creator, to populate a dungeon with enemies that feel like they belong there.
To break it down into the essentials, the role a fantasy dungeon plays in the story is to be a required setting where the hero has no choice but to press forward with an iron resolve. That resolve will help him endure everything it throws at it before he’s free to move on.
In many worlds, the dungeon is a core part of the main story, where the hero must retrieve something that will aid him greatly in his war against the forces of evil. This part of the tale is split into two parts: getting there and surviving its many threats.
The first focuses on how the hero makes it to the entrance. This part of the story also shows how the fantasy dungeon is affecting everything around it. It begins when he gets word of trouble brewing somewhere in the world and he heads over there to see what’s going on. Usually a local town is suffering the brunt of the trouble and the hero speaks with the locals to put everything all together.
Eventually the hero deduces that the dungeon is the source of the maladies affecting the town and he learns its location after speaking with the town’s leaders. He makes his way there where he goes in. The reason why the hero is helping the townsfolk is because he believes the big bad is behind their troubles and he seeks to repair the damage the villain caused.
The second part of the story chronicles the hero’s journey through the dungeon. As he slays many foes, solve puzzles, and collects treasure, he grows in strength until he’s ready to face the source of all the troubles plaguing the land.
The boss winds up being one of the villain’s key henchmen, tasked with wrecking havoc to prevent the townsfolk from rising up against him. Thus defeating him is necessary, not just for the townsfolk, but for the story, for he’s guarding something that will prove instrumental to the hero’s victory against his dark master.
Vanquishing the boss in battle leads to the hero gaining a new power as well as more allies against the big bad. He’ll need as many allies and powers as he can get to stand a chance to end the threat of the villain once and for all.
Like it or not, the fantasy dungeon is an integral environment to have in a world. It offers challenges no other environment has and tests the hero’s stamina and problem-solving skills. The dungeon makes the hero stronger, preparing him for when it comes time to stand off against his main enemy in the story’s climax.
The dungeon is an environment that can be used anywhere. Want to put one at the bottom of a lake? Why not? Just think of a way the hero can get there without dying. You could even place one way up in the skies! There’s really no wrong place to put one!
Strong monsters dwell in the dungeon’s depths. They range from easy-to-kill ones like bats to overpowered beasts such as dragons. These creatures making traveling through one challenging since you don’t know what’s waiting for you down the narrow corridor or the other side of a door leading to who-knows-where.
The fantasy dungeon is an important component of the story. Ridding it of the curse afflicting it restores a part of the world that fell under hardship due to the big bad’s meddling and gives the hero another reason to stop him. And he emerges on the other side stronger than before and that strength will prove instrumental in the final showdown.
There’s no doubt about having a fantasy dungeon in your world. It’ll be an important landmark, a place of significance only a select few can trek to. Now you need to create your own and who knows? Your unique dungeon might very well be a hit with your audience!
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