Dungeons

Dungeons and adventure sites are dangerous locations with internal logic — ecology, factions, history, and treasures that make sense together. They’re not pre-built. They’re generated from rumors when players create a reason to go there.

The rumor-first approach: a dungeon starts as unreliable gossip in the lore layer and resolves into hard canon only when players engage with it. What players think they know shapes what’s actually there.

Rumors First

Before generating a dungeon, gather the rumors. These are lore nodes — things the party has heard, read, or been told. They don’t have to be accurate. They just have to be what players are working with.

The Ex Umbra campfire approach: gather around a metaphorical campfire and compile what the party knows. Unreliable narrators. Contradictory accounts. Fragments. Then generate the site from that material — confirming some rumors, contradicting others, ignoring the rest.

This is what makes dungeon discovery satisfying. Players aren’t finding a random dungeon. They’re finding out which things they believed were true.

Generation Procedure

Procedures pending full development. Sources: Ex Umbra (primary), Delve & Rise (solo/mapping), Perilous Wilds (monsters and dangers).

Rumors and Discovery — Compile lore nodes, identify contradictions, determine which are true.

Mapping — Collaborative mapping using Ex Umbra’s heart turn and tremor turn. Card-driven room generation. Solo mapping via Delve & Rise.

Ecology and Denizens — The dungeon as a living place. Who lives here, why, how do they interact? Faction dynamics within the site. Threats that react to party actions.

Treasures and Rewards — Meaningful loot connected to history and faction goals. Reward tokens. Treasures that become lore nodes for future sessions — artifacts with history, documents with secrets, items that factions want.

Dungeons as Lore Archives

Every dungeon is a cluster of lore nodes made physical. The sealed vault the Miners broke into — the history of that vault, what was inside, who sealed it and why — is all lore that players discover by exploring it. The dungeon is the investigation site for the historical event that created it.

This is why abandoned settlement districts (Spades buildings) become instant dungeon sites. They’re the same thing: a physical location where history left something behind.

The GUMSHOE Guarantee Applied

Every dungeon must have at least one navigable path for each relevant party capability. A social character guarantees a social lead — maybe a prisoner, a faction dissenter within the dungeon’s ecology, or a spirit that can be reasoned with. A stealth-focused party finds a path that rewards careful movement. Combat-heavy parties can fight their way through, but don’t have to.

The dungeon doesn’t generate without these paths. They’re structural requirements, not optional features.