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A dungeon's theme is largely an aesthetic choice. A theme is the overall look and feel of the dungeon. Crawling through the sewers, going through a labyrinth under the palace, and a set of catacombs under a mausoleum should all feel like very different dungeons to the players.
Choosing a theme
Sometimes the theme is an obvious choice. Is the dungeon in a graveyard? Your theme is probably undead. However, oftentimes you will have to make a conscious choice about your dungeon's theme. The labyrinth under town is a very generic environment. What's its theme? That's up to you to decide.
When coming up with a theme, you'll need to consider such things as how close is the dungeon to civilization, what sort of natural life is near the dungeon, and is there any specific type of monster you want to use in this dungeon.
If the dungeon is close to town, then either there aren't very many dangerous creatures in the dungeon, or there are and the town is a lot more eager to have it cleared out, due to the threat it poses. A dungeon close to town is easier for low-level characters to deal with because there is less travel time between the town and the dungeon, so the party can more easily retreat and rest if they suffer too much damage. A dungeon farther from town allows for more opportunities for encounters while traveling. If the party faces threats just getting to the dungeon, then they will be more cautious and less willing to run back to town when things get tough.
Natural wildlife near the dungeon provides an obvious source of food for potential predators that have taken up residence in the dungeon. However, if the party notices a lack of wildlife around the dungeon, it could be a sign of the presence of the undead, or a very dangerous creature residing in the dungeon.
While some of these ideas may not be obvious to your players, maintaining consistency this way will help make your world and your dungeons feel more realistic.
Designing With a Theme
Once you have decided on a theme for your dungeon, you'll want to design the dungeon with that theme in mind. The majority of the encounters in your dungeon should fit your theme. If your theme is undead, at least 90% of the opponents in the dungeon should be a type of undead. Living creatures aren't very likely to share a dungeon with the undead, so an encounter with a living creature in such a dungeon would be very out of place unless you come up with some interesting reason for it.
The encounters in your dungeon aren't the only thing you should consider. The environment itself should fit the dungeon's theme. A dungeon populated mostly by spiders should have cobwebs lining the halls. If the dungeon is a cave and doesn't contain intelligent opponents, then the floor, walls, and ceiling should all look naturally formed and rough. If your dungeon was once inhabited by intelligent creatures and is now inhabited by monstrous creatures, leave a few signs of the former inhabitants lying around.
Designing Realistic Dungeons
If you want your world and your dungeons to feel like a realistic environment, you should consider why the dungeon exists in the first place. Nobody builds an elaborate series of trapped rooms and corridors, and places guards and monsters inside without a reason for it.
1. Living creatures have needs.
If your dungeon is populated by a lot of living creatures, they will need a source of water, a source of food, a place to sleep, and a place to leave their droppings. In some situations, a magically sustained dungeon can be an exception, but most creatures won't move into an environment where they would be denied their basic needs. For a realistic dungeon with living creatures, you will first need a source of water. Unless your dungeon contains a magically purified water source, then the water has to be moving. Still water eventually turns stagnate and won't be fit to drink. If there is only one water source in your dungeon, then it could become the most dangerous location in the dungeon as every creature in the dungeon visits it several times a day. Secondly, you will need a source of food. This is an easy one. Smaller creatures become the food source for larger creatures. All you need is a source of vegetation for the smaller creatures. Fungi, small plants, or bugs can be the bottom of the food chain in your dungeon. As for a place to sleep, most creatures don't require much, but many types of creatures do at least make some sort of nest or bedding to sleep on. One thing to remember is that most creatures of at least a cat's intelligence won't leave their droppings in the same place where they sleep.
2. Why is this dungeon here?
If your dungeon is located in a civilized area, perhaps it once served as a prison. If that's the case, there should be cells, bars, doors, a few traps, and some remains of the prisoners. Depending on how old it is, and what creatures reside there now, not all of these elements need to be intact.
If your dungeon is located in the mountains, perhaps it used to be a mine. If that's the case, it should appear to have been dug with picks, there should be support beams every 20-30 feet, likely rails for mine carts, and there could be some remains, such as an old, damaged lantern, a broken pick, perhaps the bones of an unfortunate miner under a collapse.
Alternatively, if your dungeon is in the mountains, it could be a naturally formed cave. If that's the case, there should be stalactites, stalagmites, possibly dripping water, a small pool, or maybe a stream.
3. Considering Traps
If you want to place traps in your dungeon, you should consider a few things. First, who built the trap? This is largely decided for you when you consider why the dungeon exists to begin with. Second, what is the trap's purpose? Traps can serve five purposes: keep someone out, keep someone in, kill, hold, or alert. A trap designed to keep someone out should block off passages while the trigger is on the outside of the trap. A trap designed to keep someone in, triggers after the trap is passed, then blocks off the exit. A trap designed to kill will employ something lethal. A trap designed to hold will attempt to keep the triggering character in one place. A trap designed to alert will make noise or create some sort of signal to bring the guards. Traps can serve more than one purpose. A trap designed to hold an intruder does little good on its own, but add an alarm to the trap, and it not only secures an intruder, but summons the guards so they can decide how to deal with the intruder.
From a realistic standpoint, alert traps should be the most commonly built. Think about ways in which we protect our homes, or how businesses protect themselves. Alarms cover doors and windows and send a signal when they are opened without authorization. This sort of trap does nothing to the intruder on its own, allowing someone to decide how to respond. If the owner of the trap sets it off by accident, there's no risk to themselves.
Hold and alert traps should be the next common trap. This is slightly more secure than the alert trap, because it tries to hold the intruder until someone arrives to deal with them.
Traps designed to keep people out would be the next common trap. These sorts of traps should have some sort of bypass after they are triggered, in case they are accidentally triggered by their owner. No intelligent creature would set up a trap that would lock him out of his own lair if he had an accident.
Traps designed to keep people in aren't very common. This sort of trap could be used in a treasure vault, so long as the vault doesn't contain an item that would make the trap pointless. This sort of trap should be combined with an alert as well, so that it acts as a hold and alert trap. However, this sort of trap could also be placed at the entrance to a tomb, in which case alerting someone isn't necessary.
Kill traps should be rare, and only placed in areas where the trap's owner wouldn't worry about triggering it accidentally. Nobody would ever put a trap that's capable of killing themselves in a place where they will regularly go.
This covers most of what you'll need to consider for designing with a theme and designing realistic dungeons. My next few posts in this series will start getting into more details of dungeon design.
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