Dark Corridors

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Dark Corridors

Choice Theory

So you come to a split in a dungeon, or you come to aroom set with three portals, each seems to lead in a different direction butthey seem identical.

Depending on party and DM, game style and preference, youeither just pick one, or have a little conference with the team, maybe lookingat the map, or start asking weird questions like “what do the corridors smelllike?”

Whether this is a good or bad thing depends very much onthe style of game and whether the needs and intuitions of the players and DMmatch.

I intuit that the ‘actual’ Old School old school processhad a lot more time for no-context choices, partly due to the prevalence ofplayer-mapping, (easier to do in-person in a 70’s game session and which wouldbe part of their problem-solving procedure), partly due to what I would expectto be longer more digressive gaming sessions and partly due to a somewhatharder more ‘masculine’ quality where its expected that some decisions will betricky, oblique or apparently pointless, either due to pseudo-naturalism or aGygaxian riddlemaster element.

I intuit that a more ‘neo’ OSR scene would have shortersessions, more likely to be online so player mapping harder, more likely towant events and drama condensed and with less tolerance for ‘dead’ time,unguided choice and apparently contextless decisions.

Yet, in either situation, a choice must be made, and ifthe choice is to be informed at all then how shall it be so? There are greatercontext elements which can be brought into the question; general dungeon intel,the use of mapping, informers, magic and guides.

But what can be learned from the empty corridoritself?

And as a corollary to that decision, what information canbe imbued into thatapparently-empty corridor by the designer or DM?

I will break our discussion into elements. In livedexperience all of these will interrelate but I will try to cover thoseinterrelations within each subject;

· AIR

· SMELL

· TEMPERATURE

· LIFE

· SOUND

· STONE

Once I started to think about it I decided that a keydominating and synthesising element is AIRFLOW

so I will begin with that and discuss why.

Ernst Fuchs

Air

Based on my research for VotE, Caves and cave systems candiffer hugely in temperature and airflow.

This depends on whether the system massivelyintra-connected or isolated, if there is running water in the cave and thegeneral temperature gradient around the cave.

An isolated cave system with no big interconnections andno water flow within will often be a bit warm. An underground space with staticair will often maintain a steady, not-quite-cold temperature. Mines, beingclosed systems and full of people and movement, are often hot.

Conversely, a huge cave system with many exits will oftenhave very strong airflows. Caves 'breathe', and any slight differences intemperature and pressure between its varied entries can create winds which canbe focused and channelled by narrow passages in the system itself.

Most caves are shaped by water and many have streamsmoving through them, this creates airflow

and often cools the cave.

Dungeons vs Caves

Dungeons are more likely to be smaller and contained andmuch more likely to be made of different materials with closed doors and otherconnectors and divisions within, but airflow can still tell the prospectivedungeoneer a lot.

Dungeons, specifically; the classic tomb buriedunder temperate soil, might not actually be cold. A tomb complex separate fromany other dungeon, well if it’s a rainy area it might be damp, but notnecessarily, it might be slightly warm, or at least no colder than the outside.

[Question; have you actually been in an actualtomb complex? What was the temperature and airflow like?]

An experienced dungeoneer, or the average Dwarf, shouldbe able to make some decent guesses about the nature of a dungeon just bycarefully feeling the airflow. If a system is 'breathing' with air flowing inor out after dawn or dusk; that suggests a system of considerable size. If theair flowing in or out is warmer or colder than the outside air that mightindicate the presence of moving water within, or of something else that iscooling or warming the air within, (like, for instance, the presence of life,like Goblins or an Owlbear).

Airflow is such a dominant factor because it effects thetransmission of SMELL, SOUND and TEMPERATURE, all of which are strongly boundwithin the greater medium of Air. Conversely the absence of airflow isitself a strong negative signal which might not explicitly tell you much butdoes suggest that either this dungeon, or system, whatever it is, is eithersmall and closed, or has doors and closing elements.

Smell!

Smell is life!

The key aspect of scent is that in almost every case itis indicative of the processes of life. A dungeon with intelligent thingsliving in it for any period of time is going to STINK.

The Food Sequence

Acquisition, Storage, Preparation, Consumption and Disposal.

Acquisition; alpha predators like monsters whodrag prey back to the dungeon as a lair will leave the stink of blood whereverthey are and repeated blood trails will lead to any feeding spot, as well asblood smears and fur snatched from carried prey.

Anything bringing living or recently dead food back tothe Dungeon from outside stands a good chance of leaving marks of some kind,especially since they will be tracing the same route each time to preparationor storage spaces.

A lot of food smells or has a distinctive scent,and in a still-air environment that scent might remain in place for a longtime.

Storage; if left unattended, the rotting bodies ofvictims or prey will absolutely stink to high heaven. Even for unalteredhuman basic smell powers it should be pretty simple to find your way through astill-air environment to a rotting body.

Poorly-stored non-meat foods can still rot, and willsummon their own micro-environment of insects and small mammals, all of whichcan be sensed or traced. If there are mouse droppings, that’s a sign ofsomething.

Well-stored or dry foods are more complex, I imaginethese as leaving little scent and few biomarkers. It might be that the presenceof a particular dry and contained space might leave tangential markers but I amnot sure.

Preparation; if something is intelligent and eatscooked food, and/or just needs warmth or light, then there will be fire. Ifthere is fire there must be smoke. If there is smoke it has to go somewhere. Soeither there is a chimney leading up out of this dungeon or the smoke is movingthrough the corridors which will leave traces stains, and scent.

Consumption; large predatory animals willdefinitely leave bits and pieces here and there. Smaller more civilised beingsmight still leave scent, the wall-sweat of their respiration, residual warmth,stains, fragments and the small biomarkers that go along with them.

Disposal; Poo. All of this stuff has to go somewhereand unless there are convenient rivers or pits then it is going to leave strongscent markers and all the small insects which emerge from feasting on the poo.And spiders, which feast on the flies, the webs of which will remain in placefor a long time in a low airflow environment.

tldr; any closed system which has living respiringand eating residents is going to stink. If there is airflow, then its strengthand direction will effect where those smells go and how strong they are. Tracingthose smells might be very useful for a dungeoneer. This is one thing thatencourages me in the idea of bringing a bloodhound of some kind to the dungeon

Temperature

Warmth is co-dependent on airflow and the presence oflife within a dungeon so many of the basic concepts have already beenconsidered in those two sections.

[Question; how much of a temperature differentialcan an average, or sensitive human being detect if they are paying attention? Couldthey intuit the presence of a living being occupying a room behind a door?Could they tell micro difference in temperature in the air between twoidentical corridors?]

What about cold? Would any particular naturalphenomena cause a dungeon to chill unexpectedly? The first thing that comes tomind is the presence of para-normal phenomena like Magic and the Undead. Bothare often associated with rapid temperature drops.

Conversely, super-beasts like dragons or elementalcreatures might raise underground temperatures more than you would expect.

Life Respiration

SWEATY WALLS! Why are the walls of the dungeon dripping, dank,with the nitre, so beloved of Lovecraft? It may be water flow fromoutside but more likely the combination of water and warmth coves from livingthings in the dungeon. A system of closed stone with living things within itwill naturally sweat, and drip, over time.

What about the sweaty walls of a sleeping dragons cave?Why wasn’t the gold surrounding Smaug absolutely dripping withcondensation? Maybe it was and that is what caused Bilbo to slip and slidearound. Wet Hobbit action.

[Question; have any of you actually been in anactual Dungeon, under an actual castle, working or not? Are they actually thecold, dark, dripping places of fiction?]

I mean clearly they are made not to be comfortable, butsurely actual temperature would depend on how much airflow there is, or thetemperature of the living rock, if its carved into that.

Would a dungeon under a living castle with locked doorsand no windows, truly underground

actually be cold? Or might it be temperate? It would bedamp I think due to the respiration of everyone above in the castle and theircondensed breath dripping down.

Lichen, Moss, Mushrooms, Insects

I feel like Gary must have at least conceived of a grandtable of microflora and microfauna that might grow in a dungeon and have therequired and likely temperature ranges, water needs, food sources, and, in thecase of insects and small mammals, roaming distances.

I am taking being a dungeon detective a bit too far here,into Forensic territory, BUT - IF you did actually know a lot about thesemicro-environments you could in theory tell quite a lot about a dungeon just fromobserving them as you went through.

This should go for Rot as well, a microorganism whichleaves sensory traces. A rot wizard could tell quite a lot about living systems.There is probably an opening somewhere for someone to produce a matrix ofeasy-to-use and 'read' pseudo-realistic dungeon microfauna, not for use asenemies or 'colour' but as a kind of spread of information that can be observedto tell what kind of things have gone on in a dungeon.

This, because of its complexity, I think I know leastabout. I know a bit about cave fauna, but the secret of that is that, beyond acertain depth, there really isn’t much of it. Without light you getnear-nothing and so far as I know, mushrooms will not actually grow on the coldlimestone of a cave wall.

[Question; does anyone out there know if lichenwill grow in dark conditions? Or any such moss? Any fungal experts who can saywhich foods and temperature ranges are needed for fungal growth?]

Unknown Artist

Sound

How does sound carry underground anyway? Irregularly Iwould think. It must depend a huge amount on the substance and layout of theplace. Some shapes and materials I know just EAT sound, but in others, smallsounds can travel a very long way.

[Question; does anyone know about what kinds ofstone, material or corridor shape interact how with various sounds? Do thestone walls and floors of a classic dungeon echo with footsteps of mockinglaughter as Gothic novels claim? Can anyone confirm?]

The most important matter must be FREQUENCEY. Specifically,is there anything in this dungeon that produces a low-bass sound, like stonescraping, or something huge moving or rolling? Those low frequency soundstravel a lot, through materials more than air. How many times on a quiet dayhave you realised a big truck is moving several street away, or a washingmachine or other large device is working several rooms, or an entire propertyaway?

A sleeping dragon, for instance, will produce not onlysweaty gold but probably a very deep, but soft, sound that might transmitstrongly through stone.

Doors opening and closing; if these are on hingesthere is a good chance they will be badly maintained and so screech. They mayalso thud and slam. Stone doors may produce the deep frequency sounds thattransmit so easily.

Living things; the biomarkers we talked about in the‘Smell’ section. Is there scampering? The buzzing of flies or mosquitoes? Thecrawling of insects?

Consistent background sounds - Water should producesome kind of distant continual sound

likewise, wind changing outside the dungeon, rain, storms,these should produce some sort of effect, unless there are many portals betweenhere and there.

Is this place indeed as 'Silent as the Tomb'? If so that itselfmight be quite unusual. In a state ofsuch absolute silence it might be that very super-quiet noises which areusually indiscernible could become more prominent, like the crawling of a bugfor instance, or the shifting of dust.

At what distance and in what circumstances can we expectliving inhabitants to produce discernible sound?

by Art of Raman

Stone

Or whatever material the dungeon is made of.

You would probably need to know a lot about bricks, orslate flags, for micro differences in them to be useful in any way, but....aren't dungeoneers (and Dwarves) exactly the type to pick up just suchknowledge?

What could we reasonably expect a skilled observer topick up from various arrangements of building stone in separating corridors? Couldthey guess which corridor was built first? If one is a later addition to theother that should be obvious should it not? as well as the various skill andthe resources available to the builders.

A culture in decay producing less perfect masonry, orcutting into a stone-lined corridor with one lined with brick.

What the hell are the roofs of these dungeons anyway? Logicallythey should be braced with wood, but that would decay (or would it?), so theyshould be either megaliths or arches.

Does stone degrade over time (without use, probablynot..?) but with use and perhaps dripping water, how does stone degrade?

What stone would you even expect to be used inconstruction of a dungeon? Granite is too hard surely? I would expect bricks tobe the most practical and affordable and bricks do crumble both from use butalso from compression and freeze-thaw over time.

Does sound echo across marble? How about light? In the Merseytunnel near me, the roof has been covered with black tar or pitch. it wasoriginally made with a white, reflective, opalescent roof to the tunnel. Theidea was that it would reflect the lamps of vehicles and make the tunnel seemmore full of light. Two problems; exhaust fumes blackened it, and where thatdidn't happen the improving strength of electric lights made the roof blindinglywhite so they had to paint if over.

But if you were in a classic Carrera-marble tomb, withonly lamps, it would be pretty relatively bright surely? There can't be manymaterials like that. Do we have any idea of the reflective nature of variouskinds of stone? Would a difference between slate, bricks or granite slabs addor reduce 10 or 20 feet of visibility?

Viggo Johanson

21 Questions for Empty Corridors

(This is my attempt to condense the discussion above intoa simple set of concrete questions, more for Dungeon designers and DMs, in astyle similar to Jeffs ’20 Questions for your Campaign World’.)

1. Isthe air still or does it flow?

2. Ifthere is airflow, where does it flow to or from, and at which times? (i.e. doesit ‘breathe’ in and out as it warms and cools with dawn and dusk like a cavesystem might?).

3. Isthere moving water? If there is, does it cool the dungeon?

4. Isit warmer or cooler than outside? Are any parts especially warm or cool?

5. Arethere living things eating, breathing and pooping in the dungeon?

6. Dothe walls sweat? Is there nitre?

7. Isthere a food store? Are there mice or insects?

8. Isthere fire in the dungeon? If so, where does the smoke go?

9. Isthere poop in the dungeon? Where? How strong is the smell?

10. Isthere rot in the dungeon? Are there flies?

11. Dosmells emanate evenly through still air or are they carried by airflow?

12. Ifyou followed the smells of blood, meat, smoke, spices or poop, where would theylead?

13. Aretheir spiders in the dungeon? How stable and old are the webs and where?

14. Dolichen, moss or fungi grow in the dungeon? If so where?