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Dungeons

A dungeon is any enclosed, hostile area made up of interconnected encounters. It could be a cave system, a castle, an insect hive, or any other space that can be subdivided into different distinct areas where each different encounter takes place. Last Odyssey is not a game about dungeon crawling per se, but dungeons are a natural way to contain quests or even entire adventures. In particular, the Domains of Monsters will often be dungeons. There are no hard and fast rules for creating dungeons, but GMs should think of them as a series of rooms connected by doors. Each door has a specific requirement for passing through it, and each room either hosts an encounter or is an empty area for the party to rest. Most dungeons will be represented by a single node on the overworld, but extremely large ones will instead contain two or more, in which case GMs should treat the paths between them the same way they treat paths in the overworld, with encounters, a navigation difficulty, and a weather table if appropriate. In addition, many dungeons will also be divided into levels, which are distinct zones that represent different interconnected areas. In some cases, a level will be a literal level of a building, while in others levels might be adjacent systems of caves or mark the transition between different biomes. Whenever the players enter a new level of a dungeon, they earn 1 Discovery XP.

As the player characters progress through a dungeon, they will accrue injuries, status effects, and lose HP and MP. If they manage to make an area safe enough, they may rest. If players rest inside of a dungeon, they will play out a Camping Phase as though they were traveling. If there any enemies remaining on their current level that would theoretically be aware of the characters’ presence and able to invade their resting place, the danger rating of the dungeon counts as being equal to 10 for the purposes of determining if an ambush occurs. In the event that the player characters are ambushed, they should be ambushed by a group of enemies that already exists within the dungeon. Resting advances time as well, which will have other consequences. Smarter enemies will prepare ambushes for the player characters to walk into, traps will be reset, and wandering creatures will move from level to level.

To create a new dungeon in Last Odyssey, the GM should employ the following steps:

  1. Create a reason for the player characters to enter the dungeon, usually in the form of a quest. They could be trying to slay a Monster, rescue a friend learn Lore, or anything else appropriate to the campaign.
  2. Write down an overview of each level of the dungeon. While it’s perfectly acceptable to make the dungeon a giant building the players climb through, it can be just as compelling to theme each level around a different concept. An old temple might lead down into a series of natural caverns, while a tower to the sky might be a route up into a castle in the clouds.
  3. Create a list of encounters for the players to run into on each level. Last Odyssey is most suited to running dungeons that are a mix of puzzles, combat encounters, natural hazards, and Lore rooms. GMs should also make sure there are opportunities for players to rest. More complex dungeons might also include benign encounters with friendly NPCs, interesting landmarks, and the occasional encounter that exists purely to enhance the dungeon’s atmosphere. GMs should also plan for what happens if players fail an encounter. Are there alternate paths into the same room? What will their enemies do if they are victorious?
  4. For each level, map out the rooms within them and the doors that connect them. It’s customary to assign each one a room in which players are expected to come across it, but having a few encounters that “roam” the dungeon is also a common way to increase both the sense of danger and verisimilitude on a given level. GMs do not have to map out the dimensions of each room in agonizing detail, but should at least have a general idea of the size of each one.
  5. Create items, equipment, and Lore for the players to find as they explore the dungeon. Material rewards are an integral part of why players are willing to risk a dungeon in the first place, but Lore can often be just as valuable. Plus, a dungeon filled with Lore will feel that much closer to a real place as opposed to the window dressing for a set of combat encounters.
  6. Finally, create at least one climactic encounter to serve as a capstone for the dungeon. This could be a fight with a Monster, a deadly trap, or a particularly challenging puzzle. The capstone encounter should be more difficult than the other encounters, and should also be foreshadowed throughout the rest of the dungeon.