“Ancient”
So where do all these dungeons in D&D come from anyway?
I’ve always liked the idea that they’re some kind of ruin from a former inhabitant, but it seems odd that there’d be so many of them without some kind of fallen elder race who disappeared or them being to a different scale to everything else.
I liked the 4e Nentir Vale setting because it sort of dealt with this – the world is in a dark ages and only certain ‘points of light’ are safe. Everything else is a mess, but there’s stuff out there from the before-time.
I also like the ideas from Xen’drik in Eberron – let’s make the ruins giant-sized, because… well, giants are the fallen race. Why not?
I also like the idea that you can easily tie in an ancient and elder evil to it. Why did that huge empire disappear? Oh you know, the usual. Demon worship, horrible cataclysms, same same.
Then of course there’s the Saurians.
I first ran across them in the 2e Book of Humanoids, which I think I devoured. I’ve tried to showhorn Aarakocra, Wemics, Mongrelmen and even Swanmays into my games before, but I’ve never had a go with the dinosaur race (despite using dinosaurs themselves a lot).
I have an idea forming for some Saurian encounters in Planescape, but I haven’t quite worked them out yet. If I can string them together I might make a few adventures out of it – The Saurian Resurgence or something along those lines.
Actually that’s really nice. I might be doing that now!
jot jot ïota 