Dungeon Ecology

Fun fact: The word Lycanthropy contains the Greek lykos, wolf. A Wereyak's curse should be called something like Tauranthropy from Greek tauros.

Fun fact: in Italian (Sardinian) folklore the is a sort of were-ox. It's called Boe Erchitu and it's a man that, with the full moon, becames a white ox with metal/silver horns. If I don't remember wrong it has devils/evil spirits around himself that torment him. To free him from the curse you have to cut away his horns. If he moo/bellows three times in front of your house you will have at maximum one year to live (in other versions I heard it will be a person you love to die; in others he simply brings misfortune)

The "Dragon in a room without an entrance large enough for a dragon" example actually has a really simple answer. Though in 5e the stat blocks don't usually incorporate it, older editions and the fluff of 5e (I have no clue about pathfinder and other systems/games, but I know this is a relatively common trope) talks about how many dragons possess the capability to shapeshift/polymorph into a humanoid form, which would explain how they got into a room without any large entrances. Only works if the dragon has that capability though.

As both a dungeon master and an ecologist, I felt my eye twitch when you said no one could care about the caloric intake of face worms. I care. haha, this is a great video and I really dig your creative frameworks. I'm getting super inspired watching through your videos

"fearsome minotaur, we humbly beseech thee. you truly are the master of mazes, for no mortal mind could ever solve your labyrinth. we'll relinquish all stolen treasures at once, if you only release us from this dungeon. we beg you, have mercy on us!" wereyak who is also lost: oooh....about that...

One of my ongoing D&D projects has been the development of a massive megadungeon complex that used to be both an enormous, vertically integrated golem factory and a shrine to a fugitive god that gave the factory's creators the secrets of "True" (or "Noble" or "Greater" depending on the translation) Golemancy. It was abandoned eight centuries ago after a steady decline in functionality. Its four tiers ceased were decommissioned one-by-one as the knowledge necessary to maintain this staggering (and highly specialized) industrial marvel was lost, bit by bit, with each passing generation, until the complex outright had been rendered completely non-functional. It's been a really interesting challenge, insofar as each of the four sections of the dungeon (themselves split into four facilities, themselves split into four sub-facilities; the dungeon's creators utilized base four for their mathematics, don't ask) have these complex, interlocking thematic and mechanical functionalities that have also been warped and obscured by centuries of disuse. For instance, a tribe of troglodytes fled through the caves criss-crossing the mountain until they broke into the faunal golemcraft facility on the complex's first level. Over the course of three successive generations, they turned its underground tannery into a shrine for the Otyugh who followed them, proclaiming it their mighty god of Death. They began to pick over the facility's long-dormant workshops, learning primitive necromancy from its morgue and refining their scrimshaw to near-masterwork levels in its ossuary. Its dormitories, safely tucked away in what was, to them, the very back of the facility were converted into nurseries for their young. Its overgrown mushroom farms became an invaluable food source during lean years, and they cultivated a variety of unique hallucinogenic mushroom strains from its magically enhanced soil. Later, the party has the opportunity to visit the faunal resource extraction facility on the second level and see where all of the organic material used to supply the former facility came from: the massive underground livestock pens and their artificial soular (sic) lamps, the prison complex for storing "humanoid material," the sprawling catacombs, etc., and grapple with the actual moral cost entailed by helping reopen what was, essentially, the largest slaughterhouse ever built (in additiona to its many, many other functions).

An explanation I thought of for a large creature being inside a room with too small an exit for it to get through could be that it wasn't always this large, but the other creatures inside the dungeon revere this monster as a god, and so they kept feeding this monster offerings of meat. The monster being engorged to such an extent that it can no longer leave the room. This may also mean that this monster being overweight may make it slow, but a heavy hitter when they slam their limbs into the ground, while also having protective fat layers as natural defence. An alternative explanation is that the boss monster in question was never meant to leave the dungeon, let alone this room. The boss is a prisoner of this dungeon, whether this means they have other restraints as well making it possible for the players to see what they're going up against before they free it to fight it for the loot inside it.

Really cool episode! There's a Manga called "Delicious in Dungeon" (dungeon meshi in japanese) that absolutely nails dungeon ecology! Give it a read if you want inspiration for dungeon ecology, surviving in a dungeon and pretty original med-fan!

I love that example of how did the dragon fit in this dungeon because I came across this same dilemma when I was constructing a dungeon. The lore I came up with I instantly fell in love with. It’s simple but effective to suspend the disbelief and build more lore into it. A specialized faction hunter and seized any dragon wyrmlings they could find and transported them into claustrophobic caves so they could only grow as large as the room could be. This solved the issue of adult dragons causing too much havoc in the civilizations and also gave me an excuse to throw two dragons at my party in a fairly confined space!

White dragons are known to make their lair in Ice caverns where the ice will shut them inside during their long naps

I am ready to run the Lair of the Weryak for my players, as an Intro to the Old Road Zine. You literally came at the most needed point in my GM life, I stand before a fresh campaign start and had absolutely nothing, your map and Zine sparked my thoughts again

And just like that, I think you have solved the eternal difficulty of playing a maze at the table. Your maps are wonderfully tactile play props. I can literally SEE how they would improve player agency by letting them pore over the map and make choices based on what catches their fancy. And a maze? Why not let them see the whole thing? With visible features like the ones you include here, the maze itself is no longer the puzzle--and seriously, after running (and playing!) just a few mazes at the table, I have shied away from using them at all for 20 years because mazes you can't see are simply the worst sort of puzzle--your focus turns to what is IN the maze. Yeah, you are definitely one of very few channels where I have actually "hit the bell icon." Just fantastic stuff.

Demons in the mortal realm without a reason for them being there is something that always gets me ruffled.

Ben's newsletter is what brought me here!

Yes! This is what I've been advocating for for years. So many people just design dungeons as nothing more than a challenge for the player, but forget that in universe, it needs to serve some actual functions and not just be place for adventurers to run in, kill monsters, and collect treasure.

"Oh that's because this place was constructed during a time when magic was stronger and less limited. So one use was transmutation and conjuration magics to basically fold rooms around each other to save physical space." Bing bang boom now roll initiative because you walked into the Beholder harem.

When talking about Trophy Dark, I assumes you were meaning to mention designer Jesse Ross? Because you did in fact name Video game producer and content creator Jesse Cox. At least that's what it sounded like which made me think the aforementioned Mr. Cox had broken into table top game design. XD

Letting the days go by, water flowing under!

I love your channel man, you are easy to listen to and your art is wonderful. I’m using your knowledge, opinion and skills to inspire and do a tiny bit of thievery with your concepts in your “build a better beast” series. Love

"Will the Wereyak ever forgive me..." NEVER!!! :D