Claiming dungeons?

[MercantileOtter]

Just wondering how common it is among people for an adventuring party to claim an old abandoned dungeon they clear the monsters out of as their own personal stronghold.
Seems like a sound idea to me. Mend all the doors, install lots of maximum quality locks, lock up stuff with magic that needs it, bring in some gnomes to clean up, feed all the oozes regularly, put your own traps around the place that everyone in the party can avoid, bring some gnomes in to clean up the place and put down some nice carpeting.
D&D and similar games are supposed to be about adventuring but what's the point in adventuring if you don't have a home you can come back to and fill a big pit with money to bask on like a dragon.
An when you have a nice dungeon all ready to be inhabited why wouldn't you?

[LibraryOgre]

I've seen it a few times, and talked about a few others.

[Kid Jake]

That sounds an awful lot like what the previous occupants did and all that did was invite adventurers to come in, kill everyone and take all their stuff. Seems like playing with fire.


Not a perfect example but I had players do this in a Mutants and Masterminds game after beating up a bunch of gun-runners in a warehouse. They moved in and used the cash they stole from the drug runners to turn it into a waterfront fortress.

[TheCountAlucard]

You put "bring in some gnomes to clean up" twice.

[banthesun]

You put "bring in some gnomes to clean up" twice.

Well, someone needs to test the traps.

[NecroRebel]

In my experience, dungeons called such are usually away from modern roads or settlements or are in such poor condition that they wouldn't be useful without extensive renovations. In both cases, it'd be expensive to make them a suitable base.

If it's near an active trade route or settlement and in good condition, the local government would likely want to take it over as one of their own strong points, or wouldn't want it intact. If it's not really a suitable place or structure for a stronghold for them, it isn't going to really be a suitable stronghold for the party, either, though it might make a good, if insecure, home base.

[Knaight]

I haven't seen much of this. That said, my games tend to feature a few things that would discourage it.
A) The PCs probably already have a house of some sort. Maybe it's mobile (e.g. a ship/space ship), maybe the campaign centers enough around one area that it doesn't have to be. A dungeon doesn't really improve on this situation, particularly if the house moves.
B) The games tend not to really have much of anything that would really be called a dungeon, at least in the D&D sense of the word.
C) The games tend not to have vast hoards of loot that need to be stored somewhere. That's not to say that there aren't very wealthy people in setting or that the PCs can't be among them, just that said wealth is less likely to be a gigantic pile of gold somewhere and more likely to be an entire merchant fleet doing its thing, an elaborate network of trading houses, and people who buy things for you (obviously this is on the extreme high end).

[DigoDragon]

Well, someone needs to test the traps.

Ha! :D

It's happened on rare occasion in my games. If the dungeon isn't too big and is in a nice location I've seen PCs claim it like a stronghold. I once had an adventure where a king had a dungeon cleared out and then converted it into a training camp for his own soldiers. As a fun inversion of a dungeon crawl, the PCs were hired for a war game to defend the dungeon from the king's troops.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

The previous inhabitants had to have got there somehow, so the dungeon may be close to, or in, hostile territory, be accessible from the underdark/planes/wherever, have ritual sites or other unpleasant items in them, and so on.

As previously said, it's likely miles away from anywhere the PCs might count as civilised. While some PCs may want to pile up a huge mountain of gold and roll around on top of it, most probably want to buy a large house, retire from adventuring, settle down with enough wealth to last them well beyond the rest of their lives, have families etc. Some would even want to flaunt their wealth, and it's very difficult to do so when you're miles away from even the nearest innkeeper.

Given that the 10s of enemies the small group of PCs just slaughtered couldn't defend it, the PCs themselves would have little to no chance.

And to be honest, the average multi-level dungeon wouldn't be a very nice place to live anyway - you need pumps to get fresh air into the depths, there's little to no natural light, some areas would be damp and cold, while some (especially the deeper ones) may be oppressively hot and stuffy, and others may be flooded and inaccessible after heavy rains.

Now, having the PCs go in to clear the dungeon out so the local lord's troops or whoever can set up a local base of operations so they can go on and clear out the surrounding area and settle it, it can be used as a refuge or bunker for the local population against a pending invasion or apocalyptic event, or whatever other reason, then there's a lot of milage in it - maybe a series of adventures where the party sneaks through hostile territory to get to the dungeon, clears it, sends to their patron to tell them they've done it, and they then have to defend the dungeon until their relief arrives to formally occupy it.

[Sartharina]

That sounds an awful lot like what the previous occupants did and all that did was invite adventurers to come in, kill everyone and take all their stuff. Seems like playing with fire.

This is my thought on the matter as well.

[goto124]

'What do you mean, you want the entire dungeon? We're a travelling party! We've got to move far away and contiunue our adventures! You can't take the dungeon with you!'

'Sure I can *casts fly on the dungeon and ties a rope around a corner*'

'...'

Of course, more for laughs and coolness than anything else. If you want it somewhat less crazy, you could make it that defeating the dungeon somehow activated a strong flying spell that lifts the entire thing up. Or the dungeon was already movable to begin with.


I wonder how it'll work to grab only a section of the dungeon, so that you don't have to do as much cleaning up?

[Red Fel]

Several posters have made really good points, to which I'd like to add.

First: How are we defining "dungeon?" If it's "any interior setting wherein the PCs engage in multiple encounters," it's a pretty broad subject that could include a castle, a fortress, a crumbling lone tower, a lighthouse, a cave, a literal dungeon, a really big cave, a chateau, a hidden bunker, or a particularly elaborate hobbit hole. And any given one of these may be more or less suitable as a base of operations. For example, the hidden bunker is a great option, if you can ensure that only you can get in - otherwise you might come home to find that somebody else has moved in and locked you out. The chateau is comfortable, but leaves you more reliant on local law enforcement and militia to protect it while you're away. And a crumbling lone tower is a terrible idea. Not only is it drafty, but it's an eyesore; more importantly, at high levels, you'll be facing enemies who would probably knock the thing over.

Second: How are we defining "personal stronghold?" Is it "where we go to rest safely after a long adventure?" Is it "where we keep our stuff?" Is it "where we meet with clients?" Is it "where we go when we're pursued by an army?" There are different requirements for any of these.

For example, the stronghold-as-home needs to be reasonably secure, but also comfortable. A cave, a literal dungeon, or a big cave would be terrible for this (unless you're a walking corpse or terrifying amphibian-person). A castle or chateau would be ideal. A hidden bunker could be nice, although the air would be stale and natural light would be hard to come by.

The stronghold-as-storage need not be comfortable, but it must be secure. A lighthouse is a terrible idea for this - it's easily located (by design), and hard to fortify. Similarly, the stronghold-as-fortress favors security over comfort, but it has the added requirement of defensibility and storage space. A bunker is potentially bad for this, depending on its design - too well-fortified and it becomes impossible to fire out.

I've already mentioned comfort, as have others; location matters too. Yes, your citadel located on the isolated mountaintop is hard for your enemies to reach; it's also hard for anyone to reach, including you. If you're a hermit who spends a lot of time there and hates company, it's fine. If you expect to receive clients, it's a pain. Similarly, if you spend a lot of time away from home adventuring, getting back (without some sort of teleportation) is going to be a beast, and woe betide if you arrive, exhausted, to find that somebody else is now squatting there.

By contrast, a popular location - such as at a crossroads or within or near a town - sacrifices security for accessibility. On the other hand, if you're in good with the locals, it is in some ways more secure. Unlike the isolated tower, which has security by dint of its inaccessibility, you can have the local militia - or even the local kids - watch your home for you while you're away. And it helps to be able to get discounts in town for being a regular and earning "local hero" status.

Of course, all of my strongholds are moonbases with psychically-encoded teleportation systems. But maybe your campaign isn't ready for that.

[veti]

A multi-level dungeon strikes me as a horrible, horrible place to live. It's going to be dark, stuffy, either dusty or damp (depending on geology), and impossible to clean.

If you live in the upper levels, then you're always conscious of this huge space below you. How do you know no enterprising creatures have burrowed in there? First you'd know about it is when a team of mind flayers walks in on you in the bath.

If you live in the lower levels, then you'd get to see the mind flayers coming, but what about the goblins who've moved in up above you? No fun having to fight your way out every time you want to get milk. Come to think of it, even without goblins, it's a long way to walk just to get to your own front door.

And talking of milk, most dungeons are a significant distance from the nearest settlement. That's fine if you're a necromancer building up your undead horde and you don't want to be interrupted, but most of us aren't, we're working stiffs and we need to get out regularly to trade, talk to people, pick up rumours and jobs and, you know, adventure. We'd be much better off in a nice townhouse.

[Synar]

Looking at the previous posts, I think there are radically different conceptions about the actual size of a dungeon in the community - ranging from a tower to a monastery to the entire whole damn Underdark.

[Hyena]

Not only I did it, I did it during my first game session, and I converted the dungeon's monsters under my banner. It was literally Dungeon - in both senses of the word. Cause, you see, we were playing in Might and Magic setting.

[Admiral Squish]

Not quite what's being mentioned, but at one point in a star wars game, we were attacked by a bunch of jawas in front of their sandcrawler. The party murder-hobos proceeded to board the sandcrawler and murder everyone aboard. This left us with an empty sandcrawler. There was really only one reasonable course of action, being a tech guy.
I made the sandcrawler space-worthy, strapped some rockets to it, and the DM even let me put a station-sized weapon in it once I gutted the unimportant bits. Unfortunately, I never actually got the chance to use it...

I have no doubt dungeon-claiming can and is done relatively frequently, but most of the time, I find parties try to get out of dungeons as fast as possible, and set up bases by buying taverns.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

'What do you mean, you want the entire dungeon? We're a travelling party! We've got to move far away and contiunue our adventures! You can't take the dungeon with you!'

'Sure I can *casts fly on the dungeon and ties a rope around a corner*'

'...'

Of course, more for laughs and coolness than anything else. If you want it somewhat less crazy, you could make it that defeating the dungeon somehow activated a strong flying spell that lifts the entire thing up. Or the dungeon was already movable to begin with.


I wonder how it'll work to grab only a section of the dungeon, so that you don't have to do as much cleaning up?

There was a D&D scenario in White Dwarf years ago (somewhere around issue 70 IIRC) that had a manor house/chateau and small dungeon (mainly housing the propulsion and gate to the elemental plane of air) on a large flying rock. Would that suit you?

[DigoDragon]

If you live in the upper levels, then you're always conscious of this huge space below you. How do you know no enterprising creatures have burrowed in there? First you'd know about it is when a team of mind flayers walks in on you in the bath.

This struck my DM senses as "Awesome Adventuring Idea".

Actually I've already done something like it before. PCs were hired to deliver supplies to a fort in the hills. They arrive and all the guards are missing. After clearing out some orcs (which they assume were responsible for the missing guards) they contact their employer for instructions and are told to sit on the fort and keep it running for a few days until reinforcements arrive.

After getting bored on Day 2, they explore and find there were extra basements under the fort. A dungeon under the dungeon if you will. And yes, something did burrow under there.

[goto124]

Wouldn't it be great to claim a dungeon with every single one of its walls and doors made of adamantine?

[DigoDragon]

No, because then everyone will be coming over for a piece of what should be a rare metal.

[Jay R]

If you want your players to try to take over the dungeon, make it an abandoned mine, and inherently worth having if it can be cleared out.

But one potential problem is that you're never sure if you've reached the bottom. I once designed the top part of a dungeon / mine / dwarven kingdom that went on forever - each level had stronger monsters, all the way down to the demons at the center of the earth.

[Telok]

I had a group once claim that they wanted to take over an abandoned fort that they had cleared the bandits out of. It was about a eight hour hike cross-country to the local trade road and another couple hours down that to a small military fort. Put in a simple dirt road, patch some holes in the walls and roof, get a few people to man the walls and hunt/cook and the could have had a nice little base. A day to the local military, two days to a decent trading town, and four days to a major city if you walked and half that if you rode a horse. It was also nicely situated on a frontier area with hostile gnoll and advanced lizardman tribes.

Could have been real nice. They never actually did anything though, all talk and no action. They did stop by every couple of weeks for five months or so and every other time I had someone or something move in just so they had something to do. But after the giant slug knocked more holes in the walls and slimed everything they lost interest.

[veti]

I had a group once claim that they wanted to take over an abandoned fort that they had cleared the bandits out of. It was about a eight hour hike cross-country to the local trade road and another couple hours down that to a small military fort. Put in a simple dirt road, patch some holes in the walls and roof, get a few people to man the walls and hunt/cook and the could have had a nice little base. A day to the local military, two days to a decent trading town, and four days to a major city if you walked and half that if you rode a horse. It was also nicely situated on a frontier area with hostile gnoll and advanced lizardman tribes.

Something like that is great if you've got a use for it. Like, your job is to protect a particular area. Or to keep tabs on the gnolls and lizardmen. Or you're training your own armed force for some reason.

Or... uh, actually I've pretty much run out of ideas there.

But I can't think of a single reason why a typical adventuring party, with none of the above (fairly specialised) responsibilities or ambitions, would want to live there, rather than in a nice townhouse with maybe a little garden where the druid can play.

[Telok]

I can't think of a single reason why a typical adventuring party, with none of the above (fairly specialised) responsibilities or ambitions, would want to live there, rather than in a nice townhouse with maybe a little garden where the druid can play.

In the game I'm referencing that little ruined fort was pretty centrally located in the campaign and the players passed through the area regularly. Plus, if they'd had a place that they trusted to stash loot (I don't know why they didn't trust the royal bank in the king's castle, that was completely safe and legit in this game) thay wouldn't have lost 100,000 gp worth of magic items when the psychic warrior died or again when the artificer left. The game had very little crafting available and no magic-mart so I was very generous with loot that did stuff instead of just having +#. They were about double WBL and they lost almost all of it, twice.

[TheOneHawk]

An abandoned powerful wizards hidden underground sanctuary, complete with library and alchemy tools and all sorts of fun magical stuff? Also comes pre trapped once you get past the traps and figure out how to control them.

That would be worth living in I think.

[goto124]

And also gives information to PCs as needed!

Until someone knocks a candle over and sets all the books on fire.

[LibraryOgre]

Now that I think on it, the current major adventure setting for Hackmaster (the Frandor's Keep area, in northern P'Bapar, which has Frandor's Keep and several smaller adventures set around it) explicitly has an opportunity for the PCs to gain access to an abandoned manor house that's been a lair to goblins.

[Jay R]

In a recent game, the DM more-or-less forced me to keep a castle we had successfully besieged. (Once we put the king on the throne, he made my character an earl, and gave him those lands as his fief.)

[ellindsey]

My players have sort of done this after befriending the local Dryad who lives in an abandoned Elvish tree-fortress near the human lands in my campaign. It's not so much claiming a dungeon as her saying "Sure, you guys are cool, you can crash here any time (until the elves tell me otherwise)".

They also found and cleared out a hidden underground storage room/Dwarvish garden underground in that main city, and have used it since then as an emergency hiding place when they need to get off the streets. It's not really theirs however, and probably won't go unoccupied for long.

[Bob of Mage]

I would only ever see myself claiming a bit of land for myself if I had a reason to stay in the area, or had minions who needed a place to stay. Any other time it would seem to be too much of a waste of time, and would have the major issue of needing a good house-sitter. Getting yourself a 500 year old forgoten Cold War ICBM silo might be neat (more so if it somehow has a repairable missile left over), but who's going to wash everything or keep random Nazis from looting it (don't ask but this could all work in a game I'm playing) while I save the world from really anger dragons?