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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MaxKaladin" data-source="post: 3363525" data-attributes="member: 1196">I don't generally use dungeons all that much, but when I do it's typically old tombs, secret hidouts for cultists and things like that.  I did have a dungeon idea I rather liked a few years ago.  I was creating a section of my homebrew world when I came up with a backstory about orcs.  There was a region set next to a massive mountain range that was full of hills, valleys, rough terrain of all descriptions -- and caves.  In the past, the region was infested with orcs who were divided into countless warring tribes.  Now, orcs like to live underground and the constant warfare between the tribes meant they needed security, so they took the cave networks and built elaborate hidden strongholds out of them, often expanding the caves as needed.  That gave me dungeons of orcish origin.  That's fairly standard, I suppose.Another feature of these tribes was that they liked to raid the lowlanders for treasure, goods and slaves.  Occasionally, some particularly charismatic leader would arise and unite the tribes in great raids that would sack cities and drag untold riches back to their mountainous homes.  The great civilizations of the lowlands didn't like this, of course, and would occasionally send armies to root out the orcs "once and for all" but it never worked.  The orcs just destroyed any force they were stronger than and retreated into their cave networks and waited them out any force they were weaker than.  The armies would hurt the orcs, but never managed to wipe them out.  That gave me abandoned and sacked dungeons for things to move into -- the strongholds of tribes the lowland armies managed to wipe out and which other orcs didn't occupy for whatever reason.  Eventually, the leader of one large empire hit upon a new and different -- and some would say terrible and evil -- way of destroying the orcs.  He consulted his wizards and fell priests and had them create a horrible wasting disease would kill only orcs.  That was what finally broke the orcs.  I never worked out all the details, but it spread like wildfire among the orcs and they died in massive numbers.  Many tribes reacted by sealing themselves into their strongholds.  They knew they were vulnerable while so many of them were sick or dead and basically "went to ground" to wait out the plague.  Whole tribes died sealed in their strongholds.  The orcs never recovered from this and the days of their constant raiding into the lowlands were mostly over.  They could certainly never muster their massive hordes again.  Eventually, the area got settled somewhat by humans.  It's still a rough frontier that's only sparsely settled.  One of the main features of the area is a constant stream of adventurers who flood into the area to scour the hills and valleys for these hidden orcish fortresses.  If they can find one that hasn't been looted, it could contain the treasure of centuries of raids into the prosperous lowlands and make the finders rich beyond their wildest dreams.  Of course, it's fraught with danger because intact strongholds are filled with traps designed to kill or maim intruders and are often occupied by either the undead remains of the orcs who died there or other monsters who have found their way in.  The last part is the bit I like.  You've basically got these dungeons that can be stuffed with gold with a built-in reason for them being there and unlooted yet guarded (by undead and traps, at least).  You have people knowing these things are out there, but not exactly where.  That explains why you have dungeons that haven't been looted by someone else before -- nobody knew about it.  It's easy enough to let the players stumble across one or the clues that will lead them to one somewhere.  With the orcs having brought back all sorts of loot from the lowlands, it's easy enough to include various odd bits and just explain it as some odd thing the orcs brought back from the lowlands after some raid or another.  It just seems like a great setup for the classic D&D dungeon crawl.  Of course, my players don't really like dungeon crawls so I've never used it.</blockquote>

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