Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Abstruse" data-source="post: 8441695" data-attributes="member: 6669048">The dungeon didn't come from Moria, but from an extension of Dave Arneson's wargames. They played a siege scenario where some of the players decided to break the siege by sneaking under the castle walls. This led them to the castle's dungeons (more like a historical dungeon that was just a basement sometimes used to lock up prisoners) to sneak inside. To prevent this from happening again, guards were put in the dungeon which turned into combat there. Then they added traps. Then the dungeon got more maze-like and required exploration to find the way into the castle. Then the dungeons got bigger to make for larger encounters. I'd have to check my research to find the timeline to be sure if this was before or after fantasy elements were added to Castle Blackmoor and whether or not the castle in the siege was Blackmoor or another castle, but all of this was done using Chainmail and Braunstein before Arneson met Gygax and they began collaborating on The Fantasy Game.But if you want precursors...Daedelus's labyrinth where Theseus killed the Minotaur, Theseus and Pirithous attempting to kidnap Persephone from Hades, Hercules rescuing Theseus (and leaving Pirithous to rot) while raiding Hades to capture Cerberus...that's just off the top of my head because I've been looking into Greek myth for stuff recently.</blockquote>