[Abe Sargent]

Dungeon 3 Background

I thought that you folks might enjoy the official background to the Dungeon games from my own plane, Thorasia. The Thorasia that appears in the Alzar dynasty as well as here in D games is more of a pan-Thorasia/traditional D&D world mix, in order to keep things comfortable for y’all. But even back in the mid-90s I penned a book called The Planeswalker’s Guide to Thorasia that was given out to people in my playgroup, and I fleshed out Thorasia.

I gave is a generic fantasy flavor but with its own character. From Guzaks and Sis’Sharr straight from my pen to different takes on traiditional rares like Dvergr and Qwith, I mined mythology and kept the races closer to that place. Trow are more like the Irish/Viking myth than they are like orcs and goblins and trolls they replace.



In the land of Thorasia, there are vast swathes of area that are unclaimed by any political organization. Wild, untamed, and with a few smaller outposts of villages or towns in the areas, they owed no fealty to any others. But dangers from bandits to monsters to undead raided and killed people in mass quantity.

In one such area a large adventuring party stepped almost 80 years ago. It spent a few years cleaning things out, and then re-investing its magic and treasures into the area. They brought in some allies of the party they had made and helped to push back a lot of the problems.

Seeing the area denuded of central authority, and not wanting their efforts to go to waste after they left or passed on, the adventuring party set up a new government with the allegiance of a handful of central towns, and they began to set up everything from a local militia to roads, and they responded when monsters or bandits crossed over into the newly formed nation of Intaria.

Originally pretty small, the borders of the realm kept getting pushed out further and further as local inns, towns, and farms wanted to join the fledgling nation. The promise of security out here led to a lot of normally-independent minded folk willingly joining. With the great needs created by this expansion, the ruling adventurers brought in more and more adventuring contacts in order to head out and reclaim a fallen tower or keep, find some local bandits, weed out a nest of monsters and that sort of thing.

And the circle continued. Intaria brought more and more safety, and more and more money and magic from those unclean graveyards, dungeons, and camps all over the area. That led to more expansion, which led to more riches. And quickly, expansion was occurring elsewhere. More inns were built along major roads, trade expanded tremendously, various farmers began to specialize their crops in order to trade and make more than they otherwise would at a subsistence level. Meanwhile the area was patrolled by rangers, regularly visited by bards, and had very advanced guardsman that mounted flying steeds. Magical towers were erected and apprentice came from all over Thorasia to join new masters. Temples were done likewise.

Intaria was the first nation dedicated to Laima, the relatively esoteric Goddess of Distance, Travel, Measurement, and the Horizon. Two of the initial adventurers in the party, sisters, were also priestesses of Laima, and thus she was venerated as the official deity of the nation. It’s nice because no one really dislikes her, she’s been one of the quietest and least involved of the 27 deities of Thorasia, and of course, other temples are all worshipped.

One of the major issues that Intaria suffered from this expansion was that many children of farmers, fishers, hunters, textile workers, and so forth saw adventuring as the path to wealth. Many would head out and die, never to be heard of again, Meanwhile, the economic activity of what they left behind was hurt.

After a few years, the rulers of Intaria got together and decided to create an official contest, that would be held annually. This contest, The Dungeon, would involve every child in Thorasia at the age of Assention (15) would be welcome to participate. They would set up a faux-dungeon, and then allow everyone to participate. The winning group would be welcomed into the pseudo-aristocracy of the adventuring groups, would be outfitted, and begin missions. Those who survived would agree to return.

And, to teach people the difficult aspects of adventuring, the dark side, they would allow people to die in the Dungeon contest. Afterwards, they would be resurrected, which is very difficult in Thorasia. Each deities’ Priests get access to a unique branch of magic the other priests due not get. For example, the clerics of Barastyr, God of Death, gain a powerful group of Death spells to slay things. Meanwhile the Goddess of Healing, Harkangi, is the only one that gives her followers the ability to actually heal a wound – everyone can merely transfer wounds from targets to themselves.

Only the God of Life, Magister, can grants the raising of dead to his followers. His followers are rare, they require a great deal of difficulty to become one of his clerics, and the degree of skill requires to actually be able to cast a simple raise Dead spell is tremendous. There are, roughly, 30 such clerics in the entire world of Thorasia. Intaria is blessed with two, and both have given their blessing to eh Dungeon games.

It’s a win-win. People who are killed come back with horror stories about what’s it like to die, and go back to work. There is still the dream of adventuring that so many take, and that also helps to rejuvenate the nation’s adventuring groups. With something to strive for, the population has not really caused any problems for Intaria either.

During the Fourth Dungeon, after finding out about the games, the rulers created a special Pan-Planar game that welcomed in people, items, and more from many other planes. Thorasia has always been welcoming to other planar people, even has a Planeswalker Society in the Hook Isles far to the south. Intaria simply ties into other planes quite nicely. After the 4th games, every tenth Dungeon is another Pan-Planar game.


(Now, the D1-3 are not really like the real authentic Intarian one – they are too crazy, they take you to level 10 rather than level 5, they are too complex – etc. The whole mood is different too. That’s all unique to the forum game. But the base concept is there.)

Welcome to the 34th Dungeon game, and the 3rd Pan-Planar Contest!