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Dungeon Keepers

Welcome back, Spode-an. Yes, I plan on allowing Rogue Beings. I just haven't written a paragraph on them yet.

Any opinions on the ideas with imps, anyone?

Dungeon Keepers

I am liking this idea for limited imp summoning. It means we get to have the flexibility of being a Keeper while at the same time still requiring the collection of human resources. We can say that the amount of imps you can summon is limited by your power, and you gain power by having slaves, or something like that.

EDIT: Ah, how about at the start, you get to summon up to 5 imps. Then you get an extra imp for each 5 slaves you capture, until you reach 100 imps, which can be the maximum. This means starting is not difficult, because you get some workers straight away, but as you progress the imps will recede into a managerial role (which will be important, because you don't want to waste your own time managing your slaves personally), rather than a worker role. The reason behind this can be that the Void here is difficult to access.

Dungeon Keepers

OK. I'll see if I can make it less of an imposition.

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Dungeon Management:

You might have dreams of an impenetrable Dungeon with a colossal army to crush everyone in your path. But to have a massive Dungeon you must first build it, and to have a colossal army you must arm and feed it. To do that you need slaves, which you will need to capture or otherwise drag into your service, and they will work best when they are healthy and co-operative.

This means there will be a number of rooms and facilities your Dungeon would need. You need a source of food, water, fuel, building supplies and weapons, as well as some kind of shelter. You have to keep your Dungeon, your army and your slaves in working order.

You could produce these resources yourself. You can simply make some of your slaves work as farmers, miners, builders, blacksmiths, etc., and have farms and mines and forges to match. But you are a Keeper, and what you don't have you can take by force. When you raid a village, it might be worthwhile to steal whatever they have in their stores as well as capturing the townsfolk as slaves. Perhaps you are so fearsome that the mere threat of force can drive villagers to surrender their produce as tribute. Just be sure to have the muscle to back up that threat if a human army comes to try and liberate them.

Once you have exhausted all nearby villages, though, where else can you take things from? Your fellow Keepers, of course. The Keeper next door has done you a favour by gathering large amounts of food, weapons and slaves in one place, ripe for the picking. And you'll be rather peeved if you go to raid a village only to find it had already been stripped of everything useful by another Keeper. Of course, if you're not up to the task of battling another Keeper, you could always form some kind of alliance and do trade and the likes. Just watch out in case the other Keeper decides to stab you in the back. We're a treacherous lot, after all.

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While you're at it, you can also read this other section. It's the basic rules, which are going near the start this time where people will see them.

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Ground Rules:

The standard no godmodding/metagaming/etc. applies. This means waltzing in, ignoring all resistance, and simply killing another player or a major NPC in one hit is out of the question.
To join, there is no character sheet, simply post a descriptive post about your entry into this world and about your Keeper.
With NPCs, feel free to control minor NPCs (eg. a village which you are raiding, random individuals, etc.). For larger NPCs (eg. a city, an entire army), you should probably consult us.
There are probably a lot of empty spaces in the description of the world. You are free to fill in those spaces (with-in reason, of course. Any major development, such as an entire hidden nation or artefact of great power, would need to run through us first).
The GMs reserve the right to throw a metaphorical monkey wrench into your operations, to keep things from getting complacent. You can't expect to attempt world domination with nothing ever going wrong, now can you?

Read on to find out how to be a Keeper.

Dungeon Keepers

I've got the next section ready. It's a new one, pertaining largely to the need for human resources which we hope will drive greater interaction.

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Dungeon Management:

So you've got a massive army of ferocious monsters led by loyal Constructs living in an imposing Dungeon constructed by your hoard of slaves. You feel indomitable, but what does everyone eat? Where do they sleep, rest and recover? How do you keep your army armed? What happens if your slaves start feeling rebellious?

These are all very important things to consider as a Keeper of a Dungeon. These logistical problems are the second most important reason for expansion (the first, of course, being more power). Enslaving the denizens of this realm or bringing them to your side otherwise is the only way to obtain a workforce, because none of your Creatures are be capable of such menial tasks as construction, farming and mining. While capturing slaves appeals to many Keepers, some may prefer some means mind control or brainwashing, or even convincing the humans to willingly join their forces. Just be sure to keep them under your control. If they rebel and you have to kill them all, you'll be out of workers.

Even if your minions are untiring automatons, your slaves still need care or they will die and you'll have no more slaves. Chief among the requirements for your slaves and likely your army is that of food. You could construct farms around your Dungeon, and send slaves to work on those farms, although then you'll need more slaves to balance that out, and have the land around you secured. Alternatively, you could take food from others, either by raiding, demanding tribute or even trade.

Another thing to remember is that if you have an army you will need weapons and armour, and if you have a Dungeon you will need materials to build it. You'll need to log forests for lumber, dig quarries for stone and mine in mines for metals, and whatever other resources you'll need. Fuel will also be a good idea, to run your foundries, kitchens and fireplaces (your slaves are no good if they freeze and die, now are they?).You could assign some of your labourers to these tasks, or alternatively you could steal or trade. Whatever gets the job done.

Of course, you are not limited to stealing from the humans. The Keeper next door has done you a favour by gathering a large amount of resources and slaves in one place, ripe for the picking. I'm also betting you won't be happy when that same Keeper comes by and pillages a few towns which you had been earning tribute from, or intending to pillage yourself. Of course, if fighting that Keeper and taking their slaves, resources and Dungeon for your own won't work for you, you could always try to make some kind of alliance, trading goods and joining forces in battle. Just watch out for when they stab you in the back, for Keepers are a treacherous lot.

Sanctuary

Throwing a knife like a dart in real life would most likely have it tumble in mid air and be useless. You could make it more aerodynamic, add fins and such, but then what you have is a dart. And as I said before, even a trained throwing knife expert can not simply walk into a room and successfully hit a target on the first go with any degree of reliability.

But, this isn't real life, so we can get away with a little bit of Hollywood physics.

[[I'd put a witty GIF here pertaining to Hollywood physics, but I'm not sure where to find one, so you'll just have to use your imaginations]]

Sanctuary

Oh, I'm not concerned about Arrianna. She's telekinetic, I know she can do that. I was pointing more at Zerox and Ghost, who used throwing knives as part of their standard kit. They're dead now, though, so we don't have to worry about them any more.

Dungeon Keepers

@Kaben, Ah, yes, I meant that.

@Cyclone, I'll put those in. I have a paragraph for upgrading below. While in the original OP it said that this process does not have to take place in the Heart, I personally think it should take place in the Heart. Also, do upgrades affect all members of that species, or just future ones?

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If, later, you wish to make a major modification to one of your pre-existing creatures, then you have the option of upgrading it. This process takes the same amount of other people's posts as it took to originally create that creature. Unlike the original process, upgrading does not completely incapacitate you. If things go wrong, then there won't be an explosion, although completing the upgrade may be compromised.

Dungeon Keepers

I've completed the next section. Do tell me if I need to rephrase anything anywhere in the new OP.

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Creating Creatures and Constructs:

As mentioned above, to design a new creature you must enter your Heart and spend a while there distraction-free. The amount of time you spend there is determined by the Fibonacci Sequence. Your first creature takes 3 posts to create, your second takes 5 posts, third 8 posts, fourth 13 posts, fifth 21 posts, and so on. These are posts of other players, so you can't simply spam posts to create your creature. Each successive new creature is typically more powerful than the last, but it will be weaker than a Keeper or Construct and its power is limited by your own. Additionally, creatures don't get more powerful as you do. You may change their equipment and make minor, largely cosmetic changes, but any major overhaul will require starting from scratch.

While you are in your Heart creating a creature, all your attention is focussed on the creation of this new blueprint. If your concentration is broken, such as by a pesky hero kicking open the door of the Heart, then bad things happen. In short, your Heart explodes from misdirected magical energy, probably taking out your Avatar, your new blueprint and a sizeable chunk of your Dungeon (and hopefully whichever enemies were beating down your door too). Try not to let that happen.

While you personally can not attend to anything while you're busy creating new creatures, the other denizens of your Dungeon can continue working. Your armies will still defend your Dungeon and do whatever tasks you left them to do, and if you have any Constructs they can arrange raids, organise your troops and the like.

Constructs are like your general, sergeants and champions. They are far more powerful than ordinary creatures, although still weaker than all but the most pitiful of creatures. Constructs are also capable of leading and organising your forces in your absence, which makes them even more valuable. As well as greater power and (usually) intelligence than your ordinary minions, Constructs have a much closer link with Keepers, and can be empowered or even possessed if the need should arise (although you may need to be in your Heart at the time).

The creation of a single Construct requires the same process as creating a new blueprint for a creature. You must be in your Heart, undisturbed, for a period of time determined by the Fibonacci Sequence, as before. The more Constructs you already have, the longer it takes. However, the number of blueprints you have does not influence how long it takes to make a Construct, and vice versa.

Should you so want to, you can destroy all of the copies of one of your weaker creatures in order to lower the number of blueprints you have in order to speed up the creation of newer blueprints. The same effect occurs if you are unfortunate enough to have all of one type of minion wiped out. The same can be done of Constructs. Just be sure to do so before you start creating - no distractions or things go boom, remember?

Sanctuary

The matter isn't hitting your target, it's having the rotation of the knife timed so that the pointy end stabs into your target. If it isn't oriented correctly, it simply bounces off and you'd probably have been better off throwing stones.

I'm not asking for anything to be changed. I'm just putting it out there for future consideration. Fiction has a habit of ignoring inconvenient truths like this, and that is quite reasonable.

Dungeon Keepers

I'm wanting to redo the entire OP. While the content will be largely the same, I'm hoping to have it expressed in a simpler, more concise manner. That means writing it out almost from scratch (with reference to the original, of course), but that's OK because since exams have finished I've got little better to do.