There's a Road to the Dungeon, and It's Paid for by Adventurers

Here's something that I mentioned very briefly in my post about the AD&D DMG's section on "taxes" (including duties, excises, fees, tariffs, tithes, and - most notably with regards to this post - tolls) and the indentured servitude of those who fail to pay - the local municipality maintains a road to "the dungeon":

We can interpret "the dungeon" in this case as referring to the single dungeon with which campaign play begins, as described in the opening to the section titled "THE CAMPAIGN":

This is not dissimilar to the guidance in the section titled "THE WILDERNESS" in OD&D's Book III: The Underworld and Wilderness:

While a dungeon can be very big (even infinite) and can sustain entire campaigns all on its own, we know from AD&D's Appendix B that if we zoom out to a large enough scale, we will surely find more than just a single dungeon in the area of play. My 100-hex sandbox, for example, has two:

Any given dungeon on the campaign map, however large or small, could be "the dungeon" in a campaign of its own. This is all to say, to use Gygax's phrasing, "of course" whichever municipality is closest to any given dungeon will maintain a road on the route to that dungeon!

Why is this noteworthy? Well, first of all, I find it interesting. My conception of the dungeon has always been that it is a desolate place. Sure, it isn't typically far from the player characters' "home base" because exploring the dungeon is the default mode of play in the early game, when the characters are low-level, and adventuring in the wilderness is dangerous business. Therefore, characters need to be able to travel to and from the dungeon swiftly, lest they get unlucky and run afoul of a dragon or a group of 40 bandits.

Even considering the likely proximity of the dungeon to a settlement, I certainly never considered that there would be a road leading straight to it. A trail, maybe, carved out as a desire path of sorts by the numerous adventures who have traveled there to make their fortune in the past, but a proper road? Like a good enough one that the municipality charges a toll to use it? Why would this be?

Well, it's income. Considering the likely proximity to the settlement, one can imagine that it isn't particularly expensive to maintain such a road. Given that exploring the dungeon is the entry level job of the adventuring career path, and that seemingly anyone who wants to be anyone in a D&D society must obtain and wield power through adventuring and the accumulation of levels (D&D is a levelocracy), there are probably a lot of people - a lot of eventually wealthy people - who will want to use that road. Since common peasants probably aren't going there, the municipality can even charge a much heftier toll on that road in particular. It pays for itself and then some.

Don't forget to charge the player characters not just per head but per wheel ("and possibly even materials transported"):

If the characters are bringing carts and wagons to haul their treasure, and depending on what sorts of materials are tolled, this could add up fast!

This also allows the municipality to maintain some level of control over the dungeon and those who wish to visit it. The local government of the town or city could certainly send some 0th-level men to explore the dungeon and plunder its riches to line the ruler's pockets - a big enough settlement almost certainly has more resources than a handful of 1st-level player characters - but why bother doing so, when they can simply charge adventurers a fee to exploit the dungeon for them, then exploit those same adventurers in turn?

The local ruler can thus monitor who is making forays into the dungeon, which allows them to keep track of those adventurers who might prove to be of greater usefulness - or might one day grow to be greater threats. It also might ensure that player characters are on their best behavior in the settlement itself - if they cause enough trouble or get on the ruler's bad side, they might find themselves turned away at the toll station on their next expedition.

This also allows the Dungeon Master to provide local color to the region depending on the ruler's nature. The dungeon is, after all, within the ruler's domain, and Lawful, Chaotic, Good, and Evil rulers will assert their dominion over it to varying degrees and using different means. A benevolent ruler may charge no toll at all to those known to be do-gooders, while a malicious one may impose even greater tolls, require generous bribes in exchange for documentation granting access, or heavily tax or even unjustly confiscate any goods hauled from within at their whim.

Much like with the other forms of taxation Gygax describes, the fees, surveillance, and politics are sure to annoy players. What will they do when it all becomes too much to bear? Well, they'll go offroad, into the wilderness, to carve their own path to the site of adventure - one that isn't subject to the local powers that be. When doing so, they must not only brave the aforementioned dangers of the wilderness, but the danger of being caught - confiscation of all goods, a fine, and possible imprisonment:

This is, once again, a great way for player characters to become indentured to the city watch! Or worse. The Chaotic Evil warlord who rules the nearby town isn't likely to take kindly to this trespass, after all.

Death, Taxes, and Indentured Servitude in AD&D Cities

Something amusing I found while poring over the AD&D city/town encounters:

Magic-users in AD&D cities and towns are punished by being indentured into a year of servitude with the city guard. This can be for any unpayable debt owed to the city - monetary (loans, the cost of resurrection, taxes) or otherwise (such as a "debt to society" incurred after committing a crime).

This suggests several things about AD&D towns and cities: their governments offer loans (presumably if it was instead a wealthy individual or non-municipal organization providing the loan, the punishment for failing to pay it back would be different) and resurrection (suggesting some sort of state-sponsored clerical organization rather than/in addition to individual clerics at non-affiliated temples providing such services), have their own sets of laws, and require residents to pay taxes (both of the latter two points are relatively obvious, but I'm including them for thoroughness's sake).

Gygax has surprisingly little to say about loans in the DMG, but based on the general tone of advice offered in the rest of the text, one must imagine the interest rates would be quite high, so adventurers should borrow at their own risk.

Resurrection, of course, is expensive:

A cleric must be at least 9th-level to cast raise dead, so the bare minimum cost is 5,500 gp. Player characters will need to seek out higher-level clerics to restore life to dwarves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings, and humans - not elves! - who have been dead for longer than a day, so circumstances will often necessitate even greater expense.

Gygax also has surprisingly little to say about laws and crime, but one can imagine that these will vary from place to place and that theft, assault, murder, and the like (all common activities for adventurers) are generally frowned upon.

This is all in contrast to taxes (and duties, and excises, and tariffs, and tithes, and tolls...), about which Gygax has MUCH to say. Seriously, this is almost an entire page:

You probably don't want to read all of that, and I don't blame you. Here is a summary:

• The DM should uses taxes to take excess money away from the player characters.
• Towns and cities charge a 1% duty (2% to foreigners) on all normal goods brought in for sale - food, cloth and hides, livestock, raw materials, and manufactured goods. This probably applies to the common merchant more so than to the player characters, but is worth keeping in mind for when the players decide to collect all of the orcs' weapons and armor to sell.
• Towns and cities charge the usual duty plus a 5% tariff on luxury and precious goods brought in for sale - wine, spirits, furs, copper, gold, jewelry, and the like. This will definitely apply to the player characters in the latter cases, as well as in the former cases if you're in the habit of giving out actually interesting treasure . Give your players cases of fine wine as treasure!
• Once duties are paid, documents are provided which make the legal sale of such goods possible. Upstanding merchants presumably will not trade in smuggled goods, but black markets will. Unless players have connections and want to risk dealing with unsavory types, they must pay duties!
• Towns and cities charge an entry fee of 1 copper per head or wheel to citizens and 5 copper per to foreigners unless they have passports (which incentivizes having political connections).
• Towns and cities charge residents an annual tax per head of 1 copper to peasants, 1 silver to freeman (adventurers), and 1 gold to nobles (which I guess would include any character with an officially sanctioned stronghold or similar holding).
• When taxes are paid, characters are provided with proof of payment, which they must keep on hand in case they are stopped. If they are stopped and don't have proof of payment, they must pay again. If they're foreigners, they're more likely to be stopped. Tax collectors are, of course, on the random encounter table:

• Foreigners must pay a 10% sales tax.
• Tolls are charged on roads to and from the settlement (including on the route to "the dungeon" - suggesting that roads to dungeons are maintained by the local government, which is really interesting). Gygax does not elaborate as to what a typical toll might be.
• Citizens must pay a 5% tax on their property, if any, annually.
• Characters can become citizens after residing in the settlement for one month and paying a 10 gold piece fee - "plus many bribes"!
• Merchants don't usually accept foreign coin because they will be subject to a fine if caught with it. Thus foreign coin must be changed into the local currency at a 90% exchange rate. This probably applies to most currency hauled out of dungeons, and perhaps even currency obtained in a different settlement. If a character is caught with 100 silver or more in foreign currency, they are fined 50% of its total value unless they can prove they've just entered the settlement and are on their way to the money changers - good luck with that!
• A surtax of 10% is levied against sales or exchanges of gems and similar goods.

Let's say a party of ten 2nd-level characters just got back from an expedition to the 2nd-level of the dungeon. They explored 20 rooms, including three with both a monster and treasure and one with just treasure. In total, they collected 6,600 copper, 1,050 gold, and 220 platinum. They probably paid some sort of toll on the road back from the dungeon - there's no guidance on this, and it probably wasn't a significant amount, so let's just ignore it. 

The characters don't have any goods for sale so they needn't pay duties. There are ten of them, and they have a cart to haul their stuff. They are too low-level to have connections yet, so they don't have passports. They pay a 60 copper entry fee (10 heads + 2 wheels, x 5 copper because they're non-citizens). They're given some documentation in case they're stopped, then directed to the money changers since all of their coins are of an ancient mint.

The money changer exchanges their currency and collects 10% (at this point, 654 copper, 105 gold, and 22 platinum). They might opt to retain up to 99 silver in the foreign currency, but let's say they don't. They are left with 5,886 copper, 945 gold, and 198 platinum. Since they will have to pay a 10% sales tax on anything they buy, their effective spending money is actually 5,298 copper, 851 gold, and 179 platinum (or, altogether, roughly 940 gold versus the 1,160 they entered with).

The example party paid 220 gold in taxes, duties, and fees. It's not a crazy huge amount, but it is significant, and becomes more significant the larger the party's haul.

So why am I spending so much time doing accounting for adventurers? Well, because taxes are annoying. In America, we need them to pay for stuff like roads and schools of course, but the majority goes towards one trillion dollar experimental airplanes that don't work and other ill-advised military spending, and we don't even get free healthcare. Your players will probably appreciate that their characters can travel quickly overland on well-maintained roads, but they probably won't spare a single thought for how those roads are maintained. Taxes in D&D are "realistic", but they also probably feel pretty meaningless and arbitrary. I guarantee your players will hate paying them.

Which means your players will probably try to find a way around paying them. They may seek to obtain passports or citizenship to avoid paying fees to enter the settlement and sales tax on all their goods, sure...or they might seek to smuggle themselves and their goods inside the settlement, deal on the black market, avoid the money changers, and bribe officials. All of which are great ways to be arrested and indentured into servitude.

It's not just magic-users, either:

Clerics can also be indentured into service with the city watch. What's the different between the watch and the guard? I don't know. Doesn't matter.

And frankly, I don't see why other characters wouldn't be pressed into similar service. I'm not concerned with magic-users and clerics specifically, but more so with the fact that it's general policy in AD&D cities to force criminals and debt/tax-dodgers into service like this.

A year is also a long time in most D&D campaigns. If the whole party ends up indentured in this way, you might simply fast forward a year or even decide to play it out as a very specific type of campaign (I probably wouldn't because it doesn't seem very interesting, but you may be more creative than I). If just one character is indentured, the rest of the party might decide to use the opportunity to pursue some lengthy downtime activities while their companion serves their term, or that character might just be effectively retired from the campaign (temporarily or otherwise). Or maybe they ambush the guards and bust their fellow out, and now they're all on the lamb!

Anyway, I guess the point is that AD&D city and town watches are full of indentured debtors, criminals, and tax-dodging character-types - a warning to players who think they can outwit the municipal government!

Although only tangentially related, I would be remiss not point out that at any moment the characters might also be forced into service in the local navy or militia through no fault of their own:

AD&D cities are kind of a terrible place to be!

Impressment is, of course, a massive anachronism. It's almost as if the implied D&D setting is not medieval!

The Hole in the Wall Lounge

The blogosphere is celebrating Stanley Yelnats's birthday by posting hole. It's a blog bandwagon! A holewagon. The following post is my humble contribution. Check in at Prismatic Weekly after the hole in the blogosphere closes to find a collection of related posts. You just might find the hole post that was made for you.

The Hole in the Wall Lounge (or the Djinn's Inn, as it is more colloquially known) is an extradimensional hookah lounge, tavern, and inn owned and operated by Zarif the Kindly, a lesser djinni - a noble djinni would not be caught dead in such an establishment (rumor has it that Ghaabiz the Giving, an emir of the Sky Gardens of Fussammah, is the actual owner, although it would be scandalous to suggest as much in the company of any djinn).

There are a few means to reach the Hole in the Wall Lounge, though none are particularly easy. Scattered across the planes are certain portable holes which have been specially stitched with silver thread around their edges. Rather than functioning as a typical portable hole, when applied to a flat surface (the floor or ground, a ceiling, or preferably a wall), these unique portable holes instead create an opening to the Hole in the Wall Lounge. Those individuals entering through a hole placed upon the floor or ground emerge into the lounge through a chimney, those entering through a hole placed on a ceiling emerge in the lounge's wine cellar, and those entering through a hole placed on a wall emerge from the establishment's main door, which is considered most polite.

These unique portable holes were originally gifted to djinn merchants, ambassadors, and friends (as well as a few marids, with who the djinn get along somewhat amicably), Many were in turn gifted to heroic adventurers, lost, or stolen, such that is it no longer possible to account for all of them. The djinn have given up attempting to do so. Roughly 1-in-10 portable holes found in dungeons and such are of this variety. They are not typically sold by anyone with good sense, although they are sometimes gifted, particularly by djinn to those who are not of a nefarious (Evil) or "boring" (Lawful) nature.

Another means of reaching the Lounge is by way of a passwall spell, although the spell must be cast on a flat surface bearing the Lounge's unique Dwarvish rune, which is etched into the surface and inlaid with silver. This is almost always on a wall. The djinn and their allies work tirelessly to erase the signifiers when applied to other surfaces, in order to better encourage visitors to come to the Lounge by way of the main door.

Others reach the Lounge by way of a plane shift spell, although this requires the use of a tuning fork calibrated to the Lounge's unique extraplanar signature (it is a literal fork from the Lounge's collection of cutlery, silver and likewise stamped with the Lounge's unique rune). Once theft of the Lounge's silverware became an issue, Zarif began using his magical ability to fabricate items to produce utensils for guests. These forks instead last just longer than 24 hours before disintegrating into dust, unless a permanency spell is cast upon them to preserve the enchantment.

The final way to reach the Lounge is via astral projection. In the Astral Sea there are pools the color of red wine, exceptionally hard to find, which lead to the Lounge. They are easily mistaken for pools of a similar color, which lead to certain Lower Planes. One must be cautious in discerning the difference in hue, lest they end up in a far less hospitable place entirely.

Entering through one of these pools magically traps the visitor within one of the Lounge's many casks of vintage wine until it is uncorked by the proprietor. Zarif will usually declare that the visitor has spoiled the vintage, and will require them to perform a number of menial but good natured tasks before they will be served, such as pouring wine, scrubbing floors, or changing bedclothes. These are all things which Zarif can achieve magically, of course - this is the djinn way of teaching a lesson about requiring service of one recently released from imprisonment within a vessel.

There are certainly other ways of entering the place which cannot be accounted for here. For example, there are always rats in the cellar, though no one can say how exactly they come to be there.

To leave, one simply exits by the main door, at which point they arrive back from whence they originally departed, for better or worse.

The interior of the Lounge is cozy and lushly appointed with tapestries, pillows, dim lanterns, and low tables (seating is on the floor). The air smells of rich incense, perfume, and tobacco, with plenty of hookah pipes to go around. There is always pleasing music (any visitors with instruments are quickly pressed into service in exchange for discounted or free accommodations, depending on talent). The wine never stops flowing, and unimaginable vintages are readily available. The food is impossibly delicious (all of it conjured by Zarif). The windows look out on planar vistas (all illusory - in reality, there is nothing but a black void beyond the Lounge's walls).

Any number of interesting patrons may be present at the Lounge when the player characters arrive, but I recommend at least a number equal to your amount of players. This ensures that every player has at least one creature to interact with. You might roll d3+3, which gives a random number between 4 and 6.

As for who all might be there, due to the various means of entry the possibilities are quite numerous. Anyone with a special portable hole may be there, as may any character, party of characters, or creature capable of casting passwall (a 5th-level magic-user/wizard spell in most editions), plane shift (a 5th-level spell for clerics in AD&D and a 7th-level spell for clerics, druids, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards in 5e), or astral spell/astral projection (a 7th-to-9th-level spell for clerics, illusionists, and magic-users in AD&D and a 9th-level spell for clerics, warlocks, and wizards in 5e). Who exactly might be there will thus vary by the system you're using. Here are some possibilities:

• Individual characters/parties of characters (mostly 9th-level and above - but the occasional lower-level as well - usually including at least one cleric, magic-user/wizard, druid, sorcerer, or warlock, edition depending)
• Berbalangs
• Cambions
• Older dragons that can cast spells (likely metallic, as their ability to shapechange into humanoids allows them to blend in more easily - although an old enough dragon of any type could also find its way in, some imagination will be required to determine why an ancient red dragon is there)
• Genies (djinn, efreet, and marids - dao are expressly forbidden, but that doesn't necessarily mean one won't show up!)
• Githyanki/githzerai
• Inevitables (perhaps waiting for some cosmic criminal/oathbreaker to show up - maybe a member of the party!)
• Ki-rin
• Liches
• Mind flayers
• Morkoth
• Mummy lords
• Naga
• Nagpa
• Neogi
• Night hags
• Rakshasa
• Retrievers
• Slaad
• Androsphinxes
• Steel predators
• Titans
• Vampire spellcasters
• Yugoloths
• And more!

Inciting violence inside the Lounge is guaranteed way to earn a lifetime ban and the enmity of the djinn. The Lounge is a place of extraplanar rest and relaxation, not conflict. If the player characters have the means to enter the Lounge, it's a great haven in which to recover in the midst of a dungeon delve without needing to return to town. 

That's not to say that the Lounge is lacking in excitement. It's a place for clandestine meetings and tense negotiations, scheming and subterfuge. Characters may be tricked or ensorcelled. Powerful creatures will want to know who they are, where they're from, what they've done, and what they're doing next. Dragons will want to know if they have a stronghold and what treasures are kept there. Liches will see their faces and scry on them from other realms. Mind flayers will learn of their world and bring this information back to their people to enact future plans against it.

Here's an example as to how I might "stock" the Lounge. Characters can get there by way of a portable hole at any level, which allows basically any creature to potentially be there. More likely, by my estimation, characters get there by way of passwall or plane shift, which become available at 9th-level (when they get access to 5th-level spells). Therefore I'm going to treat the Lounge as if it were the 9th-level of the dungeon.

First I roll d3+3 and get 6, so there will be 6 noteworthy patrons at the Lounge when the characters arrive. Next, I'll roll on the Dungeon Random Monster Level Determination Matrix from the AD&D DMG:

Since the Lounge is treated as being the 9th-level of the dungeon, I roll 6d20 on that row of the table. Note that this can lead me to roll on the random monster table corresponding to any of the ten dungeon levels, so we are working with the full range of creatures. On d20 I roll 4, 6, 10, 13, 16, and 19. That's dungeon levels IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, and IX. 

Rolling on each of those tables, which I won't include here, I got: blink dog, giant poisonous snake, lammasu, fire giant, rust monster, and purple worm. These probably seem like odd results, and they are! You might opt to reroll until you end up with creatures that "make sense", and I certainly considered that. But what if we just tried to make it make sense? 

The blink dog is there because of some mishap with its limited ability to teleport. It has since been adopted as Zarif's loyal pet. The giant poisonous snake in fact belongs to a renowned snake charmer, who has been invited here by Zarif to entertain the lounge's guests. The lammasu is a friend of Zarif's and visits the Lounge often, being generally kind and friendly to all good creatures. The fire giant could be a messenger sent by an efreeti of the City of Brass, waiting to meet someone.

The rust monster and purple worm are more difficult to rationalize, and might warrant a reroll. The rust monster might take the place of the rats in the cellar - a nuisance vermin for the player characters to handle in order to enter into Zarif's good graces or make amends for some faux pas. The purple worm surely isn't an adult purple worm, because that would be too big. Perhaps Zarif is keeping a juvenile purple worm and making some exotic drinks with venom milked from its stinger.

Of course, only three of these creatures could be considered "patrons". You might reroll the blink dog, rust monster, and purple worm in order to instead generate proper NPCs, but I quite like the way this particular batch of rolls turned out.

Gangs of Teenage Dragons Roam the Wilderness: The Implied Lifecycle of Dragons in AD&D

Let's pretend it's still 2024. It may now be the Year of the Snake, but in my heart it's still the Year of the Dragon!

Here's something from OD&D:

And here's a similar excerpt from AD&D:

In OD&D, groups of multiple dragons encountered in the wilderness are always a family group (a mated pair with or without very young dragon children). In AD&D, mated pairs with young are encountered only in their lairs (mated pairs without young can still be encountered outside their lairs). If three or more dragons are encountered outside their lair, all dragons in the group will be sub-adults.

What's mildly interesting about this is that a mated pair of dragons can only ever have two young at most (all dragons in AD&D appear in groups of 1 to 4 except the gold dragons, which appear in groups of 1 to 3). Thus, it's impossible for a group of 3 to 4 sub-adult dragons to all be of the same clutch. They will all be the same type of dragon, but at most only two of them can be siblings.

Furthermore, dragon children encountered with a mated pair are only ever very young dragons. For clarity, here is the breakdown of dragon age categories in AD&D:

So let's say you roll up a random encounter with a dragon/dragons. If you roll up one dragon, it can be of any age category (you roll d8 to determine which, as described above). If you roll up two dragons, they will be a mated pair, and each can be either an adult dragon, old dragon, very old dragon, or ancient dragon. If you roll up three or more dragons in their lair, they will be a mated pair with one or two eggs or very young dragons. If you roll up three or more dragons outside their lair, they will all be sub-adults.

This suggests something of a lifecycle for dragons, which I'll detail below.

Very young dragons can be encountered alone in the wilderness or in the lair with their parents. They typically live with their parents. If you encounter one on its own in the wilderness, it has either snuck out of the lair (and perhaps its parents are looking for it!), or it's an orphan - its parents were killed and it was driven from its home. Sad! 

Young dragons are only encountered alone. They are kicked out of the lair at 6 years of age to make it on their own. Sad! Dragons are not particularly great parents. Since you can't encounter more than one of them at this age, siblings do not stick together (this is presumably when rivalries between sibling dragons develop - maybe this is why they're kicked out, or maybe this is simply when dragons begin to experience angst and wish to go it on their own).

Sub-adult dragons are only encountered alone or, in the wilderness, with groups of two to three peers. At this age (late teens to early 20s), lonely dragons of different parentage come together to form roving wilderness gangs. Since solo sub-adults can be encountered in their lair, presumably those encountered alone either have a lair somewhere (and thus no need to be part of a gang), or are just on the cusp of sub-adulthood and have not yet found a gang to join. Because all such dragons will be of the same type, these dragons must be drawn together by a shared identity but not necessarily a maternal bond (since siblings part ways at the young stage).

Young adult dragons are only encountered alone. Perhaps this is when dragons tire of the company of their peers or begin to form rivalries with them, as they did with their siblings. Those who don't already have a lair will now seek to claim one.

Adult, old, very old, and ancient dragons can be encountered alone or together, without young in the wilderness and with or without young in their lairs. This is the age at which dragons look to "settle down", find a mate, and start laying eggs. They only do so with dragons of the same type, so ignore that part in my last post where I suggested that the black and green dragon encountering one another might be engaged in a mating ritual. Or don't! Perhaps two dragons of different types will get busy with one another but wouldn't stoop so low as to have children together (or are incapable of doing so for biological reasons). It can be whatever flavor of weird you want.

Anyway, this seems like it could be a cool way to flavor your encounters with dragons. Is the very young dragon sneaking out to explore? Are its parents looking for it? Are they dead? Is the young dragon angsty and bitter? Is the sub-adult a weird loner, a confident bachelor, or a stooge in some other dragon's gang? Does the young adult dragon have a friend-turned-rival? Is the adult, old, very old, or ancient dragon looking for love or happily in a relationship?

I just like the idea of a gang of teenaged dragons swooping down out of the sky. Maybe you do too!