Dungeon Day 90 to 120 – Continues
At first, Dan questioned if he should provide some sort of effect to allow adventurers to breathe underwater. However, after some consideration, he decided that if they couldn’t use basic magic to cast a spell or body enhancement for simple water breathing, then maybe they shouldn’t be questing at all. In a way, that alone was a good training idea since it would have new adventurers thinking about such things from an early stage.
No longer worried about adventurers being able to breathe or not, Dan started making the quests for the lake.
Lake questing would start simple, and as the month passed, other events in the lake would be put forth, bringing everything together with more quests. To begin with, adventurers would be able to do simple fetch quests for maybe the first week. It was during this time that they would build up a reputation. These starting quests were gather or escort quests for the various workers in the town and villages. Something like escorting a gatherer to the surface of the lake and protecting them as they collected things on the shore. Or maybe a quest to help a family wrangle domesticated lily pad monsters.
At first, the quests might not seem important, but when the second week came about, there would be a self-triggering event where two factions in the frog folks would start to clash. When this happened, the leader of both factions would start recruiting adventurers. And to be recruited, adventurers had to meet a certain number of completed quests, hence the importance of the earlier quests.
Adventurers would be recruited in an attempt to have them contact the beast lords that lived within the lake in order to coax them to join one of the factions. However, as spoilers, this recruitment attempt would fail as different beast lords denied the request to join. From there on, the quest chain would move on to the phase when another self-triggering event happened, causing both factions to be directly at war with each other. Once that happened, adventurers would have to pick a side and join a faction during a limited time window.
Then, after the adventurers joined a faction, they would be sent to re-recruit the beast lords again, but under different circumstances. The results of the recruitment efforts would vary based on how the adventurers tried to recruit the beast lords. Either way, it would all climax with a large battle, the winner of which would be decided by the amount and type of beast lords recruited.
Of course, from there, depending on which faction won the event, it would affect the next reset as a new event would start or not based on previous results.
Now, as far as the factions went, there were the Deep Divers, who were going to be led by the former yet newly created frog chief.
?? Crystal Notice ??
?? Humanoid Statblock ??
Rank: Mid D Rank.
Name: Ribbiton Croaker the Third.
Type: Humanoid - Beastkin - Frogfolk.
Choice: Warrior Chief.
Size: Medium.
Hierarchy: Boss.
Arcane Mana: 1000/1000.
Arcane Mana Regen: +8 Per Minute.
Pure Arcane Mana: 500/500.
Pure Arcane Mana Conversion: +4 Per Minute.
Innate Abilities: 7.
Dark Vision. Frog Beastkin. Skin Breather. Underwater Diet. Water Attuned. Deep Divers Leader. Presences.
Proficiencies: 4.
Evocation. Conjuration. Abjuration. Body Enhancement.
Spells: 4.
Body Enhancement - General. Shield. Barrier. Control Water.
Techniques: 7.
Water Spear. Movement of the Current. Become Water. Command Water. Water Chains. Grasping Water. Freezing Touch.
Respawn Timer: Conditional.
Respawn Cost: 45 Mana.
Creation Cost: 91 Mana.
??
Ribbiton, the actual name of the chief, had come out rather cheap for a boss thanks to the fact he was already a creature, much like Dena and Drax had been. Dan hadn’t changed much about the frog chief except his fighting prowess, which had increased by leaps and bounds. Anyways, silly jokes aside, Ribbiton still had his deep green skin and wore his simple shell crown. Also, like the rest of the frog folk, he still wore simple loincloths, except the chiefs were better looking and, like his armor, better put together.
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Even though the chief looked the same on the outside, Dan had mentally changed him a bit more when compared to the rest of the frog folk. Whereas before, the chief was much more politically smart. Now, he was simpler. The reason behind this was so the chief would much more easily follow Dan’s plans. After all, his role was to be a warrior chief who gained the respect of his people and not some politically minded noble like his rival.
The chief’s rival was slightly taller, had yellowish skin, and liked to act all refined like a noble. Like the chief, the rival lead his own faction called the Long Legs. The two didn’t like each other at all and were completely entrenched in their beliefs. However, where the chief is a great warrior, his rival is a skilled liar and politician, just like his stats dictate him to be.
?? Crystal Notice ??
?? Humanoid Statblock ??
Rank: Mid D Rank.
Name: Victor Croakster.
Type: Humanoid - Beastkin - Frogfolk.
Choice: Noble.
Size: Medium.
Hierarchy: Boss.
Arcane Mana: 1000/1000.
Arcane Mana Regen: +8 Per Minute.
Pure Arcane Mana: 500/500.
Pure Arcane Mana Conversion: +4 Per Minute.
Innate Abilities: 8.
Dark Vision. Frog Beastkin. Skin Breather. Underwater Diet. Water Attuned. Long Legs Leader. Charismatic. Presences.
Proficiencies: 10.
Speech. Calligraphy. Basic Politics. Skilled Liar. Domination. Evocation. Abjuration. Body Enhancement. Arrogant. Ambitious.
Spells: 8.
Body Enhancement - General. Shield. Barrier. Control Water. Calming Aura. Charm Frogperson. Command. Charming Aura.
Techniques: 0.
Respawn Timer: Conditional.
Respawn Cost: 88 Mana.
Creation Cost: 177 Mana.
??
When making Victor, Dan had the complete opposite of Ribbiton in mind. Victor is not a warrior and cares little for honesty. The frog man is all about scheming and manipulations to push his faction to the top.
Of course, Dan knew many adventurers would ask why Ribbiton didn’t simply go and kill his rival. After all, the chief is a great warrior with a strong will, making the fight against his rival a victory without question, regardless of any domination magic. And as it turns out, Dan had the perfect answer.
See, Victor managed to coax a great hero to his side who was strong enough to match the warrior chief in combat.
?? Crystal Notice ??
?? Humanoid Statblock ??
Rank: Mid D Rank.
Name: Hercuefrog.
Type: Humanoid - Beastkin - Frogfolk.
Choice: Heroic Warrior.
Size: Medium.
Hierarchy: Mini-Boss.
Arcane Mana: 1000/1000.
Arcane Mana Regen: +8 Per Minute.
Pure Arcane Mana: 500/500.
Pure Arcane Mana Conversion: +4 Per Minute.
Innate Abilities: 8.
Dark Vision. Frog Beastkin. Skin Breather. Underwater Diet. Water Attuned. Presences. Strength. Mana Storage.
Proficiencies: 8.
Spear. Unarmed Combat. Light Armor. Veteran. Body Enhancement. Evocation. Conjuration. Abjuration.
Spells: 8.
Body Enhancement - General, Strength, Agility, and Speed. Shield. Barrier. Control Water. Summon Hippocampus.
Techniques: 3.
Strength of the Currents. Strike of the Hydra. Turtles Shell.
Respawn Timer: Conditional.
Respawn Cost: 65 Mana.
Creation Cost: 130 Mana.
??
Hercuefrog is the only thing that stands between Ribbiton and Victor.
As the name implies, Dan made the frog after a great hero, which some thinking reveals probably did exist at some point in Earth's history. Either way, Hercuefrog, even as a mini-boss, could fight against Ribbiton due to the various things Dan had thrown into the frog's stats.
Mainly the Strength and Mana Storage abilities, along with the Veteran proficiency.
The Strength ability just gave the frog a higher base strength score on par with a boss. The real big factor was Mana Storage, which closed the gap between the two since if Hercuefrog had a lower mana pool, he would quickly lag behind the chief regardless of any other ability.
Then there was Veteran, which gave the hero frog the experience required to fight as if he had been fighting his whole life. That was important since he had to match the chief's innate fighting experience from years of actual combat.
Looking at the rest of Hercuefrog's stats, mainly the spells and techniques, they were all rather straightforward, though Dan felt like the hero’s lack of techniques might make the frog falter in combat. The hope was that his summon hippocampus spell would give him that extra edge. If not, Dan would have to step in and give him some more abilities.
There was one final thing Dan had noticed on all three creations.
They all had the conditional tag for their respawn cooldown. The reason for this was that these bosses who were bound by events would have different respawn points or times depending on events. For example, in the final fight between the two frog factions, if Victor was killed, he would not be respawned. Another example was to prevent adventurers from doing something dumb, like killing a boss as the event triggered, possibly delaying the event. In that case, the boss would respawn instantly, and Dan would punish the adventurer. Either way, a lot of his future faction bosses would have conditional respawns, making Dan have less to worry about.
All in all, the lake was coming together rather nicely, and Dan spent some more time adding a few more details here and there. Even then, he knew that when his dungeon eventually opened, he would have to make other arrangements since adventurers would bring in the wild factor.
It was like getting his dungeon put to the test, something game developers back on Earth knew about. After all, everything worked fine until you had a bunch of players testing the limits of your game. And honestly, Dan couldn’t wait. He was sure there were plenty of things he had missed that he would have to fix on the fly.
Still, for the time being, and feeling like the town and villages were okay, Dan knew it was time to begin spawning the actual monsters.
