Soluthis Location #005: Abandoned Mine

[Razorwing]

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<td width="352" bgcolor="#F0F0F0" style="border-right:1px dotted #0000FF;border-top:1px dotted #0000FF;">Abandoned Mine </td>
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<td bgcolor="#FAFAFA" style="border-right:1px dotted #0000FF;border-top:1px solid #CCCCCC;border-bottom:1px solid #CCCCCC;">Cave</td>
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<td bgcolor="#F0F0F0" style="border-left:1px dotted #0000FF;border-bottom:1px dotted #0000FF;"><font color="#0066FF" size="2" face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif">Location in SoluthisWorld03:</font></td>
<td bgcolor="#F0F0F0" style="border-right:1px dotted #0000FF;border-bottom:1px dotted #0000FF;">&quot;SoluthisW3Loc005&quot; -18,36</td>
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<p><a href="http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a177/SilgradTower/SoluthisLoc005.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a177/SilgradTower/th_SoluthisLoc005.jpg" alt="Click for a larger image" width="160" height="113" border="0" align="right" style="padding-left:7px;padding-bottom:7px;"></a>
<p>Below is my suggested theme for this location. If you would like a different theme of your choosing please go ahead and pitch it. While you're thinking up ideas just bear in mind the dungeon is located <u>inside</u> the city and if there was a threat there the guards would have dealt with it already (unless you can think up a logical reason why they haven't).</p>
<p>The entrance to the cave is in cell -18,36 of the worldspace <strong>SoluthisWorld03</strong>, not in SilgradTowerLand like most caves. There is a starter cell for this location, so to get started load up the interior cell SoluthisLoc005lvl1. At present you can't enter the mine due to technical problems, which you can read more about <a href="http://www.silgrad.com/wbb2/thread.php?threadid=8861&sid=">here</a>. The problem will be remedied in the near future. </p>
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<p><font color="#666666">[ore] = A mineable stuff of your choosing. If you can't think of any, go with glass or adamantium.<br>
[animal] = A low-level animal of your choosing. If you can't think of any, go with any kind of spider.<br>
[other animal] = Prey of the [animal] that is a nuisance to people. If you can't think of any, go with rats.</font></p>
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<p><font color="#666666">Some decades ago Great House Redoran found itself in desperate need of [ore], and decided to dig a mine right in the natural hill surrounding Areya's Palace. Not only was the site close to their base of power (and thus easy to defend) but the hills had never been excavated before either and it was anyone's guess what treasures they may possess - maybe luck would side with them and they would come across a large vein of the [ore] they so desperately sought.</font></p>
<p><font color="#666666">However as it turned out, luck wasn't on their side at all. As time wore on it became obvious the hills lacked anyting valuable or useful, and the mine fell into disuse. Demolishing it has never been much of a priority with House Redoran, whom reason that the mine was built to last from the get-go and filling it with rock would only be a waste of work.</font></p>
<p><font color="#666666">As of late a pack of [animal] have made a den out of the mine. Great House Redoran was poised to eradicate them and finally seal off the mine completely, until a night guard commented to Areya that he had observed the [animal] preying on [other animal] in the city. An unspoken truce towards the [animal] in the mine was declared. Naturally the [animal] remained ignorant of the truce, but just the same there's never been an incident between them and the town's citizens.</font></p>
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<p><font color="#666666">What does the description mean in practice? Well first my initial thought of the abandoned mine is that it's a spider den, and the spiders come out at night to hunt rats roaming around SoluthisWorld03. That idea has a flaw though and that is that the city already uses rats, and if we used them again they might be hard to tell apart from the Fighters Guild rats. It could be solved by making all of it a quest, thus not enabling the spiders and rats until the quest kicks in, which gives the impression the spiders didn't move in until the player got the quest. If you can't make quests or don't want to then a simpler solution would be to switch out the spiders and rats for other animals. The only catch is that both animal types have to be believable as being harmless to people and that the first animal type has to be able to hunt the other as prey.</font></p>
<p><font color="#666666">You'll need to set up two or three [animal] that hunt the [other animal] during nights in SoluthisWorld03. It would probably work the same way as when Imperial archers hunt deer.</font></p>
<p><font color="#666666">In my description House Redoran never found anything worth mining, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not there - just that they didn't find it. In other words if you want there to be ore down there then you can add it, but please set it up so that it's reasonable to believe it wasn't found initially. One idea is to set up a rockslide in a side-passage and once the rocks have tumbled down, the player can access a passage behind it which leads to the ore-crusted part of the mine. Logically there shouldn't be any enemies beyond that part since no-one's set foot there before. It could serve as a way of rewarding the player for cleaning out the cave.</font></p>