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Dungeons

    Spread across the lands of Old Sosaria, hidden in the foothills of mountains and at the roots of deep valleys, are the remnants of ancient mines, caves cut by molten stone and the prisons of regents long passed unto dust.   These are the dungeons, ten level mazes of the underworld peopled with the outcasts of the surface, or those that hide from the light.  And at the deepest levels dwell things of no equal above, beasts and beings that have no business existing at all - with hateful, wicked intelligence and brutality to match.

    Maps of the dungeons are unreliable. In actuality, they are rendered useless every time a new game is started. The layout of every dungeon is based on a randomized seed in the saved game file. A useful trick to this is that any game with the same seed has the same dungeons. It is possible to set this seed and then play in the map for that seed. This is hardly necessary, though on one level it may be easier than the alternatives. The dungeon play code is almost the same as that Richard Garriott used in Akalabeth. The player's dungeon view interface was copied directly from that game according to Garriott in The Official Book of Ultima.

    There are a few points of dungeon layout that can be noted. As mentioned above there are always ten levels. The dungeon populations are segregated at every two levels. The beasties get meaner as you go down. The NPC's indigenous to every level are listed in a table below.

    Next, as to the layout, these things are consistent. Every level is a 9x9 grid. The plan starts with main halls aligned north and south along the length of the floor (as long as nine paces). Then, there may be fields and walls placed along these hallways randomly. The halls are interconnected east and west to each other with other open halls, doorways, secret passages and fields. Alternately, some of the doors and secrets are just recesses in the walls, dead ends in other words.

    An entry to a dungeon places you in the furthest northwest corner of its map. The exit ladder is always in this corner (tile 0x0 starting at 0, increasing to the southeast). Ladders between levels alternate from northeast (going down on even floors and up on the odd numbered) to southwest (downward on the odd floors, up on the even ones) going down. The only ladder between levels one and two is in the south west, tile 2x6. Between floors two and three, the ladder is in the northeast at tile 6x2. Between three and four its at 2x6, in the same relative position as it was on the first floor. They alternate in this fashion all the way down to the tenth where there is no next level.

    Magic is a key tool in dungeons, even to the fighter. It is here where most spells are used to their greatest effect. As the maps are really random, a ladder may be inaccessible in some dungeons, enclosed in randomly generated walls. But every dungeon still has all ten of its floors. That is why the spells Ladder Up and Ladder Down are so important. They allow access to any level, even creating an exit if on level one, by placing a temporary ladder wherever they are cast. Though only a tool of high mages, another pair of important spells are Create and Destroy, the latter perhaps of greater importance. They are specifically for raising or tearing down the red protection fields. Finally, another thing the dungeons are laced with are chests and coffins. This being the case, and knowing that treasure is often found within, one may wish to use Open to break the seals on the coffins and Unlock to undo the chests. (Note: coffins can be opened by using the command, 'O'pen. Use of the spell, therefore, seems moot.)

   Here is a last and useful note on dungeons. It has been confirmed that the adventurer afflicted with many attacks who emerges victorious, on returning to the surface above will not only feel relieved and refreshed. Many a dire wound or injury is healed after climbing the last ladder to the surface.

Dungeon Inhabitants

    Those last creatures in the grayed boxes are those important to the Quests.