Monsters get bigger and stronger the deeper
down you delve. Every adventurer knows this to be true, but few speak of it.
Capture a koubalt at the entrance to a cave
or labyrinth, take it down a level or two and stake it there. A month later,
you’ll have a g’noll. The same with an orkh – bring it a few levels lower and
you’ll have an ohger. Whole parties have been massacred by giant beetles they unknowingly
brought in their packs, or spiders.
No one knows why this happens, and why men
and their fellows are immune. I’ve heard at least a dozen theories, though.
1 The old scrolls tell of radioactive ruins
of pre-cataclysm civilization that lie in the darkest depths, the eldritch
energies from their broken war-engines permeating the subterranean environment
and changing its denizens.
2 Actually, I read that an antediluvian meteor
created the crater that later became the dungeon, and brought with it an alien
microscopic spore. The spore colony is still buried beneath the tunnels, and is
the epicenter for these mutations.
3 Fools! At the bottom lies a hellmouth
from which all these monsters are spawned, and as they recede from it so too
does their infernal power diminish! Going back they replenish themselves and
take on stronger forms.
4 Horsepiss. A dreaming god lies forgotten at
the bottom of the dungeon, Its dreams invading and warping reality more the
closer you approach to where It sleeps. If you find It, you’ll get your
greatest wish granted.
5 Nah! A sage told me there’s a gateway to another
dimension at bottom, and what is evil on this side is good on the other and vis
versa. Monsters and demons on this side are transformed angels and fairies from
the other.
6 You’re all wrong. The ancient unknown builders
used non-Euclidean geometry to make the maze, and it distorts reality by amplifying
monsters the closer they get to the center.
7 You’ve got it backwards. Deep dwellers
are actually normal – it’s the sun that distorts and weakens them. They get
their power from the anti-sun at the center of the world, which replenishes
them when they near it, just as our sun sucks the life out of them. Just like
vampires.
8 If you’d studied natural history you’d
know it is simply a polymorphic side-effect of abiogenic underground gases which
makes lower lifeforms like worms and rats spring from the earth. It’ll warp you
too if you’re down there long enough.
9 Well, I heard from an old dwarf that mystic
crystals lie in the depths, and their vibrations cause the change. That’s why
all adventurers carry dwarven charms and metal, to throw off the harmonics and
stay unaffected.
10 A cleric told me that the crucibles of
the gods, where they begat Life, still lie scattered deep in the earth. A
crucible rejuvenates whatever creatures are aligned with its maker, so whatever
god left his crucible down there must have been a nasty one.
11 Everybody knows that underground time flows
in reverse, and these monsters are just regressing to primitive leviathan state.
It’s why all adventurers stay looking so young.
12 Nah, it’s all in the mind. As you get
into deep darkness, your other senses and powers heighten, and these creatures
are psychically beefing themselves up to face the terrors of the abyss. Just
ask a psion.
