The City and the Dungeon
Page 34
Market: A hypothetical bazaar maintained in the hypothetical Undercity.
Meat Drill: Another name for the Boss Rush.
Meat Wall: Another name for the Horde.
meatshield: A delver used purely to provide Health. Also called cannon fodder.
melee: Short-range spells, sharp stabby things, and any form of hand-to-hand combat, or delvers or a party that use them.
metahunter: A delver who kills delvers who kill delvers who kill delvers.
microteleporter: A magical device capable of sending small parcels across great distances. Requires crystals to operate.
missile: Spells, thrown or fired objects, or a delver or party that uses them.
modifier: An occasional alteration to a given monster, usually giving it more powers than others of its kind.
monster: One of the denizens of the Dungeon. Believed to be at least partially mechanical.
Morgue: The legal repository of any heartstone which is not claimed by a party member, relative, or the City Guard. Also regulates revivalists.
N
Necklace of the Eye: One of several drops from Eyes in the Dungeon. The most common grants telepathy.
nuclear bomb: A nigh-mythical weapon of Earlier.
O
order of command: A ranking determining who is in command should higher ranked delvers in a party die.
out-of-depth: A monster spawning Floors above where it normally does.
overlevel: To level up in a specific class beyond the 100th level. This is difficult and considered a waste of Experience.
P
Palace of the Stone: The structure built around the Cornerstone and the capitol of the City. One of the most guarded structures in existence.
Perfect Sight: An intrinsic that grants the ability to see anything.
permapoison: A Deep Wound that is poisonous. Due to the nature of Deep Wounds, this is often fatal.
Power: A measurement of a spell's energy.
Prebattle: A spell cast before battle, usually a buff. Some delvers equip a different set of gear for prebattles.
Prism Poker: A form of poker played with a 49-card deck.
Private Entrance: A magical, delver-created staircase leading to the 1st Floor. A Private Entrance can be set to lead to any specific section.
Protection: A measurement of an item's defensive ability.
Public Entrance: A staircase at the exact center of the City, leading to the Dungeon. Leads to a random section of the 1st Floor.
Q
Quest Kiosk: A magical desk which produces a form of classified specific to the delver who uses it.
R
RDU: The Red Delver Union.
Red Delver Union: A pseudo-High House that primarily recruits and assists red delvers. While lacking in as much delving power as other High Houses, it has far more political power.
Redd's: One cheap, low-quality inn.
revive: Any spell or (hypothetically) ability that can bring a delver back from the dead. Revives have varying chances of success, and the lower it is, the higher chance of failure or even complications. Revives do not work on surfacers.
Rules: A code ruling the Undercity. Detractors point out that as the Law would apply even there, there would be no need for such a thing.
S
section: Each Floor is divided into 10,000 sections in a 100x100 grid. Each section contains 10,000 tiles, also in a 100x100 grid.
seekerstone: A relatively cheap stone that can detect one given delver or his heartstone.
SHA: Slayer Hunter Association
shard: The remains of a heartstone
shattering: Deep monsters, if they kill a delver, will split his heartstone in several shards.
Side Dungeon: Another world linked to the Dungeon through various magical portals.
skillstone: A stone that, when eaten, grants a real-world skill to the delver. Skillstones grant everything from tactics, art, legal training, to even cooking.
Skill Shop: A famous shop selling any kind of spellstone or skillstone.
Sky Scraper: A massive building from Earlier, using construction techniques now lost.
slayer: A delver who kills other delvers.
slayer hunter: A delver who kills delvers who kill other delvers.
Slayer Hunter Association: A private organization dedicated to hunting down and exterminating slayers, sometimes the center of controversy.
Soulbound: An item that is permanently bound to one delver. For some parts of the Law, soulbinding an item is required to establish ownership.
Soulsmith: The one place where items can be soulbound in the City. Protected by legal monopoly, as illegally soulbinding stolen items could lead to chaos.
Spell Regeneration: An ability that slowly restores V-Type spells.
spellstone: A stone that, when eaten, grants the ability to use a magical spell to the delver. Also can grant abilities.
spire: One of eight massive crystaline structures in the City, each theoretically occupied by a High House. In practice, seven are, while the eighth is shared by the Eidolons and the RDU.
stat: A physical or mental attribute of a delver, quantified as a number. It is a common argument among delvers whether the number is simply a representation of the attribute, or whether the number determines the attribute.
Agility: A stat that allows a delver to move faster.
Charisma: A stat that increases one's personal appeal and speaking abilities.
Constitution: A stat that gives delver more Health and resistance to illnesses.
Dexterity: A stat that increases one's physical skill with hands. Useful for scoring critical hits and hitting distant targets.
Health: A stat related to one's physical health. Running out of Health results in death.
Intelligence: A stat that increases memory and calculation ability, as well as increasing the Power of some spells.
natural stat: A stat as unmodified from the moment of becoming a delver.
Perception: A stat that increases one's ability to see, hear, and use any other sense.
Strength: A stat that increases physical strength.
Wisdom: A stat that gives human understanding, as well as empowering certain kinds of spells.
status effect: Any temporary alteration to a delver. Usually, this term refers to harmful ones, while useful ones are called buffs.
Doom: A dangerous status effect that seems to cause the universe itself to passive-aggressively attempt to kill the sufferer.
Lingering Grasp of Death: See Complications.
Silence: A status effect that mutes a delver, and also prevents him from casting spells.
summonstorm: A situation when monsters capable of summoning monsters do so faster than they can be killed. Rarely happens outside of the Deep.
superparty: A party made of other parties. Super-superparties can also be created, but are just called superparties.
surfacers: An ordinary human being.
T
telepathy: The ability to transmit thoughts to another, as well as sense the presence of nearby living beings and monsters.
teleport chamber: A room enchanted to control teleports in and out of a structure.
Temple of the Labyrinth: A legendary building, allegedly in the Undercity, where worshipers of the Dungeon go to offer their sacrifices and sacraments.
Tetramorph: A class feature of Black Cherubim. Strength, Agility, Wisdom, and Charisma are instantly maxed at 1,000.
thought-rules: The internal logic that controls every action of monsters. Differs slightly from monster type to monster type, and even more between the upper Dungeon and the Deep
thought-shout: Screaming or yelling over telepathy. A huge faux pas.
Tier: A slightly arbitrary ranking system developed by W. K. Ivy, separating every class by reasonable guidelines into different tiers. Originally, they ranged from Tier One to Tier Five, with Nomad occupying Tier Six. Later discoveries of more powerful classes lead to the crea
tion of Tier Zero. High House Royal holds that their leader, Mansa Musa Red, has class with a Tier above Zero, which they call Tier EX.
tile: A 1.2x1.2 meter square tile that universally makes up the floor of the Dungeon. All structures in the Dungeon appear to fit perfectly into one tile.
True Infravision: The ability to not only see through walls, but see invisible creatures as well.
tunnelers: Monsters able to chew or dig through walls.
turbovenom: A fast-acting poison.
U
Undercity: A mythical city of delvers built in the Deep.
Underdweller: A delver hypothetically living permanently in the Deep.
W
ward: A spell or drawing on the ground that grants various effects.
E-Ward: A ward that grants Sanctuary.
teleport ward: A ward designed to prevent hostile teleports, or any teleports at all.