Chapter 42: Chapter 41: Graceful divinity

Dungeons often differ in their approaches to dungeon-design.

Some suffer from the classic problem of choosing form over function. Others suffer the opposite weakness; the focus on pure, cold-blooded efficiency over a little sense of artistry.

Form-focused dungeons tend to be lower-leveled than their pragmatic counterparts, the function-focused dungeons. Yet there are more of them alive in our world.

This might appear counter-intuitive at first, but the reasoning is simple.

A form-focused dungeon spends time developing the character of its body. Metaphorically, it washes itself. It wears clean, fitting clothes. It trims its hair and watches after its health. It trains good presentation and posture and gesturing.

A functionality-focused dungeon is the archetype of a grubby, dungeon-dwelling adventurer. Unwashed, dirty, grimy with no manners at all — But a highly productive individual.

Of the forty-nine existing dungeons of the world, just less than forty of those can be classified as ‘long term’ dungeons, which have existed for at least ten years each. Nine of those are ‘extremely long term’ (At least thirty years). The other remaining slots for dungeon respawns are constantly cycled through by destruction teams until we finally achieve the perfect roll of the dice for the growth of our people.

Of all of the longest surviving dungeons, a strong eighty percent of those that we have chosen to keep in our world are form-focused dungeons. The beautiful. The kind. The joyful. Those are who we prefer to choose, over the industrious and diligent.

Not only are these easier for us to harvest, given their less serious nature, but the unspoken interactions with the cores there tend to be kinder in our favor as well.