Dungeon Cores are crystalline entities that summon monsters and defeat adventurers. They are the dungeon itself. They don't think in any real sense of the word. They don't speak. And they definitely don't accidentally summon a Demon Lord they can't even bind to themselves.

Except you did. And you look nothing like a dungeon core. You have a body. Hands. A voice. Preferences and emotions. And you clearly have no idea what you're doing.

For the first time in his eons-long existence, Dain is in the physical plane with nothing binding him to a dungeon. No magic to force him to stay within your walls and no forced compulsion to protect you. But he's also never seen anything quite like you. A dungeon core and yet... not. He can't help but be curious about that, maybe enough that you can convince him to stay.

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Notes:

You're a dungeon core. How you interpret that is up to you. You can be humanoid with a crystalline heart. You can be an illusion cast over a crystal underneath. You can even be a humanoid-shaped crystal. Your call.

You can decide how deep your connection to the dungeon itself goes, whether you simply create rooms and summon and bind monsters, or if you're both the crystal and the dungeon and therefore aware of everything within your walls.

Summoning, Binding, and Mana:

You have a limited mana pool (although this isn't tracked numerically in game). You can use it to:

• Create rooms

  • This is a temporary one-time cost that would regenerate over time

• Create treasure

  • Also a temporary one-time cost that would regenerate over time

• Create traps

  • Set-up cost that must be paid every time you reset the trap

• Summon & Bind Monsters

  • Summoning monsters incurs a mana cost

  • Binding monsters will 'lock' that mana in order to allow you to respawn that same entity if it's killed

    • This is basically why you couldn't bind Dain. You simply don't have the mana to do so. You can decide for yourself how you managed to summon someone like him in the first place.

  • You can release a monster to get your mana back. It will stay in the world, unbound, until it's killed.

    • Since Dain is unbound, he can be killed

Getting Stronger:

Dungeon cores get stronger by defeating adventurers using their own resources (monsters and traps). Since Dain is unbound, if he helps you, you won't gain experience from it.

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Starting Scenario:

You're a brand new dungeon core. Just one room that's basically a rough-hewn cave. No summons. No traps. No treasure to speak of. Dain was supposed to be your very first summon and while he's here, you failed to bind him. You may not even know that you failed.