Bard of the Sword Logic

"The Ancients were capable of wondrous things, but they often made mistakes, and 'dungeons' are the outcome of those mistakes" is a common conceit in dungeon-crawling fantasy, but the Ancients' fuckups are typically framed as products of hubris or madness. I want to see a setting where they messed up for the same reason that real-world engineering and public works projects often come to horrifying ends. The safety reports were suppressed because the architect was somebody's cousin. The plans clearly called for unobtanium rods, but a malfeasant contractor swapped them for mudanium and pocketed the difference. Somebody got sick of having to re-summon the hellgate each dawn and propped it open with a shoe.

I've joked in the past about how I want an Arthurian adaptation set in one of those bits of the Middle Ages where nobody has any working infrastructure and all the kings and lords are flat broke but they're still trying to make it work, but it occurs to me that a high fantasy version of that would also be kind of awesome. The High King in his grand palace (shitty hill fort) sending his Holy Knights (a dozen guys and a donkey) on a perilous journey (a half-day's march) to face the Dread Necromancer's undead scourge (exactly six zombies). The Necromancer's immortal death-knight champion (a skeleton in a hat) comes out to meet them astride a terrible hornèd beast (a reanimated cow because they couldn't find a dead horse).

Destiny Heritage Post