Editing Dungeon (section)

==Literary Roots==

"Dungeons" have a long history in fantasy literature predating [[Dungeons & Dragons]].  Examples include:

*'''Stardock''', both a mountain and a treasure-and-creature filled crag featured in Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd & Grey Mouser" stories
*'''Quarmall''', a whole underground kingdom complete with civil-war-waging mage-priest-kings, ibid.
*'''Dol Guldur''', the dreaded "Hill of Sorcery", home of "The Necromancer" (another name given to [[Sauron]] in [[The Hobbit]]); it was here that Gandalf met the half-mad grandfather of Thorin Oakenshield and retrieved the map and key to The Lonely Mountain.  Courtesy [[J.R.R. Tolkien]].
*'''Moria''', underworld kingdom-fortress of the dwarves and one of its wealthiest mines until overthrown by a primordial demon, ibid.
*'''Angband''', stronghold of Morgoth far in the frozen North and home to thousands of slaves and vile creatures, ditto.
*Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain featured a proper dungeon beneath "'''Spiral Castle'''", which contained a sword capable of defeating Lord Arawn, one of the chief bad guys in that series.
*'''Fafnir's lair''', the archetypical lair (or at least one of the earliest examples of one in written text) of an evil dragon that is filled with gold and other valuables from the Nibelungen Saga of German and Nordic origins. 

All of these are, to a greater or lesser extent, halls and galleries and caverns, rooms and mazes, located exclusively underground, loaded with monsters, maps and treasures.