Dungeon Of Undeath is a LitRPG dungeon core story by Strictly Worse that began being posted on Royal Road towards the end of 2023.
It features Evelyn a necromancer who becomes a dungeon core when her attempts to become a lich Go Horribly Wrong and Ivy who becomes her guide after being isekaied. Unfortunately for them while Evelyn wants to keep the delvers from her home city alive, dungeons have a dubious reputation in this world.
[Dungeon Of Undeath] contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Jenny from her first appearance is trusted as a very capable member of the guard and her levels and skills only grow throughout the story. Is almost The Squadette as the only named female member of the guard, however her delving parties always involve at least one other woman, usually Lydia whose fighting talent might qualify her as an Action Girl in her own right.
- A Dungeon Is You: Evelyn survives her failed attempt to make a phylactery only to discover she has become a dungeon instead. Ivy doesn't quite fit as she becomes a dungeon guide rather than the dungeon itself. However her life is still tied to the dungeon and she has the ability to edit and shape things within it.
- Blocking Stops All Damage: Played with. Block is a common skill which enhances the user's ability to absorb blows removing some of the momentum. However, this is shown to have limits, allowing characters to survive a giant charging undead boar but unable to stop it and taking significant damage in the process.
- City Guards: A good percentage of the characters are part of Timberhollow's city guard. Some of those who turn up to delve the dungeon are noted to be guards or other military forces from other cities.
- Creation Myth: Evelyn shares the story of how The Three created the races in various stages with Ivy though is unaware of what one of the original races is.
- Deity of Human Origin: If someone reaches level 100 they become a minor god.
- Dungeon Crawling: The dungeon has regular delvers looking for both loot and levels
- Elemental Fusion: All classes have primary or secondary affinities with the secondary affinities being a fusion of two primary affinities (including the same element twice).
- Elemental Powers: All classes in the setting have affinities with primary elements being the four classical elements plus light and darkness. Meanwhile secondary elements are the Elemental Fusion of those elements.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: This applies to some affinities with Life, death and undeath being a noted example. It's implied that other similar examples may exist but they aren't specifically noted though Purity is noted as strong against undeath without mentioning a particular weakness which suggests this may not always be the case (though it's possible they exist but are simply unknown).
- Evolutionary Levels: When creatures are levelled up within the dungeon at certain levels there is the option to reset the creature to level 1 but with a more advanced or rare base form. Some of these creatures are a side grade at the same rarity of the base creature though they may have different strengths and weaknesses and regardless choosing to reset the creature unlocks the new template for use by the dungeon.
- Extreme Omnivore: The dungeon absorbs non-living matter left within it quite quickly if it is left away from anything living. This is one of the primary ways the dungeon obtains templates and materials to reproduce.
- Forest Ranger: Timberhollow's rangers are an important part of their military. Notably while the first ranger encountered is a half elf it is heavily implied that elves are generally regarded as too valuable to risk to be part of this kind of force and have their own exclusive military force within Timberhollow.
- Full-Boar Action: The dungeon's first boss is a large tusked boar armed with a plethora of skills.
- Hoarding the Profits: Tommy is motivated by this and has his party split up to cut down the number of shares. This turns out to cost him an arm which leads him to take drastic measures.
- Living Dinosaurs: Most of the planet is covered in monsters that were released from dungeons in The Great Breaks. This includes dinosaurs with at least enough frequency for the Ranger Captain to recognise one and know that it normally doesn't spit acid
- Necromancy: Evelyn was a necromancer, summons skeletons and attempted to become a lich
- Team Killer: Tommy. Initially just willing to let teammates who had outlived thier usefulness die with some plausible deniability, that changes when he loses an arm and needs to steal a skill from the corpse of one of his companions.
- The Berserker: Harry both fills this role and has the class.
- The Undead: As one might expect from the title of the story Evelyn makes liberal use of undead both before and after she becomes a dungeon core. Ivy suggests early on that this may lead to increased hostility towards the dungeon but Evelyn chooses to stick with what she knows.
