I’ve been quite ill, and thus missed a couple of Fallout blog posts just as I was starting them back up again. However, what I HAVE been able to do while sick is dive back into Skyrim, a game I know so well I could likely play it on my death bed. Coming once again upon Halted Stream Camp, a bandit stronghold in the area of Whiterun that players are likely to stumble across or be directed to in the early hours of the game, it struck me that I’ve never written on one of the more impressive aspects of Skyrim’s design. This post is an ode to Dungeon Ecology, a concept Bethesda does a particularly fine job of executing, especially in Skyrim.

Dungeon Ecology, also addressed in pen & paper RPG circles, is about designing realistic dungeons whose denizens have the reason and means to be there. Admittedly, Skyrim fails at this quite spectacularly in some of its undead monster dungeons, where unspoiled food is scattered everywhere and torches are still somehow burning after centuries. Yet in the strongholds of human enemies, Skyrim excels. Halted Stream Camp is a particularly striking example, but bandit and necromancer strongholds across the landscape possess the same basic qualities. The striking success of Skyrim’s human-inhabited dungeons, to my mind, lies in the way they offer explanations for the subsistence, goals, and character of the NPCs.

Subsistence: In humanoid dungeons, Skyrim’s plentiful stockpiles of food make sense. In Halted Stream Camp, we see that they supplement this stockpile with meat from mammoths they hunt, even a spike trap pit they can drive the mammoths into for easy kills and harvesting. Bandit camps frequently have areas set aside for cooking and dining. Of course, when humans eat, they must also eliminate waste, and Skyrim’s dungeons have buckets set aside in particular areas presumably for such use (though we are spared the gross detail, I’m sure a mod exists). Some even have privacy walls. Finally, the inhabitants all have places to sleep, and the sleeping arrangements and schedules give us a number of clues as to how they go about their lives: what the hierarchy within the group is like (bed or sleeping bag, how many others around), what the shifts are like, etc.

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Goals: A critical aspect of dungeon ecology is that the denizens have some reason to be where they are. Often, one reason is clearly “because it is fortified,” but Skyrim often reveals additional goals (usually in notes or overheard conversations), from searching for rumored treasure, taking up a spot near a road with lots of travelers, or conducting particular experiments or rituals. At Halted Stream Camp, in addition to harvesting mammoths for subsistence, we also see that they collect the valuable mammoth tusks. But the goals of this camp do not stop there. They also have a working forge built in the depths of their camp as well as ore veins to mine. This camp goes a step further, however, having developed a spell to transmute mineral ore into ore of higher value (iron to silver, silver to gold). Other camps contain journals or notes that describe their goals and their reactions to changes in their surroundings.

Character: This is perhaps a flawed typology, but I’m going to pull character out from subsistence and goals. I almost labeled this “humanity” but a similar effect can and is achieved with certain goblin or riekling populations in these games. What’s important is that many of Skyrim’s dungeons contain some unique aspect that establishes these NPCs as unique characters–despite the fact that they rarely have names–characters with particular preferences and ways of thinking. This is often achieved through decorations in the environment or the appearance of the characters themselves, but can sometimes be achieved through overheard dialogue as the bandits talk amongst themselves. In Halted Stream Camp, we see a well planned and organized bandit camp. They are clearly intelligent enough to have multiple sources of income and subsistence and to have either developed or realized how to exploit a rare spell. The many books to be found around the bandit leader’s living space further showcase a leader who is educated, or at the very least values education (they also have a mage amongst them who might be responsible). Other bandit lairs might have conversations about attempting to tame wild wolves, or about a leader that goes on benders and has to be locked in the arena while challenging everyone to a fight. All of these touches transform what would otherwise be faceless enemies into memorable encounters–encounters that stick with me, as a player, long after I’ve encountered them. Encounters that I enjoy reliving again and again in slightly different ways.