Of Mobs and Mana

1. What is a Mob?

A Mob is a 'Mobile Entity' encountered in a procedurally generated dungeon, marking it different from NPCs, players, and scripted encountered monsters like minibosses, bosses, etc. They are created at Spawn Points. After being created, they are more magic than monster, and their spawning is usually triggered by either the essence in the pattern exceeding what it can hold or something triggering the spawn point. This is very video game meta-level jargon, but the DungeonVerse is not a parallel to terrestrial biology and ecology.

Goblin Mob 02

2. Monstrous Consolidation

The concept of monstrous consolidation is that the longer a summoned monster remains corporeal, the more solid and real it becomes. This isn't so much their stats changing but a magical construct becoming corporeal and permanent. The longer a monster wanders around, the more self it generates, and over a relatively short time, it will have a name, a profession, and a shattered field of background memories. Two things can trigger monstrous consolidation: surviving a hero raid or killing a hero and surviving. The mob that survives a raid from the surface lingers and can start looting things from what's left of the carnage. In the latter case, the mob receives a sudden burst of XP, and this can be a massive rush of growth for what is usually a level 0 mob, shooting it up 2-3 levels. It's still the same creature but advanced in its basic skills and abilities.

Urgluk did the unimaginable; during a raid from the surface, he slew a wizard. A lucky shot really. The party was weak; they were split, and the fighters had abandoned defensive roles to melee the goblin archer and goblin rat-screamer. In that opening, Urgluk and Goblin Mob 03 and Goblin Mob 06 managed to get into melee range. The wizard used Burning Hands on Gob 03 and then tried to fight, swinging his staff. Urgluk managed the kill with his long-bladed knives and gained two levels. He shuddered. When the other raiders retreated, he was left behind. After a short time, the dungeon started absorbing the dead and their gear, but Urgluk had already grabbed Wizard's Robes, Wizard's Staff, and the goblin gold coins his kin had dropped. The wizard's corpse had generated a reliquary, a glowing polyhedral mana structure that only Urgluk could see. When he touched it, the goblin gained a spell, Burning Hands.

3. Elite mobs

There are two modes of Elite Mobs, Consolidated Elites and Spawned Elites. A Spawned Elite comes from an advanced spawn point or is created specifically by dungeons. These creatures follow the basic rules of summoned monsters, as they are brand-new summoned monsters. If they survive a fight without slaying a foe or dealing damage, they become dormant and are sustained by the mana of the dungeon, or are unsummoned, and their mana is returned to the system. The latter is the more common option.

Goblin Mage 06 was spawned by the dungeon and it had two spells; Goblin Frenzy, and Goblin Blast.

Urgluk, Goblin Mage shambled into the fight, drawn by the commotion. He had gained some more experience doing things in the dungeon, killing a few lesser goblins, and another would be hero who dared the dungeon alone, and had acquired a Goblin Grimoire, a gift from the dungeon. He had six spells at his command: Burning Hands, Goblin Frenzy, Goblin Bolt, Goblin Heal, Summon Goblin I, and Identify.

Both Gablin Mages are the same in the basic cost of mana, the difference being that Mage 06 was only a few rounds old before combat with the human raiders started, while Urgluk was almost a month old.

4. Miniboss

Minibosses do not spawn randomly; they have to be deliberately created and then summoned by a dungeon or elite magic user using the Summon Miniboss spell. The Summon Miniboss spell is dungeon specific and is generally not available to regular player characters, though an isekai LitRPG protagonist could probably acquire it as part of their game-breaking angle.

After a year, Urgluk acquired enough experience to trigger his goblin evolution. Given his path of magery, it should be no surprise he evolved into a chromatic hobgoblin, a Purpur or purple Hob. He gained a good deal of physical growth; his skin turned a dark blackish-purple, his eyes turned glowing lavender, and his spell capability dramatically increased. His ability to summon goblins rose to Summon Goblins III and Summon Elite Goblin I. Acknowledging the power of the new miniboss, his dungeon bequeathed him a Dungeon Mage's robe, an appropriate Greater Goblin Staff, and the Grimoire of the Goblins. For the next two years, Urgluk would remain the miniboss defender of the second level of the Goblin Depths Dungeon. 

5. Boss

Boss monsters are slightly different, they cannot just be created from nothing. Yes, there is a Summon Dungeon Boss spell, but it should have mana requirements and other stat requirements so high that it can only be cast by dungeons themselves, and even then, only by large, powerful dungeons. As a general rule, magic users and the like should not be allowed to summon miniboss and boss-level monsters. The normal manner for this is for a dungeon to either cultivate a miniboss into a boss, protecting and grooming it to level up. A less common method is recruiting adventurers who have raided the dungeon to be bonded to it and become dungeon champions, the other term for boss monsters.

Urgluk did very well as the defender of the second level of the Goblin Depths Dungeon. He slew many adventurers, and each time he defeated a magic user, he would take their items, steal their spellbook, and would literally eat their corpses in an attempt to gain their power. It absolutely worked and Urgluk underwent another tier of goblin evolution, becoming a Chromatic Goblin Champion, a Purple Goblin Mage Champion. His spellbook was large, his arsenal of spells was terrifying, and he gained the ability to start manipulating and changing the types of basic goblins he could summon. He became the ultimate boss of the Goblin Depths Dungeon, where his power was nigh unstoppable.

Urgluk created cadres of crimson hobgoblin gut-rippers and amethyst Hobgoblin specialist pyromancers and even had a harem of Emerald Hobgoblin Assassinatrices devoted to goblin pleasure, hero murder, and exulting their dark purple master. 

6. Rogue Monsters and Raid Bosses

One of the side effects of a consolidated monster is that it cannot simply be reincorporated into the dungeon. Once the creature gains a sense of self and psyche, it is no longer completely of the dungeon. Other monsters, traps, etc, can be broken back down into their component essence and reabsorbed into the flow of essence through the dungeon infrastructure. Where this matters is when a mob is no longer compatible with the dungeon core and its general ethos/control. When this happens, the dungeon can either send its own monsters and traps against the rogue element it wants removed, or it can cut the mob off and let it figure things out on its own. In the former case, this is generally used on weaker mobs. In the latter case, intelligent and powerful mobs are easier to nudge out of the dungeon than they are to destroy.

Urgluk reached the point of potency and intelligence, where he figured out the relationship of the mobs to the dungeon, the cultivation of essence, creating new spells, and the like. This became a problem for the dungeon, as it had no intention of letting this uppity purple spellslinger get in her way of churning out masses of mid-tier goblins and goblin raiders. Considering how much it would cost to confront and destroy Urgluk, the core decided it was not only not worth the cost in essence and mobs, it was also too dangerous. If the attempt failed, Urgluk winning would allow him to become a Dungeon Tyrant. Having a beast like Urgluk as her controller and master was offensive, so the core cut him off.

Under normal conditions, monsters in a dungeon do not follow normal biological operations. A cave full of summoned goblins isn't filled with piles of goblin shit, or pools of goblin piss. Contrary to Goblin Slayer, dungeon monsters, lacking the core biological drives, don't carry out sexual assault against raiders. They don't eat, they don't excrete. Once a mob consolidates, this process can start to a degree. For the most part, the creature is sustained as a part of the dungeon, drawing in all they need from ambient essence in the dungeon. That is, until the dungeon cuts their access off. Once cut off, a consolidated monster becomes fully dependent on normal biological activity and requires food and water and has to manage its own essence. This is important since mobs powerful enough to exile will be comparatively competent essence manipulators. While in the dungeon, they go from being supported to only having access to the same essence as raiders and heroes. They recharge very slowly, and if they don't leave, the core can start changing things around to force them to leave, closing passages, erecting warding runes and spells, and the like.

Sensing this sudden change in essence, Urgluk nodded and left the Goblin Depths Dungeon. Reaching the entrance, all of his summoned hobgoblins and goblins stopped; they were still of the dungeon. He dismissed them and sent them back.

Raid Boss Urgluk emerged onto the DungeonVerse surface with all of his equipment and powers. He started raiding essence sources on the surface, capturing natural spawn points and mana sinks. He began creating a host of goblins around him and the slow process of recreating his elite soldiers and harem. This caused no small amount of alarm as a huge purple goblin in lordly mage robes with a Staff of Power was something to be afraid of. The heroes of the lands gathered and made plans; the terrible Raid Boss had to be contained and then destroyed.

7. Swarms and Eruptions

A Dungeon Swarm occurs when there is a surge in local essence flow and the dungeon is pressed to do something with this energy. A dungeon in a growing phase, repair phase, or regenerative phase can absorb a large amount of essence during a surge, allowing them to leap ahead in their plans. A dungeon that is not essence depleted can face a dangerous situation, explosion. if the essence in more than they can safely contain, the core could overcharge and explode. The counter to this is to rapidly summon huge numbers of the lowest level mobs possible and funnel them out of the dungeon. Why not more potent mobs? Summoning takes time, and summoning large numbers of weak mobs uses more essence efficiently that a smaller number of more expensive summons.

Following the expulsion of Urgluk, there was a glut in the essence supply throughout the region, the cause being a distant volcanic eruption pumping massive amounts of essence into the leylines of the entire continent. In some places, sympathatic eruptions followed, earthquakes, explosive growth of arboreal dungeons, underwater dungeons flooding the land around them, and so on. The Goblin Depths dungeon had access to three incredibly cheap Summon Mob I creatures. In the week following the surge, the region around the Goblin Depths was absolutely overrun with Green Salamanders, Green Runners, and Tree Lurkers. Local heroes would struggle with their sheer numbers.

How does this differ from a Dungeon Eruption?

While Urgluk was rampaging and the green swarm was making a mess of things on the surface, the Goblin Depths Dungeon got back to business. After a year, the dungeon hadn't been raided from the surface, and random monsters had avoided it. Sensing surface weakness, the Goblin Depths started mass producing green goblins, goblin specialists, and elite goblins. These would be led by the remnants of Urgluk's harem, now hulking red brutes. The next six months would be a nightmare for the surface. Urgluk's host held the Rockmagne Highlands and he destroyed three villages and sieged a walled town. He was driven off and his assaulting force reduced, but at some cost to the local Guild forces. The Hamgonie Thicket was listed as unpassable due to the sheer number of green mobs populating the woods. Efforts had been made to clear them out, but after being loose so long, the monsters were leveling and evolving. Green salamanders were developing their floral colonies, and tree lurkers were the size of humans and insanely aggressive. As if these two problems weren't enough, a new goblin tribe appeared. Led by Amdagle Manslayer, a female hobgoblin with a build closer to a troll than a goblin, this host was technically less effective than Urgluk, but they were moving through the Hamgonie Thicket with ease and reclaimed villages the rogue Goblin champion had decimated. They were making formerly human lands into gob lands, with a goblin dungeon hidden somewhere within the dangerous green of the Hamgonie and its monstrous inhabitants.