What can we say? Despite the horrendously barbaric conditions of The Dungeon
(only two premium cable channels and the complete lack of a jacuzzi), eager
applicants keep sending in their suggestions. To deal with our own
overcrowding, we proudly announce the opening of a new cell block.
All giant serpents acting as guardians in underground lakes will be fitted with sports goggles to prevent eye injuries.
All crones with the ability to prophesy will be given free
facelifts, permanents, manicures, and Donna Karan wardrobes. That
should pretty well destroy their credibility.
I will not employ an evil wizard if he has a sleazy mustache.
I will hire an entire squad of blind guards. Not only is
this in keeping with my status as an equal opportunity employer, but it
will come in handy when the hero becomes invisible or douses my only
light source.
All repair work will be done by an in-house maintenance
staff. Any alleged "repairmen" who show up at the fortress will be
escorted to the dungeon.
When my Legions of Terror park their vehicle to do reconnaissance on foot, they will be instructed to employ The Club.
Employees will have conjugal visit trailers which they may
use provided they call in a replacement and sign out on the timesheet.
Given this, anyone caught making out in a closet while leaving their
station unmonitored will be shot.
Members of my Legion of Terror will attend seminars on
Sensitivity Training. It's good public relations for them to be kind
and courteous to the general population when not actively engaged in
sowing chaos and destruction.
I will not, under any circumstances, marry a woman I know
to be a faithless, conniving, back-stabbing witch simply because I am
absolutely desperate to perpetuate my family line. Of course, we can
still date.
All guest-quarters will be bugged and monitored so that I
can keep track of what the visitors I have for some reason allowed to
roam about my fortress are actually plotting.
If my chief engineer displeases me, he will be shot, not imprisoned in the dungeon or beyond the traps he helped design.
I will not send out battalions composed wholly of robots
or skeletons against heroes who have qualms about killing living beings.
I will not wear long, heavy cloaks. While they certainly
make a bold fashion statement, they have an annoying tendency to get
caught in doors or tripped over during an escape.
If a malignant being demands a sacrificial victim have a
particular quality, I will check to make sure said victim has this
quality immediately before the sacrifice and not rely on earlier
results. (Especially if the quality is virginity and the victim is the
hero's girlfriend.)
If I ever MUST put a digital timer on my doomsday device,
I will buy one free from quantum mechanical anomalies. So many brands
on the market keep perfectly good time while you're looking at them,
but whenever you turn away for a couple minutes then turn back, you
find that the countdown has progressed by only a few seconds.
If my Legions of Terror are defeated in a battle, I will
quietly withdraw and regroup instead of launching a haphazard mission
to assassinate the hero.
If I'm wearing the key to the hero's shackles around my
neck and his former girlfriend now volunteers to become my mistress and
we are all alone in my bedchamber on my bed and she offers me a goblet
of wine, I will politely decline the offer.
I will not pick up a glowing ancient artifact and shout
"Its power is now mine!!!" Instead I will grab some tongs, transfer it
to a hazardous materials container, and transport it back to my lab for
study.
I will be selective in the hiring of assassins. Anyone who
attempts to strike down the hero the first instant his back is turned
will not even be considered for the job.
Whatever my one vulnerability is, I will fake a different
one. For example, ordering all mirrors removed from the palace,
screaming and flinching whenever someone accidentally holds up a
mirror, etc. In the climax when the hero whips out a mirror and thrusts
it at my face, my reaction will be "Hmm...I think I need a shave."
My force-field generators will be located inside the shield they generate.
I reserve the right to execute any henchmen who appear to
be a little too intelligent, powerful, or devious. However if I do so,
I will not at some subsequent point shout "Why am I surrounded by these
incompetent fools?!"
I will install a fire extinguisher in every room -- three, if the room contains vital equipment or volatile chemicals.
I will build machines which simply fail when overloaded,
rather than wipe out all nearby henchmen in an explosion or worse yet
set off a chain reaction. I will do this by using devices known as
"surge protectors."
I will explain to my guards that most people have their
eyes in the front of their heads and thus while searching for someone
it makes little sense to draw a weapon and slowly back down the hallway.
I will have a staff of competent detectives handy. If I
learn that someone in a certain village is plotting against me, I will
have them find out who rather than wipe out the entire village in a
preemptive strike.
I will never bait a trap with genuine bait.
If the hero claims he wishes to confess in public or to me
personally, I will remind him that a notarized deposition will serve
just as well.
If I have several diabolical schemes to destroy the hero,
I will set all of them in motion at once rather than wait for them to
fail and launch them successively.
I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality.
Mythical guardians will be instructed to ask visitors name, purpose
of visit, and whether they have an appointment instead of ancient riddles
.
When pursuing the hero who is fleeing on foot, my helicopter pilots will not
make long strafing runs, thereby enabling the hero to take advantage of
natural cover, improvise weaponry, and utilize concealed armaments. Instead, my
pilots will hover close to the hero and fire at will with their automatic
weapons.
I will never play with any seeming innocuous devices, especially
fountain pens, that I confiscate from the hero or his associates.
Should the hero escape, I will not send my Legions of Terror on a
suicide mission to chase him into an impenetrable asteroid field, burning swamp,
or forest of carnivorous trees. My Legions of Terror will instead flank the area
if possible, and practice basic marksmanship when the hero reemerges.
Any evil uncles or disgruntled envious half-brothers of mine will
not be tolerated. They may be incompetent and not openly sulk or plot against me
for years, but they will inevitably try to seize an opportunity in my moment of
weakness. They will be summarily executed and catapulted into a faraway province
to prevent them from persisting as pesky spirits who would advise the hero.
All staircases will have handrails and anti-slip surfaces.
I will create an elaborate decoy lair replete with guards, traps,
and a scale replica of my current project. Meanwhile, my actual project will be
housed in a nondescript suburban office building.
All firearms stored in easy-to-reach closets will be decoys that
explode upon use. Furthermore, incompetent henchmen will be issued the same
weapons and be instructed never to fire them, which will work in my favor when the hero inevitably steals
their weapons and tries to use them.
When I finally get around to building my fantasy dinosaur island, I
will make sure that the electric fence/defense capabilities of the island are
not solely in the hands of one computer built in the mid-nineties. Furthermore,
an entire team of qualified engineers will be entrusted with keeping that system
operational, rather than entrusting the whole project to a single overweight man
prone to temptation.
My minions will be well-fed, well-paid, and well-rested. A generous
benefits package will engender loyalty, boost morale, and ensure that none of them
become disgruntled minions.
Any of my trap rooms that are a typical slow death type, such as
closing walls with spikes, rising water, etc., will only appear to be slow for
the first 10 seconds. Thereafter the process will speed up 100 fold.
Any would-be
messiahs who set foot in my realm who develop a popular following will be
apprehended and provided a secluded life of comfort and leisure.
When finally encountering the hero for our Climactic Battle, I will greet him as if he were an old dorm mate
in order to confuse him.
My robot army will not be big, slow-moving, and fashioned with inferior
artificial intelligence. Instead they will be built for speed, agility, and remotely controlled by
a team of 15-year-old Korean counter-strike players.
The halls of my Impenetrable Fortress/Craft will always be straight, and my guards will not be dispatched on winding patrols through the corridors. Rather they will be stationed four-at-a-time
and back-to-back at every intersection.
Any jewelry of power will be fitted with a homing mechanism to prevent it from
being lost for centuries in a secluded pond--or worse, the cracks of my couch.
I will not do a shoddy job erasing the hero's memory and attempt to trick him into thinking he is my partner.
Upon capturing the hero, I will immediately declare a "Take your daughter to work day"
so that human shields will be readily available.
I will not discontinue searches immediately after the hero has been captured. The searches will continue until I am satisfied that he did in fact travel alone.
I will not offer a bounty for the hero's capture lest my henchmen
become tempted to fight each other over a reward.
Those who helped create the Top 100 List have kept their positions of honor.
Those who were originally let into
Cellblock A are still languishing away. But
I still feel the need to reward the new contributors. If I ever become an Evil
Overlord, the following people will be granted corporate suites in my dungeon
and receive a diet of homemade bread and pure spring water.
Torbjörn Andersson <d91tan@csd.uu.se>
Jeff Chien <spork@lycosmail.com>
David Hendershot <hendershd@mail.bchs.pvt.k12.ca.us>
Furthermore, the contributors of
Fark will hold special posts
as semi-trusted lieutenants.
This Dungeon List is Copyright 1996-1998 by Peter Anspach
<Anspach@aol.com>.
If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that
(1) it is not altered in any way and (2) this copyright notice is attached.
Additions made 2005 by Peter Yang based on contributions on Fark.