Mud and Gas: Taking Inspiration from World War I

Far more treacherous than the visible surface defences with which we were familiar, such as barbed wire; deep devouring mud spread deadly traps in all directions. We splashed and slithered, and dragged our feet from the pull of an invisible enemy determined to suck us into its depths. Every few steps someone would slide and stumble and, weighed down by rifle and equipment, rapidly sink into the squelching mess. Those nearest grabbed his arms, struggled against being themselves engulfed and, if humanly possible, dragged him out. When helpers floundered in as well and doubled the task, it became hopeless. All the straining efforts failed and the swamp swallowed its screaming victims, and we had to be ordered to plod on dejectedly and fight this relentless enemy as stubbornly as we did those we could see.

Private Norman Cliff, 1st Grenadier Guards, To Hell and Back with the Guards, quoted in Peter Hart, The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War.

Dan Carlin furnished this reference in his fine podcast, Hardcore History, talking about World War I. And it strikes me to the bone; in the last six months or so I've developed a strong interest in the first World War and its attendant horrors, in no small part because it was so bloody and total a war, but unlike World War II, most of the atrocity was on the battlefields and not being perpetrated upon civilians.

The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele, stood out for one reason: the mud. Norman Cliff's description above does it far more justice than I can, but it was just pervasive and awful, and it was total. Soldiers had to live with it for months. It was a carrier of filth and disease and unlimited horror. People shat in it, people died in it, shells exploded in it, and you had to live with it. Wooden planks made easy targets for artillery and machine guns.

Mud is a hazard that is totally natural for RPGs. Outdoor locations are extremely liable to be mud-spattered in rainy seasons, while underground locations with an earthen floor could, under sufficient flooding, turn into a quagmire not unlike those in Passchendaele. Particularly nasty is when the characters are caught in a torrential downpour and the area around them changes from fields into a swamp. The mud in Ypres was compared to the consistency of cheesecake, and soldiers would slowly sink in like quicksand.

Armor is absolutely a disadvantage in these situations. A World War I soldier's kit is fairly comparable in weight to a fully loaded fighter wearing plate armor; if a character in plate falls into sufficiently deep mud, they need to be pulled out or they will drown. Chain is less heavy and probably gives a better chance to get out, although the armor might be ruined by caked-on mud holding water close to spots that will then be rusted out.

It also feels appropriate for various horrors to be lurking within the mud. Even relatively shallow mud, where characters aren't at risk of drowning, can be made hazardous this way. Permanent mud might be home to nasty dire versions of worms or crayfish or other things that creep through the muck. And I'm always a sucker for scenes like the one in Star Wars where the mynock drags Luke down in the trash compactor.

And mud is a great place to hide pretty much anything. It could be treasure that was once buried, or a door half-hidden by muck where opening it is a logistical challenge, or a floor now covered that holds a secret message.

The first world war was also the first time that chemical warfare was widely used. The horror was brilliantly captured by Wilfred Owen in his well-known poem "Dulce et Decorum Est":

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime ...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

Mustard gas was another "gift" of the third Ypres, an irritant that first developed only red patches but would soon turn into excruciatingly painful blisters, often blinding the victim temporarily and then leaving him scarred for life, and often permanently blinded. In a certain sense, choking to death on phosgene or chlorine gas was fairly merciful.

Gas traps are a D&D commonality, but are often all-or-nothing affairs. The gas kills you, or puts you to sleep; there is none of the sheer horror that mustard gas put into British troops on the Ypres salient. Choking tear gas is often used on civilians in the modern world, but if your fantasy setting has sufficiently advanced alchemy, it could very well be a part of everyday life in the dungeon. Particularly striking would be opponents that have some sort of gas masks; the picture above of a German cavalry man wearing the Stahlhelm and gas mask as he carries a lance astride his horse is the kind of outlandish anachronism that the first world war created.

Of course, turnabout is fair play, and it is entirely possible for the PCs to use gas against the enemy. The Cloudkill spell is literally a gas attack, after all, but captured or invented chemical gas is also a potent weapon. At this point, of course, the biggest danger of chemical warfare must be remembered: one does not normally control the wind direction. In a dungeon this can be particularly nasty, as a lack of moving air could simply turn a gas bomb into a barrier that lingers for hours.

The first World War devastated a whole generation of men, some of whom (like Tolkien) turned out to be Appendix N authors. It dashed the dreams that science and modernity had only good things to offer, and created yearning for an idyllic past. At the same time, it formed landscapes on earth that would have previously only been thought of as godforsaken blasted planets, and blew away the pomp and glory of the 19th century in a storm of steel. When you need to create an atmosphere where humans are stretched to their breaking point, World War I is the logical place to turn.

OK, so it's a little wet ...

The galerias romanas (Roman galleries) in Lisbon, Portugal are one of the harder architectural marvels to get into. A crack in one of the galerias means that the underground ruins are accumulating groundwater, and most of the year, they are flooded. Every year, the ruins are painstakingly drained (the process takes a full month) and visitors are allowed to enter for about 3 days. The rest of the year, the water is allowed to stay, at about 3m depth (10').

Which is a fun way to transition to talking about water in dungeons. Homeowners know all about the tendencies of underground spaces to accumulate water; we've invented sump pumps, French drains and all sorts of systems to reverse this tendency. But in dungeons it's a fascinating obstacle that I've thought about for a while now.

The first thing you have to decide about water is whether it is flowing or stagnant. If it is flowing underground, there must be some source: a river, spring or aquifer that is feeding the body, and a corresponding outlet. If there were no outlet, the body of water would continuously rise. (This is certainly a possibility: an extremely slow rising body of water, fed at a rate of well less than half an inch per year.)

Stagnant water has been deposited by some source and is not continuously refreshed. This is extremely dangerous to humans, since stagnant water is a breeding ground for disease and bacteria. Contact with a pool of such water should require some kind of appropriate disease checks; suitable rules exist in Blackmoor, the Dungeon Master's Guide and Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Drinking it is even more dangerous.

After that the next decision is depth. Water becomes a different type of obstacle depending on the depth. A foot deep permits more motion than two; three might be navigable for humans but is swimming territory for halflings. Deeper than that becomes a serious problem, if not totally impossible to cross. Water, of course, ruins most of the things adventurers carry; waterlogged boots can get mildew or mold, and generally become useless, while soaked torches or spellbooks are useless. Swords and armor will rust if not properly cared for. And swimming while in armor is basically impossible. Watch the video if you don't believe me – heck, even if you do believe me, it's a great experimental video.

Other factors can also be interesting: temperature, current, or brackishness. For instance, clear, cool water is very different from hot mineral spring water. In a dungeon near the sea, some water may be salty and undrinkable. And it could be very dangerous if the water has a strong current, pulling adventurers along with it as they try to navigate it. Varying any of these can create unique environments and pose certain challenges.

Now that we've put water into the dungeon, comes the payoff: all the water monsters in D&D are fair game. From sharks to sahuagin, from ixitxachitl to aboleths, and any kind of new monsters based on fish or whales or anything else you like, you've now got a reason to use these in dungeons. A long-standing version might have a blind cave version of the classic lake monster archetype, or vicious schools of piranha, or pretty much any cave swimmers you might imagine. It's a rich environment for monsters that aren't typical. And let's not forget about amphibians, arthropods and the like.

Of course where there are monsters, there is also treasure. This can be a bit tough to figure out. In chemically pure water, basically, copper, silver and gold should be relatively unaffected by corrosion. (In fact, copper coins in fresh water should tend to reduce the bacterial load.) The problem is that water is not pure and contains other minerals and compounds that will interact with metal. It could also complicate things if the coins are not pure metal. Seawater will corrode copper and silver coins, but leave gold fairly intact. Only acidity, introduced by the breakdown of wood or the general condition of sandy soil, would pose much of a danger to gold coins. The most dangerous thing would be an untreated wooden chest containing them.

Most gems will not be water soluble and should survive pretty well in tact. But iron is toast even if it gets minor exposure, as are most books or scrolls (leather parchment will be ruined and the ink will dissolve), and pretty much any wooden objects that aren't covered with tar, pitch or some other sealant. Magic items are the referee's call; it would be interesting to find a shining steel blade in a rotting leather scabbard and with a ruined handle, but the blade and tang in tact. Potions may or may not leak, which could have very interesting results – say, a wizard's laboratory where several potions have mixed together to form ... well, pretty much anything you want.

Water complicates everything very nicely. Spells will be interesting, from Sleep (does it turn into an effective Drown?) to Lightning Bolt and others. A Fireball might boil some of it. And of course there are many interesting spells and items that only work under water.

Given all these possibilities, it's a disappointment that there aren't more modules and books dealing with flooded environments. It's definitely something I keep intending to explore. I hope this inspires other referees to do the same.