Dragons of Underearth is the second of a planned three game trilogy which had it come to completion, promised to be something different and special in the history of adventure gaming. A previous release by Metagaming titled Lords of Underearth pits units/companies of dwarves and goblins against each other for control of a tunnel complex. Dragons of Underearth is a man-to-man conflict game using mechanics similar to The Fantasy Trip, Metagaming's tabletop RPG. The final product in the Underearth line was to be Conquerors of Underearth (CUE) in which the non-combat role-playing and referee rules would appear along with a combination Microgame-MicroQuest. Unfortunately, CUE was never released.
Dragons of Underearth, like all the Metagaming boxed products, is a complete game in itself. Dragons comes with a rules booklet, hex-map tactical display and cut-out counters. The Dragons of Underearth rule booklet is divided into two modules. the first is the character generation module which outlines making up the characters to be used in Dragons of Underearth labyrinth adventure modules "or any of Metagaming's MicroQuests". The MicroQuests are a line of solo adventures written for The Fantasy Trip and published by Metagaming. The second half of the booklet is devoted to the Combat Module.
The Combat Module rules are meant to be learned in stages. The basic system rules are presented, combat and magic, so that a scenario can be played using only those rules. Once the basics are learned, the rules add magic and offer a second scenario using the components from the box to learn those additional rules. Finally the advanced rules are added and a large scenario, Battle of the Chasm, is described. This last scenario seems straight out of "Lord of the Rings" and models the Moria fight involving the Balrog. It is a tense and challenging scenario and one worth playing again.
The rules in Dragons of Underearth are credited to Keith Gross with no mention of Steve Jackson, but they certainly appear to be a reworded, simplified, cut-down version of The Fantasy Trip. To be fair, there are considerable differences, but the basic 3d6 roll under an attribute engine is central to play. Gone are criticals and fumbles, automatic hits and auto misses, but characters are created by assigning points to three attributes, Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence, just like The Fantasy Trip. There are some references to Conquerors of Underearth and a few non-combat spells and talents (skills) refer the reader to Conquerors for explanation, but generally Dragons seems rather complete as an arena-style combat game that moves along more quickly than combat in The Fantasy Trip, but retains much of the tactical appeal of that game system.
Add the mass combat system of Lords of Underearth and Metagaming has something unique, a game using counters and hex-map to play fantastic battles and single combats both. The ability to scale the game upwards and downwards to suit referee preferences, while using tactical displays and counters (or figures) is am impressive referee tool set. Probably because the last installment of the system, Conquerors of Underearth was never released, we are not told explicitly how Dragon and Lords work together. Therefore a bit of creative work is required on the part of the referee.
Unfortunately Metagaming never released Conquerors of Underearth. It is a product I would like to see. Information on the plans for CUE is sketchy (references in Dragons of Underearth and Interplay Magazine, especially #8) and I have wondered what it would have been like. Metagaming Concepts' end story is one of the hobby's sadder moments. They produced some excellent games, giving a number of talented people their start in the hobby, then went out of business and took many of their products including The Fantasy Trip and the Underearth series into oblivion. Fortunately, many of their products remain popular and have been kept alive through their fan-base. It may just be a fantasy of mine, but I would still like to see a version of CUE be published by one of those fans.
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