Why do we even have that lever?

The race that designed the spaceship had very strong psychic powers and very poor fine motor skills. Ghosts were the natural solution to any piece of machinery requiring fine motor manipulation. The ghosts also built the spaceship, incidentally.

Why do these fish-people live at the bottom of the ocean in an air-filled castle? Why are their doors all at floor level?

 

Evolution rarely takes the straightest path. Much the same way that dolphins are mammals that evolved to live in water, these are fish that are slowly evolving to live on land. It started with underwater caves and an untapped food source (fungi, if you’re curious). Since then they’ve developed sapience, though good luck trying to talk to them, and have built some impressive structures on the sea floor to take advantage of their amphibious evolutionary path. You’ll note that a number of the rooms are connected by a complicated series of streams and pools with a lever system to raise and lower the water level. It’s a marvel of engineering, really, and very intuitive if you’re used to thinking aquatically. If you’re not, eh, you’re probably not supposed to be here in the first place.

Why is there a carnivorous squid in this moat?!

 

Why wouldn't there be a carnivorous squid in the moat? They're the best way anyone's found to keep down the population of invasive cichlids that have infested all the reservoirs around here. And as long as you take a few of the biggest ones out for fresh calimari every once in a while, they won't get too unmanageably larg- Oh. That is a very large squid. I'd better have a word with the groundskeeper.

Why are there invisible bear traps in the middle of the hallway in this heavily-trafficked military base?

 

Dammit, Steve, no one finds your stupid "pranks" funny.

Why are those high-power energy crystals just sitting on a pedestal at arm level without any protection from people removing them?

 

Who would be stupid enough to fuck around in a generator capable of tearing a hole in spacetime? There's supposed to be a sign around here warning people not to touch the thing crackling with energy and giving off an ominous hum, because redundancies, but seriously, dude, why would we have to tell someone not to move the power source from the generator, when that power source would tear them limb from limb the second they touched it?

Why are all these guards dressed exactly the same, wearing all black with completely covered faces?

 

Well, the terrain in this area of Carina 7 is very rocky, with the rock being stark black, and the native plantlife is near-black as well, this being the outer face of an airmoon in a red-star system. It's night out, and you're on the wrong side of the moon to have the gas giant light up the sky, so it's very dark, and combined with the terrain it's no surprise that the guards' powered armour's adaptive camouflage turned black.

What's more surprising is that there's something out here that actually needs guards in military-grade powered armour; usually even if you need armoured guards, you'd use civilian-grade suits with printed armour instead of off-the-shelf rad shielding and simply have them carry weapons. But then again, you're not investigating the Akati Mountain base because it's normal, are you?


Why is this temple full of tripwires that shoot arrows out of the wall when you step on them?

 

Originally, it was part of the culture's rite of passage for young men. The arrows they used then would have been blunted and stained so that they would leave a visible mark on the challenger, and it was a test of skill to see how many could be dodged.

These days, it's part of the security system. The tribe this temple belongs to has run out of patience with the white men who keep crawling around, claiming to be archaeologists while they try and steal important cultural artifacts for their 'museums' - but the tribe's elders are also well aware of what happens if someone kills a white man and gets caught. But setting up the temple so that it's a hazard to anyone who isn't supposed to be there provides just enough plausible deniability to make it safe; no one expects this to be a safe profession, after all, and it's not particularly surprising if no archaeologist comes back from trying to get into the temple.

Why is this mansion stuck in a time loop where everyone except one person dies right before it resets?

 

Because Ushiromiya Battler has a sin.

[/seacats joke]

 

I feel like we’re starting to lose the point of the game and stray into “because it’s a dungeon” territory instead of coming up with innocuous reasons for all these traps

 

Possibly? I admit, I had recently rewatched Raiders of the Lost Ark and was trying to figure out a Watsonian explanation for why there would be arrow traps in what's supposed to be a temple. And "to try and keep shitty white dudes from stealing cultural artifacts" made sense to me.

 

Because it’s a crime scene. It would be nice if we could rewind time and save the victims, but causality just won’t allow it. If the suspicious deaths didn’t happen, the Time Corps wouldn’t have any reason to be there. But even though we don’t have the technology to save the victims, we can do our best to provide justice. As you can see, the crime scene is preserved and awaiting inspection. It normally wouldn’t be left like this for long, but we’ve had an unusual spike in suspicious deaths recently. Very disturbing. Now if you’ll please move along.

Why does this town have a masked man who shows up when a murderer attempts to leave the scene of the crime and steals all their belongings in the name of justice?

 

What, does your town not have masked vigilantes opperating alongside the police? Opperating within the bounds of the law only works so much. Sometimes you need something a little... extra-judicial to get the job done.

Why are these plants coming to life and attacking people?

 

It's a bit of a sad story, really, and a cautionary tale about working with certain branches of magic if you have a history of paranoid delusions. It's taught to novice wizards now, and the colleges are much more rigorous about mental health checkups and screenings; they ended up having to take a leaf from the witches' book on that.

The good news is, the wizard who did that was only a journeywoman, so the college is sure that they'll have unraveled the spellwork and be able to stop it any day now, and she's doing much better now that she's found the right medication and is getting proper treatment. She's also really sorry about what she did.
The bad news is that the college has been promising that they're on the verge of figuring out the intricacies to that spell for about a decade now. And the plants are a kudzu crossbreed.

Edit, because I'm tired and forgot: Why is this place covered with a magical ooze that's corrupting everything it touches?

 

That’s the new resident, an 8th dimentional being from the outer planes. It’s just trying to redecorate. What are you doing in its new summer home, tiny meat creature?

Why are there pots full of money and food in the corners?

 

Why are there pots full of money and food in the corners?
That´s where crowfolk stash their stuff. Hasnt anyone taught you not to take peoples things?

Why does opening the door require igniting a bunch of candles? Inconviniently placed ones at that.

 

Those candles are located where the vents from the fume hoods outlet, and lighting them is a way of making sure the temperature, pressure, and ventilation are working in the lab. If you light a candle and it's a funny color, the lab is full of toxic gas and you shouldn't open the door. If the candle gets blown out immediately, the pressure hasn't equalized yet. Making the door only open if all the candles are lit was a hassle, but 100% worth it in reduction of lab accidents.

Why does the highly conductive floor only actually become electrified when you break an orb hanging from the ceiling halfway through the facility?

 

(OOC: i'm a writer and I don't actually know jack all about electrical engineering so sorry if i bungle this completely)

THAT'S NOT AN ORB! IT'S A RESISTOR! OH FUCK EVERYONE GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE THE PLACE BLOWS SKY HIGH!

what, exactly, is a mimic, and why are there so many here?

 

It's a family of shapeshifting animals that are capable of mimicking various objects, hence their name! Some can even learn new forms that are common in the area. They can't really convincingly mimic movement, so they typically mimic stationary things like rocks or small trees or whatever. Some are herbivores that pretend to be something unappetizing, some are ambush predators that pretend to be something harmless/tasty/otherwise interesting to their prey, and others are smaller and sort of in the middle of the food chain and do both.

Someone here was breeding them and now there's...a lot...they escaped.

Why is there a dragon sleeping in the marketplace?

 

It's a funny story, actually. Super funny, not tragic at all, and definitely not a mess of bumbling incompetence.

Starts out with a bank, a mob, and some nobles. Pretty normal bank, pretty normal mob, pretty inbred nobles. A few years ago the nobles started raising taxes and levying fees for the stupidest things to fund their increasingly ridiculous lifestyle. They own the bank, of course, so instead of going door to door to demand payments for walking on the wrong side of the street and growing vegetables out of season, they took the money straight from their accounts. Including the accounts of the mob who, by nature, have never been the most law abiding citizens in the first place. By their nature they also don't take too kindly to people going behind their backs and taking what's theirs. They had a system, see? The tax collectors knew what was good for them and skipped those houses when they went collecting, and they kept their other nine fingers right where they were supposed to be.

Now, though, now there are no tax collectors to undigit, only the bank. Fortunately, bankers have the same number of fingers as the rest of us and are just as easily threatened into learning who really runs the city, see? Fun story, it only took one nine-fingered banker for the rest to shape up and stop stealing from the accounts of the poor, innocent mafia. And everyone else while they were at it. See? Doing good, champions of the people, and don't you forget it when your protection money is due.

Problem: the nobles have an army.

Problem: the nobles own the bank.

Problem: the nobles' family tree looks more like a sunflower than an oak, and that may have been the root of their, shall we say, lapse in judgement.

Outcome: The bank was razed to the ground in a bloody rebellion that left about half of the city and most of the army dead, only a tiny handful of the nobles' children remained when they guillotine started swinging, and they, by merit of being children raised on fairy tales with absolutely no real world experience, did not make the best decisions when it came to installing a new financial institution when the kingdom as a whole finally got wind of the situation, quelled the rebellion, and had the brilliant idea of putting them back on the local thrones. There were regents, of course, installed by people whose family trees are also straight lines.

So now long story short the bank is a dragon. The city as a whole has since switched to paper currency. Gold is overrated

 

Wow, sorry, wrote that at 2 am and forgot to ask a question.

Why is this castle’s dungeon a maze? That seems rather inconvenient.