Shattered Kingdoms

I'm fairly new to Shattered Kingdoms. I've played for less than 100 hours, and have seen 3-4 cities/settlements and a lot of the wilderness. I have found SK to be my all time favorite MUD. It offers the perfect balance between hardcore and hack-n-slash gaming. I love how realistic the world feels and the general feel of the wilderness.

My ONLY gripe is that I cannot find a single "dungeon" other than the city sewers. What I mean by dungeons is that I can't find any place where the real monsters dwell such as caves, mines, towers, haunted ruins, ... etc. These places, if they exist, must be extremely rare since I have yet to find anything significant.

Can anyone fill me in on where I can find places like this?

Ask anyone you run into where you should practice. They'll give you a few ideas as to what areas you should go to level up.

You mentioned City Sewers, so I'm going to assume you're in Exile:

Nearness:
Outpost (South-Southwest of Exile, in the valley pass)
Underneath Castle Morea (North of Exile)
Orc Cave (Northwest of Morea)

There are others, but those would be the ones closest to you. If you asked other characters in the game, they may tell you some of their own favorite haunts.

Before I say anything, I'd like to say welcome to the game! It's good to have new players.

From the sewers comment I presume that you've started out in Taslamar, which is a good choice for a new player. If you'd like to test your character against some of the more difficult areas in the game, then I'd first suggest that you try to find someone in-character who can give you advice and directions on some places that you might travel: If you look at the who list and find someone who looks to be the same aura as you or just helpful in general, they would probably oblige you.

That said, three "dungeon" areas that I can think off of the top of my head that are very near Taslamar are the Ayamoan outpost, the Caves of Morea, and the Orc Hive (Tul'zuth). Those are very well known areas, so it's up to you where you want to RP that you knew about them all along, or if you never learned much and don't know anything about the surrounding area. (The "areas" command is also great for getting names of nearby places that are within your level range: For example, area Taslamar, area ayamao, and area Uxmal will give you some places that are within those three kingdoms.)

I will say that two of the places that I have listed, the Orc Hive and the caves of Morea, have aggro NPCs that will surely kill your character if he isn't strong enough: So make sure that if you decide to explore there you are prepared for a possible death.

Directions to any of these places should be easily found ICly.

Also, daggum Ain beat me to it.

There are lots and lots of dark and dreary monster-filled nooks and crannies for you to discover. Don't worry.

I want to give you a welcoming gift. Enjoy both of them!

Oh man, this kid is gonna love the Necropolis. Ch'zzrym, too.

He would have LOVED the undead caves.

Oh, also don't forget to type 'area', it'll give you an idea of just how many places are within your range that you might like to explore.

Area all does give you a quite good list, and according to memory, the sextant coordinates as well. While there is some exploration left to do after you get to those coordinates, it is a good pointer. Just pick something with an interesting name (or ask other players) and go there, but for God's sake pay attention to the suggested level range