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prep: knaves of the earth, 200210

Prep for Knaves of the Earth -- Creating Caves for a Cave System


I've planned a smidge for Veins of the Earth, in case the party wants to explore a crack I've seeded in an established dungeon. I've used a modified version of the Veins caves rules, opting to roll for size and number of exits, too, all in a roll20 macro. This gives me a random cave, along with a shape and stone. I'm connecting them more or less in order, and rolling for distance between caves.


Each cave system, composed of 2d6+2 caves, has a name and is effectively a volume ruled by a Volume Lord. (In this case, I rolled a Deep Janeen as an encounter, so I've assigned the volume to her.) Travel between systems happens via exploration, an abstract process of time passing and resource depletion, straight out of Veins.



Cave Stocking


When populating the caves, I'm using the B/X dungeon stocking rules more or less verbatim, and using Special results to indicate a roll on the 1d100 weird encounters table from Veins — short, esoteric phrases that may or may not be runnable encounters — as well as clerics, magic users, and statues from the Isle of the Unknown, reskinned as necessary for the game. Monsters with treasure / no treasure I'm just adjudicating with additional rolls of the B/X treasure table or perhaps a treasure of the Civilopede, or something else. The creatures encountered will still have their usual treasure, per Veins.


Next steps


I think I'll write another cave system to connect with this one, so if the party does go off the page I'll have something ready with a fresh name and properties. I'll just connect the new cave system to one of the unmapped offshoots of the current one after an explore roll tells us how long it's been — and if any random encounters occur.

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