Monday 2 June 2014

Goblin Mine A-Z key





Well the current dungeon Im working on is making me start the goblin mine zone table proper. Players sick of undead and grave robbing. The original zone described here has some encounter tables and stuff from when all this part of long stairs. http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/long-stair-dungeon-style-zones-part-3.html

d100 random room key

1-3 A Airshaft
4-8 B Barracks
9 C Crypt
10-12 Dining Hall
13-14 E Elevator
15-17 F Fungus
18-27 G Lair
28-30 H Hospital
31-40 I Guard Post
41 J Crystal formations
42-43 K Mineral Deposits
44-48 L Living Area
49-50 M Mechanical Aparatus
51-52 N Secret Entry
53-55 O Administration Office
56-61 P Pit
62-64 Q Laboratory
65-69 R Rubble Heap
70-74 S Store Room
75-77 T Trap
78-79 U Unstable
80-85 V Animal Pens
86-90 W Workshop
91-92 X Treasury
93-95 Y Water logged
96-00 Z Shrine

A Airshaft
A tiny shaft to small for large or armoured adult but squeezable to goblins, kobolds, gremlins, kids, hobbits, small adults might manage it. Could be for air, workers, smoke, sewerage or other purposes. Shafts might be a way out, a trap, a link to a lost level or animal burrows. Some shafts have structures hidden or deliberate or forgotten temporary worker structures. Shafts have some breeze. d4 1=surface 2=other level 3=blocked 4=another dungeon or chamber or hidden level. Empire dungeoneers seize as many as possible for signaling, dropping down pasties or scout children and pole or lamp bearers
1 Tight squeeze to hidden or inaccessible point like a cliff or high rock wall
2 Bars, rubble or traps make passage difficult, might even have a lock
3 Natural hazard makes travel difficult like geyser, killer slime or ooze, gas
4 Vermin infested tunnel crawling with life and coated with fungus growth
5 Sewerage tunnel or latrine, diseased and some vermin
6 Leads to a crypt or burial area, might predate dig or made by workers
7 Burrow of a creature or nest connects to shaft
8 Leads to a worker built structure forgotten and possibly forgotten by builders half way
9 Leads to flooded section forming a barrier to elsewhere
10 Leads to a natural cavern a extra hidden area

B Barracks
These are quarters for dungeon personnel. Bad dungeon hygiene and damp can kill you all. Can spread dungeon malaria if damp and vermin ridden. Lice and rats a common feature.
1 A tiny worker barrack with kitchen, bunks and personal effects
2 A group latrine complex with many toilets, water supply, straw, sawdust, buckets of ammonia
3 A kitchen ranging from a bbq, stove household or industrial scale kitchen and catering
4 A guardhouse where local troops sleep with a separate area for leaders
5 A bunkhouse for military units when not on march or patrol
6 Leaders quarters with guards, own bedchamber and or office and lounge
7 A bunkhouse for visiting troops or mercenaries, often of some other type to locals
8 A bath house where monsters come to bathe, preen, de-louse and do laundry
9 Nursery where women and children care for the young
10 Common room where monster dine and slaves and pets and poor guests sleep on the floor

C Crypt
Some dungeons are tombs. Many die digging them and working in them. Some sacrifice criminals by sealing in walls. Dead guards and bosses may get burials. Many never leave. Some mines dig into ancient burials such as from the necromancer kings era. Might have treasure or undead or both.
1 Humble worker graves buried in sealed niches in walls (possibly in urns or as mummies)
2 Builder graves, built behind walls usually mumified with tools, name scrawled on wall
3 Shrine of the dead covered in skulls and bones, walls built from bones, or skulls in niches
4 Graves and coffins and headstones in walls, burrowed into ancient graves
5 Stone crypt with sealed undead troop hidden reserves for the necromancer kings
6 Collapsed pile of rubble with hats on top and crude memorial to cave in victims under heap
7 Someone has covered a body with a tonne of rocks on top to protect with crude monument
8 Holes with stone lids over holes where mummified bodies seated or rolled in tubes
9 A recent carved goblin hero grave with guardians and magic defenses
10 Ancient megalith of stone or barrow buried in distant past era

D Dining Hall
Monsters gotta eat and socialize. Barracks kitchens pretty solid for meals but monsters like some diversity especially goblins.
1 Crack in the wall where gremlins sell vermin like rats and centipedes or fish uncooked
2 Highly efficient kobold kitchen with food being placed in cans and delivered by kobold couriers
3 Kobold with rats or grubs or fish precooked on sticks
4 Goblin butcher with ham sized grubs and bugs on hooks writhing under sign, Owner has cleaver
5 Goblin hags cooking witch brews and potions to exhort troops, full of scary ingredients
6 Goblin mushroom cult cook with cauldrons of stew and mystery mushroom pie, grow some types
7 Goblin grub wagon with shroom burgers and grub dogs and horrid pies
8 Orc with hotplate, mallet, corpse and bread, can humorlessly half cook many dishes
9 Hobgoblin fry cook with tiny waggon and blind goblin pony. Competent but berserk if criticised
10 Ogre dinner lady with gruel in a cauldron slops out for anyone with plate, tin or cup

E Elevator
Crude elevators start from early times and some races and eras made sophisticated or magic ones. Could be cable cars over a hazard or between structures. Shaft might be angled with rails for the car. Wood is common but wrought iron used on classier ones.
1 A crude rope possibly a guard or strong monster on top to help pull or lower
2 Just a piece of wood and rope and crude winch
3 A dumbwaiter with two balanced boxes which counterweight, meant for cargo but...
4 A huge bucket with wheel with animals or monster to turn on top winch
5 A carriage with a solid counterweight, pulled by persons inside or slaves to move
6 Two carriages counter weighted with wheel inside each to move with minimal force needed
7 Elevator carriage moved by water wheel and gears and levers, possible has great buckets
8 Roller coaster ride with buckets on tracks at steep angle, pulled back by rope
9 Elevator car is magical and possibly 1in4 haunted by dead or other spirits
10 Teleporter pad goes to d4 1=other level 2=secret area 3=other mine 4=other plane

 F Fungus Garden
Fungus gardens and forests may take bloom in mines by chance from spoors up air shafts to underland caves. Goblinoids might deliberately plant such Forrest's for food in dug out sections and is their excuse for agriculture. Often crawling with vermin, goblinoids or monsters come to graze or eat others.
1 Fabulous garden of many types of decorative fungi with many uses
2 Edible fungus cultivated for dungeon personnel efficiently
3 Drug fungus garden for shamans secret rituals on the other side
4 Covered in mold or puffballs of various types liable to explode with spores
5 Explosive mushrooms and toadstools
6 Screaming alarm fungus calls monsters for miles
7 Screaming alarm fungus with other deadly fungi and or giant bugs
8 Mushroom men performing dreaming rituals
9 Fungoid horror adopted other normal creatures form
10 Dark elves or goblins shrine with a magical guardian

G Lair
A creature lair is often established as to be near goblinoids to feed on or serve them. Such creatures often go wild and end up feeding on goblins. A lair will have former kills (maybe alive still), possibly offspring, bedding and dung. Many will be hidden or concealed. Some creatures smelling you in lair will stalk you, especially if children killed or stolen.
1 Giant invertebrates like scorpions, Insects, worms, slugs, worms or cave lobsters
2 Spider webs and giant spiders
3 Ogre nest or Troll lair auxiliaries of local humanoids
4 Cave lizards, snakes, frogs or amphibians, dinosaurs or even dragon like
5 Cave dwelling mammalian lair for giant rats, weasels, rabbits, wolves, dogs, bears, lions
6 Giant bats or stirge owls or terror birds
7 Hybrid magical beasts like chimera, owlbears, hook horrors, sphinxes
8 Campsite of intruder humanoids intruding on dungeon turf of locals
9 Weird dungeon monsters like mimic, rust monster, zorbo, trapper, piercers
10 Other planar creatures like salamander, demon, elemental

H Hospital
Medical facilities are much needed in a dungeon complex. Work is often dangerous and the tribe with best care will win in long run. Smaller ones have only a few patients but large ones could care for dozens. Some will even treat adventurers for gold or if you threaten to murder patients.
1 small first aid station or hut 1d6-2 goblins + d4 1=witch 2=shaman 3=quack 4=lunatic
2 witchdoctors hut with local humanoid and 2d4 guards
3 A hearth with a witch or many acting as medics with pets and guardians and a cauldron
4 A necromancer kills the wounded and makes into undead troops or workers
5 Goblin priesthood with savage idol act as healers for the worthy
6 A magical healing spring, d4 1=under guard 2=locked 3=under a spell 4=trapped
7 Bunkhouse for convalescing wounded and old and lame
8 Newborn monster and humanoid baby nursery with humanoid midwife
9 Dentist and barber with tongs, chisel and mallet, also a first aid kit
10 Plague colony outcast diseased humanoids live here and will try to use infection to intimidate

I Guard Post
Guard posts are common and designed to limit intruder tribes or dungeon raiders from the surface. Some are simple some are dangerous fortifications.
1 Niche in wall, lone trooper with horn, bell, gong or shrieking fungus
2 Two guard niches with troopers
3 Hidden guard post with spy holes and messenger rats or bugs with 1d4 guards
4 Murderholes with four guards and cauldron of d4 1=oil 2 =hot lead 3=boiling water 4 = slime
5 Barred gate or portcullis or drawbridge with 3d4 guards with crossbows and arrow slits
6 Secret guard niche with spyhole,  secret panel to fire poison missile and alarm (possibly silent)
7 Guard station with 3d6+6 guards including bunks, common area and several leaders and gate
8 Cell where troublemakers, intruders or lawbreakers are kept with 1d4 guards and a torturer
9 Team of 4 guards with 1d6 guard beasts, gate and counter
10Gate with guards bunks and arrows slits to menace intruders from inside

J Crystal formations
Crystal formations sometimes grow rampant in dungeon. Beautiful and mysterious often with water or liquid nearby. Places might be lairs or holy places. Goods may become sealed under layers of crystal after long periods.
1 Salt chamber chiseled from salt, with giant crystal structures with a high vault ceiling
2 Huge blue and green copper crystals with limpid green and blue pools
3 Lime and calcium deposits cover every surface with stalagmites, stalactites and other formations
4 Huge poisonous crystals with rainbow toxic pools
5 Glowing crystals make locals all sick
6 Scarlet glowing crystals cause finders to crave and fight over if fail save
7 Giant candy sugar crystals deposited by insects or crazy goblins
8 Coloured crystal prismatic garden with weird magical effects
9 Crystalline creatures in crystal garden and possible entities in crystals
10 Crystal and mineral mother load, favorite haunt of earth elementals, possibly a planar node

K Mineral Deposits
Mineral deposits are what brought creatures here to mine so not a surprise to find nuggets or deposits of unrefined minerals. Value often poor if exposed, best stuff is guarded or still being worked.
1 Copper, bronze, brass
2 Tin, zinc, lead
3 Silver or electrum
4 Gold or platinum
5 Iron or steel
6 Gem deposit
7 Gas possibly flammable or toxic
8 Tarpit
9 Rock oil pool
10 Magical substance for alchemy like asbestos (salamander wool)  or quicksilver or magic metal

L Living Area
Monsters like to relax too and these are where they come to wind down after mining and killing. Often decorated with crude art and graffiti with food sellers, prostitutes, thieves and other hangers on.
1 Game court for sport with ball or gremlin or severed head, 1in6 chance big game with audience
2 Fighting pit for battles of beasts or gladiators, cells for victims
3 Room of boardgames, books, teapots and hookahs for refined monsters
4 Gambling den with dice and knucklebones and loose coins or tokens
5 Stage or amphitheater for goblin religious, musical, educational or entertaining theatre
6 Bar with tables and possibly an entertainer, barkeep, barmaid and cook
7 Gymnasium with training apparatus and caged monsters and baths
8 A street of stalls with a mini goblin mart of goods and street food
9 Boss club where leaders relax with servants, drinking, war gaming and other superior hobbies
10 Family area with humanoids of all ages, eating shrooms and weaving or crafting together

M Mechanical Apparatus
Mining requires equipment and some have superior master machines to process ore or to even dig. Machines might have guardians or curses protecting them or crew.
1 A huge mechanical forge or smelter with a huge mechanised blast furnace and hammers
2 A huge alchemist apparatus d4 1=brewing monsters 2=making potion 3=brewery 4=oil
3 Vending Machine selling d4 1=weapon 2=snacks 3=goblin petty magic items 4=scrolls
4 Horrible torture machine for some sadistic or magical purpose
5 A golem or several with pre programed orders waiting
6 Infernal engine used to power trains, conveyer belts or elevators with steam, magic or muscle
7 Pump house for air or to clear flooded areas with pipes leading off in many directions
8 Remains of ancient borer transport or buried airship or other fantastic transport or mine machine
9 Chamber is a giant rock crusher chamber, doors seal and process slowly begins
10 Rail hub where dozens of bucket trucks, spare rails and sleepers, coal and many side tracks

N Secret Entry
Secret chambers and doors are commonplace, often used by leaders to stockpile goods from thieves or to escape in emergencies. Priests might use to miraculously appear. Some have a spyhole, lock or trap.
1 A secret passage hidden in wall section requires secret switch
2 A secret hiding space 1in6 with corpse inside, possibly undead
3 A hidden trapdoor in floor or ceiling to airshaft or well or ladder
4 A secret panel reveals a long hidden item like a map or key
5 A hidden treasure store with chests of hoarded and forgotten loot of long ago
6 A hidden pen with a monster inside, activated from afar
7 A hidden store with grog, tools, rations, candles, rope, spikes, hammers and other tools
8 Panic room with sealable vault barred door and rations inside
9 Hidden cell with chained victim inside d6 1=alive 2=poorly 3=insane 4=crippled 5=dead 6=undead
10 Magical secret entry possible through gateway, often with a puzzle

0 Administration Office
Offices where important mine officials work and plan the dungeon. A good place for clues and information.
1 Foreman office with desk, plans, schedules and grog
2 Alchemist test office where ore quality tested en mass and samples kept
3 Claim Office with documents of local mines and sections
4 Supply clerk office with charts, tables and catalogues
5 Meeting room with large desk with chairs and mini bar
6 Records office with worker files, plans and documents
7 Engineers office with site plans, a draftsmonster and other experts
8 Scribe pool where documents and plans are copied by hand
9 Mail room where documents mailed are collected by kobold courier to your lair
10 Boss Suite where manager lair is, usually have family and elite guards

P Pit
A gaping hole into the deeps. Some are hidden dangers and covered and forgotten. Others are used or avoided by locals.
1 Shaft drops into lower level
2 Shaft is a well and drops into a water filled cistern
3 Sewerage pit possibly monster or vermin or diseased
4 Accidental collapse into lower level or hidden area
5 Shaft drops to dead end, former victims or monsters trapped in the bottom
6 Monster filled pit, home for creature and possible guard or barrier
7 Burning lava pit, 1in6 with a elemental fire creature inside
8 Tar pit a sticky mass that necromancers like to extract preserved monster corpses
9 Boiling mud pit, geothermal bubbling mud with regular emissions of steam
10 Gate at the bottom

Q Laboratory
Locals require space for wonder workers to do their stuff. Experts are often magicians and leaders with guards and pets.
1 Gunpowder makers lab with copper lined vault, raw materials, fuses, bombs
2 Alchemist Lab where a lead expert with apprentices make potions and other things like acid
3 Necromancer lab turn dead labourers to workers or suicide troops
4 Monster making lab create d6 1=abhumans 2=orc 3=chimera 4=shoggoth 5=golem 6=humanoid
5 Summoning hall where circles dedicated to restraining certain other planar beings
6 Library where books and records of mine, magicians and community kept
7 Monster lab with eggs, babies, pens, slab with restraints and horrible chemicals
8 Wizard Lab where work on spell research and making items
9 Drug Lab where a alchemist or herbalist work on refining drugs to keep workers addicted
10 A alchemical apparatus producing synthetic food, lamp fuel, air scrubber or other strangeness

R Rubble Heap
Giant heaps of crap are common especially in worked areas
1 Huge mount of sand
2 Huge mound of gravel and rocks
3 Garbage or midden Heap
4 Sewerage or compost or dung
5 Pile of corpses and bones
6 Mound of soot and ash
7 Animal nest for vermin, giant worms, lizards
9 Coal or peat
10 Industrial waste heaps of toxic crap and smouldering crud

S Store Room 
Storage for dungeon supplies are usually locked and often guarded by troops or locks and traps.
1 Barrels of various goods like food and grog
2 Crates of stored supplies like tools
3 Quartermasters supply store for miners
4 Armoury with guards equip locals
5 Building materials like rope, nails, wood, rails, sleepers, wire, chains, candles, lamps
6 Exploration and spelunking supplies like grapnels, inflatable raft, tents
7 Corpses got piled up here and never taken to morgue, lazily tossed in heaps
8 Heavily bolted door with guards, sacks of food or small silos
9 Huge cistern pool or dam to store drinkable water, possibly a lair
10 Locker room where workers store personal stuff, work coats, boots, tools

T Trap
Many dungeon traps are available but miners tend to resort to tried and true ones without complexity.
1 Dead fall of rocks with floor trigger or trip line
2 Concealed pit with possibly spikes, self locking door, vermin, acid or a monster
3 Trigger releases monsters from concealed room
4 Trigger sets off alarm bringing a wandering encounter
5 Dart trap if triggered fires 3d4 darts, some poisoned or diseased also
6 Small traps that target feet or ankles. Often can be set to certain size targets
7 Net and alarm trap, grabs everyone and attracts wandering monsters
8 Caltrops poisoned or diseased under dust on floor
9 Snare trap grabs foot and counterweight pulls victim to ceiling
10 Chemical trap with acid, fire, explosion or gas released from alchemist flasks

U Unstable
Area is fragile and has had collapses in past. Heavy and noisy adventurers may set off a collapse. Locals avoid and mark with signs in monster languages. Some blockages can be cleared and this may actually set off another collapse.
1 Buried under tonnes of rock and rubble
2 Area partly buried under rubble and loose gravel
3 Floor in danger of collapsing
4 Walls in danger of collapsing, ceiling sagging
5 Piles of fungus growths block path can be cleared
6 Piles of humanoid bones and corpses block way
7 Calcium formations and stalactites have blocked view of tunnel can be cleared
8 Pile of rubble with limbs sticking out
9 Dripping water through crack, if touched releases flood
10 Fragile area trapped to collapse if intruders enter

V Animal Pens
Monsters keep many creatures in mines as work beast or food. Mos are manned by caretakers who feed and care for them and might be wiling to sell them.
1 Pit ponies, often blinded and miserable
2 Dog pens, many races have own breeds (include wolf and warg)
3 Giant cave snails and slugs and cave clams
4 Riding or guard reptiles
5 Monsters for guards, traps or pit fights or just pets
6 Riding spiders or bats or insects
7 Giant caterpillars or grubs or worms
8 Dungeon chickens, pigs, goats or other under land versions of farm animals
9 Dungeon pets and familiars stall
10 Stables with stalls and carer service with variety of beasts at moment

W Workshop
A area where specialists make stuff for the mine and personnel. Often noisy, smelly and occupied by yelling workers.
1 Carpenter area with barrels, mine beams, rail sleepers and other dungeon fittings
2 Refinery where metal smelted with huge cauldrons and furnaces
3 Blacksmith shop with forge, anvil and many tools
4 Boiler maker building apparatus and engines for mine works
5 A sweatshop making goods for mine like boots, lamps, candles or other goods
6 Plumber shop with thousands of pipes, ceramic, tin and lead for water, waste and air
7 Trap Lab where traps are built, packaged and then deployed by kobold trappers
8 Morgue where bodies are tagged and earmarked for disposals, recycling or necromancy
9 Mechanic shop where mechanical apparatus like rail cars, elevators and traps are made
10 Jeweller where gems cut and made into decorative items

X Treasury
Where locals stockpile valuables from mine, payrolls and other loot. Mostly guarded with heavy doors and traps. Guard monsters common also.
1 Ore store tones of raw unrefined metal or uncut gems in sacks or bucket cars
2 Payroll with chests of coins and ledgers, some pay in chits or tokens instead of money
3 Confiscated goods including weapons, drugs, cursed items, notes, obscene artworks
4 Storage of forbidden relics and artifacts found on dig that leaders pile here for safety
5 A collection of valuable potions and alchemical supplies
6 Harem of most attractive lovers of the bosses with eunuch and monster guards
7 A collection of magic items here to be investigated or not usable by locals
8 Artworks of ancients like statues or clay or metal, fossils, paintings, urns, interesting bones
9 Ingots of metal with owners stamp
10 Fake treasure from painted clay, paste or even monster. A trap or stolen by traitors

Y Water logged
A area flooded by water, often abandoned or lair for a creature, typically waist deep
1 Once recognisable workshop or store room now flooded and full of moldy rotten floating crap
2 Muddy submerged dirty water with rotten chunks of body parts and corpses
3 Water has flooded area with intact goods inside airtight section beyond
4 Something horrible lives in water and eats intruders
5 Water swimming with vermin like leeches or rats
6 Flooded section blocks passage to area beyond unless swum through
7 Door if opened releases flood waters and rotten corpses, chamber beyond long sealed
8 Drains or pump has cleared former flooded section temporarily
9 Creature will open floodgate if intruders near by flooding area and alerting monsters
10 Underground river leads into depths

Z Shrine
Shrines, temples and holy places are common in mines where death and danger is common.
1 A collection of graves with carved totems watching them
2 A collection of tint figurines by a stone block
3 A shrine with a small statue or carving, evidence of food sacrificed
4 A shrine with niche for severed head or skull with blood over it
5 A sacrificial rock covered in blood
6 A large statue possibly with gem eyes, usually cursed or trapped
7 A large statue with spyhole and speaking tubes for priest to scare non believers
8 A small temple with statues, other art and some priests or shamen
9 A medium temple with initiates, guards and multiple priests
10 A large temple with huge statue, rock carvings and murals for many worshipers

If you find a goblin mine in your area tell authorities immediately. Bugbears got lose and became a gang of tommy gun wielding hit men and rum runners in Lakefront city in 1929.

Catacombs and mines often follow grids. Mine layers might vary by a hundred feet in depth. More ancient and haphazard mines might be more organic like caver. If calcite deposits cover the mine surface will be  even more natural looking. Mines drip, are cold or hot and humid. Coal mine fires might burn for decades or become interferences to hell. Mines of different races might have different styles. Some might be mining competitively seeking same ore or mining for tactical combat purposes.

4 comments:

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  2. What? Only 10 variations in the 26 subtables? ;-)

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  3. i know its lame - sequel to two previous versions - gothic and redbrick zones

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