Shanjin, part 2

The bulk of this post will be a cave dungeon that the players explored in the course of their adventure in Shanjin. To illustrate this, I have to share my process for making a practical, easy to make and easy to use cave map. This combines ideas from Veins of the Earth and Worlds Without Number, both of which are excellent and I highly recommend.

Easy Cave Maps

Caves are three-dimensional spaces which are not at all designed for human habitation. The first challenge is finding an efficient way to represent a 3D space on a 2D plane (i.e., a piece of paper). Veins of the Earth does it by taking a diamond to represent the cardinal directions and adding two more lines to represent up and down, like so:

The basic symbol for a room within a cave, according to Veins of the Earth.

On top of this, I added some additional symbols to the interior of the diamond so that I could recall the contents at a glance. My method for stocking this dungeon came from the room-stocking random tables in Worlds Without Number, so I use the same terminology for contents (creature, distractor, enigma, empty).

My system for adding "at a glance" information to a room symbol.

Using a combination of the random tables in Veins of the Earth and Worlds Without Number, I generated 10 rooms and drew connections between them, creating a pointcrawl.

There are three separate ways of drawing connections. A solid line is a "walk," meaning there's enough room for PCs to walk upright. A squiggly line is a "squeeze," meaning PCs have to slide sideways through a narrow passage. A dotted line is either a vertical shaft or a crawl, where they have to get on their hands and knees. The numbers on the lines indicate how much time, in minutes, it takes for the party to move between them, which is necessary for timekeeping. Vertical routes have arrows, showing that going down is faster than going back up.

Shanjin Caves

The map, recreated in Inkscape. I drew the original one by hand so I could put it in a binder.

For context, these caves are the monster infested tunnels below the mines of Shanjin, where the rebels are believed to be hiding. The players ostensibly agreed to hunt down the rebels on behalf of the authorities, but were actually going to smuggle them to freedom with the help of Romz deZemler.

Map Key

Room 1

Size: 1 room

Shape: Oval

Contents: Empty

Notes: First area of the caves accessible from the mines above. Empty ovoid shape, about 10'x10'. Smooth gray stone, small puddle in the bottom. Shaft in the top, walkable tunnel in the east.

Room 2

Size: 4 rooms

Shape: Wine bottle on its side

Contents: Distractor

Notes: Large cylinder, about 50'x10'. Big pile of phon skulls carefully arranged in a pile. Patches of glowing blue and green fungus look deliberately cultivated.

Room 3

Size: 3R

Shape: Crossed swords

Contents: Creature (treasure)

Notes: Big cross shape about the size of two buses intersecting. Floor and walls are covered with tiny huts of the black ouphs. Lit up by their bioluminescent mushroom garden in the middle. 2d10 black ouph warriors try to frighten intruders away with a terrifying illusion. Failing that, they attack. Center of community is a 2' tall goddess statue clutching a large emerald (700 coins)

Room 4

Size: 4R

Shape: J-curved slope

Contents: Creature (treasure)

Notes: 5'x10'x60' space shaped like a ski-slope. A zavvo lairs at the bottom. Trench gun found on the corpse of a phon security officer.

Room 5

Size: 3R

Shape: Giraffe

Contents: Empty

Notes: Roughly rectangular room about 25'x25', with a long tapering vertical shaft and pits in the floor.

Room 6

Size: 4R

Shape: Spread hand

Contents: Empty (treasure)

Notes: Big 40'x40' roughly circular room with little tapering tunnels branching off it. Small pile of rubble in the middle has nuggets of lustral (27 coins)

Room 7

Size: 2R

Shape: Saucepan with three handles

Contents: Empty (treasure)

Notes: 20'x20'x15' cylindrical room with entrances/exits near the ceiling. Lit up by fungus. Some kind of altar made by the black ouphs. Several tiny sarcophagi in the walls. The altar features the Bones of the Judge, a magic item in the shape of a multi-colored ceramic vessel filled with bones. Rattles ominously whenever a lie is told in earshot of it (300 coins).

Room 8

Size: 3R

Shape: Three tall thin cylinders

Contents: Enigma

Notes: Three tall, thin cylinders about 8' wide and 15' long arranged in a pyramidal shape. One has the west exits. One has the shaft going down. One has churning ball of dark fluid suspended in midair and surrounded by magical hex-signs of the black ouphs (fragment of the destroyer)

Room 9

Size: 3R

Shape: Hammerhead shark

Contents: Empty

Notes: 15'x40' rectangle tapering on either end. Windpigs sometimes gather here to eat mushrooms. Dirt and roots indicate surface is nearby. The eastern passage is the exit to the surface, and the rendezvous point.

Room 10

Size: 4R

Shape: Cow's udder

Contents: Distractor

Notes: 40'x40' room shaped like an inverse dome with a few pits in the floor. Glowing fungus, bracken, and a trickle of water. Refugee hideout.

Concluding Thoughts

I gave the players 8 hours of time to find the rebel base, with some threadbare instructions, take custody of the refugees, then escort them safely to the rendezvous point. The idea was to reach the rendezvous point when that side of Shanjin, a slowly rotating mountain, was under cover of darkness. In hindsight, 8 hours was a bit too long. They reached the goal with about 2 hours to spare in game time.

They also didn't explore most of the cave beyond where they needed to go in order to achieve their goal. Once they got all the refugees to area 9, right before the rendezvous point, two of the players split off to backtrack to area 9 and fight the monster there. One player ended up having his Last Breath, there, but he did get a cool gun out of the deal.

This is pretty long, so I think I'll put the monsters and treasure in a separate part.

Also, get Veins of the Earth and Worlds Without Number. They're both amazing tools and resources.