Large Dungeon Near College Town

[Adfor]

I mean, most caverns don't have much in the ways of features outside of normal cave stuff, unless something resides there. The issue here is that this cave *just* opened up, so it'd be very difficult to justify something living there that needs access to the outside world to prosper. Now if the creature is something that doesn't need sustenance, say an incorporeal creature, such as a shadow or ghost, it makes a lot more sense that it could just *be* there. This is even more true if there is only one way in, one way out, but if there is access to a network of tunnels, you could justify something that has a natural habitat of subterranean, too.

Another question, I saw you post a small map for the frozen area that looked like some form of sentient construction, what was that built for? What was its purpose when it was originally built? This may help to flesh out the dungeon a bit further, or at least give you an idea of what could possibly be within, item wise I mean, because people don't go into a construction project with no purpose behind it, that's for sure.

Like I mentioned before, pick your monsters first, even if it's just room by room, and often times what items that reside there come along with them. Being a cave, if you leave a lot of chambers empty, that is perfectly alright, most of the time they would be mostly empty anyways. I will often times throw little hidden treasures and quirky features into those rooms, just so that they aren't completely empty, and in turn, boring. Doing this will allow a lot of room for DM tweeking, while still doing a bit of room population yourself.

Hope this helps, cheers!

IR

[XCali]

I mean, most caverns don't have much in the ways of features outside of normal cave stuff, unless something resides there. The issue here is that this cave *just* opened up, so it'd be very difficult to justify something living there that needs access to the outside world to prosper. Now if the creature is something that doesn't need sustenance, say an incorporeal creature, such as a shadow or ghost, it makes a lot more sense that it could just *be* there. This is even more true if there is only one way in, one way out, but if there is access to a network of tunnels, you could justify something that has a natural habitat of subterranean, too.

Another question, I saw you post a small map for the frozen area that looked like some form of sentient construction, what was that built for? What was its purpose when it was originally built? This may help to flesh out the dungeon a bit further, or at least give you an idea of what could possibly be within, item wise I mean, because people don't go into a construction project with no purpose behind it, that's for sure.

Like I mentioned before, pick your monsters first, even if it's just room by room, and often times what items that reside there come along with them. Being a cave, if you leave a lot of chambers empty, that is perfectly alright, most of the time they would be mostly empty anyways. I will often times throw little hidden treasures and quirky features into those rooms, just so that they aren't completely empty, and in turn, boring. Doing this will allow a lot of room for DM tweeking, while still doing a bit of room population yourself.

Hope this helps, cheers!

IR

Thanks. It really does help.

I think my biggest reluctance to choosing monsters would be that I have DMing experience. I was just a player for a short while and the world was not leveled to us. We could find the worst kind of beasties in the underground or rather tame. So, even that experience does not help me one bit in thinking about this map set.

So, that probably leaves me in the position of writing what I can about the region and making this mostly empty canvas as interesting as possible, and then leaving the actual creature populating to people that know how faaaaaaaar better than I do. I hope that makes sense.