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View Full Version : Encounters in a mine?



Socksy
2021-04-16, 02:39 PM
I'm currently building an abandoned mine for my players to explore, and I have no idea what to put in it. The system is Vampire the Masquerade (modern day Wales, there shouldn't be any monster encounters down here beyond the ones I've already put in). I've looked at natural hazards, but my problem is that I want to make each room seem different and interesting rather than "it's an empty abandoned mine with some dangerous surfaces/ceilings" repeated fifty times.

The purpose of the mine is twofold - one of the PCs is trying to claim it as her haven, and there's a mcguffin in a rituallist's lair at the bottom. The lair is fine - I've already built that - I just need ideas for the mine itself.

If I can't find enough encounters, I might make it a string of Intelligence + Survival tests to not get lost and to see how many resources they expend, but I'd prefer not to do that.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Batcathat
2021-04-16, 03:16 PM
Maybe like a pocket of natural gas? That could both be poisonous and run a risk of exploding. I'm not sure how realistic it is, but it probably sounds believable enough if your players aren't experts.

It might not be the most exciting encounter though. Maybe you could combine it with a fight or something else that might cause the gas to ignite, as a way to add some extra drama and danger.

Mastikator
2021-04-16, 05:05 PM
Here are a few ideas. I found off google, apparently these are all real hazards of real abandoned mines. Yikes there goes my dream of exploring an abandoned mine.

Partial cave in, that if excavated badly will cause more cave in.

Sink hole that leads to underground river

Falling rocks from the ceiling

Hostile predator animals like snakes, mountain lions, spiders, bobcats

Water filled pit

Water filled tunnel

Acidic or alkaline water

Open shaft in the darkness

Old unstable explosives laying about

Slippery mud on a slope that can cause you to slip and be buried in the mud at the bottom

Grim Portent
2021-04-17, 07:40 AM
Well it's Wales, so dangerous animals that decided to shelter in the mine are out, since we killed all the dangerous wild animals in the UK except for adders which don't really count, that leaves unstable ground, flooding, gas pockets, abandoned equipment that might break during exploration and that's more or less it if you don't want to add supernatural elements to the mine itself.

Well I suppose there's also the option of having the police come around and give the players a warning, the mine might technically be private property or be sealed off to the public for being unsafe to enter.

If the players go in with proper caving equipment then they should be able to pass through most of the mine safely, especially given that they're vampires and don't have to care about several of the things that make caves dangerous for normal people. It might be best to just gloss over the mundane perils of the mine.

Storm_Of_Snow
2021-04-17, 08:31 AM
A pack of stray dogs have taken part of the mine as their lair (or someone's using it to breed something like Rotweilers for nefarious purposes).
Someone might have moved something like a drug lab into it, especially if it's fairly remote, but there's a large city like Swansea or Cardiff not too far away (particularly those two as you then have road and rail links into English cities like Bristol and then through the Thames Valley into London, although North Wales gives you fairly good access to Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham).
For a non-combat encounter, local kids could use it for underage smoking, drinking etc.
A flock of bats, or an owl's roosting in there, or some other nocturnal animal.

farothel
2021-04-18, 03:41 AM
Make it quite large so it can't be explored in one night and then use the 'kids use it to play, drink, smoke, whatever' idea. Vampires don't have problems with most mundane issues and while underground, even the sun doesn't pose a problem. But a couple of kids finding what looks like a group of dead bodies in a mine can cause a lot of problems (and technically, it is a group of dead bodies).

dspeyer
2021-04-29, 12:36 AM
VtM vamps have Running Water issues, right? And Wales has lots of rain. Some parts of the mine have streams and waterfalls flowing through them, some in areas where fleeing in a blind panic would be really dangerous. The bottom three levels are flooded floor-to-ceiling and will require pumps.

Aliess
2021-04-29, 04:20 AM
Are you going to run out as a classic "dungeon run" and how much time do you want the players spending exploring it?

Mundane issues have pretty much all been covered, local kids, the land owner, amateur "cavers" and the security fences to try and stop them are all everyday problems. Supports going rotten and causing instability and cave ins are a very real issue.

More World of Darkness issues...
- You're in the welsh countryside, which is werewolf central for the UK. You could easily link the mine to a pack who may or may not still be around. Have a room full of fetishes and cave paintings and let the player decide if staying there for a long time is worth the risk.
- The ghost of a miner killed on a cave in still haunts the tunnels. Not strong enough to be a direct threat, but enough to cause a few weird phenomena.

Jay R
2021-05-02, 09:17 PM
Don't forget thieves and tramps who know about it and hide in it occasionally.

A gang of thieves coming back for the loot they left behind last week will not believe them when they say they never saw it. [Of course, somebody else took it before the PCs arrived.]

Calthropstu
2021-05-02, 10:24 PM
The worst things to encounter in a mine? The worst I can think of is an illusion master. You can have your enemies travel in circles, fall down mine shafts, trap them in fake cave-ins. I recall there being some tremere powers that would allow this.

Lvl 2 Expert
2021-05-03, 10:36 AM
You could have a mine cart section of some sort, where you quick-time event the group through a few decisions?

Given that this is an old mine sections could be flooded. If you find a way to give them some warning of the dangers of cave diving before they all just jump in you can really clamp down with a combination of near impossible navigation, holding their breath and potential collapses and such on top of that. Make them think about things like using ropes as guidelines.

If you're willing to go magical a reanimated dinosaur skeleton could be cool... But even a regular dinosaur skeleton could have attracted some entrepreneuring enthusiasts who may or may not be a little jumpy out of fear for the police or who have plans to sell the skeleton without the permission from whoever owns the mine. There is a story from the limestone mines in Limburg that there was an artist secretly working on a rock carving down there, but he had to be careful of roaming gangs of bored youths wandering around those same halls. One day he wasn't careful enough and a gang caught up to him before he could get away. They held him while one of them went messing around with his tools as to ridicule how easy it was to do what he did. After making just a little dent in the rock with half an hour of hammering the gang decided that what the artist did wasn't easy at all and also pretty cool, and they protected the artist from others like them from then on until the work was finished. You could do something like that with a skeleton, or just use the story wholesale rock carving and all, now that I'ver finished that thought.

If you're going for harsh realism, make sure they get lost at least ones too. When they tell you they're going back, don't tell them "okay, you get back to this and this intersection". Instead, just describe what it looks like from the side they're coming from this time. If they're far enough in, their notes will not be good enough to easily tell them where they came from.

MrZJunior
2021-05-04, 01:53 PM
Maybe part of it was used for ordinance storage or something like that back in the war.

Duff
2021-05-04, 09:45 PM
Maybe the ritualist has added some nasties?
Summoned a hostile spirit?
Bought a combat robot?
Lay out the mummified remains of their grandfather?

Wizard_Lizard
2021-05-04, 09:47 PM
Kobolds is always a good one to go to!
Or maybe some dwarves for a more social aspect?

Calthropstu
2021-05-04, 10:54 PM
Kobolds is always a good one to go to!
Or maybe some dwarves for a more social aspect?

It's using WOD, there are no kobolds.

Frankbit
2021-05-11, 03:40 AM
I know what you feel. I will totally do the same

Leonard Robel
2021-06-08, 03:59 AM
I just think there's nothing cooler in a dark tunnel than some sort of ooze or slime. They are close enough to real life to be believable yet feel on the brink of supernatural, and they are so creepy, because it's hard to know if they are really sentient or what.

Aerys
2021-06-14, 08:14 PM
You could have an area link to a Black Spiral Dancer cairn, possibly fomori bleeding through if you want a more dungeon crawl feel or even something like Aliens. Or there could be an exiled Nosferatu coterie or Gangrel or Ravnos clan hideout. Ravnos could play into the dangerous illusion idea mentioned above. Also could be a Gurahl den with cubs, strew with bones of past meals.

In any case, if it's more than a day trip the players will need to figure out sleeping safely during the day, and sources to replenish blood if they get trapped or lost.

Calthropstu
2021-06-14, 11:19 PM
It all depends on wose it is. If its yours, you can run it however. But if it's mine...