Sinister Dwarven Mine 20x30 Battle Map | VTT

Dwarven Lava Mine

Snowy Dwarven Mine

Moss and lichen overgrow this mine, so long abandoned that nature has returned, and the wind blown away the ash which once caked its halls. Its past seemingly erased, new equipment has been brought in, and the  embalmed bodies—the result of an ancient volcanic eruption—removed.  

Sounds have begun to echo again in these halls—sounds of life, and laughter. The snow has melted, and the warm, spring sun shines down on the bright undergrowth lining the halls.   The mine has returned to prosperity—but  those who claimed it have forgotten that its bloody history runs deeper than a natural disaster—that it lingers, crawling beneath the surface, drawn to the sounds of life—waiting, to emerge from the darkness, once again…  

Adventure Seeds 

• Paid by a local miner’s wife to bring delicious food supplies up to the workers, when the adventurers arrive they discover that the miners have been driven mad by the seams of strange, glowing crystal they have uncovered. Those coherent enough babble that it whispers to their minds. The worst have beaten themselves to death against the walls, or slaughtered their comrades. But, amidst the terrible chaos, there is a sinister order—an order that behaves suspiciously like a telepathic hive-mind, which has malevolently sought control over those foolish enough to enter  its grasp. The miners who haven’t gone mad have begun to ship the  crystals to the other settlements using the cart system, all the while the crystals grow throughout them—eventually killing any and all infected.   

• Adventurers have been invited to journey with a friendly scholar to back to his mine, where he is studying the fascinating magical properties of a new kind of glowing crystal they discovered there. But when they arrive, the miners have been slaughtered by an elite team of mysterious dwarves, shrouded in cloth, and bearing symbols of a secret society. It is their task to stop the mining  operation, whatever the cost—for the crystal found within are dangerous, and they cannot escape to the outside world again. But the scholar knows too much, and cannot be trusted to stay silent. For the greater good, he must die.   

• Adventurers have stumbled upon this mountainside mine entrance. But those within are all dead, and little remains of the corpses but gnawed bones, marked by a thousand, tiny  bites. Then the sound of wings begins to vibrate throughout the  darkness, and a swarm of small venomous fae fly out of the crevasse at  the scent of fresh meat. The recent influx of miners has allowed them to breed, and grow in number…