[Resources] Mines

Mines are fascinating. Egyptians mined for gold in Nubia and the Athenians mined for silver at Laurium. The Romans used water and then fire to mine for precious metals. The modern world was built on the minerals (gold, uranium, silver, and more, even chalk) removed from the Earth and mining is still a thriving business today.

They called Moria a mine. And it was. But it was also a dungeon filled with orcs. And it seems that few dungeons are actually mines when more of them should be so. Unfortunately, some only have the props of mines (picks, tunnels and loose stone) instead of the actual mine with a gold vein standing right out there to tempt the PCs.

The classic D&D module B2: Keep on the Borderlands has the Caves of Chaos, a dungeon complex that should be a thriving mine. The various monsters should keep digging (or at least force their slaves to do it), for iron and gold, changing the tunnels and landscape so that PCs have a hard time actually keeping good maps.

Next time you create a dungeon, add a mine and have it grow during play. After all, those rules of tunneling should be used for something.