How to roll up a dungeon/location.

Using resources like Knave 2e, Cairn 2e, sandbox generator, or for more spacey stuff Vaults of Vaarn - you can roll up dungeons or adventure locations pretty quickly. And with spark tables and you can trigger your imagination to go from a blank page to a very interesting space for playing fairly quickly.

So I thought I would do a basic overview of what can be done.

First picking a vague setting - forest, or riverside woods.

Get a blank page.

Roll some dice on that page - I will be using D6s which I will explain why soon, but there are some procedures that use multiple dice types or D4s. Feel free to move some dice to create larger or more spread out rooms / locations.

Then draw some vague shapes around those dice in pencil so that shapes and extensions can be added.

And then get ready to use your generators or spark tables or just your good old imagination. In this location I ordered the dice rolls as follows.

1-2 - Monster, encounter, threat RP

3 - Ruins - a location that had been used before or has been again.

4 - Shelter - possible safe spot or lore

5-6 - Trap, hazard, something to be navigated.

I then write the letters in to remind myself and take the dice off.

With this one I used a combo of Knave and Cairn as spark tables and took 4 prompts for each space. For example "Unicorn Patrol Protect". This space ended up being the home of one of the main factions BBEG "the mother". But that comes later.

You end up with something like the above. Connection points. Vague drawings of what could be inside each space.

Start penning in more of the lines and shapes of the spaces that you now have an idea of what they will contain. This does not need to be perfect, but, it needs to give shape for what could be there.

Then I usually get into my word processor and start aiming for more descriptive sentences for what and who and how. Give it a little bit of a story or some events. This will also guide some more of the drawing.

This can be simply "Poisonous plants, some are good." Or "Broken bridge, little deserted town. People imprisoned in a basement". This starts to give you threads to add together.

Adding visual texture and cross hatching if you would like you end up with something like this.

And then some prompts like this.

1 - Broken bridge, little town. Deserted or there are people locked underneath one of the houses. The leader is Garth. Why is the bridge broken. - Broken in a big fight between factions. It is useable sort of. Or there has been some ropes set up to walk along a plank. Underneath the bridge is a troll / old crotchety man.

2 - Thorns fog - The fog is so thick that it is hard to see the large thorns that stick out of the ground. they are fur on the back of a large beast imprisoned in the ground. It makes a noise if its back is walked on. It’s eyes and ears are in one part and its mouth is in another. Its legs are stuck in the ground and it can be raised. (The mother wants it to raise on the new moon) They are digging.

3 - Estate corpses - they have been dead for a while and they do not smell. The estate is open and ransacked. There are some books and some spilled coins. There are more bodies than should have lived there.

4 - Bramble Tunnel - need to crawl to get through but seems well travelled. But is a little bit of a trap.

5 - Unicorn Patrol Protect - they protect “the mother” if anyone gets close to her without the password, they are attacked. The trees help. The mother has gardens and a basement to brew things and do magic n shit. She has many plans.

6 - Spike pit hidden under a large carpet.

7 - Monks Murder - a thriving community of a few people, they worship the mother, and they have murdered one of their own and put them under the house. - also the ones who imprisoned the people in 1. They still feed them. And they murdered those in the estate hoping to raise them from the dead to help dig the beast out. The town in 1 were fighting to stop that from happening.

8 - Plants - some are toxic, others are helpful.

9 - Skeleton stalk hiding - old followers of the mother stalk through this part looking for their souls. Odd rock formations. Some very tall. Others less tall. Some covered in moss. Others just rainbow rock. Echoes everything. Crickets and cicadas.

10 - Elk Foraging - A beast. it attacks. it collects berries. The berries give violent power. But also exhausts those that are not the Elk.

11 - Bleeding trees squirrel - In one of the trees a giant squirrel lives. It hates the mother and is planning its revenge. It is slowly smuggling in and building weapons. It is making alliances with the bird spies and the villagers in 1 until they were imprisoned.

12 - Mushrooms bird spies and giant butterflies. .

13 - A village of fisher people. Two families. They sneak in and out on the river. Trying to avoid the mother and those that follow her. (Could be the reason that people come here to rescue someone, or maybe they know where treasure is a heist.)

This gives you things to play with. There can be an over arching story. There can be rumours to get you into the location with your players. Or completely change what you have. But there are factions, there are hazards, there are things to interact with.