The Caves Beneath Us

By Giles Pritchard
Caradoc Games
With Every Fibre

Redevelopment of an old building deep down, close to the mines, led to a collapse. A crack in the wall has revealed a cave beyond. Now, the builders say, when the hammers and forges of Bellfounders District fall quite, you can hear something. The sound of some vast thing sleeping… Terror has put a stop to the work, you don’t need to be superstitious to find the distant hissing sigh of giant breaths unnerving. Is anyone brave (or foolhardy) enough to find out what’s causing the noise?

This 36 page adventure presents a cavern system with about thirty rooms. There is little in the way of evocative text, with most being overly padded out mechanics. It’s got an interesting vibe, kind of Tekumelish, but its just a hint.

So, I’m not sure about that intro. Redevelopment? Mines? Builders? Dudes got a basement and a wall collapsed and he hears giant breathing beyond it. Somehow the miners are involved and send a crew in but they turn back after a hundred feet, the breathing scared them. Ok. Sure. And now you’re being offered 150 coppers to go figure shit out. Oh, and the favour of the Founders Guild. Sure. I’m not judging the 150 cp thing, different game world different economy. But, also, you’re paying more. Terror has put a stop to the work? Your first crew turned back after a hundred feet? Also, your crews stopped work because of some heavy breathing in a basement somewhere else in the city? I’m just gonna hand wave a Setting Details thing, but, in my heart, I know its just another one of those shitty hooks without any thinking behind it. If you gonna hook, and I’m not saying you have to, then put some effort behind it. If kis are missing, and there are parents, then theres a vigilante mob, not parents too scared to do something. Miners can’t work? That’s not what some dude in a suit sitting behind a desk has to say about it. There’s always scabs and a mine owner willing to break the workforce for more profit. 

 The dungeon itself is … well, lets cover the vibe. The encounters range from caves to old basements to and underground lake to ancient sites to beastmen warrens. This is, I think, where I’m making the Tekumel comparison. It’s an interesting mix, under an urban environment. One portion of the basements has bootleggers in it with a FUCK TON of whiskey. Bootleggers! That’s chill! I Love it! Not bandits. Bootleggers. This is the specificity I’m always referring to. Not just Bandits. And, you might be able to join them! Thats not really covered much, but also they are willing to talk in some circumstances. That’s the kind of shit I am looking for. 

Most of the rest of this, though, is terrible. 

The room descriptions are … I don’t know. It’s not minimalism, for sure. There is sentence after sentence after sentence of text for even the smallest mechanic. The mechanics of a room are what make up 95% of the room descriptions, I’d say. And we’re not talking overly complex things here. There are no Grimtooths to be found. This is very simple stuff like falling in to a pit or getting scared of the breathing sounds. That hearing the breathing sounds in the hallway? Half a page of text. To be scared of it or figure out that your torches waver when you hear it. And that is not that unusual at all, the amount of text. It’s wiiiild! 

And the atmosphere of the various locations? Practically nonexistent. The room that the sounds originate from? Two pages long. “A room so large the light of a torch or lantern will illuminate only part. The roof, if there is one, is beyond sight. Dominating the room, and giving off a strange and eerie glow, is a vast insectoid statue. It looks like it is made of metal, and is crusted green, markings are barely visible on the surface. Each leg rises and falls in turn, like giant bellows, whatever this thing is, it is obviously the driving force behind the wind rushing through the tunnel system.”  Note the padding. “If there is one” and abstraction with the use of the words “strange and eerie glow.” Instead, pulsating iridescent or something. This BY FAR the best of the rooms in terms of atmosphere. There are brief glimpses, here and there, that the designer was trying. But they are full of this abstraction and lack of specificity in most places … and then followed by tons of padding, a conversational writing style and mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. 

This is for a d10 system that I’ve not heard of before, so I thought I’d check it out. This COULD be the reason that the mechanics play such a prominent role. After all, you don’t do your own system unless you give a couple of shits about mechanics and fixing all of those problems that all of those other RPGs have. It also appears to be for a light system, with the rulebook being 48 pages, which makes the focus on mechanics even weirder to me if its a light system. I suspect that the light folks are looking for atmosphere and interactivity, not die rolling and minute judgements. Your debut adventure has to be rock star; it’s what people are going to remember. It should chanel ever essence of what you’ve got going on. 

There is a nice bit of naturalism here, with the caves, basements, and ancient civ room. (That bug statue.) The bootleggers mixed in with a chasm and underground lake.That’s a great vibe. In theory. 

This is $6 at DriveThru. You shall find no preview here! Sucker!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/515078/the-caves-beneath-us?1892600