Abandoned Mines - Ideas for encounters & events on a low fantasy setting

Abandoned Mines - Ideas for encounters & events on a low fantasy setting.

>centipedes as long as your forearm!
>a skeleton with a pouch full of silver dollars
>a scary ratman

>Stone Elementals
>Shadow Monsters

If the mine is abandoned, there could be lots of poorly maintained areas that are prone to collapsing. Old equipment that might be reactivated.

>Journals left behind of some of the miners talking about weird occurences in the bottom part of the mine to cause suspicion
>Weird looking ores and veins, nothing too crazy but not silver or gold or tin
>Theres a weird pool somewhere deep down

Create plot twists from there, those are pretty good starts

I've always liked the idea of a mine filled with undead miners. Unable to find rest, they tirelessly dig away at the rock, creating a seemingly-endless chaotic maze of pitch black tunnels.

Former miners died from an animal attack.
That's it.
PCs now try to profit from that mew found mine.

remined me of that episode in samurai champloo

Dwarves
Undead
Undead dwarves
Giant insects
Trolls
Goblins
Orcs
Ratmen
Lethal fungi
mimics
Rock elementals
Abandoned golems

An abandoned mine is literally the catch-all type of dungeon. You can put whanter you want in it

>The mine was abandoned after the dwarfs mined most of the ore. However, they forgot one thing: to turn off the defence system. A magical network of sensors and fireball launchers was set up to destroy intruders, and has gone haywire. The system also uses automated ballista, lightning and frost emplacements. They now fire on everything that moves, and you can routinely find scorched vermin in the hallways. When asked about it, the dwarfs were quite embarrassed, but told you that you can use the central node, on he lowest level of the fortress, to make them shoot only wanted targets.
>The rats have preceded the miners in quite a lot of ways, including discovering a strange illness. Fortunately, they took care of it by eating it. Unfortunately, said disease makes them breed stronger, faster, smarter rats. Or turns them into kamikaze rats. Or makes everyone they bite slowly but surely controlled by a Vulgus. You decide.
>Bandits have occupied the mine and occupy it as their own stronghold.
>Some cultists discovered the place, and now they seek to use it to search for the GREATEST OF ALL WEAPONS. They are heavily armed and place an immense amount of trust in their gear, which is not misplaced in the least.
>An immense device has been unearthed, a BOMB! The miners ran for their lives, and alerted the authorities. Now, YOUR PARTY has been called in to dispose of the BOMB! and make sure it does not detonate! You must brave the defences the BOMB! laid, like magical rock creatures designed to defend the enclosed spaces of the mine. Will you defuse the bomb? Or will you run away?

Challenges discovered may include any of the following left by previous inhabitants...

>Magma
The origin of the vast network now mostly unknown is ancient magma pipes. Unworked portions may include sharp edged hard to scale terrain, sudden water movements, sheer drops and concealed crevices, and old things that have always been living here.

>The Small Folk
The first builders in these caves set up shafts and chambers carefully mined and shaped as complex cities with open levels and concealed chutes. Often ostentatious their designs can conceal hidden traps and passages easily.

>Humans
With the Small Folk succumbing to a mysterious pestilence slowly thinning their lines other settlers were welcomed into the community under ground. Refugees and adventurers, eventually wanted men and raiders moved in and were eventually banished from the dwarf halls. They inhabited other caves of the vast mine, some deeper, most just under the surface. And they left many nasty surprises for their former hosts lest they stray near.

>Creatures
After the line had ended for good, lower creatures took over the mine. They plundered any riches and left piles of refuse and offal everywhere. They also built primitive traps and precarious collapses, disrupting the structure of the previous splendor and turning even ostentatious boulevards into undermined quagmires,

>???
Something chased away the things a while ago. The caves have been truly abandoned since then it seems. Wildlife appears reluctant to enter the gaping portals even in dire storms and coldest winter, travelers avoid their imposing yet fragile shelter as well. There are no locals within a few day's travel and the nearest villagers are superstitious and sure the mine is cursed.

I read that as
>Store Elementals

and started imagining something like a House Hunter Mimic.

>the party hears a deep rumbling sound
>a sense of overwhelming dread
>CRASH
>rocks fall
>party dies

Balor

I think the most important questions are why they're abandoned, and why the players are going into them. Figure those two things out, and you'll have your answer.

>THE DWARVES DELVED TOO GREEDILY AND TOO DEEP

>We know absolutely nothing about the appearance of the Celestial Stag (maybe because nobody has ever had a good look at one), but we do know that these tragic animals live underground in mines and desire nothing more than to reach the light of day. They have the power of speech and implore the miners to help them to the surface. At first, a Celestial Stag attempts to bribe the workmen with the promise of revealing hidden veins of silver and gold; when this gambit fails, the beast becomes troublesome and the miners are forced to overpower it and wall it up in one of the mine galleries. It is also rumoured that miners outnumbered by the Stags have been tortured to death. Legend has it that if the Celestial Stag finds its way into the open air, it becomes a foul-smelling liquid that can breed death and pestilence.

>The tale is from China and is recorded by G. Willoughby-Meade in his book Chinese Ghouls and Goblins.

-The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges

The local lord had mismanaged his land so badly he faces bankruptcy. But, if his mine failed he'd get relief funds from the ministry. But, the mine is working quite fine. So, the lord had fabricated a rumor about the miners unearthing something dangerous. His men had already ambushed and killed a number of hapless adventurers, and if the party meets the same fate he'll have an excuse to collapse the whole works then reopen it at the King's expense.

>a skeleton with a pouch full of silver dollars
A skeleton crew is mining the mines, bringing bags of loot down into the deepest depths. At the bottom of the bottom of the mines, a giant gold-and-silver skeleton encrusted with gems sits as the king under the mine.

Option: Give the players the option to loot the skeleton miners of their tithes to the king. If they don't loot them, occasionally have a skeleton pop in with a tithe to the king, which heals him in the boss battle. If they do loot them, the skeleton king gains various bonuses borne of rightful vengeance against the thieves.

Chemical runoff.
Maybe naturally occuring stuff turned nasty and liquid once the mine exposed it and perhaps changed the course of where groundwater could leak.
Maybe something alchemical, leftover from when the mine was operational, now "gone bad" anywhere from poison to strange effects based on what it once was.
Maybe even magical with even weirder effects. Still small because low magic, but enough to make things a hassle if you get exposed.

Eldritch Horrors is obligatory.
Why else would it be abandoned?

Because the vein of gold/silver ran out.

Are you telling me that you think all the abandoned mines out in the American west are full of spooky stuff that chased away the miners?

I dunno, radiation? Ghosts?

uhm, yes of course?

Ghost? Nonsense!

Skaven.