How to light up a cave?

how to light up a cave?

magic torches, glowing mushrooms, crystals, insects NOT allowed

Crystals.

Specifically, crystal veins of high purity which extend to the surface and refract sunlight.

Light the rest with strategically placed mirrors and chemlights.

>reflective surfaces and a skylight
>luminescent foes
>bioluminescent bacteria in the water
>braziers filled with self regenerating smokeless gel
>electrical lighting
>piezoelectric flooring
>ghostly glowing
>non-magical torches
>proper architecture to allow maximum lighting
>slaves with wands of daylight

>>bioluminescent bacteria in the water

Welcome to D'Ni!

Adjust your monitor's brightness setting.

Flowing lava

Statues/carvings with light coming from the eyes and mouth

Miniature storm that follows you with occasional tiny lightning strike showing the way

Lightbulbs, duh

Maelstrom of ghosts along the walls giving a dim glow

Illusion of the inside of the cave as if it were well-lit that may not be entirely accurate or show other things in the cave with you.

Bio-luminescent monsters.

kek

a mirror network that extends all the may to the surface, jellyfish floaters that glow, but here is my favorite.

there are crystals that turn the vibrations of sound into light but if they vibrate to much they shatter and wont produce any light, you can set the volume level minimum, walking and slight whispers will illuminate a room but talking and out right combat will plunge it into permanent darkness.
i know the last one goes against the crystal thing but its not just generic glowing crystals and it prevents looting all the crystals in the cave because once broken they are worthless.

you can also have lava

and if you want an even more dangerous route you can make it a coal mine... that is on fire.
coal mines can catch fire and burn for centuries, now it will be unbearably hot but magic or something can compensate.

>luminescent foes
Reminds of Spelunky, where you have golden scarabs in the pitch dark levels. Catching them yields a nice reward, but you're removing one of the few lightsources there.
Might be a nice twist to a cave.

All this talk of "I am he light in the dark, the one who banishes shadows, the keeper against Darkness, etcetera..." ? Completely true, only the most simple of magical treatment suffices to make the meat, bones and organs of dead Good-aligned people emit continuous light.

Who cares? everyone have Darkvision nowadays

Spiders with luminescent webbing that naturally attract their light-sensitive prey.

What if they're a bit sturdier, where combat and talking doesn't break them, but yelling and explosions/loud spells do.
Once the party is adjusted and well inside a cave, something huge starts making its way to them. Lights shatter as it gets closer and louder.

>How to light up a cave?
>lighting up the cave NOT allowed

Incandescent light bulb.

What about the opposite, where cave crystals light up when noise is made?
Imagine "seeing" the noise you make ripple through a dark hallway.

>how to light a cave?
If you're running the game? Don't. And make it hard for the PCs to keep it lit with passages/treasure under water, gusts of wind and the like. Not all the time, but often enough that lighting is a change of pace. This also primes players to think about how and why a space is lit more. "Shit, there's candles! Someone must have been here recently!"

If you're playing, a lantern. It's neither as smoky nor as blinding as a torch. Depending on the tech involved it can last a hell of a lot longer too. Failing that maybe a simpler oil lamp or candle.

Oil lamps.

how would race/creature specific subterranean interiors be lighted?

Torches made from a jar of luminescent insects.

They would relay on their smell and hearing rather than eyesight.

Non-magical torches. Undead are enchanted/cursed to replace them and keep them lit.

Or else: a leak of combustible gas from an immense underground deposit feeds a natural, non-magical 'eternal flame'

>dwarves
>They would relay on their smell and hearing rather than eyesight.

are you stupid?

I don't. Bring a light, idiots.

thats what i said. to much noise shatters them was the stipulation, i do that to make it more interesting and challenging and make them worthless upon shattering so they dont loot the entire place for glowing rocks.

6th sense that allows them to feel the "spirit of the stones".

Right, sorry, I dont know where my head is.

There's no mention of dwarves in that question.

race creature specific as in how elves, orcs, dwarves, humans, undead, whatever shit in dnd there is, would do it

this tread is about lighting up and i dont understand why individuals like you assume Uhhh There Wud be Ppls with Echolocation And night vision ......

>how to light up a cave?

You don't.

Caves are dangerous places. Let the PCs figure that out on their own.

You don't if nobody's living there. Why would dwarves live in a cave instead of an underground fortress/city/home?

Alchemy

I understand this reference.

>Ctrl + F
>"Napalm"
>0 matches

A pulsing blue ball of light that floats along the corridors at slightly faster than an average person's walking speed.

Any fires near it are sucked up like pic related and snuffed out. This includes magical fire.

Sounds like you want to be creative and unique without putting in the effort or having creativity.
Since you've removed the two natural bioluminescence found irl underground (bugs and plants), that leaves it to magma rivers or magic. Magic can be literally anything. Glowing underground streams/rivers, magic ore poking out of the walls, etc.

>crystals NOT allowed

Pump it full of flammable gas, then toss a lit match in and hope you're outside the roaring mouth of flame in time.

Alternatively, blow up everything above it until there's no ceiling with which to block light.

My dwarves dont have darkvision.
However their magical runes gives off light only they can see - leading to the common belief that dwarves can see in the dark.