# 1000 Empty Rooms



## Cavnar (Mar 16, 2012)

I'm running my players through The World's Largest dungeon.  They have just hit on a large region with a lot of empty rooms (Region E, for those that know it).  I was going to streamline gameplay by making a compressed map that showed only the details that mattered; secret doors, traps, distance between numbered rooms down each path, etc.  This way, I could skip all of the things that slow us down; mainly searching empty rooms and asking them which way they want to go at each intersection, even if I know that both directions meet back up and go to the same place.

However, as one player put it, all of my players are micromanagers; even if they trust that I'm not going to run them into something that will bite them, or run them passed something they want, they still want to individually exercise all of their options.  For instance, there may be a maze-like section between two rooms that has no treasure, no monsters, nothing.  I was going to gloss over it and say something like "you come to a series of twists, turns, and intersections that slows your progress.  However, after a couple of false starts, you find your way across and continue on".  But my players want to actually tell me at each intersection which way they go.  Of course, they'll map it as they go (or, rather, I'll be mapping it for them) so there's no chance of them actually getting lost, but they want the choice.

The same thing holds for empty rooms.  They want the mystery of not knowing whether the room is empty or not.  We played most of Region A 6 months ago, and have only played one game in Region E so far.  I don't think they have realized that it's real simple to tell which rooms are empty; if I don't read a description from the book, it's empty.

In order to placate them, and to make the empty rooms seem like not such a waste of time to me or them, I need some empty room descriptions.  There are about 20 in the book, but those same 20 will get old quick.  So I'm asking for y'all's help.  I'd like for anyone who has an idea for an "empty" room to post it here.  The rules are:

1) The room shouldn't contain a size description.  The map already has sizes, so I don't need them.  Likewise, it can't contain secret doors, or even descriptions including which side of the room any normal doors are on, or even the number of doors.
2) The room shouldn't have any measurable effect on the players.  This means that it can't contain treasure, because that could affect their power level, and it can't contain mobs or traps, because that would affect their XP.  It can contain mundane, low-value items.  For instance, it can probably contain a 500lb spool of wool.  The players can't use it for anything without taking a crafting (cloth) check or something, and if they want to carry 500 pounds for the meager profit when they get out, that's fine.  But it can't contain a 500lb spool of rope; they would just cut off a good section of it as equipment.  Likewise, it can contain a 500lb bag of flour, but not 500lbs of iron rations.  It can contain things like a large ornate desk worth 1000gp, as long as it is the overall construction and craftsmanship that makes the desk expensive, not its components.  The player's most likely won't carry the desk out, but they would pry off silver handles or inlaid gems.  And if they want to chop it up for 100 pounds of firewood, so be it.
3) It can contain permanent, non-removable magical effects, but these effects need to be designed to help/hinder mobs just as much as players.  So the room can't make any random encounter that happens to coincide with the players entrance to the room harder or easier.
4) In order for this to be helpful for other DM's running other games, I realize that these restrictions may be too restrictive.  I can even see that if we get enough rooms that are fully described, someone could create a random dungeon just by stringing the rooms together.  So if you have other details, such as door layout, mobs, etc, that may make it no longer "empty" just put it below and separate from the other data please.  The rooms, for my purposes, really only need to be a description.  So perhaps one description of an "empty" room following the rules above, and then one for a fully laid out room plus stats on mobs, traps, hidden doors, search dc's for treasure, or whatever else you want to add extra.

And that's it.  Thanks in advance to anyone that wants to participate.  I and my players greatly appreciate it.  If anyone knows of a free, publicly editable wiki site, I'll post them all there when I get a chance, with each room having its own page (and let anyone else that wants to add more do so).


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## jonesy (Mar 16, 2012)

1) This room has grey stone walls, ceiling, and floor. There is a broken iron chandelier in the middle of it. The candles on the chandelier are only half burnt. There is a powerful echo in the room which amplifies all sounds made within.

2) This room is completely black. Within the black are stars. Millions of stars. Stepping into the room one gets the uncanny impression of floating in deep space. It is however a perfectly normal room otherwise.

3) The walls of this room are covered with ancient tapestries. They are rotten and full of carpet bugs. The floor is made of wood, which has somehow survived in perfectly pristine condition.

4) This room is filled with doors of all shapes and sizes. There are even a few window frames, and one comfortable couch.

5) This room has a checkerboard pattern on its floor in black and white, and a similar pattern on its ceiling in red and blue. Someone has left a mop in a bucket of soapy water near the entrance the party comes in from.

6) This room is filled with sawdust. Walking into it stirs it and it begins to float around. The sawdust sticks to anything it touches, like sawdust does.

7) This room is fully padded with a white soft material.

8) There is an odd smell in this room, as if someone had recently been cooking there. However, the floor is polished clean marble and the walls and ceiling are perfectly white stone.

9) This room feels friendly. It is decorated in a red rose pattern all throughout. There is a deck of playing cards on a rose patterned table here. The playing cards all depict different kinds of roses.

10) The floor of this room is covered in images of feathers. The walls are painted with images of wildlife. The ceiling is one huge red sun.


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## jonesy (Mar 16, 2012)

11) This room feels too large for its size, as if someone had crammed a much larger room into the space it now occupies. There are green plants growing down from the ceiling. The ceiling looks to be made of soil, though none of it appears to be falling down.

12) This room has a bouncy floor made of somekind of red material. The ceiling isn't low enough for anyone to bang their head on it by accident. Slashing at the material breaks it, and makes it useless for anything other than covering material.

13) This room has several empty cubicles. There are windows on the walls, but they are empty and only show the wall they hang from.

14) There are strange faraway sounds of people talking in this room. The sounds can not be deciphered. The room is completely empty.

15) There is a sword practise doll made of wood affixed to the center of this room. It is full of cuts and scrapes. There are no swords anywhere.

16) This room has about two thousand cardboard boxes. None of them contain anything, except perhaps more boxes.

17) This room has two chests. They are made of lead, and apparently stuck to floor, as no-one will be able to lift them. One of them contains a doll which looks like a wizard, and the other one is empty. Searching the chest with the wizard doll uncovers a secret compartment. Inside it is a map. The map has several sections of the dungeon detailed, but only ones that the party has already been in.

18) The walls of this room are full of text in red ink. The ink has worn out, and not one word is legible.

19) This room contains a sword stand. There are five places for swords, but only two swords. The first is so used it has turned blunt, and the other is broken in half.

20) This room has walls of dark jagged rock. The ceiling has been painted black. The paint is still wet, and it is slowly dripping down to the grey floor. It is possible to cross the room carefully so that the paint doesn't fall on you.


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## was (Mar 16, 2012)

try this:

Return to Undermountain: Dungeon Room Description Generator


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## jonesy (Mar 16, 2012)

was said:


> try this:
> 
> Return to Undermountain: Dungeon Room Description Generator



It's a neat generator, but many of those break the rules outlined.


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## Greenfield (Mar 16, 2012)

21) This room is oval in shape with no distinct corners.  The floor feels gritty beneath your feet, and the walls are painted with a continuous fresco of a seascape that surrounds you.  Oddly, you feel that if you stay here for any time you'll become seasick.

22) The floor of this room is littered with the shards of thousands of bits of broken crockery.  There doesn't seem to be any way to walk across without the bits crunching under foot.

23) The ceiling of this room is an arching dome with hundreds of tiny round openings in it, apparently air vents or perhaps speaking tubes.  Faint whispers can be heard as you pass, but they are so garbled together that it's impossible to make out what any are saying.

24) The floor before you is sagging and cracked, as if the supports beneath it had been broken.  (Balance check, DC 10 when crossing)  There is a relatively clear path through, though not a straight one.

25) The walls of this room are lined with book shelves, though where the books might be you have no clue.  The shelves appear to have been recently dusted.


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## was (Mar 16, 2012)

jonesy said:


> It's a neat generator, but many of those break the rules outlined.




I didnt mean it to be taken as is, but it can spur new ideas.
I also like this:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20070427a


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## jonesy (Mar 16, 2012)

26) This room is almost completely filled by an aquarium in the middle of it. There are plants living in it, but they have grown so thick that it is impossible to tell whether there is anything else living inside.

27) The walls of this room have been decorated with different coloured marble eyes. They all seem to stare at anyone entering, but this is only a feeling one gets.

28) This room is dark. Really really dark. Any light source, magical or otherwise, which is brought into this room only illuminates it in a five foot radius. There is a human skeleton lying in the middle of the floor. It has a non-magical ring on its one remaining finger.

29) This room contains a few dusty bathtubs. A couple of them are hooked up to pipes coming from the walls. All of them are dry, and nothing comes from the pipes if someone tries them.

30) The floor of this room is covered in marble tiles. The tiles have different coloured numbers on them, but these seem completely random. Walking on any of the tiles makes them break, and the person who did so falls a half a feet down to the real floor (and receives no damage).

31) Stepping into this room is like entering a desert during a high sun. The walls are a faded yellow, and the floor has a sandlike pattern. The ceiling is a bright white. Staying in this room for longer than 5 minutes makes you feel parched.

32) This room eats all sounds. Nothing can be heard while within, and no sound can be made. There is a pedestal by the side of the room. On it is an emerald. If someone takes the emerald out of the room it breaks. Breaking the emerald dispels the sound eating effect.

33) The floor of this room is wildly uneven. Standing on one side one gets the impression that the other side is impossibly small, and vice versa.

34) This room makes everyone entering it feel claustrophobic. The walls feel like they are constantly closing in, and ceiling looks menacing. It's perfectly safe to be there.

35) This room is a raging inferno of fire. It isn't magical, and it will hurt. The magical effect of the room is in keeping the fire contained inside it. Carefully and slowly walking into the room one will realize that there is a safe narrow path inside which will take you to the other exit(s).


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## jonesy (Mar 16, 2012)

36) This room is decorated like the inside of an arabian tent. The beautiful fabrics used as decoration each have their own exotic scent, as if someone had been collecting perfumes from all around the world and then sprayed them randomly everywhere. On the floor are several chairs, an empty table, and a chest full of empty perfume bottles.

37) The floor of this room is littered with pencils and partially finished sketches of the same beautiful woman. Each picture is missing a different part of her.

38) The floor of this room is slightly damp. The room is entirely violet.

39) This room feels ancient. It looks like the inside of a castle tower. Inspecting the stonework gives the impression that it once was an actual room in a castle tower which someone carried here piece by piece and then assembled in exactly the same way. There is a lavish bed here which would make even the haughtiest of princesses sigh with envy. The entrance(s) to the room were once locked, but the locks have rusted away.

40) There is a golden statue of a terrifying demon in this room. The statue is much too big to be carried out, and the gold is fake.

41) There are so many carpets of various kind on the floor of this room that simply getting into the room is a bit hard.

42) This room is a library. All of the books are journals of a man named Ekhnaton. If anyone tries to read even one of them they will fall asleep. The journals are mindnumbingly boring. The sleep is non-magical, and waking the person is simple.

43) This room contains a railroad which connects the entrances. There is a small minecart on the track near where the party comes in. The track is slightly rusted, and walking is faster than using the cart.

44) The ceiling of this room is so low that to get through it the largest member of the party needs to bend down slightly.

45) This room is completely empty save for a key on the floor near the opposite entrance.

46) There are small cages in this room. In the cages are snakes. The snakes can easily escape through the bars if they so choose. The snakes are non-poisonous and harmless. There are lots of dead mice outside the cages.

47) This room is a labyrinth of clear glass.

48) This room is very muddy. There are several shovels and buckets in the mud.

49) The doors, floor, ceiling, and walls of this room are all a mirror. Breaking a part of the mirror surface reveals small lockers all around the room. None of them are locked. They contain buttons, a couple of coins, needles, thread, tiny picture frames, non-magical rings and amulets, and all sorts of other knick knacks.

50) This room is made of rusted iron. If one searches through the scrap on the floor he may find a usable hammer.


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## jonesy (Mar 17, 2012)

51) There is a mist crawling across the floor of this room. It moves like a wild sea. Above the mist hang tiny clouds of smoke. Kneeling into the mist one gets the impression of being underwater.

52) This room looks like a living room, but there is no furniture in it, only outlines between gathering dust where furniture used be. The walls used to be full of paintings, but they've been removed as well.

53) This room is filled with burning candles, but they do not seem to be burning down. Extinguishing one extinguishes all of them, and none of them can no longer be lit after that.

54) In this room there is a strong wind. The wind always seems to be against the direction one is travelling, and all movement speeds are halved while here.

55) This room has a puzzle floor. The floor tiles are on a track, and can be moved around. Moving them into the correct pattern makes them form a picture of a shadowy creature hiding behind a faraway tree on a grassy knoll. After completing the picture a secret compartment opens up on one of the walls with a loud click. Inside is a spyglass.

56) This room has been painted in tiger stripes. It contains a drum set.

57) This room looks like the storage room of a ceramics shop. There are shelves full of all kids of plates, mugs, teapots, kettles, pots, pans, jugs, and the like.

58) There is a monkey in this room. When the party enters, the monkey says "Ug?" and runs away. There are banana peels on the floor.

59) This room contains a library, but all of the books are empty. None of them even have titles.

60) This room has a black and white checkerboard pattern on the floor, and is separated into several sections by large red curtains. Each section is somehow soundproof so that no sound passes to the others sections.


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## jonesy (Mar 17, 2012)

Empirate said:


> You're really enjoying yourself describing empty rooms, don't you?



It sure seems like it.


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## Loren Pechtel (Mar 17, 2012)

You said no treasure but since you're trying to make it interesting I would put a bit of mundane treasure.  Simply deduct it from the treasure that nearby monsters have.


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## jonesy (Mar 17, 2012)

61) There are several not so neat rows of school desks and chairs in this room. In front of them is a large blackboard. Written on the blackboard with chalk are extremely basic fighting manouvers, like "Hit the enemy with your sword", "Block attacks with your shield", "Protect the Wizard", "When wounded have the cleric heal you". There are also diagrams illustrating these manouvers.

62) This room is a mess. Empty wine bottles litter the floor. Chairs and tables have been thrown about as if there was a fight. There's cutlery and scraps of food everywhere.

63) This room contains a cobble stone floor and a well. The well is deep and dark. There is a winch for a bucket which is down below. Using the winch to bring the bucket up reveals it and the bottom of the well to be full of black sand.

64) There are small grates on the sides of this room, from which float tiny sweet smelling bubbles, which frequently pop loudly.

65) This room looks like the ransacked laboratory of a wizard. Everything in it has been torn apart, smashed to pieces, and broken violently. Searching through the wreckage one can find a couple of random first level scrolls.

66) There are three small birds in this room. They fly around, apparently playing with each other and completely ignoring everything else. Trying to interact with them reveals them to be harmless ghost birds.

67) This blue painted room has a staircase in the middle, which seems to lead nowhere. Climbing the staircase takes one to another room, which has been painted red. The red room contains several sleeping bags and blankets.

68) The walls of this room have pictures of weird animals. Horses with human heads. Donkeys with dragon wings. Gigantic insects attacking a castle. Lizards with chicken legs. A cuckoo bird the size of an elephant being ridden by a minotaur. Dogs with horns headbutting each other. A cat with three tails.

69) This room looks like a courtyard. There are two fountains here spewing dirty water at each other.

70) This room contains numerous slowly melting ice sculptures. It's hard to tell what any of them used to look like.


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## jonesy (Mar 17, 2012)

71) This room has reversed gravity, but the ceiling is padded with a soft material, and there are stairs leading back down to the entrances. There is a normal dagger somehow lying on the floor (without falling to the ceiling).

72) There is a rug on the floor of this room. The rug resembles very high grass, and wading through it is difficult.

73) This room contains a series of jail cells. None of them are locked. One contains an old leather armor.

74) This room has laundry hanging from wires strung across it. All of the clothing is that of a highborn lady. All of it is freshly washed. There are empty wicker baskets on the floor.

75) There is a bloodtrail on the floor of this room. The trail is in a spiral pattern from the entrance to the center of the room. If someone follows the pattern all the way to the center it vanishes and is replaced with red string. At the end of the string there is an amulet with a lion crest.

76) There are dancing shadows in this room. They stalk each other across the walls and one by one kill each other. This repeats over and over.

77) An underground river runs into and out of this room. The room is made of dark stone. There is a rickety wooden bridge leading across the river. On each side of the river are sturdy steel grates through which it flows.

78) This room has been completely painted with a sparkly blue and white pattern. It is so sparkly one has to squint hard to be able to even leave the room. 

79) In this room there is what looks like a gigantic mouse trap. When the party enters it activates, and completely breaks down without harming anyone. The mechanism looks to have been chewed on by rats.

80) The floor of this room is made of countless bamboo rings. There are empty paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. On the walls are samurai swords. Inspecting the swords reveals them to be very high class replicas, useless for combat.


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## grodog (Mar 17, 2012)

You may also want to consult the dungeon dressing tables in the 1e DMG, and Kellri's CDD#4:  http://kellri.truculent.org/CDD#4 - ENCOUNTERS Reference.pdf

Reading through the mega-dungeons forum on K&K may also be useful, as there a number of threads there with rooms/ideas you can steal if you want to fill out some of the empty rooms, or just spice them up a bit:  KNIGHTS & KNAVES ALEHOUSE • View forum - Megadungeons!


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## jonesy (Mar 18, 2012)

81) In this room there is a huge mechanical steampower clock. There are pipes running from it into the ceiling. The clock is counting backwards. Everytime it reaches a full minute it makes a train-like choo choo sound. When it reaches a full hour its boiler begins to work overtime, turning the room briefly boiler room hot and very steamy. Then it continues counting backwards. This is all it ever does.

82) This room is painted in a zebra pattern. There is a hat with brightly coloured feathers sticking from it on a shelf by the opposite entrance. If someone picks up the hat the sound of flute music is heard from somewhere beyond the room.

83) There are three grand pianos in this room. On the walls are blue velvet curtains. On the ceiling is a copper chandelier, lit by surprisingly huge candles. If one tries playing the pianos he discovers that they are tuned in different ways. One sounds almost dainty, one plays somber sad sounds, and the third can only do grim dark, regardless of the song played.

84) In this room there is the aftermath of a recently fought battle. When the party enters the room they will suddenly realize that the entrance they used was actually a wall someone hacked through with a battlexe. The other entrance(s) had been barricaded with various furniture. The barricade on the opposite side has been cast aside as if someone immensely strong charged into it. The room used to look like a barracks, but everything in it is in shambles. The markings suggest numerous people fought here, but only two are still in the room. A highborn lady is slumped against a writing desk, her skull cracked. Near her on the floor is a dying man dressed like a wizard. If someone from the party approaches him he will whisper "Tell them, my name was, Ekhnaton.." and then he will die. There is an odd resonating vibration in the air near both of the bodies. If someone tries bringing either of them back from the dead they will turn into ancient skeletons instead (you could have a combat encounter here). 

85) The floor of this white room is full of paint cans. Almost all of them have already been used up. The floor beneath them is a mess of colours.

86) In this room are a couple of planks of wood. There are signs which suggest that the room may once have been filled with them.

87) When the party enters this room a monkey will peek into it from another entrance. Then it runs away. There is nothing here.

88) This room is filled with broken machinery. In the corner of the room there is a cubicle inside which is a bathroom with a working steampower toilet, and a sink with a tap which produces a trickle of fresh water.

89) This is a kitchen. There are no kitchen implements anywhere, and not one scrap of food. All of the cupboards are empty, all of the tables are clean. There are candlestands here, but no candles.

90) This room contains several baskets of dirty clothing.

91) This room is a pool. There's no water. In the pool is a rope ten feet long, and a fallen ladder large enough for someone to climb out of it.

92) In this room is a rabbit with a small hat. It's a friendly little rabbit, and starts hopping towards the party when they enter. Someone has recently left a basket of vegetables here. There are also three clearly visible, but unrelated, elven skeletal remains in the corner of the room. 

93) Through the middle of this room runs a moat. The moat is six feet deep and two feet wide. In the moat is a pickaxe. There's no sign of where the soil from the moat or the floor tiles from its spot have been taken to.

94) This room has a grass floor. There are some flowers growing in it.

95) This is clearly a throne room, but someone has taken the throne. This is the feeling the party gets, but it is verified by the picture on the wall where the throne still stands.

96) The doors into this room are heavy iron, and extremely hard to open. It looks like a graveyard, but all of the graves are empty. Only the headstones remain, but they are too old for anyone to read the inscriptions. The walls have been painted with the image of a vast graveyard.

97) This room is a garish yellow. There's a table with a candlestand in the corner. On the table is an inkwell, a fountain pen, and a half-finished note. The note reads "This is it. They want us to leave this place. We are going to have to take a stand. Some of the others have already begun to".

98) This room has a cracked ceiling support. The ceiling has caved in, and there is just about enough room by the sides for the party to pass through.

99) The entrances to this room have been covered with floral pattern curtains. The room itself is boringly grey. There's a large loom here, and several spools of different kinds of thread. In the corner is a basket with a couple of warm shirts.

100) Opening the doors to this room is difficult. It's as if they are fighting back. When the party enters all of the doors slam shut. There's a strong draft here which leads to a grate in the ceiling. Leaving the room is as hard, and as easy, as entering.


I think I'm done here, by the way.


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## Dog Moon (Mar 18, 2012)

jonesy said:


> I think I'm done here, by the way.




Nope, sorry, another 900 are needed.


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## jonesy (Mar 18, 2012)

101) In the middle of this room is a second slightly smaller room with a closed door facing away from the direction the party enters from. In the middle of that room is a third slightly smaller room with a closed door facing away from the direction the party enters from. In the middle of that room is a fourth slightly smaller room with a closed door facing away from the direction the party enters from. In the middle of the floor of the fourth room is trapdoor. Opening the trapdoor reveals a deep shaft with ladders on each side. At the very bottom of the shaft is a room with a closed door. Opening the door reveals the room to be surrounded by a huge spherical room. There is a ladder going back up to the top of the sphere on the outside of the shaft leading to the room at the center. Within the sphere, gravity always faces away from the small room in the center. (So the ladders within the shaft go down, but the ladder on the outside goes down 'up'). You can run around the sphere normally. There is one final, circular, room at the bottom of the sphere (opposite from the shaft, and the 'bottom' of the ladder outside of it). In the final room is a filing cabinet. In the cabinet is a set of mosaic amulets.


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## kitcik (Mar 18, 2012)

First, let me say the descriptions from [MENTION=10324]jonesy[/MENTION] were fantastic.

That said, if I bought a module with "1000" empty rooms, I would get out a black sharpie and cut it down to 10 pretty quick.


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## jonesy (Mar 18, 2012)

The 101 Description reads messy, but trying to draw what was in my head wasn't that clear either. Also, I need a phone with a better camera (or maybe just an actual camera):

Link to image

What it says at the bottom, which is cut off, reads:
- Okay, so I can't draw exactly what I'm thinking, but trust me, it looks amazing in my head


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## RUMBLETiGER (Mar 19, 2012)

[MENTION=10324]jonesy[/MENTION], I can't xp you again, but I so wish I could.


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## jonesy (Mar 19, 2012)

Thank? I totally meant to type 'thanks' in the exp comment.


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## kitcik (Mar 19, 2012)

RUMBLETiGER said:


> [MENTION=10324]jonesy[/MENTION], I can't xp you again, but I so wish I could.




I'm sure he feels that the simple fact of you now have an [MENTION=10324]jonesy[/MENTION] for this thread is thanks enough.


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## Cavnar (Mar 20, 2012)

Thanks a lot.  I never expected a single person to come up with that many, especially not in that short a time.


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