Loopy Tombs

 This poast was inspired partly by reading James Holloways 'Tome of Tombs' - a zine of Tomb creation which you can find here; https://james-holloway.itch.io/

A aid to generating tombs based partially on the creators IRL historical knowledge. 

Reading this I realised that the most interesting thing about most pseudo-real tombs, in terms of exploration and dungeoneering, is the context. 

In real-life tombs, at least anything under a pyramid in size, you go in and come out. the 'flow cart of possible exploration is very linear, though the paths within the tomb might seem winding.

Holloways Zine deals well with the creation of this context, but I was interested in crossing the streams somewhat, and thinking about reasons a pseudo-real Tomb might have the loops and choices we often desire in dungeon design.

What follows starts with pseudo-real reasons a Tomb might 'loop'; 'Living Beings', 'The Touch of Time' and 'Architectural Reasons', but rapidly spirals out of control into the whackiest possible sources for complex tomb layouts.

LIVING BEINGS

Giant Sloth - In an adventure beloved by few, I used the giant south American ground sloth burrowing in and about the tomb, creating a series of alternate passages which wove in and around the 'natural' pathways of the tomb. Many creatures burrow but few IRL creatures make man-sized burrows. If you wish to confine yourself to creatures that have lived, or that do live, I think its either the sloths or the Honey Badgers. (Place your answers in the comments). (Of course one living creature that does produce man-sized burrows, is man, which leads to the next entry.)

Lair of intelligent creatures - Its a classic for a reason. Clever beings lair, or have done, in the tomb, they have expanded the place, putting in their own obvious and hidden routes. 

THE TOUCH OF TIME

Massively overbuilt - Multiple religions or cultures have occupied this site and all built on it, or the same religion over a thousand years, (St Peters in Rome has an insane number of underground levels, each of which used to be the main level). This can also expand the 'tomb' laterally as the buildings placed over it expand.

Built onto, and partially collapsed into, deeper tomb or necropolis - They either didn't know it was there or simply forgot. Now the floors and stuff have fallen through into the deeper levels.

A river ran through it - or a stream really is all that’s necessary, and it may well have dried up since, but at some point during the life of the tomb, a water-course has shifted and run into it, drowning some areas, breaking through some walls, finding its way between places, and leaving unexpected routes.

Banyan forest - tomb is in a tropical environment, huge marvellous trees have infested the place, layering over and around, teasing aside the great stone blocks and opening strange ways between their complex root systems.

ARCHITECTURAL CHOICES

Maintenance Spaces - another thing I tried using in DBS; designer/creator access/trap reset tunnels for the architect themselves. If you want traps or any kind of complex 'effect' you may need complex mechanisms, or at least weights. To organise and set those up, you might need crawlspaces or other access spaces, that let you into the rear or back of rooms or setups.

Escape Route - the classic fear of being buried alive. Leaving an actual potential escape route for the 'corpse' should they be buried alive would effectively make a secondary network of tunnels or paths in the structure, leading directly from the body to the outside, but presumably very well camouflaged and perhaps only openable from within.

Spiritual Labyrinth - either to make sure the dead do not find their way out again or to baffle and disturb any negative spirits who might try to reach them, you build a complex labyrinth between the body and any possible exit. Spiritual - and therefore a bit different from a 'tomb robbers' labyrinth in that there may be no actual lethal traps or mortal deceptions, but may be a lot of complex religious trickery.

Double or triple fakes - I have used this myself previously. Just build a fake tomb, with fake treasures, then for people smart enough to see through that, build ANOTHER tomb, also fake, then an even-more-hidden third tomb, the real one, (this does not guarantee LOOPS though).

Palace for the Dead. It’s not enough to just have, for instance, a room or something, whoever is buried here will need an entire dead palace full of dead luxuries, all mirrored and replicated from the living world, which means their tomb will be a buried palace, with all the corridors and extra ways implied by that.

Mandala Map - the tomb has to be a physical map of the spiritual world as imagined by the deceased, so it’s like a giant mandala, embossed into physical reality. (Having some knowledge of this belief system would really help).

I should be able to think of something better than this, what are the...

VERY STRANGE, UNUSUAL AND MYSTERIOUS REASONS?

Cover to Manor of Infinite Forms by Tomb Mold

Time Loops – it’s a classic. If you die in the tomb you *don't* die in real life you just time loop back to certain 'save points', but some of these are so horrible - bounded on every side with impassable traps and dangers, that being trapped in them is a form of eternal undying madness.

Doors into Dream - certain symbols send you to sleep where you must navigate the tomb in dreams (the dream structure is significantly bigger).

Size Alteration and Rat Tunnels - rats have made their own paths, at the same time, eating the strange flesh of the tomb will shrink you down to their size, for a while. 

The Statues Came Alive -  and, unable to find their own way out, carved their own tunnels in the earth for their own reasons (seeking perhaps to get away from each other). It seems reasonable that the spirit of a god, or part of it, might come to inhabit, for a while, an image made for it, and perhaps it would be really annoyed at being stuck.

Reality-Distorting Artefact -  Sword of Leaves, or similar, is buried with the corpse. In combat and legend it simply cut through the space around it, granting semi-anime powers to its holder. After being stored for a few centuries doing nothing, its nature to warp space around it is creating labyrinthine structures from simple ones, nesting excess space in unobserved corners. Now residents are appealing for someone to actually go and rob the tomb; the extra space is leaking out into the surrounding community and breeding labyrinths and impossible spaces in corners. The sword should be fine so long as someone keeps it on the move, only starts leaking if you leave it in place for a century or more.

Builders Buried Alive - perhaps to keep the tombs location secret, its builders were buried alive within, but they reanimated and, consumed with their last memory, have kept digging and building in ghost and skeleton form, weaving the tomb ever deeper into earth and stone over the centuries.

Hell Itself - the resident was so exceptionally evil that the forces of hell tunnelled directly up from hell to grab their physical remains to which their soul was attached, the tomb is now fully interwoven with the distant outskirts of hell.

Religious Teleport – it’s a linear, maybe EXTREMELY linear, single long straight path with various doors, alcoves and statues along the way. The doors and other stuff can teleport you forward and back along the main route, meaning that 'in effect' the path is looped. We could call it 'The Long, Straight Dungeon', or the 'Five Mile Dungeon'.

Dickhead Teleport - tomb is physically linear though not to such an extreme sense as the five mile dungeon, but various items and interactions teleport you back to the 'starting area', meaning you have to keep transiting the same space trying to work out how to avoid or subvert the teleport effect.

Mirror World - various bronze mirrors in the tomb give access to the 'mirror tomb' which is basically a different (now spooky) version of the same thing, there are always two or more ways of encountering or dealing with everything now. When you leave, try to make sure you are in the actually-real-for-you version of reality.

Cancerous Brick - through curse, fluke or magical overflow, one particular brick or tile used in the construction of the tomb, has meta-cancer, meaning it will just keep replicating itself and the context of its placement over time, this means at a certain point the tomb now just dissolves into an insane mycelium web of brick or tile tunnels. The purpose of these tunnels is to *be tunnels*, simply to hold replications of the brick or tile. Dungeon chemotherapy might involve finding that one cancerous brick and smashing it, or smashing ALL the bricks or tiles - locals may have started invading the tomb to harvest the superfluity of bricks/tiles which now makes up their main local building material. Nothing can or will go wrong with this idea.

Djinn Dumping Ground - for whatever reason, whenever a certain Djinn or family of them are ordered to build or disassemble a castle or something, they need somewhere to store the stone, and have chosen here - they have built huge warrens and caverns of utterly random shit based on building materials from over many millennia covering the whole world, if they are uncorked somewhere and ordered to make something, they may turn up and start disassembling this stuff.

Gravity Shift - the long, spiralling yet linear way has a super-high ceiling and there are certain gravity shifting things in the tomb, or just ladders between the up and down, so that there are in essence two corridors or paths through, with one set of things and challenges on the 'bottom' and one on the 'top', meaning everything is technically looped.

Paths of Memory - various mosaics etc in the tomb represent the memories of the inhabitant and staring at them for a while can drag you into those memories AND - they are made too well so, like real memories, they interact and meet up at points, based on theme, mood, strong emotion or sensory factors (smell especially, which often unites memories), so that you can, deliberately or accidentally, move from one memory to another and emerge somewhere else in the tomb.

Dead-Eyed Dwarves - development for VotE; ReDux

The Dead-Eyed Dwarves are bald and bearded, shorter and stronger than men. They value only work and blood. 

 

Appearance 

STOMP STOMP STOMP – the heavy iron-shod boots of Dwarves passing invisibly but for glaring lamps and lances of light. 

For the Dead-Eyed Dwarves have many magics; cloaks which make the wearer invisible, clicking rings which make their owner large or small, strange insect-lenses which pick up every drop of light and ever stranger eye-wear; pearl-pale cyclopean masks which perceive the flow of ‘dark’ itself and twin-cone faces which turn rebounding clicks and whines into images in the air. Beneath these, often, grills or tubes, breathing apparatus or voice amplifiers, who knows. Beneath those; beards. 

Their lamp are harsh, actinic and directional; itself a near-aggressive act within the Veins. The blinding sharp-edged light turns the Dwarves behind them into silhouettes. The tramping, trudging, armoured and indifferent Dwarves. Few cultures of the Veins dare to wear full-armour underground; none but the Dead-Eyes possess the craft to endlessly clean, amend and fix their metal shell, the brutal endurance to carry metal weight, nor the size-shifting techno-magic which lets them shrink and grow, giving them access to shafts and warrens which others attempt only in extremity. 

They can pass invisibly, but they are loud. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Too big, too small. Disappearing in the blink of an eye. Hooded, armoured, masked, with wild prickling beards. Lights powered by crackling batteries which drip toxic alkali slime. Loaded with crossbow, axe and pick, careful maps and guidance dials, grappling hooks and superlight chains. Walking and moving in unison, grunting to each other in muttered subsonic; a guttural under-speech, as if they resented even, the need to speak, even to each other. 

The most likely encounter is that you are simply ignored. The cost/benefit assessment of enslaving you simply doesn't move the dial. 

 

The Dead Eyes

Things don’t get better when the masks come off. There is just something missing in there; the strange, deep-time, assessing gaze of a Dwarf, but with the humour, honour, boldness; gone, washed away, leaving what? Eyes pale as slate, empty as the letter O. 

They eat, breathe, smell, move like living things, more than many in the Veins, yet a vampire, or a crazed patchwork Gilgamash, can have more 'anima', more individuality, vitality and humour than a Dead-Eye Dwarf. 

They are not pleasant to deal with, but they are reliable, practical and rational, and they think long-term, which makes them an incredible stabilising force. Yet no-one, and nothing 'likes' the Dead-Eyed Dwarves.

 

Abilities

Powerful Lights

Bright white spheres, hanging lanterns and lances of burning white light. Used to blind or disorder seeing foes, or simply to pick out blind enemies.

 

Invisibility Cloaks

Heavy toxic things with pointed hoods, less useful in the Veins than you might think, these are used mainly in raiding other lands. When wrapped around and buttoned up, everything they cover turns translucent. Complex physical movements, like most forms of attack, will make the wearer visible, at least for a moment.

 

Size-Control Rings

Heavy click-clacking bracelets which turn like locks or rings of code. Rapid tactile codes are needed to make use of one, and once that code is known, each ring is still is different, tuned for a particular Dwarf. Worn, usually on the left arm. Move the right hand over and quickly, and loudly, click through the code before carefully carefully carefully clicking through the size-set sequence.

When a Dead-Eyed Dwarf shrinks or grows, its not a smooth transition. Its as if they were an image and each heavy CLACK spun some fresh lens in front of them so that they seemed smaller or larger by leaps. CLACK CLACK CLACK and big, big BIG, as if they were projections, with the ‘real’ dwarf somewhere else.

It takes time and training to accustom oneself to getting bigger and smaller on the regular.

 

Seeing Lenses

They like these, though its questionable how useful they are. Varied masks and lenses, the most common are Light-enhancing eyes, heat-trace Snake-Pit lenses and Sonic Lenses. More rare are the special ‘Dark Vision Lenses’ which literally treat darkness as a substance.

Each Dwarf will only have one set of Lenses, if they have any, and few groups will have more than one set of each kind. They are hard to make, maintain and repair and each Dwarf makes their own.

 

Mouth Masks

The Dead-Eyed Dwarves don’t even use gas that much, purchasing it from the RayMen occasionally, but they like to wear the masks. Some protect from gas, some change the voice to a harsh bark, others alter voices to simulate those heard, still others provide air should the Dwarf go underwater, or into airless spaces.

Again, each Dwarf only has one set and the whole group rarely has more than one of each. Its not a systematised technology.

 

Combat Encounters 

Morale

Morale plays no part in the decisions of the Dead-Eyed Dwarves

Everything is based on their immediate objectives. If violence is required, and they think they will win, it starts at once, without warning.

If victory becomes impossible, or if the situation changes, so that violence no longer serves, they simply stop, again, without warning, usually turning invisible and simply walking away.

If there is no way out, they fight, bitterly, to the emotionless end

 

Combat Tactics

Armoured; the Dwarves can weather most projectiles, and most blows. 

Bright Directional Lights; these can be used to blind many Veins inhabitants. Activating then turning off the lights can be more effective than actual invisibility. 

Invisibility Cloaks; if out-ranged, bottled up or boxed in, a combat team can use their invisibility to close with the enemy, or to escape if needed. 

Size-Change = BIG; The Dwarves can ‘click-click-click’ up to Ogre size. This always takes an action and is loud. All of their equipment changes with them, as if it, too was being projected from somewhere else. A Dwarf might turn huge and fire ballista-sized crossbow bolts, or get close before turning massive and laying into a party from behind its lines. 

Size-Change = small; mainly used for escaping should a situation turn bad, especially by accessing crawl-spaces or similar. Combining this with Invisibility makes them near-impossible to catch. 

The enormous power of their techno-magical abilities, combined with their utter ruthlessness and invincible will, means the Dead-Eyed Dwarves don't need fancy 'tricks', though like many Veins cultures, though they have an expertise in Poison (to which they have a meaningful resistance), and sometimes use various forms of Gas. 

 

Chameleon/Tarantula Cavalry

Mainly used in and around their settlements, due to the enormous costs of keeping them fed, but the Dead-Eyed Dwarves do often use ‘Cavalry’ formations; their favourites are a very chunky form of huge Tarantula, and kind of sticky lizard with some Chameleonic abilities. 

They will usually change size to something smaller in order to comfortably ride these things. The combination of activating their toxic invisibility cloaks, the giant animals, and the glaring lights they carry, creates a truly bizarre appearance. 

 

Non-Combat Encounters

No Pride, No Shame

The Dead-Eyed Dwarves don’t carry resentments around, if they beat you before, or were beaten by you, their attitude will be what it always is - relentlessly practical. 

This makes conflict with them a troubling experience; they will not try violence unless they believe they will win, and they are rarely wrong. 

Non-Combat Encounters

the Dead-Eyed Dwarves will pass invisibly, except for their lanterns. They seem like trudging shadows passing underneath an actinic light which glows like a willow the whisp. 

Did they just walk right past? 

Whatever they are doing, they are doing it. They have a purpose and if the PCs cannot help

or impede them, what do they care? 

 

Goals of the Dead-Eyed Dwarves

[THIS NEEDS WORK BUT HERE IS THE BASIC IDEA 

A simple way to do this might be for there to be three goals; 

One BIG THING that the whole of local Dead-Eye Dwarf culture is currently aiming towards. You roll for this when you are generating the Veins and it remains the same throughout the Campaign. 

Two –a medium scale political or large structural goal that will help them towards the MAIN THING. This can change from session to session and can differ from settlement to settlement. (But it doesn’t have to change). You can roll for this on-encounter, or during the session or just keep it from previous sessions if that make sense. 

 

Three - a current goal for *this particular group*, the mission or thing they are currently trying to fulfil, which will lead towards the second, which will lead towards the third. You roll for this when you encounter these guys. 

Do, whenever you are dealing with Dead-Eyes, just look at this list; they are doing A, to achieve B, to finally achieve C. And all you need to think about, as it is all the Dead-Eyes are thinking about, is ‘how do I achieve the next goal and make sure it connects to the main goal’. ] 

They must always be working 

 

Simple Behaviours For Encounters 

Literal

They do not like metaphor. Things mean one thing. If a thing tries to mean two things then it becomes nothing. 

LITERAL DOESN'T MEAN STUPID  - they do not like metaphors, but they understand them. They know that you or other characters, are not being literal, and they can understand that, but they themselves will do everything they can to avoid it.

 

Taciturn, Concrete, Direct 

Get to the point, get there now and be explicit about what it is. 

Use the minimal number of words to make things clear. 

Do not 'chat'. Every conversation has a clear and concise point towards which they are going.

 

 

Dead-Eye Culture

Long ago the first of them emerged from a distant primal core. He made himself. That work goes on. They believe they are improving. It is their mission to do so. 

Their family trees spring up, not down. Each generation more focused and efficient than the last. This is the Ascent. Dead-Eye heredity. A machine of blood and bone, carrying them into the pre-remembered future. One of only two things in which they truly believe. 

They have statistics, and the graphs all show a clear upward trend. Production, efficiency and development, all increase. 

They imagine the future and the things they will build there. It belongs to them. They want it more. They understand it more. They will become what the future needs them to be. The future is a god to them. A god-above-gods. They know it to be true. 

Even as the race slowly winds itself deeper and deeper into the earth, passing through fretted valves and carved abandoned chambers they have made, falling in its orbit of stone, they map their continual advance. 

Each thing must be built upon another thing. A word, a deed, a thought, each must have its foundation. Arguments over the Ascent are arguments over reality itself. Without its sustaining foundation, the word becomes a gabble of sound, the deed an accident, the thought a dream, the existence a lie.

 

Dull 

One of the most powerful, wide-ranging and transformative of all the cultures of the Veins, the Dead-Eyed Dwarves are dishwater-dull, to deal with. Utterly reliable and quite insane, they are a power second only to the Aelf-Adal, to whom they are almost immune, and with whom they enter irregular war. 

 

Makers Of Ruin

The totality of their physical effect on the Veins of the Earth is enormous. Dead-Eyes never stop working, mining, carving, delving. They are always building, cutting, shaping, and thence always moving. 

They cannot stop working, ever. 

This makes a Dead-Eye city or settlement, more like the cast of a worm than a singular place. They mine and carve EVERYWHERE, continually, they do not stop to inhabit very long. A Dead-Eye settlement is like a time-worm; it’s not located in any particular place but is continually being delved, leaving the carved and developed volumes behind it, like the cast of a worm. 

The Dead-Eyes therefore make the Veins more ‘ruined’ and more ‘empty’ than they would otherwise be, for an empty building can be empty in ways a cave cannot. 

Dead-Eyes do still consider that they 'own' anything that they have worked on, (that they haven't formally agreed to sell or exchange), which means these vast Piranesi-ruins that plunge through the Veins are technically 'theirs'.

 

Neutral, Practical Evil

Dead-Eyes do not torture or psychologically destroy their slaves. Not deliberately at least. They simply kill them when they fail. 

Skilled slaves can appear to rise far in Dead-Eye ownership, and will (any skill at work must be nurtured and sustained so that better work may be done). But it is not the individual that is respected. It is the work. The work passing through the alien flesh. 

They do not really hate their slaves. They do not realise that they are beings at all. Only vectors for work. 

They do not really hate anyone. Because they really don’t know there is anyone there to hate. 

Neutral, ultra-reliable, non-bigoted, they may be the sanest (?) culture in the Veins. 

They are honestly quite boring to encounter and maybe that's ok. Remember it’s not about offending them, it’s unlikely you even could offend them, it’s about getting in their way, and if you do get in their way, they will grind through you and over you with utter ruthless indifference. It’s almost like fighting golem. 

 

Skill Is Meaning

They respect skill. But it is the skill itself they respect, which is work moving through the body, not the body or the person itself, which are just bearers of the skill.

 

Work Is Meaning

The only other thing they understand is work. 

A body and a mind are only useful because of the work they can together do. The soul is the work passing through the flesh. 

No other race grasps this. They might ask “What are the Dead-Eyes working towards? What is their plan?” 

They are working to be working. Work is the plan. Work is the point. 

They will never stop. They can never stop. 

They will cut cities from bare stone, tear up every vein, embellish every surface, then, when there is no unworked spot or unplanned gap, when every single piece and thing has become a channel for planned creation, when even the pebbles stare up from the floor with idly-carved eyes, then they move on. 

Gems mean nothing to them except that they can be cut, or have been cut. 

If one loses the ability to work and if they cannot further the ascent, they simply walk into the dark. Or sit where they are, staring at nothing, waiting to starve. 

if a Dead-Eye is crippled or otherwise prevented from working, they lose any will to live. They must work, they must proceed towards the goal. It is all they are. It is everything they are.

 

Jealous

Yes, ok, perhaps they can be a little irrational. They are still Dwarves after all. They can be jealous of craft and ownership, especially of unique objects and materials. The RayMen and their wonderous tech inspire some of this, but many ethnogroups have a little this or that which really, really, should that not truly belong to the Dwarves?

 

No Dreams

They do not dream, rather they experience a lucid ebony. Its possible they are not even really unconscious, just ‘shut down’. What are the Nightmare-Men going to do? Give them a spook?

 

Fidget Spinners

Since they literally can't stop working, they tend to have a lot of ... odd things they do when they can't physically work, like knitting. If they are waiting, they carve stones or rock where-ever they sit down, leaving tiny faces in pebbles or maps on flat slate. (Although you never actually see them 'waiting’.)

 

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Demon-Bone Sarcophagus = £20 (-£20)

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Silent Titans = £40

Speak, False Machine = £30 (-£20)

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If you are interested contact me anywhere to find out more!

 

“The Map of Five-Times-Five

The paper was flayed skin. Around its borders were these words; “A map of Signs, like those which show the way to Grace or Down to Damnation, through good deeds or bad.” I studied thus and decided that the Great Signs must be the Saints, but of the lesser Signs and lines I knew not, but went in search of one who would speak to me of such, for ‘Five-Times-Five’ had gone.”

I mean how good a map do you expect to get for one tooth?

.....

In this opening part of 'Queen Mab's Palace', our Narrator, the Scribe, has arrived in the Crypt of her Palace, in the shadow of Saint Seven, the Time Saint, and fortunately, on that Saints Holy Day, meaning they arrive in the middle of a Market, and that it would be illegal to hunt and eat them, (at least within the bounds of the Market itself, and at least till the end of this Saints Day).

In attempting to learn more about the strange, dank Fairyland in which they find themselves, they (somehow) end up in position of (someone's) teeth, one of which they trade to 'Five-Times-Five' for a map of the crypt in which they now are set. 

This is that map; 

What we know but they do not, is that the 'Crypt' is the broken, de-powered and/or industrial sections of a gigantic space ship. If you could see ‘the crypt’ in a 3D image of the real-life ‘Queen Mab’, it would be like dark sections, occupying most of the shitty parts of the ship, the stuff around recycling, the ‘lower decks’ main cargo bay etc.

Seen like this, the ‘Crypt’ isn’t just a single blob of contiguous space, it would weave its way through and into the ‘Courts’, like a black dirty Octopus spreading tendrils everywhere.

The division between the ‘Crypt’ and the ‘Courts’ is as much social, political and religious, as it is material and practical. The ‘Crypt’ is dark, often wet, full of naked industrial machinery, often hot, or maybe far too cold. Its population are the ‘Dwellers’ a peasant/untouchable class.

To make some sense of this, consider a Medieval Map like the Hereford ‘Mappa Mundi’, the religious centrality of things is important. Here is a medieval map of the whole world;

As you can see, the whole world is represented. In the middle is Jerusalem, the holy city, and below it is the Mediterranean. I think the UK is bottom left.

The thing in the middle of the Crypt Map is the Court of Melinoe, Queen of the Underworld and beloved by all who Dwell Below.

The Flow

The ‘Flow’ is anything the Courts (above) flush or throw away. This stuff enters pipes, (praise the pipes), unless its isolated and trapped, in which case the Gongfarmers go get it.

Then it flows down the pipes, which merge like the streams leading to a river. All joining together. Then these streams meet at a Saint.

There are Seven Saints, as you know, and these are arranged on the map, each at the centre of their own drainage network.

Finding Your Way in the Crypt

What’s on the map has absolutely no real relationship to actual distances, but does have a good rough representation of relationships, especially the Flow. (The Flow is sacred).

How you might verbally describe a location is based on the Saint, first, then the direction uses the closest other saints as compass points, to tell which way someone is meant to orientate. 

The spaces between the ‘flows’ are deserts, unusually dry and sometimes warm. The more ‘flow’ there is, the more likely it is to be wet, and perhaps cold, until you get real close to the Saint the flow is flowing to, when it may warm up again. There are also more people and stuf happening generally ‘downflow’ (which may be dangerous).

‘Five Turns Sixwards of Five’ is a pretty simple instruction for someone around Saint Five; just turn ‘Sixwards’ (people nearby will probably have a good general idea of which direction ‘Five’ is), and then take five major turns in that direction.

In ‘reality’ any guidance would be way more full of oddness and cryptic stuff that only makes sense when you do it, when you already know about it or just doesn’t make sense. Like;

’when five red gates do pass, 
Courtwards of the merry lass,
Venomwards of Young do mark your measure,
Riddles be sung and drips be treasure’

What the fuck does this even mean? Presumably five rusted (red) gates or portals, then moving ‘Courtwards’, so usually upflow of ‘the merry lass’, whatever the fuck that is, maybe it makes sense when you get there. Then Venomwards (direction of saint Six), of ‘Young’ (Saint five), then riddles be sung, so maybe there is something stopping you, like one of the Pythians Sons (an insane uplifted automatic door), and then ‘drips be treasure’, its really dry and you will need to conserve liquids? But you get the general vibe.

.......................

To explain a little more about the Crypt and the Saints, here is a fragment from one of the several appendicies of 'Queen Mab's Palace' where one of the Endothermic Knights describes the Seven Saints of the Crypt

SAINT ONE - THE RAIN SAINT

"Whose day is called ‘Rainsday’ and who hangs upright in a mighty vault. The Market lies beneath, where the dribs of flow trickle down the great saints side and drip a soft pattering rain. Any drop may be the Vile Flow, or the Pure, and the Many turn upwards, bare their tongues, and risk the Vile that they might taste a Pure Tear of the Rain Saint.

SAINT TWO - THE CHAIN SAINT

The second Saint is mighty, though He sleeps. He is the Chain Saint and Chainsday his day. The pipes of the Flow are fed and laced in below the holy carapace. Flakes of this are treasured. Mab herself is pleased by their colour. (You must never cut or strike them from His shell, for this is Heresy most Foul.) The Market is atop his back and each great chain around him has a small shrine at its base, past which the people climb.

SAINT THREE - THE PILGRIM SAINT

The third is the Pilgrim Saint, for the many which attend him. He is a saint-vertical and clings to His shroud of iron as a maggot clings to flesh. Blessed with a ripeness and roundness, yet also a longness and a greatness of legs, and with Hairs, and the sides of the Saint are marked with gods-eyes. Huge seeds float out from His holy Pores and gust about. They are of worth if caught, and his shed Hairs are of facility. On Pilgrimsday the Market is before his eyes, on a great bridge which crosses a rumbling and jumbling torrent of the impure flow. This he gnaws and makes into bricks of safe, pure flow-stuff which pile beneath him in a spoil, amongst which scavengers reign. Above them, on the bridges edge, Hydraulic Monks meditate by looking into his faceted black eyes.

SAINT FOUR - THE SAINT OF BLOOD

The fourth Saint is the Saint of Blood and stirs, half-sleeping in a chamber of strange waters. Soft and tasty, glossy, pulsing black, fat with blood, with a great ringed maw of infinite teeth which pulses open and closed as if dreaming of a feast. He is like a great raw steak. Rafts set out into the Blood Saints lake and carve off hunks of His rich meat. Thrice-purified blood-pipers drain thick life from within, selling it cold or warmed, by pint and vat. The Bloodsday market lies around the blood-lake rim. ‘Tis deadly land. We walk the circle round to harrow Crimes, but ill is often done, for the market shares a border with the unlit dark and the fat iron reek makes it easy to hide murder thereabout.

SAINT FIVE - THE YOUNG SAINT 

The fifth day is Birthsday and is the Young Saints time. They are propped up as if sitting, with an archway set about them. Less pipemartyred than others, the Young Saint supports Theyself. The Young Saint glows a cool, bright, moonlike light. This blessed luminescence enlightens all who see it. They wriggle freely and are soothed and polished, and anointed with oils, by Hydraulic Monks, collecting Orbs of luminescent liquid pearl which hold the sacred gleam of Their dripping innards. They love the Young Saint, as do we all!

SAINT SIX - THE VENOM SAINT 

The Sixth day is Venomsday and their market is set within the circle of the Saints body with great limbs spread about like the spars of wrecked ships, and we walk along the Saints flank, keeping watch. This very deadly and wonderous saint is curled in a great circle, alike unto a centipede with his martyr-pipes set into his back. The Venom Saint is wrathful and half-sleeps. He dreams of violence! Sacred lances pierce its small mind. When He twitches, the Monks cry out “more power!” and rush to huge wheels which they run inside, which thereby spark the lance of mercy. It is a safe day for all must pass the Toxic Gates, where the Monks collect the Holy Venom, and if the Saint smells blood on any man, He begins to twitch and wake, therefore none dare blood to spill. Even the Drinker of Poison cannot transform all and so deadly poison drips continually from his forcipules. At times toxic fumes mist up from the venom wells and drift across the market.”

SAINT SEVEN - THE TIME SAINT

Here is where we begin, and if you wish to know more, you must wait till the book is ready.

Go Nuts in Veins of the Earth

 A Nut is an hospitable object - a surprisingly useful thing for those who make their concourse in the Veins of the Earth.

First; it keeps for a long time, is singular, storable, divisible and portable.

Second it comes from Above; few nuts grow below, (except perhaps for the equally-distant Isles of the Imprisoned Moon), and therefore it is rare.

Third; it’s hard to adulterate a nut. They can be cursed or poisoned, but that takes a meaningful investment of rare resources. A nut has good security to it.

Fourth; it is a neat compressed source of calories. Not so much as to place a painful debt on the receiver, but more than, for instance, a seed.

Fifth, finally and most important; it is a thing never before seen and which will never be seen again, lending it a certain poetic aspect in the cultures of the Veins, where secrets are adored.

Clara Peeters, Still life with nuts candy and flowers 1611

Rituals of Greeting

This makes a nut a quite generous (but not too generous) gift with which to open negotiations.

Such is the theatre of the Nut; two groups meet beneath the earth. First they scent or hear each other, then see each others light. Each makes signs of peace and the factions approach slowly until the boundary of their lamplight (roughly 30ft) meets.

One from each company is sent forth, each standing directly beneath the lamp-light of the other, proving no ill intent on either side.

Then the lamps are brought together, making a pool of shared and intensified light where the leaders of each group may sit.

Here comes the nut, (if you have one).

"Allow me please, to give a thing never before seen, and once seen, never to be seen again."

Here one displays the nut upon an open palm. The recipient gently takes the nut. Rolls it between their palms, smells it, examines its texture with hand and eye.

"Truly beautiful, a rare and unique gift."

Then the recipient may break open the nut themselves, or hand it over to one stronger of their own side, (which means something, everything said and done in the nut ceremony means something), who breaks it open for them.

The 'secret' is revealed. All present admire this heretofore unseen thing.

The recipient consumes the nut.

It’s a handshake, but a firm one. Those in poverty might offer, at least, a seed. The wealthy might offer meat, (but to offer too much would be to create a debt, almost an aggressive act). An Aelf-Adal Lord might offer a terrifyingly expensive, unique and impractical gift, this is an act of chaotic and charismatic dominance, which creates a link of fealty. Of course you cannot say “no”. A Knotsman might offer exactly what you need, with no immediate price. This is a trap and an attack on you which it may be hard to resist.

A Nut is a pleasingly minor but substantial, yet elegant, gift. It’s hard not to negotiate reasonably and in good faith with someone who has presented you with a nut.

Corporatism and Hospitality In Veins Of The Earth

The Veins could not exist and if they did you certainly could not easily 'adventure' through them.

Therefore, in the imagined world, the small cultures of the Veins; tribes, villages and pilgrims, are calmer and more corporate than many of their real-world equivalents might have been. Here are some examples of how this works in play and both diegetic and game-design reasons why this is so.

Broad Non-Aggression

It’s a war of all against all but not a lawless war of all against all.

There are 'Civilisations' in the volumes, and though their grip is tenuous and vague, it becomes more vital the slighter it becomes. The signs and symbols of power mean less, the closer to its centre one is. Out in the margins, where the power may or may not exist, its signs, symbols and promises become much more important. Exactly which Lord is everyone in fealty too, and which Coagulation do they serve?

People really do not like or want chaos or disorder. It makes it hard to live.

So there are 'Civilised' people who exist largely or nominally under the 'protection' of say a City or a Group, like perhaps they have a Knotsman Contract, and above them perhaps an Aelf-Adal Terror-Lord who rules maybe thousands of nearly-impenetrable kilometres away.

Let’s say the PCs Murder-Hobo a community, take everything they have, then roll into the next Coagulation, or into a Pilgrim People.

These new-encountered people will almost certainly know exactly what the PCs have done. Resources don't come from anywhere and they will recognise whatever has been taken. They were probably well aware of the Group the PCs murderised. They may have even been in conflict with the same group at points.

They will happily trade for these resources, (keeping a close eye and guard on the PCs this whole time). That's just being practical. If there is a real 'evil' in the Veins, it is; wasting resources.

Nevertheless, word will get back. Via Bat and trader, by psychic dream-signal or forgotten hypertechnology, first one group, then another, will discover the PCs reputation. Word will get back to the City, to the Lord, and the Lord must have Order, of a sort, in their realm.

It’s a war of all against all but it can never be allowed to blossom into chaos. There must be some form of retribution, recompense, penance, punishment or service.

The reach of the Lord is long, slow and inconsistent, but memories last down here and nothing the PCs do will be forgotten. And if the Lord is an Aelf-Adal, then their reach pierces darkness, flesh and stone. There is no escape, ever, anywhere.

Hospitality

“I let you share my light.”

No-one has any duty to keep you alive or give you resources.

However, if a deal is to be made, they should at least offer you an acorn of something drinkable, a few seeds worth of food, some light and warmth, at least until you have talked things out.

Of course you will be expected to return this in kind, even if an agreement is not reached.

In 'ideal' circumstances this leads to a cycle of functional giving, starting with letting someone into your circle of light, and ending with a handshake deal for resource exchange.

Even if things don't work out, its considered civilised to give minor gifts equivalent to the cost of the negotiation before you nope out of there.

Just leaving with no exchange at all, really fucks up your reputation.

Equivalent Exchange

If you stay with a Tribe, Coagulation or Group, for a period, benefitting from their light, their warmth, their food and presumably their ears listening for you in the dark, it’s a nearly iron law that you exchange with them resources at least equivalent to the cost of keeping you.

This can lead to different groups, say a Tribe of Once-Men and the travel caravan of a RayMan trader, occupying different sides of a river or cavern, their lights kept separate with a measurable stretch of darkness between.

They are not dicking each other over, just being very very careful about not implying any obligation or debt between them. It’s a way of keeping the peace.

Likewise, if one of these groups is attacked in the night, the other may refuse to intervene, and this would not necessarily be taken as an insult or aggressive action. Intervening in someone else’s battle creates a debt and that debt may be hard to carry.

Waiting for a group to nearly-win a fight, then charging in to help them finish it off, will not be taken as a positive helpful act. They had nearly won anyway and your intervention has created a debt they cannot deny but do not wish to suffer. Assume malicious compliance hereafter.

Game Design Terms

In terms of actually gaming this means Veins populations are actually more 'corporate' minded than many actual populations encountered during, for example, the European Age of Exploration.

A main problem for a Pith-Helmeted European explorer, apart from the environment and massive cultural differences, is simply the number of tribes you have to deal with. Each of these groups will have its own politics, its own relationships with adjacent groups, its own leaders, mood, attitude to foreigners etc etc. Thats twenty, thirty, fifty individual encounters with fifty different tribes with essentially a random generation engine whirring in the background each time, and you (the explorer) can't afford to be taxed that much with each group, and you can't afford for things to spiral out of control even once, or you die.

Empires solve this problem by simply murdering anyone who disagrees and telling whoever is left that yes actually you all live under the same rules now and no you don't get to take individual taxes or even fight each other without permission.

It was easier for a European traveller to move across the whole expanse of Eurasian Islam, (provided they could match the behavioural codes), or across the gigantic steppe empire of the Khans (provided they had the right disc from the Great Khan), than across much of Central Africa (fifty tribes again).

So the Veins are a 'bit' more 'Imperial' than they could reasonably be expected to be. Simply to make it possible to move through them. Though, there are vast areas of 'wilderness stone' where who knows what might happen, as well as disputed areas, actions and polities, reaving borderlands, unexpectedly desperate or shifty populations, general monsters, Olm, and god knows what else.

'Adventure' like 'Exploration' fundamentally requires a boundary between the more-known, more organised, and the lawless unknown. To 'Adventure' is to move back and forth across these zones, usually from a place of law and organisation, into a place with no, or unrecognised law. Resources are gathered from the margins, but they only become resources if there is somewhere else you can take them where their value is renegotiated.