10 Historically Rooted Caves and Pools for your TTRPGs
Chatting with my wife on the way back home from an archeological conference she was attending, and the subject turned to burial customs and cave findings. She shared some ideas I had to put together into a set of inspirations for features or to build entire sites off of:
- A pool the color of mother’s milk dripping down from rounded stalactites, known to the locals as “moonmilk.” Faded frescos showing fertility rites painted on the walls.
- A pool that fizzes and bubbles, effervescent on the tongue. Reputed to cure (x).
- A pool filled with votive sacrifices - bronze representations of body parts (eyes, limbs, breasts, etc), beseeching the gods to cure an affliction.
- A two-level limestone cave, the upper portion showing signs of habitation and ritual bone scattering; the lower level filled with pots to catch the sacred waters dripping down stalactites. The oldest have fused with the floor or grown into stalagmites.
- Cave wall paintings that show animated scenes in the flickering of shadow and light when torches are held at the right angles.
- A shallow cave pool showing perfect mirroring of the ceiling and features overhead, glassy smooth. Reputed to provided visions when the right conditions are met.
- An ancient baths structure, steaming from below. Reputed to be sacred both to a current god, and an older one of the locals.
- Shapes of humanoid features in stalagmites, votive offerings and alters built up around them in worship.
- Sculptures in clay upon the ground, deep within a dry rotunda like chamber far beneath the earth. Reached through an uncomfortable and difficult journey.
- Simple animal forms incised directly into rock wall with a bold hand, seeming to move in the flickering light.