D&D Cave system generator
Online cave system generators for D&D tend to be focused on the tactical and I had a need for a larger view to detail travel through a cave system, or exploring an entire cave complex. Rather than worrying about induvidual movement I was more concerned with the party moving from relevant encounter to relevant encounter and ignoring the travel in between except for noting time, distance and difficulty of traveling on untrodden paths with a signfigant slope. So I devloped this. It creates ia set of abstract encounter points, assignes them a number for easier use, and notes the name of the parent or upstream encounter point (P##) for clairty in case over overlapping lines. It also notes the altitude differnce from the starting point.
Beetween each point is the passage with slope, distance, and travel time. The Travel time is calculated using Tolbers Hiking function (Badly) to reduce the time based on the slope. The base travel time on flat ground comes from the D&D overland travel of 24mi/day not the 30ft combat speed becase the distances involved are overland travel. The time is then further reduced by 3/5to simulate broken or rough terrain (as per the equation). Sections of more than 50° are given a 0 speed to represent having to actually climb and the DM needs to figure it what to do with them. The number of potential child caves can be specified (0-5 being the default) with the first cave always having one child (because otherwise whats the point). Caves can be positioned 80 degrees in either drection from the center x-axis in order to keep the diagram moving from left to right.
For sanity the maximum distance between caves is 2000ft, later random connections can be longer. There is also a total maximum depth of 20 child caverns. Even with these settings caves can be generated off the image. After generation the image is cropped to eliminate extra white space.
All motion is assumed to be from left to right
Blue lines indicate an upward slope
Red lines indicate a downward slope
Green caverns are connected to the outside
Blue caverns are connected to the outside but lie at the bottom of up to 1000' sinkholes and are likely partially filled with water.
Currently the first cave is always at 0 altitude and there is a generally upward trend. At 3000ft the system is assumed to break the upper surface and stop. This may change in the future but its more complicated than a single setting so its not an option above.
Encounters