Instant Renaissance Cities

The early modern period – what we lay-people call the renaissance when the nerds aren't around to tell us why it's an outmoded term – lends itself well to role-playing games. The old order is being upset. New technologies such as the gun, printing press, and spyglass are revolutionizing the way people live. New faiths and philosophies challenge the old ones, leading to violent schisms and eccentric cults. New lands are discovered every few years, and in a fantasy setting, that means plenty of distant places to go adventure to.

To me, nothing says early modern more than the city. In reality cities didn't grow in population compared to rural settlements until the industrial revolution, but where medieval fantasy takes place on the borders of civilization, early modern takes place in its heart. The city is where wealth and power concentrates, and it is that wealth and power that can afford all the trademark advances players will be interested in seeing. Even when travelling to distant lands, early modern exploration is more about visiting new nations rather than the wilderness, and PCs will gravitate towards the cities of these lands as a result.

But to make a city a city, it needs to be unique. The character and history of cities define what sets them apart from each other, and in fantasy this is all the more important, since there's no excuse for a boring place. It doesn't need to be outlandish, or have incredible detail, or never have an element taken from somewhere else – but it does need to feel like a character in and of itself, and not a nameless place to sell treasure and buy supplies.

Island City by Tyler Edlin

The tables below can be rolled on with a handful of dice, a full set of those seven dice you can buy in most game stores. With them you'll find out why the city is a city, what's considered its heart, who protects it, its geographical features, and a couple notable locations ripe for adventuring. For simplicity I've used Angus Warman's amazing list-to-HTML generator generator. Just click the button below and you'll have a city rolled up.

Upon whose cobbled streets do we tread?

As with all tables, you are encouraged to change the results as you see fit. You can mine the generator for ideas without ever rolling a die, although it's not particularly unique, and if you roll a result you dislike or don't feel fits the city, you can always reroll it. I would encourage you to change rather than reroll - if something stands out to you as bad, that's the perfect moment to come up with what you'd rather see instead.

D4 - Why is this city so prosperous?

Cities don't just come out of nowhere. There's a reason this settlement grew to such heights where those only a few hours away are still rural and sparsely populated.

1 Crossroads: The city is built in a location that is frequently visited, such as the meeting place of two major roads or at a natural chokepoint like a river ford or mountain pass. Wealth comes from the trade that flows through the region.

2 Resources: The city is built close to a rare valuable resource such as a silver, gold, or even adamantium mine, luxury crop plantations, or even around a mineral spa. Wealth comes from exploitation of resources hard to find elsewhere.

3 Administration: The city is the site of administration and trade in the region, but is not necessarily a crossroads-type location. A healthy local village economy, such as farming or logging, funnels wealth into the city as a centre of trade, in turn drawing leaders.

4 Uniqueness: The city is the site a rare or unique location that could have been built anywhere, but was built here, possibly by chance. A royal palace, a famous college, or a grand temple are all good examples. The site attracts workers and, in turn, wealth.

D6 - What site is widely considered the city's heart?

Think of this as the centre of the city. It's the place that, a few hundreds years from now, will be called downtown. The blood of cities – wealth and people – flows into the heart and back out again, and so a city's centre colours the rest of the city. A castle implies nobility, a college magic and technology, and shadows crime and conspiracy.

1 The Castle: A grand castle, possibly built for form over function. The seat of local power, both figuratively (it's where the nobles live) and literally (it's where the army is based). Nobles and soldiers have coin to spare, so many shops are built in its shadow.

2 The Shadows: Despite what any right-minded folk would like, this district of crime and destitution is expansive. Nobles go to opium dens and windowless brothels while peasants drink in dingy bars and get into fights on the darkened, namesake streets.

3 The Tower: Built to keep people both in and out. Here prisoners are kept for long sentences or before trial and punishment, the tower doubling as a watchtower and secure position in times of strife. Crowds gather for executions, almost daily in the largest cities.

4 The College: A place of learning, for scholars, artisans, or even magicians. The grounds are where the students and teachers work and live, the teachers' wealth and the students's alcoholism driving the local economy even before they're working in the city.

5 The Temple: A grand temple in monotheistic faiths, or major temples to all the gods in polytheistic ones. The city's faithful come here often, and on holidays they come from the surrounding villages and towns, sometimes travelling for days to arrive.

6 The Market: Wide, open streets and immense stone plazas, abandoned at night but bustling with merchant stalls in the day. It sucked other markets into itself like a black hole, until an overwhelming majority of transactions came to be done here and here alone.

D8 - Who or what protects the city?

If a city were truly lawless, it would fall into ruin within weeks. Someone has to keep the peace, even if they are corrupt or cruel, as well as to protect the city from the raids and riots that would see it burn.

1 The Army: Standing armies are all the rage, but all those career soldiers need somewhere to live and learn. A vast training camp is established just beyond the city's borders, but the soldiers patrol the city's streets and fortifications to keep the peace.

2 The Thieves: The local powers are weak, corrupt, or inept, possibly all three. The Thieves' Guild that has risen from the power vacuum (or created it in the first place) is selfish but not cruel, and informally punishes the most heinous and unprofitable crimes.

3 The Wizard(s): A group of wizards, or a single powerful one, live and work in the city and have a vested interest in keeping it safe. Even if only because they like the luxuries it produces, they will gladly intervene and stop threats to city-wide stability.

4 The Church: Religious factions employ paladins and inquisitors, ostensibly to protect their worshippers, often to protect their power. Regardless of their nature the local church's warriors have a base of power here, and as a result hold power over the city.

5 The Guilds: The city guilds fund a defense force as well as the upkeep of towers and walls. Though well-equipped and large, such forces are often corrupt and, even when not, answer to the guilds who pay them and not the people or leaders of the city.

6 The Duellists: A school of combat is located in the city, training nobles, artisan's children, and promising but destitute peasants. They hold lofty notions of honour and justice, hunting down and fighting ne'er-do-wells whether or not the city wants them to.

7 The Watch: Every city has a watch but most are ramshackle, corrupt, and underfunded. Here the watch is efficient and funded, dispensing justice with surprising strength and skill, while both intimidating and ingratiating the locals into supporting them.

8 The Gunners: The city has a place of gunnery training, manufacture, and repair (of cannons but also custom-made noble guns). With so many guns of so many sizes, its no wonder the musketeers and cannoneers are often asked to suppress unrest and crime.

D10 - What two notable locations are within the city?

These are places that many cities have, but not always and not as notably as here. A city may have dozens of shrines, but to have a notable one means it's a truly exceptional example. Since you roll two D10s, it's not uncommon to roll the same result – which is totally fine! If a city has two arenas, it says a lot about what the citizens value.

1 Monument: A grand statue dedicated to a hero or heroic event, or both, built near a major street or at the site of the event. Common dedications include saviours of the city, beloved rulers, saints and their miracles, and even important guilds.

2 Spa: Public or open only to paying customers – possibly from a single class – these heated baths offer warm water, sauna rooms, and relaxation therapies like massages. A great number will be split between cheap but large public baths and luxurious private ones.

3 Theatre: A grand theatre where operas, plays, concerts, and other, more eclectic performances are held. While the operas may be for higher society only, the real money comes from comedies and musicals performed for the lower classes.

4 Arena: An arena where duels, contests, and other games are held for a large crowd. Due to the relative simplicity (if difficulty) of building an arena, they are often among the oldest standing buildings in a city, built in long lost days for bloodier forms of sport.

5 Hospital: Here is where the ill of the city, and the very ill of surrounding settlements, are brought to be treated and isolated in equal measure. A grand one such as this treats nobles and teaches new doctors by giving them hands-on experience.

6 Library: Rows upon rows of thousands of books. Scholars pore over ancient texts, while printing machines create copies of important and/or popular books. New copies are allowed to be read by anyone, but the most treasured relics are kept locked away.

7 Pleasure-House: A den of sin that is nonetheless patronized by princes and paupers and priests alike. A brothel, but also a tavern, opium den, teahouse, coffeehouse, and meeting place for anyone who needs to gather in secrecy.

8 Shrine: Dedicated to a god if polytheistic, or a saint if monotheistic. Either way the shrine celebrates a direct manifestation of the deity's will – the site of a miracle, a saint's tomb, a holy relic. It draws pilgrims and is often visited by nobles wish to show piety.

9 Garden: A vast park within the heart of the city, well kept and open to the public. Rare and beautiful plants are located in a secure terrarium, while more conventional plants populate the garden at large. Vagrants flock to the garden and are often violently removed.

10 Factory: A place of work, often with the assistance of newfangled machines. Lava forges, printing presses, and bleaching fields are good examples. Workers make meagre wages while the guild artisans and merchants grow richer every year.

D12 - What geographical feature dominates the city?

Most of these larger tables are for less crucial elements of a city, but the geography is one of the first things you should consider when interpreting the results. On its own it is often little more than colour, but a city on an island will look completely different from bisected by a cliff. A city's geography sets a frame for the rest of the details.

1 Island: The city is built on an island, at least in part. The island could be isolated but important (where all the leaders live), simply a part of the city connected by bridges, or the site of the entire city. It might even be man-made or have expanded into shallow water.

2 Undercity: There is a vast network of tunnels beneath the city, a hodgepodge of sewers, catacombs, mines, and sunken buildings. Travel is slow and confusing but hidden. Secret meetings of all sorts take place next to abandoned treasures and sleeping horrors.

3 Rivers: Rivers or canals dot the city. Many cities will be built around a single river, but this one has several minor ones flowing through. It's hard to walk for more than a few minutes without crossing one, and it's possible for the city to have more rivers than roads.

4 Forest: Most cities, even those in forests, have cut down all the local trees, but not here. It could be a planted forest in non-forested areas (like a royal wood), or a patch of trees hard to remove in forested areas (tangled woods, protected by druids or elves, etc).

5 Cliff: A single cliff runs close to or possibly through the city. The city is either built up against its edge, or is bisected by the cliff as it passes through it, separating the settlement into two halves. It might be dangerously tall, or so short two-story houses can see over it.

6 Mountain: The city is built on the slopes of a tall hill or mountainside. In most cases the higher parts of society live higher up the mountain, and some buildings like temples or colleges will be be built at the top of the peak. You can see the whole city from the top.

7 Crater: A deep recess into the ground is located in the city – or perhaps the city is located in it. A meteoric crater is the most obvious type, but dry lake beds and tundra alases are other examples. The crater may be abandoned, or the site of a district.

8 Ravine: A ravine cuts through the city or is built next to it. Exceptionally large ravines, closer to canyons, could have the city built inside them. Collapses are rare but not unheard of, leading to only the poor living directly adjacent to the ravine itself.

9 Swamp: While the city is built on solid ground, it is surrounded by a swamp or other wetland, theoretically but prohibitively difficult to build on. Things like gravel flats and desert dunes also fit. The city is built as densely as possible as a result of limited space.

10 Ruins: The city has fallen a far distance from what it once was. A considerable portion of the outlying regions, and more than a few inner-city buildings, lie abandoned and may have laid abandoned for centuries or even longer in some settings.

11 Plains: The city is built on an incredibly flat piece of land. Easy construction has let it sprawl in all directions, but has also fueled a desire to build the central buildings as tall as possible so the rich can see easily. The towering centre slowly rises from the sprawl.

12 Fog: Fog, or smoke, or blown sand, etc, obscures vision the city over. Whatever the source it makes it hard to see more than a few blocks on good days, and on bad days and at night it becomes impossible to see more than a few metres ahead of you.

D20 - Every city's got a weird, fantastical place. Where is it here?

Lastly, a city needs flavour. You can put all sorts of odd locations for the players to stumble upon, but the ones here are both visitable places and say something about the city at large. Dwarven Outposts = dwarf populations, Observatories = fortune-tellers, etc.

1 Observatory: A large building, raised above the rest of the city, designed to study the movements and nature of celestial objects. The observators consist of magicians, fortune-tellers, and the rare conventional scholar interested in the stars.

2 Wizard's Tower: A tower designed for the magical arts. It may be split between many lesser magicians or a single, exceptionally powerful and/or wealthy one. Most such towers will have many connected buildings for non-magical purposes the tower requires.

3 Curio Shop: The curio shop fades in and out of reality, but it always appears here, whenever you wish to visit. It buys and sells magical items and worthless trinkets, restocking them weekly but never having more than eight actually useful relics at a time.

4 Laboratory: A place of experimentation, typically alchemical and mechanical, but occasionally magical as well. Now is an age of invention, and though it make take years or even decades, laboratories like these produce world-changing discoveries.

5 Necropolis: A sprawling graveyard, ancient, overgrown, and full of above ground mausoleums. Citizens are buried here constantly despite the overcrowding, the very air thick with necromantic energy.

6 Clock Tower: Rising high above the city, this tower displays the time and holds bells that ring hourly during the day. Clockworkers work within it, both to maintain the clock and to create and maintain new devices for the city's elite to buy.

7 Bazaar: A peculiar market selling unusual items from distant lands. The legality is questionable, the products as eccentric as the merchants, and the prices high. But they sell things no one's even heard of – clockwork limbs, protective runes, and alien plants.

8 Dwarven Outpost: The Dwarf population is high and tight-knit enough to form a miniature fortress, a single fortified building in which hundreds of Dwarves live and work in taverns, forges, and underground farms.

9 Elven Enclave: The Elf population is high and tight-knit enough to form an enclave, a gated community of fine houses in a garden environment fitting the chosen biome of the local Elves. Forest glades, pristine lakes, and even underground tunnels are common.

10 Henge: A collection of ancient stones, built to channel magical energies. The stones take up considerable space and someone always wants to tear them down, but all that magic has to go somewhere – damaging or destroying one has terrible implications.

11 Statuary: A garden of statues, some of people, some of things, some of abstract shapes. Many have been made to order for local nobles, but sometimes, statues show up overnight, made of stones found only in distant lands.

12 City-Nymph: The city has a nymph. In a place of significance, an old gate or ruined building, she or he lives and can be sought after for guidance and aid. The church is almost always in opposition of the nymph, but most city-nymphs are beloved by their cities.

13 Ruin: A stone building from ancient times, such as an aqueduct, arena, castle, or tower. It lies damaged and abandoned, but is too large and/or important to be easily removed, standing tall and strong as the city changes around it.

14 Smithy: A smith of weapons and armour, specializing both in the creation of masterwork weapons and weapons made of supernatural metals. Adamantium swords, carbide armour, and occultum trinkets can all be made to order, if only for prohibitive costs.

15 Healing Font: This location, typically a body of water such as a river or spring, has restorative properties. Those who stay in its presence have Advantage against disease, poison, and other such ailments, but it does not heal injuries or remove curses.

16 Sinkhole: A vast and deep pit in an otherwise geologically sound area. It stretches down so far that things dropped into it make no sound, but is not bottomless and likely ends in water or a connection to a cave system. May connect to a city's undercity.

17 Ancient Church: A temple to an ancient god, lost and forgotten and possibly forbidden by monotheistic faiths. Attempts to remove the ruined church have been met with curses, and it is likely that a hidden cult still worships the god it venerates.

18 Asylum: A prison for the sick and mad and mutated. Anyone deemed unfit for society is dragged and left here, cared for intermittently but most left to their own devices in dark, vast halls, where cults propagate and plans of escape are in perpetual motion.

19 Terrarium: A glass encased miniature biome, often used to grow rare plants that normally would not thrive or even survive in the local environment. It is as much a garden as a farm, and the plants and animals within are sought after by local magicians.

20 Cafe: Cafes are all the rage, but this one more than any other draws artists and intellectuals to debate philosophy over coffee, tea, and opium. Many a conspiracy and philosophy has formed in the stimulant-fueled discussions that cafes promote.

Town Name Generators, for Pseudo-Britain, Pseudo-Germany, and Pseudo-France

There was a post on the OSR subreddit the other day that linked to an article on Wikipedia about place names in Britain. The article is interesting in its own right - it talks about the meaning behind each prefix and suffix, not just listing their prevalency - but the post suggested that it could be made into a random table. So I started to write one.

But then I remembered this absolutely amazing random generator maker I've seen some blogs use to make generators. With it you can turn lines and the simplest forms of programming syntax into HTML which, in turn, turns into a button that can generate countless variations. I learned a bit of HTML a long time ago - I'm considering trying to learn it and CSS to make this blog look less like ass - but with that, even a dummy like me can make a generator.

It was so easy that once I was done making the Pseudo-British one, I clicked on a link from the Wikipedia article to take a look at some Germanic toponymy as well, and decided to turn that into a generator too. After that I figured I might as well round it out with French as well, until I realized halfway through that Wikipedia's breadth is vast but not infinite and there aren't ready-made articles on French toponymy like there is for Britain and Germany, and decided to finish the French one early and leave it at that.

Fair warning: these generators were designed to make names that merely sound like one from the country they're from, where they were designed and not hastily cobbled together. Linguistic inaccuracies abound. It's a fantasy land with elves and wizards, anyway. It would honestly be weirder if I'd tried to make it realistic, if you ask me. It does mean you can - even if it's exceedingly unlikely that you will - generate a town named "Montmont-le-Montmont". It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Platonic Race-As-Class

Race-as-class is an idea that, in theory, works. It allows a setting to have truly alien races by making the way they play fundamentally different from human classes. It also allows races to have impressive powers while keeping them balanced, since their strength is offset by the fact they lack the cool class powers humans get.

In practice, I've had bad experiences with it. Players avoid it, and when they don't, they make every Dwarf Gimli and every Elf Legolas. And almost inevitably, someone will ask if they can play a Halfling Fighter or Dwarven Magician and I'll have to tell them no.

There is a ethos found in many OSR games that pushes away from the highly customizable characters of modern D&D and D&D derivatives, preferring instead to focus on making the characters different through how they're played and what happens to them during the course of their adventures. I'm all for this (in certain games - I enjoy the customization inherent to the playbooks of Apocalypse World variants, but get why that doesn't work in an OSR game), but I feel like race-as-class hinders, not helps, this idea. When every fighter is the same, you start to try to set them apart from each other. But when every dwarf or elf is the same... you start to play them like a stereotype, since everyone has an image of what a dwarf or elf "should" be.

Secondly, there is also a push towards verisimilitude in OSR games. Again, I agree with this (and again, see where it's better to focus on an interesting story over what feels "real"), but then a part of me starts wondering why only humans and elves can learn spells. Why can't a dwarf start studying magic? Or why can't an elf or dwarf of halfling be a specialist and learn any number of skills which, in theory, you don't even need to be an adventurer to learn?

Part of my reason for feeling this way is spending a long time playing Dwarf Fortress over the years. The eponymous dwarves in your eponymous fortress all have different jobs and personalities, and yet when you run into elves or humans or goblins, it's clear that a dwarven engraver is different from an elven engraver. Art by RaysinMocona.

So here's my idea: each "human" class has a certain part of it that is not strictly necessary for the class to function and can be removed. Furthermore, each race-as-class has a certain part of it that is inherent to the race, but is also not so strong that it warrants being part of its own class.

If you want to play a race as a class you can do that. An elf is an Elf, a dwarf is a Dwarf, a halfling is a Halfling. But if you want, you can play a Fighter who's also an elf, or a Specialist who's also a dwarf, or a Magician who's also a halfling. (Note the use and disuse of capitalization - the difference between a race, and a race-as-class.)

To do so, you remove the unnecessary part of the human class, and replace it with the inherent part of the nonhuman class. So your magician doesn't have cantrips anymore but now they can see in the dark. Your specialist no longer deals sneak attack damage but now they're impossible to surprise.

This also makes it easy to make new races and classes who work. Each time you make one all you need to do is find one part of them that fits the mould and you have guaranteed compatibility with any other class and race you make.

Give me something I can use you nerd!
Okay, okay, fine. Some of these may seem complicated but once you figure out what a class in your system should have removed you're set for life.

I want to play a...
Fighter...
Remove any bonus HP (e.g. move their Hit Die down to the average).

Specialist...
Halve the number of skill points gained at level one. If not using skill points, remove any sneak attack damage bonuses and/or the ability to gain them.

Magician...
Remove any cantrips. If you don't have cantrips, -1 cast per day unless you only have one cast per day at level one or don't have casts per day, in which case reduce the number of known starting spells to one. If you're outside that you're probably using a homebrew in which case you know more about the class than I do. Make up your own removal.

Cleric...
Remove any bonus HP, if they don't have bonus HP remove the ability to dispel magic, if not that their ability to turn enemies, if not that reduce their spells like a Magician.

...who's also a(n)...
...Elf!
Automatically pass test of initiative/any other reaction-based bonuses.

...Dwarf!
Can see in the dark or just better in dim light (either way the better-sight-in-darkness stuff).

...Halfling!
You can heal from eating any number of times per day or you're good at hiding behind stuff.

...Orc!
+1 HP per level or step your Hit Die up one step (whichever you prefer).

...Fishman!
You can breathe underwater.

I've never seen an Orc or Fishman class before.
I got you good, didn't I!

The beauty of this is you don't have to make a race an entire class. I've never had an Orc or Fishman class in any of my games (yet) and I'm willing to bet most people haven't either. But with a single line of writing - one stolen from the Fighter class, the other the most obvious racial bonus in existence - I just made one.

Furthermore, that Orc bonus implies an Orc class is just a Fighter with green skin. Which I think is awesome! You could spin a Cleric into being an Angel or a Specialist into being a Ratman. Then just take a key part (probably not the same one that was removed - a Cleric's extra HP doesn't really say "Cleric" to me) and you can turn them into an Angelic Magician or Ratman Fighter.

But wait, there's more! What makes an elf an Elf? Fighting + magic? And what makes a dwarf a Dwarf? Spelunking focused stuff? Why not make a Human Dwarf or Halfling Elf! Replace the Dwarf's darksight with +1 HP/level or +1 HD size (humans are durable), and the Elf's initiative with a Halfling's eating or sneakiness.

Geralt (like all witchers) casts spells and stabs people. He even has sensory abilities. Sounds like an Elf to me! Art by Zary.

Not only does this system make it easy to play a Dwarven Fighter or Elven Specialist, it makes it easy to play more unusual takes on existing classes. All of a sudden, a Dwarf isn't the only type of dwarf you can play - and, when you play a Dwarf, you don't even have to be playing an actual dwarf! What was once a restricting system is now an open encouragement to be creative, while at the same time being simple enough in structure that players aren't bogged down with choice.

Where to go from here:
Joseph Manola's neat B/X D&D classes. He's written a lot of cool classes but you can mine this file for ideas/usable ones without diving into his blog (but you should do that anyway because it's neat). Even has an Orc and Fishman class!

Joe Fatula's take on fantasy races. These are very interesting just in general but also play with idea of races being based on but not strictly bound to a stereotype - adventurous humans, haughty elves, etc etc.

Emmy Allen's Miner and Lantern-Girl classes. It's easy to see how a Miner is just a human Dwarf and a Lantern-Girl/Link-Boy is a human Halfling, and easy to see how you could easy run them as just a Dwarf or Halfling. The Miner is the class that inspired me to write this post in the first place.

Abandoned Vaults of the Fallout Survivors: A Procedural Post-Apocalyptic Fallout Shelter Generator

Work progresses on my gonzo post-apocalyptic setting. I'm tentatively calling it the "Weirdocalypse" but the stuff I promised to write in my last post isn't finished yet. (I did write a Friendly Demon class because I like the idea of a revelatory apocalypse (see the section on "unnamed post apocalyptic project"), and because I like Hellboy/BPRD, especially the stuff where (SPOILERS!) the apocalypse comes but humanity fights back.)

This started as a simple list of abandoned fallout shelter - "vault" - traits inspired by this "random observatory" post over on Hexplorations. Then I started putting in some rules for layout generation inspired by the sadly now-removed random dungeon generator from Melancholies and Mirth (his tiny dungeon generators are still up, however). Then I wrote a table of encounters, so of course I had to write some other tables for certain types of vault inhabitants, and... well, now it's much larger than it started.

So this post is split in two parts. One will generate the outline of a vault with just five rolls of a D6. After that, however, there's a section which you can use to generate the layout and contents of the vault ahead of time. You can safely ignore the second part, but it won't make much sense unless you read the first part - so don't skip ahead.

Generating Your Vault

Roll a D6 for each category. The categories include location, design goals, what caused it to collapse, who lives in it now, and what treasure the vault is rumoured to hold. If a rolled result displeases you, or if you have a good idea for any of them, write your own and use it instead. This is meant to inspire, not constrain.

From Fallout

Where is it located?

Reaching a vault is as much an adventure as entering it. It can be difficult to find, difficult to enter, or naturally dangerous to approach – or any combination of the three. Even when not dangerous, making the approach noteworthy is worth at least a little description.

1 At the bottom of a small cave system. Signs and metal scaffolding clearly show which way to go, but there may or may not be divergent tunnels along the way. There may be an ecosystem living in the caves, possibly containing dangerous creatures.

2 In the ruins of a small and long since abandoned town. Most of the buildings have been picked clean of valuables, but who knows what you might encounter while searching for the vault's entrance building.

3 Inside a military base or similarly defensible position. Built on top of a hill, or in a vast plain, or anywhere else that makes it hard to approach unseen. Depending on the nature of the vault this could be a fence and ditch or a full-blown modern fortress.

4 In the mountains or hills, with a long hike required to reach it. The road used to build and reach it may have collapsed or been covered in a landslide in the centuries since the vault was built, further complicating reaching the vault.

5 On the outskirts of a nuked city, still glowing from the radiation. This far out means you'll only need to endure Medium radiation, but with the number of buildings in the area it may take hours (and therefore Saves vs Radiation) to find the entrance to the vault.

6 Beneath an island at the centre of a sizable lake. The bridge has long since collapsed from disrepair, and a lack of fish or major rivers connecting to it means no one has built a boat here. You could swim, but you can't see what's under the murky waters.

Who built the vault, and for what purpose?

The purpose of a vault says a lot about the layout, but it also helps paint a picture of the vault's interior. A military bunker implies weapons, blast doors, and spartan efficiency; a scientific bunker implies research, high-tech gear, and derelict machinery; a civilian bunker implies recreational areas, comfortable hallways, and large population numbers.

1 A single private investor, who built an extensive vault instead of a small one either to hold many people they wanted to protect or just them and a few others in considerable luxury. Luxurious either way, as someone rich enough to "throw away" money on a vault had the capital to make it meet their every standard.

2 Multiple private investors who pooled their money. Typically members of the same community, either literally (as in they were neighbours) or notionally (an extended family, a religious endeavour, an online crowdfunding group). Relatively spartan but efficient, as the investors wanted the best bang for their buck.

3 A government, for government workers. Usually military or scientific in nature, but some were built to save leaders and their families. An odd mix of high-quality necessities and low-quality furnishings, as governments can afford expensive gear but cut costs wherever possible in order to stay within their budgets.

4 A government, for civilians. Designed to house families ostensibly for moral reasons, but usually so that the government would have loyal citizens by the time they were ready to leave the vaults. Balanced between efficiency and quality, and designed to hold as many people as possible (often even more than those who entered the vault).

5 A corporation who sold entry to civilians. Either built for luxury in every respect, or as cheaply as possible to maximize profits, and only very rarely somewhere inbetween. In either case these vaults are prone to malfunction, as many were built by corporations who didn't fully believe they would ever actually be used.

6 A government or corporation for a purpose other than surviving a nuclear winter. It could be a military bunker, or isolated research facility, or secure bank vault. Limited ability to endure long term sealing let those inside survive the fallout, at the cost of leaving much of the facility derelict and abandoned.

Why did it fail?

There are plenty of vaults out there which worked. Some were designed to last just the first few weeks of the fallout, releasing their inhabitants to a harsh but survivable world. Others were built to last centuries, and did, releasing eighth or ninth generation inhabitants to more stable surface conditions. These vaults are long terms vaults which failed.

1 The builder(s) intended the vault to be a social experiment. One or more aspects of the vault were designed to be contrary to normal expectations in order to study the effects of the change. Most vaults survive these experiments. This one didn't.

2 Faulty air filtration or recycling systems led to asphyxiation, either over the course of months or a few short hours. By the time the PCs enter the vault it has rebalanced to breathable levels, but the vault is full of dead bodies with no signs of a struggle.

3 Internal conflict led to mass casualties. The survivors were either too few in number to recover from the population loss, or the fight exhausted critical supplies. The vault is littered with signs of conflict – barricaded rooms, spent ammunition, dead bodies.

4 A robot uprising of servant robots or, more likely, combat robots that were meant to be kept in storage, which were reprogrammed or suffered an error that led to total organic extermination. Depending on who's in the vault now, these robots may still be present, either active or lying dormant.

5 An earthquake or close range nuclear detonation caused critical damage to the vault, which finished off those who weren't killed by the initial disaster. The vault is either full of cave ins, if an earthquake, or surrounded by Medium radiation, if a nuke.

6 What started as a small fire quickly spiraled out of control when fire suppression systems failed, and the survivors couldn't pull back from the disaster. Most of the vault is coated in soot, and where the fire spread is full or ash and melted plastic.

Who occupies it now?

Each of these vaults follows the same chronology – built, inhabited, fell apart, looted of the most obvious and near-surface supplies, then settled. If it's settled by good people the party won't have much danger in dealing with them, but although these groups are all inherently combative, most can be reasoned and bargained with.

1 Raiders who use it as a stronghold and staging ground for attacking local settlements and trade routes. Many such groups will have only a small, secure presence inside the vault (their leaders and valuables), with a larger settlement built outside the vault's entrance. Whether they'll let the underlings in during a siege is always unsure.

2 Intelligent mutants long since cast out from "normal" society. Tend towards negative mutations rather than positive ones. As capable of reasoning as anyone else, but decades of isolation have led to a vast regression in terms of technology. They will initially fear and/or hate anyone who isn't a mutant, and are likely to kill trespassers for their goods.

3 Techno-cultists, a cargo cult which doesn't understand the tech it worships. They are not immediately hostile but will refuse access to the vault and demand tithes of high tech gear. They experiment on bought slaves or, when not able to buy them, use their advanced weaponry to raid nearby settlements for test subjects.

4 Mutated animals, either an underworld ecosystem or a single hive or series of nests of one particular species. The creatures may not necessarily be territorial, but if not, are aggressive nonetheless due to being predators in the first place. There may well be just a single powerful creature – a rad-dragon sleeping in its lair.

5 Robots programmed to kill intruders or simply anything that breathes. Range from deadly combat androids to servant androids with makeshift weapons or nothing but their mechanical strength. Won't kill robot PCs or PCs with lots of cybernetic implants, but will attempt to subdue and reprogram such characters to their cause.

6 A single powerful psychic, or wizard if your game includes magic, or superhuman mutant if your game lacks psychics, along with a few lackeys and other hangers-on. They need not be explicitly evil but their powers make them arrogant and prideful, and not likely to let the party explore the deeper parts of the vault without demanding payment.

What horrors lie within its deepest recesses?

These are the "boss monsters", but more accurately are here to mix up what threats the PCs face and give them something to deal with if they manage to talk or sneak their way past the vault's inhabitants.

1 A Rat King – a couple hundred rats fused together in a horrible, writhing mass of fur and flesh and teeth. Every successful attack against them knocks rats off, who continue to attack anything organic in smaller but still dangerous swarms. They can be reasoned with, and are intelligent, but have all the desires of a rat, and care only about food.

Like the Rat-King from Hilda, but deadly as well as creepy.

2 A Combat Warform robot, a giant metal man. Its military armour grants it great armour but its high-tech servos keep it moving faster than any man, while each powerful arm ends in a weapon. One is a laser with great range and the ability to ignore armour, while the other fires rockets of either anti-armour or anti-infantry design.

3 A Radiation Elemental, made of pure energy and living only to irradiate the unirradiated. It projects radiation around itself, and fires beams of intense heat at anything in its way. Anything radiation can penetrate it can penetrate, allowing it to phase through walls to ambush prey or flee from threatening foes.

4 A Hydraic Flailsnail, a giant snail with a several heads which end in sharp, mace-like protrusions which it flails at anything living over a certain size in order to kill and devour them. Slicing and cutting does no damage as it regrows its head with alarming speed, and while it can be outrun it moves at a surprising pace.

5 A hive of Fungal Shamblers, once humans, now zombie slaves to the cold and alien intelligence of a fungus. Their spores deal 1 damage per round spent breathing them and any intact human corpse exposed to them slowly turns into another Shambler. When such infestations break free, they can destroy entire nations before being put down.

6 A tribe of CHUDs (cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers) come up from a cave the vault opens into. They hunger for anything, but especially the flesh of thinking creatures, which they consider a delicacy. They are surprisingly intelligent themselves, prone to bargaining and infighting, crucial means of overcoming their large numbers.

What treasure is it said to hold?

These are all treasures, but the part in bold is what local Wastelanders say is in the vault, and the rest of the description is what actually is. My idea is that no player will be disappointed with what they find, but that each description could mean many things. Is a fire-lance a nuclear missile or a laser rifle? There's only one way to find out.

1 A fire-lance, one of the weapons the Old Ones used during the End of Days. Not a nuclear weapon but rather an advanced form of energy weapon, combining the best elements of plasma and laser weaponry. Its stats are: D6+1 or D8 damage, Far range, two hands, ignores physical armour but is 100% blocked by energy armour. It comes with 100 shots or runs out of ammo when you critically fail or succeed an attack roll twice in a row (either or). You can burn a shot/make an attack roll that autohits to melt nearby metals.

2 Bombs which erase whatever they hit from existence. A bandolier of six light grenades (which all fit in one inventory slot). When thrown, any free-willed creature (humans and the most intelligent robots and animals) caught within their purple explosion is displaced from reality for a minute, returning to the same location if safe, or the closest safe location to it if unsafe, as if no time had passed for them.

3 Potions which make you "better." Four tonic injectors with the words harder, better, faster, and stronger on the front of each of them. Harder raises your Constitution by 1, Better your max HP by 1, Faster your Dexterity by 1, and Stronger your Strength by 1.

4 A glowing dagger which kills anything it strikes. A dagger: D6 damage, Melee range, one hand, concealable and throwable, which is made of radioactive crystals. It is harmless to hold but once it deals damage to a target they keel over vomiting and die within rounds. Large creatures get a Save vs Radiation to resist or are simply immune if too large, and anyone immune to radiation is immune as well. If the attacker rolls a critical success or critical failure on an attack roll with it, the dagger shatters into a thousand pieces.

5 A metal statue which a man can enter and move around. A suit of power armour which requires one power cell per twelve hours of use. It counts as plate armour but does not interfere with movement, only occupies one inventory slot, does interfere with climbing, swimming, and stealth, reduces incoming radiation by one step, filters toxic air into breathable air, and gives the wearer Advantage on all Strength and Melee Attack tests.

6 An iron mask of an ancient warlord, imbued with magic power. Whether it's magical or not, this metal helmet with a mask attached is impressive. Whoever wears it deals +1 damage with all weapons and has +1 on reaction rolls with anyone who respects military leaders. Simply wearing it is enough to make people believe you're at least an officer, in whatever sort of army still wears helmets like it.

Modern replica of a 13th-century Kipchak helmet with war-mask.

Generating The Contents

This is all shaky at best and as of yet untested, but it'll give you a halfway decent dungeon that at least partially makes sense. As above, if you have a better idea, include it - it's not "fudging", it's being a smart GM. For one, you're extremely likely to repeat encounters here if you stock all but the smallest vaults, and many of them are fairly unique. For two, I haven't included loot tables or trap tables (but I do have some things you should look at for inspiration below).

Keep in mind why the vault was built and why it fell while you do this. The best dungeons tell a story, however light, and vaults are no different. Another important thing to consider is the general state of disrepair. Are the lights still on, and if not, are they out completely or just in certain parts of the vault? Are the doors jammed, or easily opened? Is it overgrown everywhere, or only in a few isolated pockets?

Layout Generation

The upper layer of the vault contains 2D6+3 "rooms", which are large networks of literal rooms held together by a shared purpose and connected to each other by chokepoint hallways. The ones here are all residential in nature, bedrooms and mess halls and kitchens and the simple service jobs needed to keep vaulters from going nuts. Organize the Residential portion of the vault in a:

1 Square

2 Long Rectangle

3 Full Circle

4 Hollow Circle

5 Cross

6 Triangle

Then pick a random room to be the entrance to the vault. It could be accessed by an elevator (all of which have stairs in case the elevator breaks), if somewhere towards the centre of the vault, or by a tunnel, if connecting to one of the vault's edges.

Each offshoot has D3+1 rooms and D3-1 one room offshoots of its own. These separate from the vault and sprawl outwards in a random direction:

1 North

2 East

3 South

4 West

5 Down

6 Down

Offshoots which go down are only one floor beneath the vault's main floor, rather than moving multiple floors down. They can go in any direction, it doesn't really matter.

Every vault has an Agricultural offshoot, which is where the vault's air and water are recycled and where the hydroponics bays are located. Military vaults have a Bunker offshoot with some weapons left over. Scientific vaults have a Research offshoot containing high-tech gear and failed experiments. Luxury vaults have a Recreational offshoot containing gardens, clubs, and swimming pools.

If the vault was destroyed by an earthquake 1-in-3 rooms are partially caved in. If the vault was destroyed by a nuke 1-in-3 rooms are filled with High radiation. If the vault was destroyed by a fire D6+1 rooms are nothing but ash and melted plastic. If the vault was destroyed by infighting, D3+1 rooms have been barricaded from the inside.

Raiders, Mutant Humans, and Techno-Cultists all occupy D3+1 rooms somewhere in the vault. A Psychic/Wizard/Superhuman occupies a single room. Robots and Mutant Animals don't have a set location and instead simply modify the results on the vault stocking table, but you might want to consider putting a central hive or AI supercomputer in a random room.

Lastly, find the two rooms furthest from the vault's entrance. One of these contains the horror rolled previously, the other contains the treasure rolled previously. If they aren't the same distance from the entrance, the horror is the in the room closer to the entrance.

Stocking Rooms

Once you've got the vault's layout down it's time to fill it out. The rooms full of the vault's inhabitants, and the room containing the horror, have already been cleared out. Rooms damaged by cave ins, radiation, or fire haven't, and neither has the containing the vault's legendary treasure, or rooms that have been barricaded.

You can do what I like to do, and stock the vault ahead of time, or you can roll a result on the table below each time the party enters a new room.

1 Loot

2 Loot + Trap

3 Loot + Monster

4 Monster

5 Trap

6 Inhabitants

It's at this point you should also consider which rooms are caved-in and irradiated. Just roll an extra D6 along your "stocking" D6 and collapse/irradiate the room if you roll a 1 or a 2.

I'm not going to tell you what traps or treasure or monsters to use but:

Keep in mind why a trap would be here. This is one of the reasons I like stocking ahead of time, since if a lot of traps are in one part of the map I can say "oh, there must have been someone setting up traps here". It also helps you figure out what traps to make. A vault with no inhabitants will tend towards natural hazards like leaking pipes, while one with raiders will have alarms, and one that fell to infighting will have proper deadly traps.

Treasure in a post-apocalyptic game shouldn't be based on money. A vault doesn't have much use for cash anyway since it's more of a communal effort. What they do have is a lot of Old World gear you can't find anywhere else.

Okay, I will tell you what monsters to use.

Populating Encounters

If you roll the inhabitants result the monsters there are agents of whichever faction is currently inhabiting the vault. Raiders plotting an overthrow, Techno-Cultists looking for new tech to worship, Mutants wandering because there's nothing better to do. If you rolled Mutant Animals or Robots, instead roll on the encounter table for them.

The monsters result prompts a roll on the monsters table unless you rolled Mutant Animals or Robots, in which case you roll on their encounter table instead. Monsters + loot depends on context but whenever possible make dealing with the monster a requirement before the party can get their hands on the loot.

If you roll the same result twice and it's one that's pretty unique, either take the next suitable result down or up the table, or change one key aspect, or just wing it and come up with a similar-but-different result instead.

GENERIC ENCOUNTERS

1 D6+1 Radheads, humans who have regressed to an animal-like state, hunter gatherers without quite as many tools. They are capable of limited reason, however.

2 D3 Giant Cockroaches, immune to radiation and prone to fleeing to and into the nearest irradiated region when threatened.

3 A Drillbot, which thinks organic creatures are what it has been set to mine. Its powerful drill ignores and destroys all but the strongest types of armour.

4 A Giant Amoeba, blind and driven by sound and scent. Upon death, it explodes with corrosive slime, dealing 1 damage a round until cleaned off.

5 An Ur-Gecko, the size of a truck and bioluminescent. Its tongue can be launched up to Close range away and pulls things back with suctioning strength.

Rain World lizards by RoffyTheDog

6 D3+1 Giant Rats, the size of large dogs, and a single Giant Giant Rat, the size of a car. They lurk in the shadows before attacking from surprise, but are easily scared off.

MUTANT ANIMAL TYPES

If you roll mutant animals, roll or pick from the list below:

1-2 Insect Hive: A bunch of insectoid species working together in a semi-eusocial community, even species that are not normally eusocial. They infight constantly, but are smart enough to prey on non-insects whenever and wherever possible.

3-4 Rat Kingdom: Lots and lots of rats, some semi-intelligent and humanoid in shape and size. Most of them are just normal rats, but the large ones are dangerous to humans, and the small ones form swarms that can strip a corpse clean in under a minute.

5-6 Radhead Horde: Many mutants are falsely accused of being subhuman. Radheads are the only ones who actually are. They possess a simple and animal intelligence, but are capable of using tools, simple speech, and bargaining. They're also immune to radiation.

INSECT HIVE ENCOUNTERS

1 A Swarm of Bloodflies, difficult to harm with single-target attacks (fires, explosions, shotguns, and lasers work well) and thirsting for blood. They autohit anything they engulf.

2 D3 Giant Cockroaches, immune to radiation and prone to fleeing to and into the nearest irradiated region when threatened.

3 A Giant Jumping Spider. Its webs block the way but it lurks a ways away from them, waiting for someone to near them before leaping and knocking them into the webbing.

4 D3+1 Giant Mantises, whose arms do not cut but instead grip, holding prey in place while they chew away on them, dealing damage each round until they break free.

5 D6-1 (minimum 1) Spitting Ants, whose acidic spit deals damage from a distance and causes Saves vs Pain lest the target lose their next action to the pain.

6 A Giant Centipede, the size of a dog, scuttling on a thousand legs, and twisting constantly as it moves. Its bite deals no damage but prompts an instant Save vs Death, unless an antidote can be applied within a day.

RAT KINGDOM ENCOUNTERS

1 A Swarm of Rats difficult to harm with single-target attacks (fires, explosions, shotguns, and lasers work well). They are innumerable but not hard to drive off.

2 A single Giant Rat, mangy and disease-ridden, shunned by its peers. It is desperate for food but easy to kill, but every attack forces a Save vs Disease, as does touching it.

3 D3+1 Giant Rats, the size of large dogs, devouring the corpse of a Giant Giant Rat and blocking the path forward. They are defensive of their property.

4 D6+1 Ratlings, one of which is a Ratling Gunner, tall and strong and carrying a machinegun with him. They are looking for valuables, not food.

5 D3 Ratling Assassins, who throw smokebombs and rely on their ability to fight blindly to make up for their lack of armour and weak weapons. They prefer to extort than to fight.

6 D3+1 Giant Rats, the size of large dogs, and a single Giant Giant Rat, the size of a car. They lurk in the shadows before attacking from surprise, but are easily scared off.

RADHEAD HORDE ENCOUNTERS

1 D6+1 Radheads, without tools and with few clothes. These ones are hardly human, communicating with little more than grunts and motions.

2 D3+1 Radheads with grenades. They don't know how to use them properly, pulling the trigger then running at their targets and blowing up as much as those they attack.

3 D3+1 Radheads, hunting with bows. They ambush without a word but the second the fight turns against them they fall upon the mercy of their foes, playing up their pity.

4 A Glowhead, a Radhead so irradiated that they glow with radiation, with D3 Radhead followers with cleavers and axes. Every single attack a Glowhead makes prompts a Save vs Radiation. Most Radheads obey them with religious reverance.

5 A Glowhead with D6+4 Radhead worshippers, holding court at a chokepoint. They are not aggressive, but will demand tithes of food and tech before letting anyone pass.

6 An Intelligent Radhead, with a shotgun, light armour, and two grenades. His intelligence reasserted itself only recently and he is likely to do anything to leave the vault.

ROBOTIC ENCOUNTERS

1 D6 Widgets, floating orbs with two arms who attempt to drag everything living they find to disposal shafts, beating and/or killing creatures which put up a worthy struggle.

2 D3 Police Bots, bulky humanoids with strong armour and powerful arms which they use to beat you to death while chanting "stop resisting". Each can fire a single flashbang.

3 A Drillbot, which thinks organic creatures are what it has been set to mine. Its powerful drill ignores and destroys all but the strongest types of armour.

4 A Traipsing Mortar, which loudly announces where it's aiming its rockets a round before it fires, but can take a beating and deals a ton of damage if and when it hits.

5 A Shieldbot, whose light laser deals minimal damage. It was built to defend, not kill, with strong armour, high HP, and a shield that blocks the first attack against it each round.

6 A Killbot, heavily armoured and with a machinegun at the end of one arm, dealing D6+4 damage but requiring a cooldown between each round of firing. The other is used to crush.

UR-025 from Blackstone Fortress

Where To Go From Here

These vaults are dungeons. Sure, they have some high-concept things that define them as vaults and not tombs or temples or other such ruins, but they're just another kind of dungeon, at the end of the day. Listing all the places you can get good advice on dungeon design would require multiple posts. Besides, if you google it or search some blogs you follow, you'll find better advice than I can give. Just something to keep in mind.

Post-apocalyptic treasure is its own beast. It's not like conventional settings where the treasure comes from literal looted treasure (most fantasy settings) or from payment for jobs well done (most sci-fi settings). Unlawful Games has a good list, if it is a little dud-heavy for my tastes. If you don't mind shelling out some cash or acquiring PDFs through illicit means, the already excellent Umerican Survival Guide has a few great scavenging tables in it, each for a different type of scavenged item.

I'm working on writing a post-apocalyptic OSR ruleset which lets you pick and choose what elements you want to include (realistic mutants or wacky ones? psychics or no psychics? supernatural elements or none at all?), but I'll recommend Ruinations until I can pimp my own stuff. (Actually I'll still recommend it then because it's cool and and you should read it.)

I'm yet to find a good guide for traps (and I've looked around at least a little bit) but this post by Goblinpunch does a great job analyzing the purpose of a trap and a few types of traps, while managing to be enjoyable to read and not the soulless roboticism most RPG design writing tends to become.

Lastly, play the Fallout games. Fallout: New Vegas in particular is one of those games that's so good there are entire communities built around hating it for being cool (well, it and any other game that's "too popular"), plus it's cheap now, which is why I recommend it as your first. If nothing else, watch someone play through Vault 22 on Youtube. Skip through if you don't have the time. It should give you a good picture of what a well-designed vault looks like.