Esoteric Enterprises - Alternative Connecting Tunnels

Down, down, deeper and down...

Esoteric Enterprises is an occult dungeon-crawler where you raid the mystical underworld of a contemporary city, murdering the inhabitants and stealing their stuff. Some people will try to tell you it's an OSR Unknown Armies without the metaplot; a better description might be murderhobo Jim Butcher meets D&D. Despite its often wonky rules and editing, it's pretty fun.

Its best part (beside flamethrowing feral undead and ripping off occult weirdos) is the randomly generated map, where you toss a handful of dice onto paper to create nodes and beasties and gangs, then slot the pieces together jigsaw fashion to make a surprisingly coherent whole.

This is a rejig for Table 83: Connecting Tunnels (p.149), which trims back one of my biggest bugbears: the three sewers, three subways, and three storm drains (!!! - three exclamation points - !!!) on the list. Instead, it reshuffles the pieces a little and replaces some of more common roll-ups with bits I wanted to play with. While the layout does increase the dice-rolling you can solve that pretty easily by just picking the least used, cooler or more logical option instead of randomizing it.

DICE	DICE	TUNNEL TYPE
D4	D4	Reccently dug by residents
D4	D6	Ancient ruins
D4	D8	Steam tunnels (1-3: active, 4-6: inactive)
D4	D10	Communication tunnels (1-3: historic, 4-6: modern)
D4	D12	Smugglers' tunnels
D4	D20	Utility tunnels
D6	D6	Subway line (1-2: 1-track, 3-4: 2-track, 5: 3-track, 6: derelict)
D6	D8	Construction works / Big Dig
D6	D10	Basement throughway (1-3: historic, 4-6: modern)
D6	D12	Sewer connector (1-3: historic, 4-6: modern)
D6	D20	Ventilation tunnels
D8	D8	Storm drain (1-3: historic, 4-6: modern)
D8	D10	Abandoned traffic tunnel (1-3: foot, 4-6: vehicular)
D8	D12	Water tunnels (1-3: canal system, 4-6: underground river)
D8	D20	Geological formation (1-3: lava tubes, 4-6: karst tunnels)
D10	D10	Sewer network (1-3: dilapidated, 4-6: under construction)
D10	D12	Storm drain (1-3: derelict, 4-6: historic)
D10	D20	Ancient tunnel dug by undercity residents
D12	D12	Abandoned mineshaft
D12	D20	High-speed railroute (1-2: 2-track, 3-4: derelict, 5-6: specialized)
D20	D20	Eldritch formation (1-3: dead/fossilized creature, 4-6: unnatural construction

And here's where I break down how they might look or work, because why not?

Recently dug by residents: Let's assume for the sake of argument "recently" means "within the last few months." Check the nodes at either end - would one (or both) want to link up with the other? Is it for scouting, trade, or offensive/defensive operations against the other? If it's made by non-humans maybe they tunnelled it out looking for food or a place to lay eggs. Pick an aesthetic:

• The tunnel's been gnawed out of the Earth by teeth. Enormous teeth.
  
• Ramshackle, propped with wood, whoever made it stacked sandbags to create firing-points facing toward the other Node. Spent bullet casings and the smell of cordite lie heavy.
  
• Dug out and halfway through being fixed up. Ladders are propped against the wall, open paint-cans hold down tarpaulins stretched across the floor.
• Still in the process of being dug; timber beams are stacked in readiness, even as the partially-propped roof creaks ominously. Wheelbarrows, picks and shovels wait to get back to work.
  

Ancient ruins: Ancient tunnels might have been carved out of the Earth by prehuman civilizations (austrolopithecine Muvians, precursor lizard-peoples, elder things) or pre-modern man (Aztec, ancient Egypts, the Qin Empire). If it's the latter, play up the incongruous nature of stumbling into an ancient Minoan underpass beneath a north American city or a Mayan causeway in the Old Country.

• Enormous granite blocks stand in Ionic patterns, guiding travelers down a route Olympian in scale and scope. Statues of Titans rise from plinths, looking down upon mere men. The entrance to the next Node is set under an enormous arch, atop which stands Cerberus - beneath it carved the words: "Τι μοι ζην κέρδος; Ούτε μοι πατρίς ούτ’ οίκος έστιν ούτ’ αποστροφή κακών."
• Grass grows from the cracks in the paving slabs, vines from the ceiling. The walls are tiled and made of some heated glass. Rocks and human bones, painted with sinuous runes, form little piles and deliberate shapes on the ground. On a human skull's forehead is drawn a winged-serpent.
• Much of the walls of the tunnel is propped up with colored planks of wood and circular shields with metal rims. Near the far end the route is blocked by a half-dismantled but authentic dragon-crested Viking longboat. An altar stands before it, atop it a skeleton - the cord it was strangled with still around its non-existent neck.
  

Steam tunnels: Steam tunnels aren't normally very old (a century to a century-and-a-half at the far end) and normally link buildings on a single campus (like a university or industrial area), so a big sweeping network either means the city has a district heating system or there's something fishy going on. Active steam-tunnels are going to be hot as Hell and rimmed with searing hot pipes. An inactive steam-tunnel might mean the system's no longer in service or someone's turned it off using a nearby valve. Rotating one of them may make it an active steam-tunnel again, which is handy if you're being chased.

Communication tunnels: Just like today, people wanted to tell other people things - but sometimes you needed to do it faster or more secretly than an aboveground route would allow. Typical historic communication tunnels might include pneumatic tube networks, semaphore clickers (it's Boolean data, but when you only need a "up/down" or "yes/no" answer - like at a stock-exchange - it's not too bad) or even little railroads with trains that carry parcels. Modern communication tunnels are more likely to be telephone or high-speed Internet cables. And let's not forget potential protohuman sorts...

• A low, all-brick tunnel, 6' wide but barely 3'-feet high. Down its middle runs 4' gauge railroadtrack. At intervals the tunnel opens into larger rooms with platforms, where decades old and abandoned trolleys and mail-sacks await collection. The city's mail-service logo is daubed here and there, but all the doors leading from the platforms were bricked up long ago.
• A circular tunnel, almost entirely ringed with brass pipes. Every few seconds a whoosh-shunk rushes past, as a pneumatically sent message rushes to its destination. Every so often a little red or green flag pings up next to one pipe or another, then resets itself.
• A deafing noise like castanets; the ceiling of the tunnel is fitted with small squares that flip on their edges. When one square flips, one next to it flips too, repeating the sequence to God knows where. Intervals in the time taken to flip might be Morse code or something else...
• A modern concrete tunnel with two black cables running along the middle of the ceiling. They're as thick as a man's waist and hum with barely-suppressed power. Nearby is a red button behind a glass case. Next to it it is stenciled graffiti:"Break glass to stop Internet".
  

Smugglers' tunnels: Tunnels for smuggling. Lots of cities have these - the Shanghai tunnels of Portland, the bootlegger tunnels under New York and Chicago, and more recent examples under the Israel-Palestine border or the US-Mexico border (for migrant-moving and drugs, respectively). The older and more professional the smugglers, the older and better quality they're likely to be.

• Forgotten speakeasy tunnels from the Prohibition era, rotting paintings hanging from the walls, fungus-covered love-seats and snide 1920s graffiti. Unopened bottles of champagne are dotted hither-and-thither, while broken glass from some apocalyptic party crunches underfoot.
• The regular tunnel has collapsed, but an incredibly claustrophobic hand-dug tunnel, barely big enough for a man to squeeze through, juts off at an angle. One at a time you pass through by lying on a crude wheeled trolley and pulling yourself along using a guide-rope.
• The tunnel looks normal by underworld standards, at least if you ignore the cages - dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, lining the walls. They look like battery-farm cages, their floors covered with filthy straw. Except these cages are big enough for a human being.
• A winding pathway underground, centuries old; here and there someone has carved something into the wall in Spanish. A single gold doubloon glints under a bundle of clothes. Emptied treasure chests, contents long looted, wait silently beneath a Jolly Roger draped over them.
  

Utility tunnels: When something breaks top-side, Con-Ed needs to be able to send people underground to fix it. Basically, these are like communication tunnels but designed for people to move around easily, with cables and pipes carrying such as things as electricity, clean water, Internet services etc. If it's used by the occult underworld, someone's probably sealed away the top-side entrance or made sure the maps got lost when the construction firms moved building. Probably.

Subway line: Trains whizz through here, stopping at red-lights, going at green, taking the normal people to and from their boring mundane jobs. A single-track line is dangerously narrow, a two-track line offers somewhat better odds of not getting splattered under a carriage. Three-track tunnels are rarer, though New York City's subway and some aboveground Australian lines use them. Derelict tunnels are exactly what they sound like - abandoned, probably stripped of track, forgotten and forlorn.

• Museum Line - irregularly used since "the incident", popular among urban-explorers, copious graffiti and lost property along side of track,
  
• Butcher's Row - runs under old cattle market, often delayed due to reports of animals on line, smells faintly of fur and congealed blood, its train reputedly a hunting-ground for a serial-killer
  
• North-South Line - doesn't run north-to-south despite the compass saying it does, slow-speed due to sinuous curves and winding track, lots of ouroboros murals
  
• Statue Square Line - well-lit, spotlessly clean (even the track is polished), supposedly privately owned but managed by the city's transport authorities, stations got that Moscow subway feel
  

Construction work/Big Dig: The top-siders are building or repairing something. This might be extending the subway network, burrowing out new utility tunnels or even digging deep foundations for a new skyscraper/housing development/dictator's palace. It might be more low-key, like an archaeological dig. Hopefully the cats are away while the mice try to play.

• A long, circular, sandy tunnel full of porta-cabins, digging equipment and unboxed materials. Parked halfway down, and requiring clambering over to pass, is an enormous tunnel borer.
• A very long, very narrow crawl tunnel, propped with wood. At various intervals the crawlspace has been widened and heightened enough to crouch. Based on the holes dug in the walls and soil, as well as the archaeological equipment left behind (buckets, trowels, brushes, etc.), someone academic was here working until recently.

Basement throughway: Very large building (like hospitals, prisons or parliaments) which take up multiple city blocks, or individual buildings that have become linked together over the years (like the Kowloon Walled City, a Victorian slum or the buried "basements" of San Francisco), are liable to have very expansive and interconnected basements, which might extend great distances. These act like tunnels in-game because they link nodes, though there's no reason there might not be a node there too.

• A long string of basements that have had holes knocked in their walls over the years to connect them into one very long tunnel. Most of the rooms appear to have stored mundane material for the shops above, including 1920s clothing, 1950s comic-books and a lot of geriatric medical-supplies. The doors leading upstairs have been sealed for decades.
• The sub-sub-basement tunnels of the city's university hospital, where they hid all the civilians and refugees during the war. Lots of graffitti counting down the days until rescue.
• Based on the ugly green paint, the fading Civil Defense posters and the stark military signage, this seems to be an escape tunnel for use by parliament in event of a nuclear war.
  

Sewer connector: In the real-world sewer tunnels are normally just about big enough to crawl through, though that doesn't help if they're underwater. In cinema, sewers are big enough for a human to stand upright in - or at least walk bending over. Depending on your city, historic sewers are liable to date to the mid-to-late-1800s (though a few civilizations, like the Romans, at least toyed with underground sewage filtration). Modern ones might be advanced, with sluice gates and machinery.

Ventilation tunnels: Air is pumped from the surface through these down to further underground areas (like subway stations or traffic tunnels). Without them gas exchange wouldn't occur and people down below would either overheat and die or suffocate and die. Normally these tunnels will have shafts rising off them, heading up to the surface. Trying to use them as an impromptu entrance/exit means getting past the enormous, sharp-bladed fans that push down the oxygen without getting sliced and diced or accidentally shutting them down and killing everyone below.

• Like an air-duct but far larger, almost 10' tall and made of shiny metal. The wind is phenomenal, you can barely hear, and dust and lint swirls like a vortex - holes in the ceiling allow air from the surface to enter, the blast strong enough to knock a man down if he stands directly beneath.
• A series of large, spinning fans set up at regular intervals down the tunnel. Bypassing them means timing your dive or temporarily stopping them while you clamber through.
• An angled shaft crudely hacked from stone; a great wind races from the opposite end, trying to push you back with every step. Time-consuming without climbing-gear but not dangerous.
  

Storm drain: Overflows and sisterns for drawing away water from the top-world and sending it elsewhere, where it won't cause flooding or bother mundane folk. Older ones are basically just brick-tunnels, much like old sewers. Modern storm drains might have raised walkways, shutters for diverting the flow, or even control-rooms for emergencies.

Abandoned traffic tunnel: The Thames Tunnel, which was opened in 1843, is probably the most iconic example of an abandoned, historic foot-and-vehicle tunnel. More modern examples might include foot-tunnels under abandoned shopping malls or any number of long-walled-up road tunnels that ran under mountains in Japan or North America. Good examples of "abandoned" traffic tunnels in cinema include the sadly-ignored movie Daylight and Korean thriller Tunnel.

• A collanaded, marbled Victorian pedestrian tunnel, highly-decorated, with unlit gas-chandeliers and alcoves along the walls containing statues of long-dead white men. Here and there the tiles on the floor feature a Masonic mosaic or commemoration to some forgotten colonial war.
• This automobile tunnel was built in the 1940s to cross under the city, but the "accident" in 1978 ended that. Following the rescue, the entrances were sealed shut with bricks and concrete and tons of dirt. Today it's all dust and rust, two lanes of old cars stood bumper-to-bumper, doors open, abandoned. A child's stuffed-toy, dropped in the escape, lies on the ground.
• Built in 1874 as a prototype for a city-wide pneumatic railroad, this tunnel was swiftly abandoned when the experiment failed. The murals on the walls still advertise a future that never was, and on the track the train's carriages still wait. Hopefully there are no ghosts.
  

Water tunnels: Not to be confused with sewers or storm drains, the two examples here are canals and underground rivers. Some cities historically featured underground canals for moving goods and produce, the buildings above built on stilts. Canals normally have a narrow tow-path along the waterway for a donkey to pull the boat along - something that won't be as necessary if modern-day underground canal-livers use motorboats. Underground rivers are exactly what they sound like; having dug their way through the Earth for thousands of years, today they may be fast-flowing torrents racing underground or reduced to a bare trickle, depending on the whims of the RPG gods.

• River Myre - long lost to topsiders after urban construction buried it beneath centuries of buildings, today the river races through its tunnel, crashing against the walls, smashing through barriers to disappear off a waterfall to the center of the Earth. It's rubber dinghie rapids time.
• An enormous but shallow pool of underground water, wooden jetties and walkways jutting over its darkness. From the depths, pillars rise, holding up the basements of the buildings above. Grab a gondal and push off, rowing beneath the Gothic arches of the tunnel to your destination.
• A simple box-tunnel, with a deep canal running down the middle and narrow paths for walking on either side. Be careful not to slip; the water is exceptionally deep.
  

Geological formation: Natural cave formations carved out of the rock by geological and tectonic events. Lava tubes are tubes created by flowing lava, oddly enough; normally these would be extinct and the lava's long gone, but if the tunnel links to a geothermically-active cave or similarly suitable complex, it might still be active (ouch!). Karst formations are when water washes away soluble rock (like limestone) underground, but the rock above it is non-soluble and remains standing. Effectively it's a "bubble" or pocket, created by rain or river water. Karsts are not necessarily very stable, because the solid rock above the hole isn't really propped up by anything more than good luck.

Sewer network: More sewers. A dilapidated sewer network is even worse than a typical one; bits of it are falling apart, bricks are loose, water pours in (or out) where it's not meant to, and it's cleaned even less regularly than a typical sewer. An under-construction sewer is self-explanatory, though who is expanding it is open to question.

Storm drain: Another dose of storm drains. Historic storm-drains are old, whereas dilapidated ones are on their last legs. A storm drain reaching the end of its life is a serious liability; a collapse can cause major flooding, wash away nearby rock or stone causing subsidence, tear apart nearby building foundations, etc. Dilapidated drains feel like they might give at any minute, particularly if it's raining.

Ancient tunnel dug by undercity residents: here's where an old undercity fellow, like a (not-so-) sleeping godling or a stone guardian or a shoggoth, makes a tunnel. Generally these are weird and not really made for humans.

• A number of tunnels equal to the number of individuals in the party; they're all the exact fit for you, almost like they were made for you. As you walk down it, you realize that it's impossible for you to turn around or go back - you just have to keep going.
• Melted by the acidic blood or sweat or vomit of some horrible creature. The walls are still greenish-purple and feel warm, despite having been created aeons ago.
• This tunnel looks like Swiss cheese, with huge gaping holes in floor, walls and ceiling where something big and living drilled its way in and out and back again.
• The time taken to walk down this tunnel is far longer than it should be. Then again, according to your watches, which have only now restarted, you didn't even travel down it at all...
  

Abandoned mineshaft: Mineshafts under cities are pretty common in Europe and Asia, less-so in the Americas (although we could invert that if we said oil-wells and derricks). Very old mining would include things like tin, coal, copper - moving on to precious materials like silver, gold and gems - then to modern materials like uranium and asbestos. The kind of organized mining of seams using tunnels has tapered off to a degree, replaced by strip and open-pit mining, but unlicensed and illegal miners might still be making a trade digging out goods (and bads) from the underworld.

• Extraordinarily old, hacked by hand over centuries, thick seams of coal that could not be dug with rudimentary tools still run like black veins through the stone. The air is thick with coaldust and firedamp is a serious threat. Here are there are crude shovels and picks.
• A modern, illegal mining operation. The walls are damp and wet, buckets of dried bitumen rest nearby, contents smeared on the walls in an attempt to stop them cracking open and disgorging the water on the other side. Broken equipment, including jackhammers and generators, stand idle. The air smells heavily of saltwater.
• Travelers board a car-sized metal capsule-pod, which slowly travels the length of the tunnel. The walls of the pod grow hot, though not dangerously so; anyone with a geiger counter realizes the tunnel outside is aglow with radiation. The pods protect them to the end of the tunnel, where they are disgorged. What manner of science designed the pods is unknown.
  

High-speed railroute: This is basically the subway from earlier, but I needed a name to differentiate. Let's just assume the two-track tunnel's trains are faster intercity or express ones. They won't stop if the players get in the way. A derelict tunnel is not in use, obviously. Specialized train tunnels run special trains. Examples of these might include bank-transfer-bullion trains (great for heists), secret underground military convoys for moving soldiers, the Ruritanian royal family's private train to the airport in event of a coup d'etat, or the infamous and highly exlusive Fey Grotto Rave-Train, which hosts the bangingest music events and sidhe dancers this side of Avalon. Invitation only.

Eldritch formation: The players either enter a dead creature or dead god - crawl down a gullet, wriggle through ancient ossified giant's veins - or find themselves in a corridor that shouldn't exist under the terms of normative science. The first is enjoyable squick, once they've worked out where they are; the second should be weird but harmless enough not to make them turn around and go home.

• As you reach the end of the tunnel - that long gray, ridged length - you enter a larger room. Stalactites and stalagmites jut from floor and ceiling, forming a semi-circular ring ahead of you. And that's when you realize you're in a mouth. You just walked up some creature's throat.
• Throbbing red veins as thick as your wrist run along the walls, capillaries splitting off to burrow their way deeper into the Earth. The air fills with the throb of an enormous heartbeat. A blockage has formed in a vein, puffing it out to block the corridor. Bursting it with your knife, something roars in pain in the distance.
  
• Wooden scaffolding stretches out in front of you, rising in winding patterns toward the bright green door at its top. But the scaffolding has no base. Instead, its many-stilted legs descend forever. There are no walls or floor or ceiling; just an oppressive and almost physical darkness - an expanse of nothingness that extends eternally in all directions. You clamber up the wood, hand-over-hand, leaping from one prop to another toward the door, hoping you do not fall.