Shadow Delvers, part II

So I'm not really running an ADnD game at the moment.

The only thing I am running is a playtest of a good buddy's homebrew game, it takes place in modern day New York City (which none of us know anything about) and is basically Sherlock and Watson meet Batman where Batman is a spoiled brat who fights crime for kicks, Sherlock has a serious heroin problem and a pronounced limp, and Watson is strong-arm British ex-pat and ex-con.

So far, they've been solving mysteries that have all had a paranormal connection, with the help of Egg Shen. Think Call of Cthulu meets Big Trouble in Little China.

Anyway, this lack of pressure for me to create content for my original campaign world has, of course, got me thinking about my original campaign world and formulating (read: stealing) ideas for it.

So, shadow delvers, dungeoneers, adventurers, whatever you want to call them.
They're not your average nutter, they're worse.
They think it's great fun to wriggle themselves into holes in the ground in search of some dead king's tin cup.

And there's plenty of places for them to crawl, I don't mind telling you. You see, way back when, the old kings of Viroof used to bury their dead in tombs like the heathen dwarfs. All along the Southron Road, the countryside is littered with cairns and mounds to some minor chieftain or favored gilly.

But they've all been picked over a thousand-thousand times, and no delver is interested in them anymore. There are deeper, darker, more dangerous and more profitable graves to plunder. Usually on the western side of the road. Between the highway and the mountains, or carved into the living rock, you can find the places where no one has been stupid enough to enter since the place was sealed.

They're often difficult to find, your best bet is to find a good guide, a seasoned woodsman from the area. He'll know the places where moss and turf and tree hide ancient masonry. The places that animals avoid, and the places where he dare not spend the night. A good woodsman will know all the signs that point an old grave.
He'll charge to take you out there of course. The best guides will bring a wagon with them, and you'll have to charter that too, but if you're lucky, your guide will be a good cook as well, and should you manage to not get killed inside the dungeon, you might have a decent meal waiting for you at the campsite.