Free tables Dungeon rooms by kind
Random Cave Rooms — d20 Dungeon Room Tables
Free d20 tables for cave rooms in 5e: what the room was, what's in it, what it smells and sounds like, and what lives there.
The party opened a door in the cave you hadn't planned past. Roll d20 twice on the table below: once for what the room was, and once on the second column for something in it. Then d10 each for a smell and a sound, from the lists underneath.
For what's in the room now, roll d6: on 1–2 nothing, on 3–4 a creature, on 5 a trap, on 6 a stash. A third of rooms being empty is deliberate. A dungeon where every door hides a fight teaches the players to stop opening doors.
Smells, d10: (1) Damp stone and minerals. (2) Musk: something big lairs here. (3) Guano, sharp and eye-watering. (4) Sulphur, from somewhere deeper down. (5) Woodsmoke, recent. (6) Wet fur and old meat. (7) Earthy mushrooms, faintly sweet. (8) Clean cold air, which means a way out. (9) Rotten eggs, from the pools. (10) Nothing but cold and wet.
Sounds, d10: (1) Water dripping in a steady rhythm. (2) The echo of something very large moving far away. (3) A rushing river, somewhere below. (4) Bats chittering overhead. (5) The creak of stone settling. (6) Wind whistling through a crack. (7) Clicking in the dark, like mandibles. (8) A distant hammering, regular as a heartbeat. (9) Absolute silence, except the party's own breathing. (10) A low growl, just once.
Creatures that fit a cave, from the SRD with their challenge ratings: Kobold (CR 1/8); Stirge (CR 1/8); Goblin (CR 1/4); Darkmantle (CR 1/2); Giant Spider (CR 1); Grick (CR 2); Owlbear (CR 3); Troll (CR 5); Roper (CR 5); Cloaker (CR 8); Behir (CR 11); Purple Worm (CR 15); Ancient Black Dragon (CR 21). Pick one whose numbers suit your party, or let the app do the sums.
The table
20 results. Roll d20.
| d20 | The room | Something in it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A natural cavern, the ceiling lost in the dark above the torchlight. | Claw marks on the walls, higher than a person could reach. |
| 2 | A narrow fissure that opens out into a chamber the size of a barn. | A trail of bright fungus that someone planted in a line. |
| 3 | An underground pool, perfectly still, with something glinting on the bottom. | Old bones picked clean and stacked neatly. |
| 4 | A den: a hollow in the floor lined with fur, bones and dry grass. | A rope ladder hanging from a ledge, frayed at the bottom. |
| 5 | A crystal grotto that throws the torchlight back in a hundred colours. | Handprints in red ochre around the entrance. |
| 6 | A chamber split by a chasm, crossed by a single stone bridge. | A broken pickaxe with a name burned into the handle. |
| 7 | A mushroom field, stalks as tall as a person, pale and faintly glowing. | A shelf of rock with a dozen small skulls lined up on it. |
| 8 | A cave-in: half the room buried under boulders, the rest leaning on it. | Water running down one wall into a carved channel. |
| 9 | A hot spring, steam rising off water too hot to touch. | A skeleton in rusted armour, still gripping a torch. |
| 10 | A bat roost, the ceiling moving slightly, the floor deep in guano. | Glittering veins of mica that look like gold until you get close. |
| 11 | A painted cave, the walls covered in ancient hunting scenes. | Webs slung across the ceiling like sails. |
| 12 | A miners' dig that broke into the cave, with rails and a tipped cart. | A cold draught from a crack too narrow to fit through. |
| 13 | A waterfall chamber, loud enough that speaking means shouting. | A crude map scratched into the wall with a knife. |
| 14 | A low crawlspace, barely a foot high, opening into something bigger. | Stones balanced in towers, some of them fallen. |
| 15 | A shrine built by something not quite human: stacked stones and teeth. | A pile of shed skin, man-sized. |
| 16 | An icy cavern where the walls are sheathed in frost. | Bits of broken pottery: someone lived here a long time ago. |
| 17 | A cave full of stalagmites, like walking through a stone forest. | Heavy footprints in the mud, each one the size of a shield. |
| 18 | A camp: a fire pit, bedrolls and a lookout ledge above the entrance. | An abandoned pack, its food eaten and its map gone. |
| 19 | An underground river running fast and black through the chamber. | Icicle-like stalactites that drip steadily on one spot. |
| 20 | A sinkhole chamber, lit by a shaft of daylight from far above. | A firepit, the ash still warm under the top layer. |
Questions
How many rooms in a dungeon should be empty?
More than feels natural: around a third. Empty rooms are where the players breathe, search, and argue about which way to go, and they make the next door tense again.
How do I make a random room feel like it belongs?
Tie one detail to the dungeon's story. If the crypt belongs to a family of embalmers, the fresh flowers on one grave were left by the last of them.