What kind of treasure or clues could be found in a small dwarven sewer?

[dreaded_beast]

I'm the DM of a new game and I plan on having my player, a 1st level monk, pay a visit to an abandoned dwarven sewer entrance. While the sewer itself is very extensive, the actually area the player can explore is very tiny, due to much of the sewer being blocked by cave-ins and rubble. The sewer only goes in 80 feet deep until being blocked by rubble. There are a couple tunnels on either sides going 20 to 60 feet deep, but they also end in rubble. At the end of two tunnels are going to be a nest of 3 dire rats and 3 giant fire beetles, respectively.

The reason my PC should want to go here is to learn more about the dwarven ruins she just came from. However, the ruins were only used as a base for the BBEG, who is a cleric of Orcus. I'm not sure how to tie the two together, beyond that the dwarves used to live in the ruins and this was just basically the sewer system and nothing more.

However, in the past, a wizard did a cursory scan of this area using magic eye, but didn't find anything useful (or did he?) I'm still trying to decide if I want to use this, since if the wizard found something useful, what would be left for my player to find?

 

[Pants]

However, in the past, a wizard did a cursory scan of this area using magic eye, but didn't find anything useful (or did he?) I'm still trying to decide if I want to use this, since if the wizard found something useful, what would be left for my player to find?

Maybe the wizard did find 'something.' Maybe he's still stuck back in the ruins, unable to escape after getting into a hopeless battle with another creature or person that also wanted this 'something.' Perhaps, that is what secretly drew the cleric of Orcus to this location...

 

[LazerPointer]

Maybe the monk finds fascinating examples of Dwarven waterworks! The special interlocking system that they also used on miles and miles of sophisticated aquifers. Their elaborate methods of seperating the liquids from the solids, and sliucing them out of sight!

Sometimes a sewer is just a sewer. I can't see it being used by reputable people, but maybe a wandering thief hid a small bag of ___, a strange map, or 10 emergency gold to retrieve later.

 

[Buttercup]

Not every cave/sewer/ruined shrine needs to have treasure. I'd let it have nothing but dire rats & fire beetles. Or maybe not even that. Maybe just some regular rats, that scurry away when your player approaches.

 

[cybertalus]

This might be better suited to a bard than a monk, but perhaps this was the escape route taken by those fleeing whatever attack it was that turned the former dwarven city into a ruin. Perhaps this was the very site of the last great battle that saw the last of those brave dwarves mercilessly slaughtered. The battle so intense that it brought down the very walls and ceilings around the combatants. In which case the walls and floors could show chips, scratches, and signs of impact where weapons hit them during the fight, and there could be a few rusted chainmail rings, axe heads, and belt buckles lying around.

And on one of the walls or floors a dying dwarf carved a message which has endured. It could be anything from a single rune, to a map, a last message to a loved one, a password to open a secret magical area of the city, or a request to avenge their death.

 

[Gez]

They could find weird eggs.

See, it was a craze a few years ago -- dwarves wanted pet baby crocodiles. But when the crocs began to grow too much, they flushed them down the sewers. There, a few crocodile mutated to adapt to the lack of sunlight, searching heat instead from the fermentation of decaying organic matters (it does produce a lot of heat).

The eggs they found are of cave crocodiles, and they could sell them to people living in the underdark, like deep dwarves, deep gnomes, deep halflings, dark elves, or gray dwarves.

 

[pennywiz]

Unintentionally-deposited, little piles of gold.


Well, that's what the dwarves call them, anyway.

 

[rounser]

Not every cave/sewer/ruined shrine needs to have treasure.

True...but it's more fun when they do.

 

[Agback]

G'day

On a recent trip to the UK I visited the ruins of the Roman legionary HQ at Caerleon, in South Wales. The most thoughly excavated part of this settlement is the legionary baths. The most interesting and valuable little bits and pieces that the archaeologists discovered in their excavations were things that had been dropped down the drains over the centuries, and were preserved in the silt of the sewers. Among them hair pins, intaglio gems that had fallen out of signet rings, and of course coins were common. And a surprising number of children's deciduous teeth, but that's not exactly treasure.

Regards,


Agback

 

[FireLance]

EDIT - double post (see below)