Rolling for Rooms

It might be worthwhile to brainstorm some uses for the room categories I posted on Sunday. I suggested there that you could use a crude d6 table, like this:

1. Containment
2. Dump/Waste
3. Task/Job
4. Fortification
5. Living/Lair
6. Special

On a roll of 6, there's a 2d6 follow-up roll: interpret each die on the table above, but do not roll again for a 6 result; instead, "Special" represents incomprehensible elements or tricks.

Divide the rooms on a blank map (or sections of a blank map) into different general purposes or domains for unique creatures, like:

• Entrance
• Military
• Peasant
• Royals
• Food
• Alchemist
• Necromancer
• Disposal

If the map is blank, you can roll 1d6 for the number of rooms for each section, perhaps 2d6 or 3d6 for Military and Peasant, or other sections that might have larger numbers of creatures. Draw the rooms at this point.

For each room, roll 1d6 for the room category, possibly with a 2d6 follow-up roll. The section identification and room category together, plus position in relation to surrounding rooms, help to define the room:

• "Military Containment" is an armory, "Military Lair" is a barracks, "Military Task/Job" could be a training room, "Military Fortification" would be an actual guardpost or controlled access point.
• "Royal Containment" might be a treasure vault, "Royal Lair" would be the royal bedroom, unless it's the entrance to the royal area, in which case it might be a throne room; a "Royal Fortification" adjacent to the Royal Lair could also define it as a throne room or royal court, while a fortification next to Royal Containment would be the guard post outside the treasure chamber.
• Both the Alchemist and the Necromancer may have the same kind of lair, but "Alchemist Task/Job" would be an alchemical laboratory, while "Necromanacer Task/Job" would be a mortician's workshop; "Alchemist Containment" would be potion or ingredient storage, while "Necromancer Containment" would be cold storage for fresh corpses, or a graveyard.

On the follow-up rolls, Special+X could have two possibilities:

1. The room seems to be purely ornamental, like a garden, hallway, chamber with a mural, statue, or tapestry, or it's purely structural with no obvious purpose. There is a hidden purpose, though, indicated by the second die roll.
2. The room matches one of the normal functions, but there is something weird or incomprehensible about it: it's storage for something the adventurers don't understand, or provides protection for something they wouldn't think of as dangerous, etc.)

Examples of #1:

• Special+Containment stores items of a specific type when they are brought into the room and a trigger condition is met (statue with outstretched hand will toss arrows or pointed weapons straight up, embedding them in the high ceiling.)
• Special+Lair provide basic living needs (food, drink, rest) through magical means (garden with benches and a weird glowing sphere on a pedestal; sitting on bench for one hour provides equivalent of a full night's rest and heals 1 point of damage.)

Examples of #2:

• Special+Containment: a room filled with an aquarium with odd glowing strands floating in the water. The strands might be removable and usable (light source, for example,) but the adventurers don't know what they are.
• Special+Lair: a bedroom with a triangular bed of nails. No clues as to what kind of creature, if any, would rest there.