The coming saturday I will run a Esoteric Enterprises game on our local quarterly OSR con Grottröj. I could have gone with something a bit more small-scale, but I wanted to test the EE tools for creating an underground environment and an occult underworld. Though, admittedly, I’ve deviated somewhat from the procedure by choosing to use a map of an actual city – namely Umeå where our convention is held.

Umeå is by no means a big city, even though it has a university, large industry and the main hospital of the region, so one might wonder how so many supernatural factions can hide in such a limited population. But for the sake of this game we will simply disregard such questions.

The first step in rolling up the undercity is to drop a handfull of different dice on a large piece of paper. The I noted the type of die and the number rolled and checked against the table in the rulebook to see what kind of undercity complex was situated at that spot.

I linked nearby complexes with passages, and by comparing the type of dice on each end and checking against another table I could determine the specific sort of conduit. Now, since Umeå does not have a subway I reinterpreted that result as military tunnels, for covert transportation of materials. To roll up the social underworld of occult criminals I dropped a handfull of different dice on a empty paper. By once again comparing the type of dice and the number rolled against tables in the EE rulebook I could see what groups dominated the scene and what kind of relations they have to each other. Then I performed a similar procedure for each of the undercity complexes. At the same time I compared the undercity with the social underworld and decided what locations was inhabited by specific factions.

Now that I know how the undercity looks like, what factions of occult weirdos are active in the city and their conflicts with each other I can make some adventure hooks for the game.