Molehouses and Subway Lines

While brainstorming a way to connect the different outposts using fast-travel in my upcoming west-marches campaign my partner recommended to me that I use a subway system. I thought that was an awesome idea, so here we are.

        The town of Black-Ridge was once a dwarven outpost, the first of its kind in this part of the world, back then it was a mere campsite dotted with runestones. But the dwarves did leave one thing of note: a strange marble house with steel doors. Once thought to be a mausoleum, it was left untouched by the human reclaimers for many years, until at last some foolhardy graverobbers unsealed the portal and discovered that it was no grave at all, but a vast straight starway, descending to a deep cavern system, the walls of which were engraved with the following ancient dwarven text:

The blind mole knows
what the eagle never will:
the shortest road
lies beneath the hill.

Though the sky forgets us.
The stone does not.

So let the bell toll
until even silence
keeps its rhythm.

Stone below.
Kin beside.
Beast beneath.
Home denied.

        At the bottom of the stairs is a smooth stone platform akin to a railroad station, with a small silver bell hung from a 3 foot post embedded in the bricks. Vast tunnels (15 feet in diameter) run North-South next to the platform, the bottom of which is 5 feet lower than the platform floor. This is a Molehouse, an ancient form of public transportation, which the colonist dwarves used to link together their burgeoning settlements. In order to get the Molehouse up and running the party will have to do the following:

        FIND AND CAPTURE A DIRE MOLE. Dire moles are fearsome beasts, standing about the size of an ox and twice as strong, they can dig at incredible rates, and move swiftly and soundlessly through caverns and tunnels. They have an extremely powerful pair of incisors, used to break open the hard exoskeletons of large insects, but they can only be used once per round.

(Statblock written for Dungeon Crawl Classics.)

DIRE MOLE
INIT +2
HD 6d12+12
AC 14
MV 60 feet run, 20 feet burrow
ACT 2d20
+6 gnash 1d14+2
+3 claw 2d4+2
SP
immune to all venoms and toxins. can hold breath for 15 minutes. effectively blind, but somehow light sensitive, d14 to attack in very bright light. tremorsense within 15 feet.
SV
fort +5
ref +2
will +1
AL N

Due to their blindness, anyone staying still is effectively invisible to the dire mole, but if they are within its blindsight range they must make a DC 12 Agility Check whenever they take any action to remain undetected (thieves and halflings may add their sneaking and hiding bonus to this roll).

        ESTABLISH A FOOD SOURCE FOR THE DIRE MOLE. Dire moles are strictly insectivorous, so in addition to (or perhaps prior to) the capture of the dire mole, the party must set up adequate feed for the animal. This can be done through the capture of any number of large or fast-breeding insects that live all over the frontier. Here are a few recommendations:

• Dire Ants. Strictly eusocial and lawful. Parties will have a tough time separating them and getting them to form a self-sufficient colony.
• Earthworms. Great choice but they need to be farmed en-masse to provide any sort of sustenance, not to mention that now the party needs to pay a proper hoard of peasants to gather all the worms they dig up in their day-to-day.
• Cave Crawlers. Once used by dwarves as pack-creatures, they are easily domesticated again through a simple (if lengthy) breeding process.
• Dire Hissing Roaches. Probably the best choice, they are slow, breed fast, and grow even faster. Unfortunately they are also very loud.

        FIND A DIRE MOLE RIDER. This is probably the most difficult part. The ancient art of dire mole riding is hardly practiced by any dwarves in the modern era due to the mortal danger it presents. Any dwarf character of Level 2 or higher may, after a month of gentling the animal, attempt a DC 14 Personality Check to attempt to ride the dire mole. Failure means never being taken as a rider and being dealt d14+2 damage by the bite of the mole. On a success, if they want to reap the benefits of being a full-time transporter of goods and individuals, that character must retire. Alternatively they can spend d3 months of downtime (and d100 gold coins per month) training a replacement. Other powerful dwarves may also prove suitable to the dire mole, but it is recommended you invent a dwarven hermit NPC to fill this role. Either way the rider must be paid handsomely for their services (10 gold coins per person per trip).

        LOCATE AND OPEN OTHER MOLEHOUSES ACROSS THE FRONTIER. Dire moles have an incredible sense of direction, but even then, they cannot find places with no reference. If the party does not find other molehouses and ring their silver bells, the mole will never reach such an area (dire moles somehow have insane hearing). These molehouses are usually inhabited (like all dungeons) and have to be explored and cleared out before it can be used.

I recommend creating a parallel world map which mirrors the overworld, with various points at which the party can transfer between the two using molehouses. There is no better feeling than layering the two maps and holding it up to a lamp to see how they connect. For real-world inspiration, use city-subway maps! They are the most efficient method of large-scale transportation, and a domesticated mole tunnel would likely be similar in structure. Here is the NYC subway system for reference.

7/7/2026