The Reliqum Caverna

The Reliqum Caverna is a system-neutral natural phenomenon that can occur anywhere within the vast and variant multiverse. It is often cited by scholars venerable and not as the cause for the ever anomalous free-range dungeons happened upon by adventurers in their vagrancy.

ORIGIN

The Reliqum Caverna often begins with a single person's wish: That their wealth, on the event of their untimely death, be protected and kept away from the unworthy. Often enough the wish is a mere pleasantry, as there are wills and second cousins and ancient uncles to take the wealth into their hands, if not their loved ones, but sometimes there comes a time when metaphysics must take matters into its own hands. Should someone die in the wilderness with their earthly wealth in a ditch somewhere, the Wish, acting as an arcane catalyst, will begin the construction of a safe-keep for the valuables. The process by which it assembles this keep will be detailed below. Once it reaches a sufficient size, the grown keep, which by this point qualifies as the Caverna, becomes viable for habitation and forms several intra-symbiotic relationships with local flora and fauna, gifting them with mutations in exchange for ecological upkeep.

STAGES OF THE RELIQUM CAVERNA

1. NASCENCY: The Wish-charged valuables, referred to from now as the Nexus, draw nearby environmental detritus to them, assembling a nest-like assemblage that acts as an initial protective shell. These could be made from mud, twigs, moss or even animal bones, cobbled together into a hardened cage-like seedpod.

2. BRANCHING: Having fortified itself, the Seed will then begin extending protrusions across the nearby area, seeking out new materials to reinforce itself with, while also creating labyrinthine structures so as to confuse anyone who might disturb the nexus. Above-ground, this takes the form of twisting wattle and daub corridors, reinforced in places by wayward stones. Below-ground, this manifests as an ant-hill's worth of tunnels threading through the earth, reinforced with clay and reaching deep into the earth. Using these newly formed appendages, the Nexus might shift itself into a more protected location, but more often than not it will simply alter the landscape to make its initial "planting" point more inaccessible.

3. REINFORCEMENT: Its basic structure now in place, the juvenile Reliqum Caverna will begin a slow resource gathering-and-refinement process, extending tendrils of its structure into the bedrock and sapping the material to enforce its walls. By this point in the process the Caverna sometimes "sinks" into the ground, becoming the Subterranean variant (to be detailed more later on). The Reinforcement mainly appears as a stone shell or plaster stretched over the structure, and here the architecture of the Reliqum begins to centralize, moving from the haphazard loops of the Branching stage into something more ordered and sturdy.

4. BUDDING: The Reliqum's innate magical properties of growth and wealth often boil over, and this metaphysical froth is what becomes the Chambers of the Reliqum. These chambers have their own lifecycle wherein they produce a cluster of alchemically formed items, of far less value than the original Nexus, a kind of sub-Nexii. This is believed by some to be a distraction on the part of the Reliqum, or as a simple magical anomaly.

5. REFINEMENT: The longest stage of the Caverna's maturation cycle, cheekily referred to as the equivalent of its mating period. Here the structure of the Caverna works towards aesthetic appeal, acting in line with the Nexus' ultimate goal of being claimed, albeit by a worthy owner(s). Archways and filigree begin to bud out of the walls and the Caverna's outer shell begins to molt away the shells of natural stone, becoming gleaming marble or limestone. Entryways begin to gape in the structure's outer shell, allowing surrounding wildlife to enter into the Caverna's interiors, where an adaptive process works to create an environment that is hyper-ideal to their survival. Wildlife attuned to the Caverna becomes protective of the Nexus and the sub-Nexii in the chambers, never daring to disturb them or let them be disturbed.

6. COMPLETION: Having resolved itself into its full adult form, the Caverna is now open for any wayward traveler to walk in, brave its many dangers, and claim its prizes for themselves.

DEATH

The Caverna's lifecycle is fully completed once the treasure within the Nexus and sub-Nexii has been claimed. At this, the metaphysical lifeform sustaining the dungeon withers away, like a hermit crab abandoning its shell. After that, it is but a structure, left for the wild to claim not through mutation and adaption but through the unstoppable hand of Nature.

CAVERNA VARIETIES

SUBTERRANEAN: This variety is born of buried loot left unclaimed, of travelers in shallow graves and houses sunken into the mire. In the cities, these merge with sewers and cellars and hidden tunnels, becoming labyrinths in the dark and the depth.

RISING: These Caverna shoot straight up out of the ground, forming rickety spires that become great, imposing towers. Once cleared, these are typically claimed by wizards requiring isolated habitation for their madcap hermeticism.

FORTIFIED: If a village has stories of a great castle in the woods where none has stood, or no longer stands, the Caverna might feed off of that story, twisting itself into the shape of great keeps and hill-forts.

CAVERNA VERSUS CAVERNA

Should two or more Cavernas reaching maturity meet in the same place, in places where many die or treasures gather in hiding, they will engage in a ritual that is half eco-war and half mating ritual. To Cavernas, the Nexus is most important, and thus nothing should be of equal or, perish the thought, greater importance. Anything that threatens that with its own expansion and ostentation should be absorbed, the treasures of the defeated's Nexus distributed throughout the sub-Nexii of the chambers. In execution, this works as a turf battle, ground given and taken, nests carved out in walls by many legged spider-things and invasive species shattering the food chains. Architecturally, it's an Escher and Bosch partnership of improptu walkways, stairwells to nowhere, melting stonework and clashing textures bursting up like rashes. In process, it's all an aesthetic nightmare. By the end, one would win, and slowly begin the Refinement process across its newly acquired holdings.

There have also been cases of such turf wars with far more than just two Cavernas in play. The once-battlefield of Bastard's Run, now standing as a great monolith among all that mud and desolation, is proof of that. We only have a few records of what it actually looks like on the inside. One of these few, gentleman-burglar Gurraim, shaken and clutching their teacup with both hands, was heard to say:

Corpses. They're working with....corpses.

For now, that concludes our look into the Reliqum Caverna.