Caver & Cube Review

Caver & Cube is combination of story book and gaming supplement from my friend Justin Sirois of Severed Books. I'm going to be talking about the 60 page pdf. Justin did all the writing and art. 

Book one is The Cave. It is a short story and an origin of sorts. Taking place in the province of Falkirk, the tale follows a young man named Olen on the run who stumbles upon a cave.  He befriends a friendly gelatinous cube named Lu and discovers the cave is actually a magical (and mobile) creature named Caver. He and this walking, talking dungeon head to his home to try to solve his problems, but of course, things are never that easy and more mysteries a laid forth.

The second part of the book is Caver: Guide for Role-playing Games. It's a framework for using Cavers in y our game. The guide is system neutral but also presents things is generic D&D terms. The stats are given if vague terms. Caves have stats equivalent to medium or high level stone golems. If they punch someone it's the equivalent to a massive thrown boulder (which looking at giant stats means 4d10+Str in 5e). Each Cave has one or more classes (yes they can multiclass). This grants them special abilities and gives the GM a d4 Previous Occupants table. They are:

• Molten
  
• Den
• Acoustic Sanctuary
• Dank 
• Divine Sanctuary
• Darkness
• Turbulent 

Finally we get a brief selection of special Caver weapons and stats for Lucien (aka Lu) the benign
gelatinous cube from the story. Of course your Caver needs a character sheet and we are presented with one of those, that also has room to map out it's guts. A sample Caver maps is also presented. You can get a signed copy from the Severed Books Etsy Store. If you'd prefer to just have a digital copy, it's also on DrivethruRPG. You can get a Caver miniature here. Also Lu the Cube has a mini that you can grab here.

I am in love with idea of the caver. It's basically a magical mech/mobile home base for your adventuring party. While it would change some of the dynamics of a standard D&D game, I think it would do so in a fun as Hell way. Despite their power, Cavers tire easily and cant' be relied on in every fight. Also just because of their immense size, players won't be able to rely on them in every situation. 

Imagine one of the Caves of Chaos from The Keep on the Borderlands actually being a Caver! You could make it the Shrine of Chaos, giving the Caver the Darkness class. There are a lot of classic scenarios and settings that could be spiced up by these big cavey boys.