Quote Originally Posted by Water_Bear View Post
Well, I for one have never seen a mine in D&D that wasn't a good mile or so under the surface and filled with zombies, so I'd hazard a guess all the good veins of ore have already been tapped out.

Dwarves Kobolds and the other undergound races do most of the mining anyway, and they are always "delving too greedily and too deep" so it's a good fit fluff-wise. Add in all the generic Evil Empire Forcing Prisoners to Work as Slaves in the Plot Mines set-pieces and mining is probably almost as dangerous as dungeon-crawling, assuming your mine isn't already transforming into an "Abandoned Mine" dungeon.
Would this mean that mines in D&D work a bit like minecraft? Seal off a section of the mine for a day and a night in complete darkness and by the morning it might be a beholder lair?