Funny enough, just today I've encountered things in two caves despite never having any luck before! The first was a bear... and it killed me, unfortunately. Created a new character, and what happened early on was pretty interesting:
So I started out searching for a village to settle near-ish to. While exploring, I encountered a lost adventurer who wanted me to lead him to a village, so I let him tag along. We came across a couple caves on the way, and one of them did contain treasure: a small bronze brooch, a fistful of cranberries (ok...?), and a few leaves from some plant (random plant mod) that it said would make me fall into a trance and journey into the spirit world.
I took that as a sign that the spirits were offering to lead us to the village we were searching for, so I ate the leaves. Sure enough, while tripping on those weird leaves, I stumbled across a village. Go figure!
@JEB Davis That story was a really interesting read! I actually read through the whole thing, not just the cave part, and I'm looking forward to seeing more!
@nekot Wow, okay, that's some really good luck there! And... traders? Can't help but wonder what they were doing lurking in a cave XD