Encounter Help - Drow Stronghold

EDIT: I did not want to open a new threat. Most important information can be found in the second post.

Hi,

after a huge success last time I did this (See this threat Troglodyte Encounter ), I think one of the best things to do is asking fellow D&D players for opinions and tipps designing encounters and story for the further advancement of my campaign. Her we go:

The Characters:

Balrog - A Goliath Fighter6/Barbarian1 (Very versatile, switches between Great Sword&Board (AC25, more if buffed), huge Great Axe raging (a lot of damage, AC19) and Javelins within moments, making use of his quick draw feat and a very flexible feat choice)

Savantyr - An Aasimar Sorcerer6/Holy Scourge2 (Is able to mostly ignore energy resistance, does a lot of damage, and has a few good tricks, he can do, sorcerer like... quite often.)

Fealar - Your average Wood Elf Ranger8 Bow Dude. Nothing special.

Eadric - Riverfolk Druid8 (PHB2 Shifter) - Till now, he did a lot of healing and summoning unicorns to heal even more, somethimes using his mobility in predator form to be at the right spot or take some blows to rescue an ally. That will change, I guess, as he is now able to use the ferocious slayer form.

Soon to enter the group: A Gold Dwarf Copper Dragon Shaman. She will meet the group at earth end.

The Story so far:

The characters were drawn into the story to end a threat to Cormyr. They were send to kill a Hill Giant leader, who was uniting the giant tribes into a mighty army, that could overrun the kingdom. They were able to slay him, but discovered he was actually possessed by a Vrock demon.
At the same time, the kingdom is threatend by civil war, as many nobles refuse to follow the infant king any longer and try to use the giant invasion for their own goals. The invasion started, allthough the players were able to kill the leader of the Hill Giants. There must be someone else behind all this.
A mighty divination (Locate Creature) told them, the Vrock teleported to Mirth Galnorn. (The Name is in Drow, meaning refuge of revenge.) As they severly offended Baron Teuselle, a local noble and bastard descendent of the old King of Cormyr who was about to take over the town of Tilverton(The groups homebase) and all of eastern Cormyr, the small group of loyal followers of the crown (The local captain of the purple dragons, some old adventurers/now inn keeper, an elven Magic Item Shop owner, the local high priests of Gond and Sharress and the local sage) decided, it would be the best course of action, to send the Party of Adventurers into the underdark trying to find the Demon and maybe the true head behind the giant invasion, while they try to work on the political floor, weakening the baron in anyway they can.
The party started their descent into the underdark (Following a map they got from a lokal priest of gond), so far they passed the Grotto of the Troglodytes, making more enemies, by letting their Mind Flayer "Leader" escape.

What I have planed:

As You might have guessed, the campaign ist quite similar to the old GDQ series. In the long run, I want to get my players into Expedition to the Demonweb Pits.

Currently, this is what I have planed: The next story relevant encounter will be a Mykonite Grove. The Grove is marked as good resting place upon their underdark map, and they are looking forward to reaching it, as the endless gray of the underdark is getting to them.

I plan to have the mykonites wiped out, the grove nearly destroyed and empty. (Besides a Gas Spore encounter. They are not tough enough to fight a true Beholder, but a Gas Spore will shock them quite a bit, although it is mostly harmless.) As they are currently carrying the body of their dead sorcerer with them, I do not want to stretch this to much, but... there is a nice magic location in Drow of the Underdark (Garden of Resplendent Hues) that till give a druid or ranger DR and some plant like immunities for 30 day. Only one of them though. It does so, by choosing one of them as its champion. The champion will get visions, telling him of his mission...

Three more locations follow... these are more or less on the same depth of the underdark.

Earth End: A place run by earth creatures. It hase a portal to sigil, an creatures from all over Fearun come here to leave the Realms and go to sigil, maybe finding a way to enter the elemental plane of earth. This is the parties current destination.

Bhal-Hamatung: A Kou-Toa Shrine/City. It is marked on their map.

Mirth-Galnorn: A Drow Outpost. They do not yet know where exaclty it is, but they guess it muss be where their map says: All scouts disappeard!

My plan, so far was this: They go to Earths End, pick up the Dragon Shaman and raise the Sorcerer at the Temple of Grumbar, Boss of Earth. Then, they try to find Mirth Galnorn. When they found it, by getting information from the residents of Earth End, they go there, get into the Drow Outpost, find out what its all about: It is an Outpost of an exiled Drow House. Their High Priestess found out, that Lolth will start an invasion of the material plan. She deviced a plan to have huge amounts of fearun under her controll, thus raising herself in favor of the Spider Queen, reclaiming, maybe even exceeding her houses old standing in drow society. The Vrock was just one servent she used to controll the giants. She took controll over the other giant leaders, too. In a more subtle way. It was the Vrocks war like nature that spoiled parts of her plan. It just was not able to hide long enough. Still, she was successful enough, with the Frost and Fire Giants seemingly taking control over fearun. Helped by here more subtle agents on the surface...
They will find out, too, that the priestess was about to go to a place called "The Styxs Oars Man" in Sigil to get more information about the invasion.
The players will need to go to Sigil to find out more about the invasion and maybe end it (this is where EttDWP starts.) But to pass the portal, they need something to activate it. Something special. There is only one race sinister and despaired enough to actually with it. The Kuo-Toa. You need "True Hope" to activate the portal. A rare substance, often a gift from the Gods of Good, but there might be ways to get it from hope full creatures. (Which the Kuo-Toa are not...)
The Players will learn, the Kuo-Toa would sell it... but at enormous summs (I though about 20000gp). They have to choose, pay so much to these vile creatures, or try to steal from them. (They would discover, that the Kuo-Toa of Bhal-Hamatung are actually the Thralls of an Aboleth, the master mind behind the hope buissness...

Why I need help...

First of all, there are some holes in my plans... I have no idea were the Champion of the Garden of Resplendent Hues sould be sent. Who killed all the Mykonites? It should not derail from the story to much, best thing would be, if it would somehow lead to the Kuo-Toa.

How to introduce the Dragon Shaman in a way, that she has a reason to stay with the group for a longer time?

Next thing is, I would love to change the scenario a bit: Once the Drow started with their invasion on the surface, because they learned of a chance to reclaim their old standing, they build up hope. The Kuo-Toa began to wage war against them, trying to capture Drow and stealing their hope.

Third thing, and the most important one: How to realise the scenario? I could easily built Mith Galnorn (I want to use the Maps of Mystery from rescent Dungeon Mags 145&146, together they show a grotto with a small lake and some waterfalls leading to a drow outpost). I planed to use manyly Bugbears as rank and file soldiers, with a few elite drow soldiers and NPCs. Mass Battles against drow do not seem to be such a good idea.
For Bhal-Hamatung, I will use the map from the Shackled City AP (Thats where the name is from). It is nothing special, though. A lake, some temple structures, defenses, an inner sanctum. Stuff like that.
I never played a 3 party scenario. Any good ideas how to do that? And off course, any good ideas for specific encounters?

I spend some more work on my adventure, this is what I have got:

Due to time constrains (I need the campaign to be finished in ca. 16 sessions) I chose to cut the lenght of the underdark part of the campaign a bit.

The Mykonites Grove will be just that, a peacefull resting place. (Maybe I will do the Gas Spore encounter, to shock my players...)

Once the players arrive at Earth' End, the Dragon Shaman will join the group, because she knows a place where she suspects a Drow stronghold. At least, some dangerous monsters live there. She is looking for some Svirvneblin who got lost there.

If the characters go there, they will find:

A Drow Outpost. There is a half flooded cavern in front of the outpost, with a fungi forest (the drows food source), maybe even some rothe, a huge lake, a river, some waterfalls. (Deep Grotto Map from Dungeon 145).

There are some bugbear slaves caring for the rothe and harvesting fungi. A handfull of Bugbear Warriors, too. The cavern does not look heavily guarded.

Near the entrance to the Outpost itself, hidden behind a Illusory Wall 4 Minotaur Zombies are hidden (the former inhabitants of the cave, as the players might learn later). The true guardian of the cave is an advanced gauth (10HD, CR7). It works for the drow because they pay with magic it can consume. (Before the Drow arrived, it had to share the cave with the minotaurs)

The Outpost itself (Dungeon 146, modified) is surounded by a chasm. There is a stone shaped bridge leading towards the entrance of the outpost itself. This bridge can be overseen by 2 archer ledges. And the door at the other side of the bridge is a fake door. (The actual doors are 2 secrets doors to the left and right of the main entrance leading directly into the archer ledges tunnels and into the outpost)

The inside of the outpost is not very large. 2 connected 10ft wide corridors, and a total of 8 rooms for soldier housing, and 4 more chambers.

additionaly, on the outside, connected by web bridges is a chapel of lolth and a chamber containing a portal.

There is also a prison pit. (Maybe I will throw in some svirvneblin)

Another noteworthy feature is a Drider den, build into the chasm surrounding the outpost.

Inhabitants:

2 Drow Sniper (MM4, Scout6) usually hold guard at the archery ledges. They like to stay away from the other drow.

A total of 6 Drow House Soldiers (Fighter3) led by a House Captian (Marshal 8). These use one half of the barracks.

12 Bugbear Slave Warriors (Warrior2) and their Leader (Ranger4). THese share the other half of the barracks.

The other 4 Chambers are used by the leaders of the Outpost. A Drow Priestess (Cleric8) and her consort, a house wizard (Warmage8).

The Chapel of Lolth is guarded by 2 Web Golems.

Deep within the chasm is a lavishly decorated cave, used by two fiercely loyal servants of the priestess. A Drow Vampire (Fighter6) and his consort, a succubus. They are loyal to the priestess (who removed a stack driven thorugh the vampire heart by some adventurers and resurrected the succubus with a miracle scroll) but do not care about the other inhabitants of the outpost.

The Drider den within the chasm is occupied by a drider. (Surprise!)

The Portal is guarded by a vrock. The Vrock the players are looking for. The Portal leads to Sigil. (I will change the Portal at Earth End to lead directly the the Elemental Plane of Earth)

As I do not want the Kuo-Toa to fall completly out of the campaign, I thought it might be cool to have them attack the drow full scale, while the characters fight their way through the outpost. Actually, I want to use the Kuo-Toa to force the party through the portal and into Sigil, thus into the Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. A good idea might be, to have a Kuo-Toa spy in the lake in the Deep Grotto. The players might spot him, or they might even sense the Gauth (Spot +21) seeing him. If they (what will most likely be the case) need more than one attempt to get into the outpost and finding out what is happening around there, the Kuo-Toa attack. (I would just use Whips and Monitors from Drow of the Underdark and many Kuo-Toa Warriors)

My players have a party of 5 level 8 characters, how would you stage these encounters to create a memorable (and drow worthy) experience, without killing them outright by a full attack of all inhabitants? How to use the Vampire/Succubus Pair to good effect? Any recommendations for additional monsters that might spice things up? (I am trying to keep things simple, as my players like it that way, but maybe I am overdoing it?)

All in all it sounds like a good mix of updated adventure game along with old fashioned dungeon crawl. What I'd suggest for some of the plot devices is this:

1. The Dragon Shaman needs a personal reason--revenge, something to be obtained, something rather personal and dragonish. To give an example in my game a young dragon wants to obtain the horde that was stolen when her parents were killed. This is her main motivation for hanging with the pcs.

2. The Vampire and the Succhubus strike me as being a little out of place in Drow society. Therefore they strike me as perfect red herrings for the party--the roguish 'gunslinger' types who appear as the villains at first until the real one is revealed.

3. Let the pcs demonstrate their skills as players. If they for instance see the Kuo-Toa fighting Drow or something or find bodies or anything at all like that it might give them clever ideas. I wouldn't beat them over the head with this, just make it something that they get a glimpse of. However I would make sure that there was no solid evidence or reason to make say an alliance with the Kuo-Toa at first, I would just have it at the back of my mind that they might be useful in that capacity. Barring that if it never even comes up I might have the Kuo-Toa attack the Drow stronghold as perhaps it has begun to fall to confusion in the way of the pcs striking at the Drow. Thus in the second idea they become an unexpected enemy, not distinguishing between who are Drow and who are not.

1. yep, I know. Sadly, till now, I did not come up with a descent idea. (It does not help that the player did not gibe me any information till now. Oh well, some time left till thursday...)

2. Hmm, how would you accomplish that? Currently I really do not now how to make my players belive them to be more important than elite Guards living in that chasm.

3. Great idea.

so, the game is tomorrow. Any "last minute" ideas?

I'm particulary stuck at the succubus' items and feats. She could get equipment up to 10000gp and I could change her feats, I just do not have any good ideas... any help would be highly appreciated.