D&D 5E Small tweaks to improve Out of the Abyss [DMs toolbox; SPOILERS]

[Mike Mikesh]

Underdark Communities

Untold - This largely forgotten necropolis of wights, devoted to Kiaransalee, is now a growing drow community under deep dragon dominance. It was invaded by a mated pair of dragons and their servants several years ago. Many new wyrmlings have since dispersed from there, and the male, Zytob, left to resume his explorations of the Underdark.

Ybana, the female, has stayed to protect their treasuries and mutual library. She continues governing Untold, advertising its presence and opening it to trade. Her subjects, living and undead, produce beautiful and masterfully created books, either copied from the library or from newly provided drafts. Many drow have come to trade or to settle and provide goods and services. But, more than coin, Ybana seeks new knowledge, maps, and journals of travel to places throughout the Underdark, Shadowdark, and Feydark.

 

[Mike Mikesh]

Underdark Communities

Buried Enakim - The Spellplague brought the dragonborn island of Enakim from the world of Abeir to bury it here under Faerun. Only 300 dragonborn survived. Tribes of kobolds found them and eagerly brought them offerings of food. They continued to serve by clearing tunnels and excavating to reclaim goods from crushed buildings. The dragonborn established themselves by trading recovered treasures to duergar.

The survivors of Enakim allow no single leader, in reaction to their harsh rule under the red dragon, Hirador the Unforgiving. They are consummate debaters. At their Forum, topics of morality often recur: if it's honorable to keep evil (kobold) servants, if taking property from crushed homes is looting or even grave robbing, if it is right to trade with duergar and overlook their reprehensible deeds, etc. Such debates are aimed at shaming the most influential families. These have grown comfortable with their life in the Underdark. While the dragonborn intend to migrate to the surface, the planning is mired in decades of political discussions over its many aspects, slowed and obstructed by the families with the least desire to leave.

 

[Mike Mikesh]

Underdark Communities

Nower - Ethnic Etsh humans, devoted to Shar, established this isolated village on the surface centuries ago. Learning of their murderous practices, Selunites reformed them at sword point. A few generations later, their old ways and Thorass dialect reemerged. The Selunite stronghold, built beside Nower, was fully infiltrated by the Etsh who dedicated it to Shar. The violence that ensued ended when a powerful abjuration ritual sent the town deep into the upperdark, marking the former site of the town with a 50 foot wide hole of unplumbable depth.

The town survived its descent, although the buildings now stand on multiple tiers and uneven ground giving most structures a signature tilt. The adjacent Narkig grimlocks, who protect caverns sacred to Shar, gave much aid to the fallen town. In return, Nower gives them women so as to revitalize the Narkig bloodline.

Nower is led by four wealthy families. The respective house elders are strong personalities, but also lapse into periods of madness. In truth, each has a malformed mind from having served as a life-long host to a centuries old ghost and only seems normal when possessed. These ghosts, warlocks of Shar in life, have long been the true leaders of the Etsh.

[Inspired by "Maelbrathyr," in the D&D 4e supplement, Underdark, (WotC, 2010), pg. 38-41.]

 

[Mike Mikesh]

Underdark Communities

Ilhara-Vel – This fantastic map by repsesper provided a lot of inspiration for what I did in embellishing Out of the Abyss. I reduced its scale and stature for our use since, in the Northdark setting, Menzoberranzan needs to dominate.

​

Ilhara-Vel (in our campaign) was an old drow colony. After it failed, it became a destination for desperate dark elf renegades. Every several decades or so, a crusade wipes out the nest in Lolth's name.

In the current time, the simple bastions of Ilhara-Vel were occupied by goblins and drow of at least three outcast houses and their vassals. Abruptly, however, the dark elf nobility united into a single house, Argiiryn, under the rule of Matron Mother Zilvra. She immediately sent out diplomatic emissaries bearing large tributes of discovered dwarven ingots who then brought back valuable craftsmen, mercenaries, and mages. Ilhara-Vel is now a burgeoning boomtown.

Characters observing these rather hedonistic nobles might notice more than expected deference to Weapon Master Zagrit and question if he is their true leader. In fact Zagrit is the demon prince, Graz'zt, and has come to build a small kingdom, guided by preternatural knowledge, while forced out of the Abyss. The priestesses lead devotions at Arach-Angaste to Lolth, but merely as lip service.

The great vault is dominated by two high plateaus. The opulent seat of House Argiiryn, Silver Hall, is on the small plateau. The town of Ilhara-Vel is on the large one. The marshy floor of the vault is covered with fungi supporting an ecology of cave crickets and lizards. The fungi were haphazardly cultivated over the centuries, whereas now the farming is skillfully managed by hobgoblin masters.

The town is developing multiple industries, among these are unique spices and jet gemstones mined nearby. It also produces textiles. Haluca is a type of flax that grows down from the underside of particular giant mushrooms and called beards. And, wool is sheared from jippers, blind albino rabbits whose fur muffles echolocation from predatory bats. Dye pigments for cloth are available in the area and also exported.

The Rat Fiddler Inn is currently the only inn. It is poor, having been converted from a barracks, but the staff makes a good effort in providing comfortable rooms and basic fare in the common room. They do not try to compete with their neighbors with entertainment.

Instead, visiting merchants and mercenaries drop a lot of coin at the many cabaret/brothals in town. The most prominent is the Jelas, managed directly by House Argiiryn. Although work is still being done on the structure, it is a centerpiece for the town itself. It’s hard to miss its spires and illumination by faerie fire. The other owners came drawn by Graz'zt. The Red Lace is operated by Charlotte, a red widow (a la Ravenloft). Libia is operated by a lamia, Lorelei. And, the Serpentine Kiss is operated by Sultra, a yuan-ti pureblood. Competition among them is fierce.

Pharius's Apothecary is another business that established itself early, enjoying stronger sales in recreational and sex enhancement drugs than medicinal.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sorry in advance if this is too much of a necro.

I’m running my first session of Out of the Abyss on Saturday. Wanted to thank the folks here for a lot of good ideas, and offer a suggestion of my own that I’m going to try out. I’ll post again and let y’all know how it went.

Anyway, reading the first chapter I was left very concerned about this as the opening to a campaign. It seems like potentially a really long time to leave the players almost completely disempowered, and likely to lead to rash action like players trying to take out the guards and escape without a real plan, which could end up going very wrong. On the other hand, if they do actually try to plan something out, laying groundwork, etc. there could end up being a lot of time spent on boring prisoner life stuff until the right opportunities arise. And either way, once the players do decide to make their escape, what happens if they fail? There are a lot of Drow and Quaggoth in the outpost, there’s no way a group of 4 first level adventures will be able to fight their way out, even if they manage to recover their equipment (and attempting to so actually increases their risk of the plan failing) and the help of the NPCs.

So, here’s how I plan to address this: Oceans 11 style flashbacks. I’m going to narrate over the details of the PCs and their fellow prisoners formulating an escape plan, and just jump ahead to the escape attempt, as soon as the players have had enough time to get acquainted with the NPCs and the layout of the outpost. Then whenever something goes horribly wrong during the escape attempt, I’ll give the players the opportunity to pause the action, and play out a short flashback scene, in which they set something up as a contingency for the very situation we just cut away from.

 

[CapnZapp]

Nah, we've seen much more powerful necromancy ☺

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[muppetmuppet]

I think the contingency is the demon attack.

I expected this would be really hard. One player could transform themselves into the drow boss lady and mimic her voice. She simply ordered the quaggoths back into their cave when they came out which gave the party enough time to cut pretty much all the rope bridges which effectively stops most things getting to them.
they then got their eq back and roped down the tower. spiders looked nasty at this point but a few fire spells sent them away enough to drop into the lake where the ooze failed to do much and ended up just eating drow bodies.

The group has time the get away as the high level drow are all busy with the demons.
If things go badly for your group u can just have one of the demons fly past them and deal with whatever is killing them at that point.
Good luck. My group is now in Blingdenstone. and finally ready to leave the underdark.

 

[Mike Mikesh]

Prisoners of the Drow

Then whenever something goes horribly wrong during the escape attempt, I’ll give the players the opportunity to pause the action, and play out a short flashback scene, in which they set something up as a contingency for the very situation we just cut away from.

This sounds very clever. It has the ring of other game systems, like Paizo Plot Twist Cards, but without specific mechanics. There have been a number of prison escape roll playing scenarios and adventures down through the years, and it’s hard to keep them from being boring, or worse, frustrating. Your approach could prove to be a very innovative answer. Post how it really works out.

I came at it with the expectation my group would get frustrated. At the first signs of that, I just executed the section, “A Flight of Demons.” I did make a point of having them encounter the fallen vrock (Xabron).

"Meats!" its says, ambling toward the PCs with menacing intent. "I need more strength. Give me a spleen. Give me a liver. And, the rest can go." It snaps its beak. *Klack!* *Klack!*​

It kept up dialogue like this through the fight, finally pleading pathetically just for a nose as it perished.

 

[Charlaquin]

This sounds very clever. It has the ring of other game systems, like Paizo Plot Twist Cards, but without specific mechanics. There have been a number of prison escape roll playing scenarios and adventures down through the years, and it’s hard to keep them from being boring, or worse, frustrating. Your approach could prove to be a very innovative answer. Post how it really works out.

It was pretty successful! One of my players I don't think fully understood the intent of the mechanic, as he kept trying to flash back to moments earlier during the escape attempt, rather than to something they had set up before trying to escape. Another one really got it though, and used it to great effect. The other two are a little socially reserved and neither of them took the initiative to suggest flashbacks, but one was really good at recognizing what the guy who kept trying to do shorter-term flashbacks was trying to accomplish with them and suggesting alternatives that would be more in line with the intent of the flashback mechanic while achieving similar results. Overall I was happy with the results, though if I were to try it again, I think I would try to be a bit more specific with when and how flashbacks can be used, maybe tying them to Inspiration, or a similar meta-resource. And I'd try to explain them a little better to avoid the issue of players trying to flash back to "right before we came into the guard tower" instead of "a couple days ago."

I used Jorlan's Gambit to kick things off and my players snuck into the guard tower and the armory first, in hopes of grabbing some hand crossbows and poisoned bolts, not realizing the Drow kept the poison separate from the bolts (to their credit, they did find an already-poisoned bolt thanks to the random roll for what they had on them, so it was an understandable assumption. This was partially successful, but they got caught before they could secure all the equipment they wanted. Tried to knock the elite guard out with the poisoned bolt, but he easily passed his save.

They pretty easily took out the regular Drow, and were doing decently against the Elite, all things considered. Eldeth tried to tell them to run while she held him back, and the NPCs did, along with one PC, but the others... Seem to be reluctant to run away from anything*. Even after the Elite two-shotted Eldeth (which would have been a one-shot had it not been for her poison resistance), they still tried to keep fighting, right up until the party Sorcerer was one-shot by him. The players made brilliant use of a flashback here to set up the Sorcerer diluting the poison used on the Elites' shortswords while she was on cleaning duty earlier in the week, which I permitted to remove the poison damage the Sorcerer would have taken, saving her life. Technically that should have saved Eldeth too, but I didn't want a flashback to ret-con more than a turn or so of action, and the adventure really sets her up to get killed anyway. That also finally got it through to the other players that running was the best plan, throwing a Ray of Frost and an Entangle back at the Elite to slow him down.

Meanwhile, the one PC who did run away with the other NPCs went into Ilvara's quarters with Prince Drendali to recover their gear. Luckily for my PCs, I rolled no one in either chamber. The PC got knocked out by the needle trap on the chest, but Drendali was there to shake him awake and the ecided to just take the whole chest with them and deal with opening it later.

The group met back up at the waterfall, where they planned to dive into the pool below, just as the Elite made it out of the guard tower. He called for help, though I ruled that this could only be heard by the guards in the East-side watch post and the handful of Quaggoths that were in their quarters, due to the noise from the waterfall. They made to blow the warning horn, and the PCs used another flashback to set up that they secretly emptied a chamber pot into the warning horn earlier while on chamber pot duty, which I found hilarious. I decided it muffled the sound of the horn and also sickened the drow who blew it.

The party took the opportunity to dive into the pool where they handily dealt with the Gray Ooze (it didn't even last a full round). And that was when I had A Flight of Demons kick in, to occupy the Drow in the outpost while the players followed Shuushar towards Sloobludop. That was where we called the session. I skipped the fight with the Vrok cause it was getting late by this point.

*(side note: this is exactly how we ended up in this situation in the first place; they got TPKed in the Goblin caves in the first session of Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I decided to have the goblins turn them over to Neznar, who in turn sold them to Ilvara rather than ending the campaign after the first session).

 

[Mike Mikesh]

Prisoners of the Drow

Overall I was happy with the results, though if I were to try it again, I think I would try to be a bit more specific with when and how flashbacks can be used, maybe tying them to Inspiration, or a similar meta-resource.

It sounds like you had a very good session. But, based on this experience, if you were called on to do this again, say for a convention, what specifics or meta-resources would you try applying next?