Tell me about your Underdark campaign(s)

[Mercurius]

Past or present, any edition. I'm designing an Underdark mega-adventure/mini-campaign that will take a group of 4ed PCs from about 8-9th level well into Paragon Tier, so we're talking 5-7 levels, maybe 15-20 sessions. Anyways, I'm gathering Underdark ideas and want to offer a really good, classic Underdark exploration jaunt with some plot lines interwoven. I want to include the "best of" the Underdark: everything from mushroom forests to a drow city to an under sea inhabited by aboleth, etc.

So I'm looking for ideas. What sort of Underdark campaigns have you run? Tell me about them.

 

[delericho]

My only experience with the Underdark came in real life, while visiting a friend in Arkansas. One day his father in law took us to see a set of salt caverns (IIRC). I was struck by several things:

- It was really dark. Sounds obvious, I know, but on the surface, even in the dead of night, there's usually some light. Down there, the only light was what we took with us, and that didn't travel far.

- The colours were very strange and alien. Things were slick, and purple and green.

- It was impossible to judge sizes beyond a very short distance. Down there there wasn't really any convenient reference points, so it was difficult to judge distances, which in turn made it hard to get perspective.

- Despite all this, there was plenty of life down there. It was a nice, even, warm temperature, and there were lots of small bats flying around. Presumably, they must have eaten something, which implies insects, or plant life, or something similar.

It really was a fascinating experience.

 

[unan oranis]

I've always had a blast running underdark, especially evil cities.

I like the underdark experience to start out as an insane, intense jungle of chaos and danger - but by the end the characters have learned so many secrets they'd have a shot at navigating even the most difficult zones as 1st levelers.


10 tips/ideas in no particular order:

1. Only localized areas of interest need to be mapped; vast tracks of labyrinth "wilderness" should be navigated with some form of skill challenge or similar puzzle structure.

2. Push a geological theme in different areas; as opposed to endless grey stone tunnels. Amethyst diode caverns, malachite fissures, stalagmite forests etc. You can find loads of interesting rock formations/mineral textures online and extrapolate them into a whole terrain type.

3. Lean heavier on sounds, smells, temperatures and drafts of air in area descriptions (as opposed to visuals)

4. Give some chances for the players to observe or participate in super weird ecology.

5. Vertical encounters/terrain. Many areas could be very narrow vertically, or taper down into leg trapping cracks. Ledges, walls and murder-holes can feature heavily in underground combats.

6. Closer to the surface you will find more hidden assets of surface dwellers (necromancers stash spot, secret temples, prisons), semi-surfacing monster lairs and some scouts or commandos from the underdark civilizations.

7. Deeper down you will find a bizarre ecology where everything is different, alien landscapes, loads of tough monsters and deadly perils yet also signs of civilization and relatively low level humanoids performing labour.

8. Right in the cities players can easily discover a variety of potent, organized threats to their way of life. There may be a few shocking connections to the surface world, linking major corruption, slave trade and liquid evil to organizations that have excellent PR on the surface.

I usually make the capitol underdark city at least an age or two more advanced than anything the characters would find on the surface. A magic heavy metropolis - sort of an evil "jetsons" - gets a big impact after spending the last dozen sessions in relative isolation.

9. No mercy. I think journeying into the underdark should feel like switching from animal kingdom to insect kingdom. If there were ever a time to throw in a super-run-away monster it would be here.

10. If you can find a copy of "campaign sourcebook and catacomb guide" grab it. It was one of those softcover guide books for 2e; really a great one in my opinion.
Its got a lot of underground hazard ideas and some very nice dungeon maps in the back too.

The first three Drizzt books are a must read if you are going to include drow.

 

[catsclaw227]

Goodman had a 3.x underdark book that focused not on "Underdark" the place, but underdark the geographical type. The advice was mostly fluff, but it was dense and the crunchy parts could be easily converted to 4e.

Also, there might have been a FFG Legends & Lairs book that dealt with underdark too (I think).

 

[Mercurius]

Delericho, thanks for that--great descriptive stuff.

Unan Oranis, very helpful list--and it complements what Delericho described...very visceral (I had that book years ago but sold it long ago...maybe I'll have to track down a copy again). I especially like the "evil Jetsons" idea, which fits well with my conception of the drow, who haven't been seen in millenia and are the "dirty little secret" of the above ground elves (the drow were deformed children whom they abandoned underground, who went deeper into the earth and discovered a massive spider being, Lleothma, who took them in as a kind of surrogate mother).

Catsclaw, I saw that book--is it any good? I own the 3ed books FR Underdark, the Drow of the Underdark, and the Pathfinder Darklands supplement, but am still collecting good resource material. I'm thinking of finding a copy of the box set, Menzoberranzan. And of course the 4ed Underdark book will be out in a couple months, around the time I'm going to start.

 

[catsclaw227]

Catsclaw, I saw that book--is it any good? I own the 3ed books FR Underdark, the Drow of the Underdark, and the Pathfinder Darklands supplement, but am still collecting good resource material. I'm thinking of finding a copy of the box set, Menzoberranzan. And of course the 4ed Underdark book will be out in a couple months, around the time I'm going to start.

I liked it more than the FR book because it wasn't setting specific and had a more "generic underdark" take on things. Lots of good stuff on light, flora, fauna, traps, molds, spores, geological events, terrain, denizens, survival, etc....

I recommend it. Others might find it too generic.

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks, Catsclaw--that sounds pretty much what I've been looking for.

 

[Zanticor]

You just have to get hold of the Night Below boxed set. It's AD&D so it needs some converting, but the theme is of all times. First above ground events start spinning out of control. Then it might seem the kua-toa are to blame, but of course there is something deeper and darker orchestrating all the events... Some dark and hidden power from the deep is trying to get some order back into the chaotic upper world and that's not some democratic order if you where wondering.

Zanticor

 

[Mercurius]

I've thought of picking up the Night Below, if only for idea-mining. I've heard not so great things about it as an adventure, but it is the only actual published Underdark mega-adventure/mini-campaign out there that I'm aware of.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

Jeff Long's novel The Descent is full of real-world spelunking mixed with military horror & speculative theology. I didn't like it as much as fiction as some did, but it's definitely good source material.

The shortlived low-level Underdark campaign I played in had two memorable sequences:

- We followed the tracks of something we were pursuing and found that it went through a waterfall & down a U-shaped underwater passage where we had to dive down before we could come up again; we risked drowning, being battered on the rocks, etc. (and later realized there was a disease in the water as well). The lethality & difficulty of just dealing with the environment made this rock.

- On the other side was caverns full of still air that we were forced to confront by our unwillingness to go back through the water trap; at the end we found a trogdolyte wizard's lair with a secret door that led to a vast underground lake. The change of scale here, from claustrophobic to wide-open, was awesome.