Undermountain

[DM_Fiery_Fist]

Greetings everyone!

I recently had a group of characters in my online campaign decide to enter Undermountain for a "short excursion". They were in Waterdeep on other business and by happenstance chose to stay at the Yawning Portal. Since many of their characters were from lands far removed from the Western Heartlands (such as Mulhorand, Kara-Tur, etc.), they weren't familiar with the history of Undermountain. After hearing a few tavern tales, one of the more eccentric characters tried to convince the others to engage in a brief "outing" into Undermountain (for the record, the players aren't that familiar with the Forgotten Realms and therefore had never heard of Undermountain before). Though I don't claim to be an expert in Forgotten Realms lore, I am basically familiar with Undermountain, and I had a copy of the old Ruins of Undermountain and Ruins of Undermountain II modules. I was also pleased to see that Wizards of the Coast has begun a new Undermountain feature as well. However, the characters have now become lost on the second level of Undermountain and I've been searching for some more resources to help me flesh out the adventure. Are there any veterans of Undermountain here who can point me in the right direction? Are there any fan sites that might have maps or custom encounters that I could use in my own campaign?

I'm running an epic-level group, so I've had to make the setting FAR more lethal than it originally was...after all, I didn't want the dungeon to lose its reputation. Once again, I'm no expert with epic level games, so this is all a new experience to me. If there's anyone out there who might be willing to share some Undermountain resources on this thread, that would be much appreciated. Anyone else who has some devious dungeon tricks that they don't mind sharing would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again everyone,

Josh

 

[Hannibal King]

Well the beauty of Undermountain is that basically you can throw in any dungeon based encounter you want. My old 2nd edition group had a blast with it. In went a Paladin, a Wild Mage, a Barbarian and a Cleric... out came a Vampire Anti-Paladin, a Ghoul Wild mage, a Minotaur Barbarian and a Drow Cleric of Ghaunadaur. This was the same party!

Don't know of any fan sites though. Being a dungeon crawl probably doesn't make it story worthy in the roleplaying sense of the term.
HK

 

[Rudar Dimble]

I don't have any resources at hand right now, but I can give you some devious dungeon tricks (although some of them might already be in the Undermountain modules you have):

1. make the dungeon's lay-out change every time they close a door behind them
2. throw in a room with an anti-gravity field in it, with an invisible pit trap hanging on the ceiling
3. (do this in combination with 1.) have them meet a little cheerful guy sitting behind a desk writing in a book (he is actually a fiend trapped inside the dungeon...may be the party finds out, but that's fun too). After a bit of chit chat, he tells the party he knows the way out of the dungeon (he tells them he doesn't want to leave, because Lord Piereigon of Waterdeep gave him orders to stay there and help adventurers and protect the innocent from Halaster). If the party is interest in his information on how to leave the dungeon, he hands them a book, which he tells contain maps of the dungeon. When they read it, the book appears to be a Book of Vile Darkness (protected from a Detect Alignment spell off course)

If you want more ideas, please let me know.

 

[DaveMage]

First of all, compliments on your avatar.

Second, the nice thing is, you can pretty much throw in *any* small module at any point in the dungeon.

Check out the next Dungeon magazine, which will have an adventure for 30th level characters.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Undermountain is an absolute classic dungeon. My gaming group always had such fun with it, and we never really got any further than the second level.

I've no experience with epic level characters, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Upgrade the wandering monster tables so that everything is either advanced, or you use the random monster tables from one or two levels below.

A lot of Undermountain's encounters involve tricks that no amount of power can overcome without the PCs actually putting their thinking caps on. Much like the Tomb of Horrors, they can't rely solely on their characters abilities to get them through.

 

[Arnwyn]

Are there any veterans of Undermountain here who can point me in the right direction? Are there any fan sites that might have maps or custom encounters that I could use in my own campaign?

I'm running an epic-level group...

Well, not for the levels that you're currently playing, but Steve Allen's ongoing Undermountain update is worth looking at for ideas (though it's for lower level, and in 2e stats):

http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/roum/roum.htm

 

[DM_Fiery_Fist]

Thanks again for all of your responses. Hannibal King, how in the world did the barbarian get turned into a minotaur? I suppose you could have a lot of fun with a baleful polymorph trap. It sounds like you guys had an excellent run in Undermountain...I'm guessing that this party will emerge a bit worse for the wear as well.

Rudar, thanks for the great ideas. I particularly like the idea of the fiend in disguise, I'm going to slip that one into one of the unmarked rooms and let them have some fun with it.


DaveMage, compliments to you on your avatar as well, as well as your signature. Both come from excellent sources. I hadn't yet thought of throwing in another module into the dungeon--that's an awesome idea, and that would save me a lot of work. Dungeon is putting out an adventure for 30th level characters? Finally! I could certainly use some assistance in designing epic level adventures, I'll make a note of that one and see if I can get it. Does anyone know when it hits the stands?

Jyrdan, thanks for the suggestion, I just now found the wandering monster tables in the module. Advancing lower-level monsters is a very good idea, I'm guessing that my players won't expect to face off against something that's quite a bit more challenging than they originally anticipated. I'll also look up some stuff on the Tomb of Horrors, I've heard the tales of that infamous place as well. Was that a Greyhawk module?

Arnwyn, thanks for the link. This site has huge amounts of material! I'll see if I can find a conversion guide for some of his NPCs, they would work very well for my campaign. The encounters will also be an excellent place to start...I've got access to all of WoTC's Monster Manuals, so hopefully I can come up with some interesting foes.

Thanks again everyone,

Josh

 

[Rudar Dimble]

Rudar, thanks for the great ideas. I particularly like the idea of the fiend in disguise, I'm going to slip that one into one of the unmarked rooms and let them have some fun with it.

You're welcome. Please let me know how it went with the fiend (in PM or something...or in this thread). I'm dying to hear your stories about it!

 

[DM_Fiery_Fist]

Spelljammer

Sounds great, I'll let you know if anything particularly interesting develops. They are preparing to meet with Lord Hund, so I'm working to make him powerful now so that he will be a challenge.

On another note, I've found some mention of Spelljammer when researching Undermountain. While I've heard the term before, I don't really know what it means - I've seen pictures with ships flying through space, but I've never really been told what it is. Could anyone explain it to me or perhaps point me in the right direction, in case my players happen to get to that level?

Once again, many thanks to everyone,

Josh

 

[Hannibal King]

Thanks again for all of your responses. Hannibal King, how in the world did the barbarian get turned into a minotaur? I suppose you could have a lot of fun with a baleful polymorph trap. It sounds like you guys had an excellent run in Undermountain...I'm guessing that this party will emerge a bit worse for the wear as well
Josh

Paladin was teleported into a circular chamber with no apparent exit, inside was a female vampire, the room was her coffin, the paladin attacked but was soundly beaten and then turned into a vampire. The rest of the party later killed her and the paladin became a free-willed vampire who petitioned Orcus for Anti-Paladin status.

The Barbarian went through a portal and did a solo adventure which turned him into a minotaur, he remained that way after returning to the party.

The Wildmage switched minds with a ghoul via a bad wild surge roll, and he's own body was killed with the ghoul inhabiting it. We ruled the ghoul body was now his.

The cleric was actually a drow disguised as an elf who revealed himself when he found the lost temple of Ghaunadaur. He carried glass spheres filled with green slime that he would hurl at enemies.

At this point the party become technically evil or as they prefered to call it 'morally ambigious'. We continued for a while in UnderMountain before the campaign ended. It was lots of fun.

If you can find the Myth Drannor box set, alot of material in that can be ported over to UnderMountain as well.

Good luck with your game.