Underdark - anyone has it?

[Maldin]

The underdark was created, of course, with EGG's original GDQ series of 7 adventures from 1978 (and later repackaged as the GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders supermodule in 1986). In 1995, Carl Sargent's Night Below boxed set redefined the idea of an underdark campaign, and heralded the coming of the next generation of underdark adventure materials. However, the real grandfather to the underdark sourcebook was the highly underrated 1E Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, published in 1986. All underdark sourcebooks after it owe much to the totally new ground it opened up, and many of those later products can trace their history to ideas from that book that were greatly expanded upon.

By coincidence, the latest update to my website, posted a mere 2 weeks ago (and still finishing up some of the last bits), is a layered pdf map of the underdark beneath the World of Greyhawk (and accompanying descriptions), combining the GDQ adventure series, the Night Below campaign setting, and the locations described in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. If you are thinking of running an underdark campaign in Greyhawk - using any of the sourcebooks described earlier in this thread, and using any edition of D&D - this regional-scale map could place it all in geographic context. For example, the Drow of the Underdark 3E sourcebook by our very own Ari Marmell/aka Mouseferatu could easily be used to flesh out Area 28 of my map. I haven't seen the new 4E book yet, but I'll have to check it out, and maybe include user notes on my webpage.

Do click on the link to download the PDF. The map jpg image on the webpage really is just a glorified thumbnail for the layered, high-resolution map.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

 

[Jack99]

The 2e book(s) had that as well, and the 3e Underdark book as well had a lot of detail of terrain, unique non-city locations etc. It's not something that was lacking previously from what I've read and what I took from it.

I didn't mean there was no detail of terrain or unique non-city location, merely that the focus of the Underdark book has shifted. In previous edition, the cities and their inhabitants took up by far the most space in the books, this seems not to hold true for the latest version (although I haven't sat down and counted pages).

So Shemeska, did you like the 4e version?

 

[Rechan]

Anyone know what the hell an Incunabulum is?

 

[hexgrid]

Does the book have anything to offer that I don't already have?

Besides what you mentioned yourself- stuff about Torog.

 

[Jack99]

Anyone know what the hell an Incunabulum is?

Check out the previews, slacker!

 

[Rechan]

It just drops their name in the Shadowdark, but doesn't spell out what they ARE.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

It just drops their name in the Shadowdark, but doesn't spell out what they ARE.

If you download the pdf, there's a section on origins of the incunabula and their physical qualities.

EDIT - Here's the link to the pdf excerpt.

 

[Rechan]

Oh. Thanks!

 

[Seravin]

I just picked it up and am going to start reading it tonight.
My first impression is that it's lighter than the previous Underdark books and I'm not expecting the kind of detail that I've seen in the others. Overall topics seem to take up less than a page (I'm sure there are exceptions), but it looks like less info per topic than what we got in the prior Underdark books (which depending on whether you like dense text or light text text can be good or bad).

A quick flip through it brings up a few surprising and interesting things.

Congrats to Mr. Kulp for the additional design credit.

The books take on the aboleth is interesting. It departs from prior canon but looking at it as dispassionately as I can, it's not a bad interpretation (just different). Essentially they're described as a creature from the far realms, looking part slug and part fish with tentacles. The text posits that the aboleth may not truly be intelligent as we know it, but working on some fantastically complex set of instincts to spread the corruption of the Far Realms.

Overall it looks like some useful small set pieces that can be dropped into an existing campaign. To me it feels like other 4e books, so if you like Planes of Chaos, you'll probably like this.

 

[Shemeska]

The books take on the aboleth is interesting. It departs from prior canon

It's not really anything new however. The Aboleths were previously described in 3.x as creations of (by whimsy or design) Piscaethces the Blood Queen, an entity from the Far Realms.