Getting into the Underdark

[Stormborn]

I am currently running a 3.5 campaign whose stated intention is to "do things we have never done before." So far its going well, but since we have never had an extended underdark campaign (nothing more than a few sessions or a single adventure) I am going to take the PCs down into the depths. I just need a way to get started. I have a hook, just not sure about the transitions.

Background detail: The PCs (who just hit 7th level at the end of the last session) belong to an organization dedicated to mapping and exploring. The main theme of the campaign so far has been looking for their lost mentors who disappeared before the game began, but not before summoning them together. They have been trying to follow the research that their mentors were doing so as to gain a clue as to what happened to them. They recovered a journal they know the mentors were looking for, but it was in code and even when deciphered didnt make any sense. Contacts in the organization have discovered that the man who wrote it is still alive, but is in prison.

What the PCs do not know is the man is actually in a private asylum in an underdark city known as Oubliette, placed there by the beings responsible for their mentors' disappearance. The PCs are going to have to go into the underdark and gain access to him if they want to decipher the journal. They will be given general directions to the city, but will be on their own to get there.

I need an access point for the underdark that will eventually lead to the first planned encounter: a confrontation with a warlock and a band of ogres that have taken over a bridge from some deep gnomes and are charging a 'toll' or robbing those who wish to cross (this I have stats for and will be the main confrontation of this weekend's session.

Long term I plan on having them pass through a myconid lair, a deep gnome town on the edge of the Sunless Sea, deal with pirates on the sea, maybe deal with a drow slave patrol, and eventually reach the city where they will have to figure out where the prisoner is being kept and how to get to him.

Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[Vascant]

I have been running one of my groups on a campaign that is set in the underdark for the past year and let me state now. It is not only been one of the most challenging to run but also has been perhaps the most fun had by players (This is saying something since most of this group has been playing over 20+ years).

1. There are quite a few books dealing with the underdark, get them all. You may not use them for everything but having a vast array of material to pull from will become key over the long haul.

2. Change of mentality, your descriptions and feel for your campaign needs to change to reflect the extreme nature of the underdark. The surface world is a super power when compared to the underdark, which is more like a 3rd world country with regards to how handles things. There are no vast empires with the ability to stretch out, small pockets of life is the theme here.

3. If you really want to get across the idea of how hard this world is, make sure you start taking into count details like vision, light, air to breath, food and security.

4. Watch the movie Cave, not for the creature but to get your imagination flowing for how to describe areas. At the same time it isn't always so confined either, there should be ways for merchants to move between some pockets of life.

Let me add one final note, no single book really covered this subject well. I purchased them all and still ended up having to create 66% of the material I used.

 

[Stoat]

Two classic access points to the Underdark.

(1) The Abandoned Dwarven Fortress: Long ago, this place was a hub of mining and manufacture. Its people trade not just with the surface folk, but also with the Svirfneblin and other inhabitants of the Realm Below. The stout dwarves perished ages ago, but their stone halls still link to the ageless caverns of the Underdark.

(2) Mammoth Cave: Not all of the Underdark's midnight passages keep a uniform depth. This natural cavern is a spur of the greater deeps which breeches the surface. A gaping hole in the side of a mountain leads to a network of natural tunnels that drop deeper and deeper and deeper into the earth.

 

[Twowolves]

How to get into the underdark? Turn over a rock in the Forgotten Realms!

 

[Paka]

They could...

...talk to a Dwarven King whose son was just killed by Drow poison. Many believe the assassin gained entry into his keep via an abandoned mine.

...visit a lost Elven citadel where the original rebel elves went into the tunnels, their prophet matrons following the whisper of a demon-goddess.


...seek the counsel of a vampire who is said to have taken his mercenary company into the Underdark for a few centuries before being hired by a losing Minor Noble House.

...ask a scarred Fire Giant who served the drow for a time in ages past and still nurses wounds and scars he gained while in their service.

...ask a captive mind flayer, prisoner in the highest tower of an arch-wizard, held like a trophy.

...ask a fallen paladin who attempted to lead a crusade into the Underdark and failed, in the process losing all faith.

 

[mmadsen]

Aren't you supposed to defeat a fire-giant king and find a mysterious map?

 

[Paka]

Aren't you supposed to defeat a fire-giant king and find a mysterious map?

It was an homage to a classic.

I reckoned some fighting and conflict would go into any one of the above choices.

 

[TarionzCousin]

"Oubliette"? As in

Spoiler

the city where Downer the Drow lives? That's a cool city. If you have the first Downer collected comic, it has a map of the city and brief key.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

(1) The Abandoned Dwarven Fortress:

I used something like this in a DarkSun campaign, and made the transition from surface to belowground into an adventure itself.

The party was not headed for the fortress, but was instead forced to find shelter in a desert keep because of a rapidly approaching force of hostiles. The Keep was still sound, but virtually devoid of supplies. This meant that the army that surrounded them couldn't easily get in...but could easily starve them out.

The party scoured the Keep, and eventually found a secret passageway out through the Keep's dungeons- a downward path that eventually led to an underground river.

And there are other ways:

...on a mission into the vaults and sublevels deep beneath a mansion (abandoned or not- your call as DM), the party literally stumbles into the real adventure when the floor collapses below them, causing them to tumble into the ruins of an older city from a non-human civilization.

...an associated NPC or some of the party (or a single- perhaps tardy player's- PC) gets kidnapped by slavers (or cultists, or your favorite evil organization), and the trail leads into the sewers. The party in hot pursuit eventually recovers the (N)PC(s), but not until they become thoroughly lost. What they believe to be the way out soon proves not to be...and the way they just came has become impassible for some reason. The only way out is ahead...

 

[Maldin]

How to get into the underdark? Turn over a rock in the Forgotten Realms!

ROFL!!!!!

There are quite a few classic mods and supplements that you can harvest ideas from, no matter what edition you are running.

The Giant & Drow GDQ Series (either original EGG mods, or the combined super-mod)
The Night Below boxed set
The 1E Dungeoneers Survival Guide

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com