Jürgen Hubert
First Post
Here is what happened last session:
The whole thing started in the Moonwood, in the Silver Marches of the Forgotten Realms. After saving Quaervarr from a group of lycanthropes, the party (consisting of an aasimar druid3 of Selune with a celestial wolf animal companion, a human ranger2/cloistered cleric2 of Oghma, and an elan psychic warrior1/psion3 - all good-aligned) was determined to travel further north - they wanted to see the Endless Ice Sea (Why? "Because I'm sure it will be a great view!"). They had found some obscure references to a location called "The Mouth of Songs" in some books (in other words, they had seen it on the map of the Silver Marches supplement and decided to investigate). When questioned about the place, the half-elven huntsmaster of Quaervarr only smiled and told them to hide nearby on a moonlit night (as well as how to get there).
They did this, and saw three naked drow women do a sword dance on a moonlit clearing accompanied by faery fire. After the performance, they vanished into a hidden cave entrance.
They found this highly suspicious, and decided to enter the cave complex as well. After some wandering and a hostile encounter with several giant centipedes, they found an apparently well-traveled road where many wagon trails had passed. They followed it in one direction, and hid from a caravan consisting of a drow, six grimlocks, and an ogre who went into the opposite direction.
After this, they decided to press further onwards, and after some further travel, they went around a corner and saw a drow outpost - apparently a toll station constructed over a subterranean river. They immediately retreated and extinguished their torch, but they realized that someone at the outpost had probably seen them. So what did they do?
They decided to go to the outpost and pretend to be traders looking for rare minerals...
Now imagine my situation. I had intended the dancing drow worshipers of Elistrae to be nothing more than a "flavor" encounter - something to show them some hints about what else is out there in the wider world. I had thought that they would continue to travel further north through the Moonwood, where I had planned some encounter with fey and some Shar cultists seeking to release an ancient evil, and further north a few encounters with a tribe of orcs. I had made a note somewhere about the giant centipedes, which I hoped would convince them that the Underdark is a dangerous place to be for a bunch of low-level PCs, but everything after that was improvised. I had hoped that seeing the caravan pass by would convince them to turn back, and when that happened, I had hoped the toll station would do the same trick. I had not thought that they would be so brazen as to try to bluff their way past the drow. But now they did. So I did the only thing I could do.
I let them pass.
The drow commander didn't really believe their story about being merchants, but he was corrupt enough to let them pass after taking 80 gold pieces of them as "toll" (hey, he was a drow - and besides, these three humans hardly looked like a threat to anyone...). When asked for a nearby inn, he communicated in halting common: "Menzoberranzan - three hours", and pointed along the road. And the cleric did recognize the name...
But still, they pressed onwards. After two hours, they passed a caravan led by a mind flayer (which the psion recognized from his knowledge of psionic matters), which further scared them. But still, they moved along the road. Several other trade roads joined this one. And finally, they came to a large shanty town occupied by a large number of non-drows - and in the distance, they saw the spider-adorned gates of Menzoberranzan.
At this point, I gave all the PCs the necessary XPs to reach 5th level and called the game for the night, and said since the party had ran off into a completely unanticipated direction again, I needed some time to prepare new things, as I didn't want to completely improvise all the encounters in the city. Hearing this, all the players expressed great surprise, since they had believed the adventure was going off exactly as planned...
Sigh. Players!
Anyway, I need your help here. I don't have all that much information about drow and Menzoberranzan - only the stuff found in the FRCS, Silver Marches, Lords of Darkness, and Faiths and Pantheons supplements. I don't have the Underdark book, nor any of the old AD&D stuff, and the only novels I read revolving around a drow was the Icewind Dale triology.
Now, while I am not at all concerned with violating "canon", I would like to have a better idea of what they might encounter down there - especially in the non-drow part of Menzoberranzan, since the drow are unlikely to allow them into the drow part. What kinds of beings could be found there? What kinds of encounters and adventures could they have? And how can they get away from this again without sounding to contrieved?
I don't want to kill them off - I am enjoying the party dynamics and the party. However, I do want them to be very, very scared so that they think twice before rushing into obvious danger like this again...
So let me hear your ideas - the more twisted, the better!
The whole thing started in the Moonwood, in the Silver Marches of the Forgotten Realms. After saving Quaervarr from a group of lycanthropes, the party (consisting of an aasimar druid3 of Selune with a celestial wolf animal companion, a human ranger2/cloistered cleric2 of Oghma, and an elan psychic warrior1/psion3 - all good-aligned) was determined to travel further north - they wanted to see the Endless Ice Sea (Why? "Because I'm sure it will be a great view!"). They had found some obscure references to a location called "The Mouth of Songs" in some books (in other words, they had seen it on the map of the Silver Marches supplement and decided to investigate). When questioned about the place, the half-elven huntsmaster of Quaervarr only smiled and told them to hide nearby on a moonlit night (as well as how to get there).
They did this, and saw three naked drow women do a sword dance on a moonlit clearing accompanied by faery fire. After the performance, they vanished into a hidden cave entrance.
They found this highly suspicious, and decided to enter the cave complex as well. After some wandering and a hostile encounter with several giant centipedes, they found an apparently well-traveled road where many wagon trails had passed. They followed it in one direction, and hid from a caravan consisting of a drow, six grimlocks, and an ogre who went into the opposite direction.
After this, they decided to press further onwards, and after some further travel, they went around a corner and saw a drow outpost - apparently a toll station constructed over a subterranean river. They immediately retreated and extinguished their torch, but they realized that someone at the outpost had probably seen them. So what did they do?
They decided to go to the outpost and pretend to be traders looking for rare minerals...
Now imagine my situation. I had intended the dancing drow worshipers of Elistrae to be nothing more than a "flavor" encounter - something to show them some hints about what else is out there in the wider world. I had thought that they would continue to travel further north through the Moonwood, where I had planned some encounter with fey and some Shar cultists seeking to release an ancient evil, and further north a few encounters with a tribe of orcs. I had made a note somewhere about the giant centipedes, which I hoped would convince them that the Underdark is a dangerous place to be for a bunch of low-level PCs, but everything after that was improvised. I had hoped that seeing the caravan pass by would convince them to turn back, and when that happened, I had hoped the toll station would do the same trick. I had not thought that they would be so brazen as to try to bluff their way past the drow. But now they did. So I did the only thing I could do.
I let them pass.
The drow commander didn't really believe their story about being merchants, but he was corrupt enough to let them pass after taking 80 gold pieces of them as "toll" (hey, he was a drow - and besides, these three humans hardly looked like a threat to anyone...). When asked for a nearby inn, he communicated in halting common: "Menzoberranzan - three hours", and pointed along the road. And the cleric did recognize the name...
But still, they pressed onwards. After two hours, they passed a caravan led by a mind flayer (which the psion recognized from his knowledge of psionic matters), which further scared them. But still, they moved along the road. Several other trade roads joined this one. And finally, they came to a large shanty town occupied by a large number of non-drows - and in the distance, they saw the spider-adorned gates of Menzoberranzan.
At this point, I gave all the PCs the necessary XPs to reach 5th level and called the game for the night, and said since the party had ran off into a completely unanticipated direction again, I needed some time to prepare new things, as I didn't want to completely improvise all the encounters in the city. Hearing this, all the players expressed great surprise, since they had believed the adventure was going off exactly as planned...
Sigh. Players!
Anyway, I need your help here. I don't have all that much information about drow and Menzoberranzan - only the stuff found in the FRCS, Silver Marches, Lords of Darkness, and Faiths and Pantheons supplements. I don't have the Underdark book, nor any of the old AD&D stuff, and the only novels I read revolving around a drow was the Icewind Dale triology.
Now, while I am not at all concerned with violating "canon", I would like to have a better idea of what they might encounter down there - especially in the non-drow part of Menzoberranzan, since the drow are unlikely to allow them into the drow part. What kinds of beings could be found there? What kinds of encounters and adventures could they have? And how can they get away from this again without sounding to contrieved?
I don't want to kill them off - I am enjoying the party dynamics and the party. However, I do want them to be very, very scared so that they think twice before rushing into obvious danger like this again...
So let me hear your ideas - the more twisted, the better!
All three would probably be excessive, though - especially since the next session is next Thursday.
