Need some noncombat underdark encounters/challenges

[Psion]

Hey all

I just got done with a hairball of an adventure in which the players took on some dark elves dominating a surface lizardfolk city. (See the Rogues Gallery link in my sig for more details.)

I am about to bridge into City of the Spider Queen.

To put it succinntly, I need something to bridge between all the combat and give the players a chance roleplay and use other skills a little between scenarios.

The current situation:
The party:

• Andrinor: Human (dragon-legacy template) Sorcerer 20. Cocky blast-mage sorta guy.
• Meara: Sea Elf(1) Rogue 21. Mobster's daughter with a heart of gold. Okay, maybe not gold. Maybe brass. Howzzat?
• Tallo: Half-dragon Psychic Warrior 18. Ronin dragon-knight who wishes to see his leige released from the spell of a powerful sorceress.
  Tallo's Cohort - Drake - a Dragon Horse(2)
• Lark: Wood Elf Ranger 10 / Soul Archer(3) 10/Fiend Stalker(6) 1: Last remnant of a wood elf village slain by Drow. Out for revenge.
  Lark's Cohort - Eevertine: Water Elf(3) Cleric 12, domains Water, Knowledge
• Trent: Dwarf Druid 10 / Bear Lord(4) 10. Seeking to avenge the drow experimenting on animals. (The character was a bit more effective than I thought he would be).
• Coria: Metal Elf(3) Monk 8 / Initiate of the Draconic Mysteries(5) 10. One of the few known surviving elemental elves, survivor (and short-time prisoner) of a dark elf raid.

(1) - NOT Aquatic Elf. Sea elves are a variant of high elves in my game that have a seafaring culture.
(2) - From Tome of Horrors, except with a better illustration, like the one on the front of the 1e Oriental Adventures.
(3) - From Green Ronin's Bow & Blade
(4) - From Masters of the Wild
(5) - From Draconomicon
(6) - Custom Trinalia Class, see this thread.

The Situation:
The party, after totally ignoring a jucily-baited hook being dangled right in front of them, decided to go dungeon bashing in the so called Labyrinth of the Undercity (aka Ruins of Undermountain). There I had them meet a dark elf that they captured, who revealed to them the information I had intended them to get from their first hook. Namely, that an oft-alluded too but never seen villain from earlier in the campaign, Matron Xune, was successful in overtaking a Dark Elf city. They have their prisoner lead them there.

As of the end of last session, the party was just entering Shadowport (aka Skullport). For those not familiar, Shadowport is an underground city where (comparatively) much trade occurs.

For next session, I am bridging into part 3 of the City of the Spider Queen via tunnels and portals. So either in the Shadowport or along the way, I need a few ideas for interesting or potentially useful diversions.

So, either in Shadowport or along the tunnels and portals that lead to the City of the Spider Queen (which is my world is Haundrauth), I need some ideas for non-combat challenges to take up a good part of a session.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Don't know spells and equipment but simple climbing up and down shafts, crossing a chasm, dealing with a flash flood, gas pocket, spoors & fungus, are harzards could cause some issues.

Rope bridge crossing, strong winds are rushing through the chasm, making flight difficult and dangerous, the only way accross is an old rope bridge being battered by the howling winds, you can't even hear each other yelling because of the force.

The muck, the caven is large disappearing is darkness but the cealing low, before you, from wall to wall bat droppings. As you step forward your foot sinks to your knee, insects and other things move out of your light, movement is slow and it takes a lot of energy to pull your legs from the muck. What, Ranger Bob sucked into a hidden pit, someone throw a rope!

While these can be overcome with spells/equipment, they are spell suckers, you never know what may happen around a turn so players will hold the spells or try and go without.

 

[MarauderX]

Run a 1-session adventure where there is no plot, just dungeon delving with some old fashioned hazzards, much like 'The Hand' suggested. Have a few skirmishes with kobolds or something else with tenacity to strike and flee repeatedly, and whenever the party follows they fall into the next trap. Have it set in terrain similar to that suggested and suddenly they aren't on equal ground anymore, and the kobolds know it, using it to their full advantage.
Be creative with vertical distances too, as PCs could be running uphill only to have the kobolds pour vats of oil down the slope while firing crossbows at them, then light it on fire and run to escape in the ensueing thick smoke. Have some more traps along the way that blind or deafen the PCs, and throw in a Cloaker to wrap up the last PC in the line to slow them down. Mess up their low-light vision, douse their torches, and dispell their lights while crossbow bolts rain down on them as cover fire. Use a thunderclap to play with their hearing and suddenly a caster may have trouble with verbal components, and the party has negatives to listen checks to hear kobolds Moving Silently. Add in a cloud of mushrooms that spit spores into the air when disturbed that blocks vision in an area and the kobolds try to backstab once or twice before fleeing again. Make the BBEG kobold a 6-8th level sorcerer that can make a bunch of mega-kobolds with some super-enlarge spell and have them all be high-STR monks that Death-From-Above grapple from stallagtites above. Again have more traps to deafen and blind the party as the first tactics instead of aiming to do damage. Keep in mind the kobolds probably only survive against the drow by blinding and deafening then backstabbing them.

 

[Polydamas]

Anytime underground is a bad time for an earthquake. In Skullport, mass chaos as the ceiling drops and buildings are swallowed. In the tunnels, extrra funs as players are seperated and are slowly crushed. Maybe its some giant cirtter passing through? And the most exciting thing: old trade route tunnels may be unpassable, and new routes are open, to strange new areas....

 

[Psion]

Er, wow. I'm not thinking this is the time for cataclysms. I think some interesting NPC encounters in Skullport is more the speed of what I was looking for.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

-Here s a bizzare idead, are there any myconid colonies near the drow cities that are threatened by the drow? The myconids, wanting to avoid confrontation with the drow have overpopulated a dungeon with fungus of all sorts and have some how brought the mass of fungus to life and given it sentience to act as a sort of gigantic living dungeon guardian that screens out intruders and obscures the location of the myconid cities away from violent intruders. Unfortunately, the giant fungus guardian has become upset being used by the myconids and has sealed them inside and begun "ingesting" nearby inhabitants of the underdark, trapping them- unharmed- within itself. The party gets "eaten" and must negotiate for their freedom and the freedom of the mushroom people. The giant fungus intelligence is not evil, just cranky. If you wanted to tie it to the drow, perhaps the drow did something mean and nasty to make it unhappy in the first place. This might work well since you have so many nature-loving characters in your party.

-The characters come upon a ghost adventuring party of surface-dwellers that died fighting the drow, perhaps an surface elf war party against their hated bottom-dwelling cousins. The ghosts still think they are alive and the characters must convice them they are dead. The characters may need to do so over the ghosts' dead bodies .

-The characters encounter a group of Ellistrae worshipping drow fleeing from persecution from the drow cities. These not-so-evil drow are low on basic supplies like food and water. Will the characters help members of such a vile race as the drow? You might play up the possible hatred the elves in the party and the dwarf druid have towards the dark elves.

-The PCs encounter an extremely empathic illithid psion that has reformed somewhat from its evil ways. It was once an extremely proficient harvester of brains until one day the brains of all of its victims started to tear away at its mind. It started to assume some of the mentalities of some or all of its victims, as illithids absorb the neurological tissues of their victims. It also became increasingly aware of the intentions and emotions felt by all of the dreatures around it. After linking with an elder brain and hearing the truth about what awaits old illithids, this illithid psion goes "insane" and flees from its kindred out into the wilds of the Underdark.

 

[Psion]

If you wanted to tie it to the drow, perhaps the drow did something mean and nasty to make it unhappy in the first place. This might work well since you have so many nature-loving characters in your party.

That certainly has possibilities.

That would probably make the druid/bear lord happy.

-The characters come upon a ghost adventuring party of surface-dwellers that died fighting the drow, perhaps an surface elf war party against their hated bottom-dwelling cousins. The ghosts still think they are alive and the characters must convice them they are dead. The characters may need to do so over the ghosts' dead bodies .

That has possibilities.

-The characters encounter a group of Ellistrae worshipping drow fleeing from persecution from the drow cities. These not-so-evil drow are low on basic supplies like food and water. Will the characters help members of such a vile race as the drow? You might play up the possible hatred the elves in the party and the dwarf druid have towards the dark elves.

I am using the "Promenade of Eilistrae" as defined in the Dragon regarding undermountain, so I have a good setup for that one. The main role-playing issue here would be keeping the followers of Eilistrae from the party's conscripted guide and keeping the drow hating ranger in the party from fouling things up with the followers of Eilistrae.

 

[Piratecat]

I ate up an hour by giving the group a cavern full of albino birds. Just normal birds preying on beetles, now blind but hunting by sound. They cast detect evil on the birds, they cast detect undead on the birds, they cast detect magic on the birds, they talked to the birds....