D&D 5E OotA: Help tweak Slooplidoop

Chris Bain · Jan 9, 2016

My players are quickly approaching the Kuo-Toa city, if you've read the module you know the epicness that is about to take place. However; I feel the pacing is off here. The Kuo-Toa are such a crazy, alien, and bizzare species that it is a shame to not have an adventure within the city before continuing to the climax of the chapter.
I'm drawing a blank though...I trying to put together a little adventure for them to prove themselves to the whip and the other Kuo-Toa that they are indeed the right folks to help. Ideally I want a little adventure that would have them wandering around and encountering the strangeness that is the Kuo-Toa, but they are so weird that I am having problems figuring out what to do.
Anyone have any ideas? Maybe a module that I could insert here?
Thanks so much for any help you can provide

Goober4473 · Jan 9, 2016

My plan is to play up the political/religious rivalry. Perhaps each factions offers the player boats in exchange for support in some form? If Shuushar is with them, maybe his blessing would of one of the sides would help settle the dispute, or the players, as a neutral party, could be needed to convince, via minor quests, the key players in kua-toa politics (i.e. random people who may or may not seem important to outsiders). Or maybe each faction simply offer boats in exchange for some task, be it murdering their rivals, gathering materials, or driving off an external threat.

Then either the old religion wins or there's still a stand-off, but the new one does their ritual anyways, or the new religion wins and does it with more support.

Chris Bain · Jan 9, 2016

I really like the political angel here. I would love to run an adventure with little to no combat in which they had to deduce, explore, or converse. I like the idea of them trying to sway neutral parties to either side through menial tasks that become difficult due to the culture and nature of the species...

I seem to recall some book that had something to the effect of '50 adventure tasks for wizard' perhaps that would be a good launching point for tasks to help sway key figures. These figures could also have a huge impact on the reconstruction of the city if/when the PC's come back.

By sheer chance do you recall anything like that in any book?

Klaudius Rex · Jan 9, 2016

Well before my players hit Sloopbludop, i thre a bunch of random encounters of course to level them up. I also threw the Oozing Temple and even created my own custom battle encounter where they had to defeat a banshee. this banshee was the drow priestess that Serith killed (i know the book says he was supposed to have killed a male, but i thought it would be more meaningful and dramatic if he accidently killed a female due to his madness!). Serith's murder scene was on the Darklake, which is where the water from the Oozing Temple dropped them off.

I ran Sloopbludop as written, except after the whole Demogorgon thing, i had some of the kup-toa leaders recommend they speak "directly to the Great Sea Mother" in the hovel beneath her Temple. I placed a mosaic of Blipdooblop (or whatever her name was) there, which beneath was the Tomb of Khaem. Turns out, that the voices the kuo-toa thought was their goddess was actually Dawnbringer! (Hey, these fish people will believe anything!)

Uder · Jan 9, 2016

I'd have to dig it out of storage to be sure, but I think the AD&D boxed set Night Below had a Kuo-Toa city much bigger than Slooplidoop in it. Maybe there are some ideas in there?

Endur · Jan 9, 2016

D2 shrine of the Kuo toa. Some other under dark materials

Netherstorm · Jan 11, 2016

Check out Dungeon Magazine 102, an adventure called "Zenith Trajectory". You'll have to de-level it a bit (there's a black dragon). The Kuo Toa temple Bhal Hamatugn is one of my favorite dungeons ever. I think just the opening encounters make it worth it and fit right in with the darklake section of out of the abyss. The heroes actually are in a little rowboat that gets overturned by kuo toa, and then when they get to the temple steps kuo toa come pouring out of the temple with their sticky shields and attack. It's awesome.