Suggestions for Underdark Encountera

[Garnfellow]

I'm looking for a few sessions worth of encounters to round out my underworld campaign. I was hoping folks could suggest some nice encounters featuring aboleth, derro, duergar, or mind flayers. And not necessarily all at once, either. I'm not looking for full-fledged adventures featuring these monsters, just some encounters with them that I could rip out and use for 3 or 4 sessions -- a section of a module, sourcebook, or magazine article all would be fine, for example. 3.5e is preferred, but any edition of the game would be cool, too.

For example, I'm looking at the "duergar city" area described in the deepearth section of Dungeoneers Survival Guide. Some neat ideas to mine, but not much detail.

I really can't think of a good derro lair, though.

As always, any help is most appreciated!

 

[Raloc]

Dungeon #144's Adventure Path has a few really cool Underdark monsters(my fav. is the big white insect thing with the freaky squid head (somewhat illithid-ish. It's like the illithid's answer to the Drider or something hehe)). MMIII has the void-mind template which is fun(used it to great effect IMC, since the characters really got a kick out of the green slime in the forehead, as they went pretty gung-ho at trying to disable it (they basically extracted it from the guy's (I was using it on a human) head and used magical fire to make a glass container for it because they thought it was alive! XD). In the "synergy" thread, people were mentioning using elementals with illithid.

 

[Land Outcast]

Derro Lair
A huge crack extends from north to south, measuring some fourty feet at its narrowest -here- where a wood-and-rope bridge covers the gap, it seems to be well mantained.

The crack extends downwards (where it ends in a "lake" populated by some chuuls), but some hundreth feet below the bridge we already have -thanks to the humidity- a heavy layer of fungi and moss firm enough to support medium creatures (altough combat is another matter entirely, strong movements causing combatants to sink into the moss).

The crack also extends upwards, where -30 feet above the bridge- a Derro group lives in a cavern on the wall of the crack, and have decided the passage through there was for them to toll.

Should someone try to use the bridge, they'll descend at the bridges ends with sliding cable contraptions of their own making which have enough extension to reach the moss and fungi layer under the bridge. Should someone try to cross magically, their Savant will cast Dispel Magic upon the offenders, and then the rest will descend quckly to finish off their prey. (note that small creatures have no problems with combat on the moss layer given their light weight, and that anyone plummetting from the bridge aside from receiving 5d6 damage, also sinks into the moss, treat as quicksand).

 

[krichaiushii]

There is an issue of Dragon (with a sexy female drow on the cover) that discusses the underdark. Among the highlights is a Duergar city that is built among huge stalagtites) the hanging down, not pointing up ones), that has a tavern built into a point of a stalagtite that is connected to the rest of the stalagtite via a huge chain.

I have always treasured that image. Perhaps you can graft that into an inn or waystation of some sort.

A toll bridge run by some intelligent race is always worthwhile too (though often easily circumvented by people who can fly).

 

[Zaruthustran]

Go on at least one cave tour in real life. Ideally an overnight wild cave outing, where it's just you, a buddy, and your headlamps against the darkness.

You'll experience tunnel-vision. You'll get dirt in crevices you didn't even know you had. You'll forget weird concepts like "green", "blue", "spacious", and "dry". You'll look at a hole the same diameter of a basketball hoop and think to yourself, "I should crawl into that hole--it's plenty big, and it could lead to something cool". This thought will seem perfectly reasonable to you.

You'll come to understand that caves--real caves--are wet, dusty, dirty, twisty, cramped, flat, multi-level, and utterly alien. They're fun to explore.

Why this matters: your Underdark expeditions will be much more interesting. They won't be 10' wide passage of rough stone. They'll be canyons one foot wide, extending 30' up and down, the characters shimmying along on 3" serrated stone ledges that occur every 6 feet or so--the remnants of the stream bed that's cut it's way through successive layers of rock and still flows below (all caves* are created by water). Or they'll be clambering over a wide room, once with 20' of clearance between floor and ceiling, but now filled to within 3' of the ceiling by "breakdown": chunks of broken rock from an earlier partial cave-in. Or they'll be walking along the bottom of a passage (which usually means wading through a shallow stream) when they notice the ceiling getting lower and lower until the passage ends with the ceiling reaching the surface of the water--the stream has "sumped", and they need to backtrack or go for a swim (and hope the ceiling resurfaces downstream).

Or they'll be camped out in a nice and dry area, and suddenly the cave is entirely full with water: it rained a few miles away, and all that water needs to go somewhere. Caves are literally drains, and water from miles and miles around winds up flushing through cave systems (or raising the water table enough for the cave to entirely or partially sump.

Your players will appreciate the extra detail and being presented with challenges that don't have hit dice. If there are no caves in your area, rent or DL one of the NOVA or National Geographic Explorer episodes that deal with caves. Or look up the National Speleological Society's homepage: Caves.org.

-z


* At its most fundamental level, a cave is a canyon with a ceiling. The Underdark is essentially the Grand Canyon, or rather, the Grand Canyon if it were sunk a mile or two below the surface of the earth.

Lava tubes are caused by lava. They're not caves; they're tubes. Cracks in the ground from tectonic action are cracks and/or fissures. Tunnels dug by man or animal (or monster) are tunnels. Caves are created by water, usually a stream that still flows and that may be exposed on the surface or submerged into the land.