Things to do in the sewers....?

[Pbz]

Hi all.

I´ve finally got around and made a city adventure. Right now I´m populating the sewers with all sorts of evil things. But Í need help to make up locals for them. So what places can You come up with..? Right now I have built some catacombs (of course since the city is built on top of a ancient Necropolis) sewer lines and a pumpstation but I need more. Much more.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Drains out to the local body of water. Most of them are slow-moving and gentle, the better for wererats, thieves and adventurers to sneak in and out, but some of them are fast-moving and will shoot unwary adventurers out into the outside bodies of water. And, of course, one or two actually open up high up cliffs.

And the ones you expect to have grates that open easily won't always, especially when being pursued by Something Awful through the sewers.

 

[Jolly Giant]

You know, the number of locales you can realistically expect to find in a sewer is rather limited... If there are things living down there; dire rats, moon rats, othyugs (sp?), goblins, kobolds or maybe a band of lizardfolk, then they might have had to make their own locales.

There are plenty of critters in the MM who might find it convenient to leech of a city's resources without being seen. They might well have gone to the trouble of digging out their own dungeons down there; they don't neccessarily have to live in a room that was originally built for some other purpose.

If you go deep enough down, beneath the sewers (but dry!), there could perhaps even be a dragon's lair. Maybe a good dragon who secretly guards and looks after the city? Maybe a golden great wyrm, sleeping (King Arthur-like) until the day it needs to save the city from some grave treath? Maybe a young black dragon, secretly stealing from the city's wealthiest inhabitants? Maybe an ancient red wyrm who's slept for centuries, but are awoken by nosy & noicey PCs; it then unleashes a wave of terror over the city, eating people and looting the city's gold, and the PCs are blamed for waking it?

 

[Hand of Evil]

People say sewers but it really is more to it, you have sewers: waste disposal, the you have aquaducts: fresh water, then maintenance tunnels: movement of goods and storage, then you have cellars and catacombs, then ruins: hollow places from older buildings. Add to that connectors and you have a lot of stuff.

See this thread on a salt mine:
THE WIELICZKA SALT MINES
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=93746

other plot from the news
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=92431

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=90874

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=91344

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=89416

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=86316

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=91269

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=110379

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=106090

 

[Swordsage]

A sign at the drain head saying "Don't wear your best sandals"

-- George Krashos

 

[jmichels]

One thing you could try is to have an evil cult worshipping a god of decay living down there. They can have turn a section of tunnels or a pump station into a fortress and bribe (or infiltrate) the Sewermen's Guild to keep their presence quiet. They could also control some wererats that they can use as spies. Give the wererats some sort of terrible sickness that they can pass to the PCs.

Also you can have a nest of Awakened Otyughs that are clerics or sorcerers or something. You can have them control the Sewermen's Guild and use them as pawns in some sort of evil scheme. Or make them some sort of twisted Druids that keep their smelly ecosystem running. Or instead of Otyughs you can use a cell of Alienists looking to take over the city to use as a portal to the Far Plane.

Another thing you could try is to make the local thieves/assassins guild populate a network of carefully drained and dried tunnels that they use as a lair. You can even make them Wererats or Dopplegangers for added fun.

 

[Len]

There could be scavengers who dredge through the sewage looking for random junk that got washed into the sewers - coins, buttons, rings, etc. Maybe they live down there (in some of the old catacombs) and have a flea market where poor people go to buy the junk they find.

 

[demiurge1138]

Nothing says fun like ghouls, ghasts and sewers. The noxious stink of the ghasts can be mistaken for filth, and the undead can hide indefinitely beneath the surface of the foul water, waiting for something to disturb them. This is especially good as you claim there's a necropolis down there.

And am I the only one who sees a scavenger colony of goblins as a more likely humanoid race for sewer-dwelling than lizardfolk? The goblins mooch off of things lost and stolen, and are led by a few wererats, who hold the goblins to loyalty with threats/promises of infection for bad/exemplary behavior. If you're set on reptilians, go for troglodytes. The trog-stink is a form of scent-camouflage, and they can blend into the background to hide from larger predators (carrion crawlers, otyughs, giant albino alligators, what have you).

And whether or not you have wererats, normal ones should be found in force down in the sewers. Rat swarms, dire rats, you name it. The dire rats would probably also be the primary foodstock of the goblins or trogs living down there (unless the tribe was led by wererats).

Demiurge out.

 

[Pbz]

Thanks all of You... Now to get some more building done.

 

[Poster Bard]

Thieves Guild in the sewers in (Adventure) Cooperative Dungeon 02 - Halls of Anarchy, FREE from Creative Mountain Games and the excellent contributors of EN World.