Mercurius
Legend
I'm planning an Underdark-based "mega-adventure" in my homebrew world and am looking for advice, ideas, book recommendations, etc. I am co-DMing and the other DM was going to take the characters from 5th to about 8th level, then my Underdark sequence would go from about 9th to 12th or beyond, but it may be that it has to start sooner than that--at 6th level up to about 10th.
The basic gist is that the "Dark Realms" are virtually unexplored, except by a race of dwarves who speak of "shadow elves" and various monstrosities miles below the surface. The world above is recovering from a long apocalypse in which the speaking races had to hide within safehaven for centuries and only recently--about 150 years ago--came out and started re-establishing civilization (similar to Earthdawn).
I haven' figured out what the core plot line of this leg of the campiagn is--which is partially why I'm posting this--but there are a few elements that I'm working with and want to incorporate:
At this point I'm just brainstorming ideas (much of what I wrote above was on-the-fly as I wrote this post, and thus am not tied to anything).
The basic gist is that the "Dark Realms" are virtually unexplored, except by a race of dwarves who speak of "shadow elves" and various monstrosities miles below the surface. The world above is recovering from a long apocalypse in which the speaking races had to hide within safehaven for centuries and only recently--about 150 years ago--came out and started re-establishing civilization (similar to Earthdawn).
I haven' figured out what the core plot line of this leg of the campiagn is--which is partially why I'm posting this--but there are a few elements that I'm working with and want to incorporate:
- Dark elves. They are unknown in the world above but will play a large role once the PCs get deep enough. They are actually the descendents of elves who abandoned their "tainted" children millenia ago, who fled into the earth and were taken in by Lleothma, the Spider Goddess. They, of course, seek to enact their revenge.
- "Onion layers of evil." Imprisoned within the center of the world is a sleeping primordial deity of immense power whose influence emanates outward. This being influences some kind of elder beings, who in turn influence aboleths, who in turn influence illithids, who in turn influence the dark elves, their enslaved dark dwarves, goblins, etc. This deity isn't necessarily "evil," just very alien and powerful; the aboleths (and/or whomever they serve) seek to awaken it, which could bring about the end of the world.
- "Journey to the Center of the Earth." I like the idea of an extended underground expedition that goes deeper and deeper and deeper...this aspect of the campaign would be, to some extent, exploration for the sake of exploration--it would entail discovering new (and often bizarre) caverns, races, creatures, etc.
At this point I'm just brainstorming ideas (much of what I wrote above was on-the-fly as I wrote this post, and thus am not tied to anything).
