D&D 5E Wacky Underdark Hijinks

[hobbes]

Hey all,

I'm running a 5e campaign for a bunch of 12-14 year old kids (my son and his friends) who are fairly new to the game, and loving it! I have planned a campaign that will take them delving into the Underdark and surrounding areas, as it's such a great creepy vibe down there.


So here's my dilemma: I need a sourcebook to pull the geographical/social details from. I'm not so much worried about the mechanics/crunchy bits, as I'm a veteran D&D nerd who's reasonably comfortable with pretty much every edition since AD&D. I'm completely expecting to update stats from the Monster Manual or rolling my own as needed, so that's not really a concern.


The 5e book "Out of the Abyss" is Underdark-centric, but is much more focused on the storyline contained within and isn't really 'pure' underdark. It's got a lot of the whole abyssal subplot thing going on that I have no desire to include in this campaign.


4e's Underdark book looks promising, especially given WOTC's tendency during the 4e+ era of adding in lots of great RP flavor text and art to their books. 4e is radically different, mechanically speaking, but since I'll need to disregard that anyway, it's not a huge concern.


3e's Underdark book is probably the most likely to be 'close to mechanics compatible' to 5e, but I'm not totally sure about how fleshed out the structure and fluffy details are.


SO... any thoughts on which of the three books I should go to for source material, and why? Thanks!

 

[KahlessNestor]

I don't know 3e's book. 4e's will be more comprehensive of the whole Underdark, as OOTA is centered on the Sword Coast North Underdark. 4e will be a bit outdated, though, given the Sundering, and isn't FR specific, but more for the "default" POL setting. The FR Campaign Guide for 4e should have more on the Underdark there, though, afain, it's pre-Sundering.

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[hobbes]

Thanks, Kahless. I'm looking for something a little more abstracted from things like The Sundering, so that's not a problem. I'm not actually tied to the Realms for this, so if the 4e book is more directed toward the 4e default "Points of Light" setting, then so much the better.

I appreciate the feedback!

 

[Plaguescarred]

If you can get AD&D 2nd edition Drow of the Underdark, Menzoberranzzan or Drizzt Do'Urdens Guide to the Underdark it's great ressources for Underdark.

 

[TarionzCousin]

If you can get AD&D 2nd edition Drow of the Underdark, Menzoberranzzan or Drizzt Do'Urdens Guide to the Underdark it's great ressources for Underdark.

These are all available at Drivethrurpg.com.

The 4E book is not tied to the Forgotten Realms. However, forty-two pages are dedicated to the "Underdark" realms on the Shadowfell and Feywild planes.

 

[Charles Rampant]

I'd say, since I am currently reading through OotA, that it wouldn't be that hard to disengage the Abyssal elements from the setting descriptions in Out of the Abyss. Ultimately the core conflicts of each area (Gracklestugh, Blingdenstone especially) are only being highlighted by the Abyssal storyline: they existed fully prior. In addition, the demons themselves are surprisingly scarce from the encounter tables, possibly to keep things useful for pilfering. The big benefit that it has is, I guess, a nice modern layout (full colour and all that jazz) and having modern mechanics for all the fungi and whatnot.

I've consumed a lot of 2e supplements in my search for Waterdeep information for my own game. They tend to have dreadful art, and to go into impressively excessive detail about stuff that really isn't player facing, but merely interesting for the DM. On the other hand, that detail tends to leave no stone unturned, so if you can successfully absorb and remember it all then it can give you a really solid bedrock from which to build your own story. 3e and 4e supplements tend to give huge amounts of wordcount over to useless things (for 5e!) like Prestige Classes, new spells, new feats. This can mean that up to 40% of the pagecount of a given 3e supplement is actually useless for 5e purposes.

Just some thoughts.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I already used OotA for underdark background things. In my opinion it gives a good impression and has a lot of useful tables. I can also recommend adnd 2e "a night below" adventure for descriptions of various wonderous caves.

 

[Greenmtn]

Forgotten Realms Wiki site has a lot of information on underdark history, cultures and geography.

 

[hobbes]

Thanks for the feedback, everybody. This is exactly the sort of information i was looking for!