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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2449 Posts |
 Posted - 11 Jun 2005 : 09:15:46
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I've been reading Night Below: An Underdark Campaign, a mammoth adventure that a fellow DM friend of mine called "scary, scary bad," and I have to agree. That's got to be one of the nastiest adventures I've ever encountered, esepcially considering the huge number of psionic monsters.
So, being the evil DM that I am, I'm thinking of running a group of mine through the adventure. Being a stickler for Realms realism, however, I'm trying to figure out exactly where to place it. The Introduction says that it can be integrated into an existing campaign, including FR. However, nowhere does it give any ideas about where it should go.
Has anyone here run the adventure? If so, how'd it go? Any interesting stories? Also, where did you put it? I'm trying to avoid sticking it up in the North, but the number of different terrain types present in Haranshire sort of limits locations. I thought about nearer to Waterdeep, maybe making use of the Marsh of Chelimbyr, but then you'd expect it to be a little less of a backwater. Anyone have any opinions? And I don't even want to think about trying to square up the underdark maps with those from Drizzt's Guide. It's already making my head ache.
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Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
Edited by - Hoondatha on 11 Jun 2005 09:16:12
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Lord Rad
Great Reader
United Kingdom
2080 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jun 2005 : 09:36:45
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I'd certainly be interested in hearing how this adventure works out for you, Hoondatha. I've had this on my shelf since I bought it back when it was first released and have often thumbed through and hoped to run it some day. Unfortunately, not of the adventurers ever get to a position in which I can bring the adventure into play  
Be sure to post back here and let us know how it goes. |
Lord Rad
"What? No, I wasn't reading your module. I was just looking at the pictures"
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tauster
Senior Scribe
Germany
399 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jun 2005 : 13:47:52
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i am running NB since 5 (!) years now (gaming appr. every 3 weeks) and the group still has only about 40% done. the reason is that i use the story arc of NB as the centerpiece of the campaign and have added lots of sidetracks, trying to weave them into something that resembles a living world...
after the pc discovered that mages and priests get kidnapped on a larger scale, they started to search for rumors of dissapearances in other reagions of faerun. slowly, i let such rumors trickle down to them, hinting that these kidnappings seem to happen on the whole northern coast of the sea of fallen stars and seemingly even in thay. ...and seeing my players faces slacken when they discovered that some magic users also dissapeared in the general vicinity of waterdeep was a great feeling!
however, itīs entirely up to the dm to decide how large the scale of the "magic user- kidnapping" is. considering that a whole city of aboleth (read their description in die mc (both 3e and 2e) carefully to understand the full potential fo these creatures!) itīs entirely possible that once they started to get their tentacles on mages, priests and so on, they decide to operate on a "global scale", for getting a considerable number of victims while avoiding to "overfish" individual regions (and risk to get discovered), as well as diversifying their "fishing grounds".
i placed the haranshire in the beastlands, the eastern part of mistledale. it is one of the few "unused" (i.e. not covered with realmslore) spots in the dales and ideal for NBīs purposes. i donīt have a working scanner here, else i could upload the A3-map i have drawn. anyway, some geographical details:
- the city of the svirfneblin is located closely to glen, a dwarven settlement in eastern mistledale (see edīs comment on glen last year: http://www.candlekeep.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1901&whichpage=30)
- fandruzschīs cave (the shadowdragon) lies directly east of the "walls of night", the eastern cliff of arkhendale. i could not resist and added an large illusion-cloaked opening to the cave, implying that the shadowdragon could come and go whenever he wanted- flying right above arkhendale. my players have yet to come up with a use of that route, which leads from mistledale (their now-beloved "homedale") to arkhendale (which they have not visited so far but didnīt like itīs agressive charakter).
- the slime-temple was converted into a temple of gaunadaur (sp?) and lies deep (and without apparent route) under ordulin. adding a hidden door with route leading up into the city is easy, linking the campaign further with the realms. just have a small cult of your favourite slime-god set up shop (or shrine) somewhere in the city --> instant happy cultist-hunting - game session!
- the sunless see lies under the see of fallen stars, so it has to be the glimmersea (see "underdark").
- itīs also possible to add routes to maerimydra in the north (which i havenīt done so far), or the abandoned dwarven city of thunderholme where aurgloroasa resides, an undead shadowdragon of truly epic power - which happens to be the mother of fandruzsch, now plotting to get revenge against the party for destroying her son...
there are lotīs of allies the players can make:
- tilverton is the nearest city worth mentioning, about 4 days from milborne*. the players befriended Filani of Tantras, (a mage and scholar), galaerd mossmere (sp?), the temple of gond, the thieves guild (our two thieves are guildmembers), several shop owners and so on. they have avoided the "officials" (cormyrean guards, war wizards etc.) from the beginning, which might have something to do with the two our guild thiefs... 
* milborne is a NB hamlet of some 400 folk which lies just south of the moonsea ride, only a few miles east of the thunder peaks. itīs the first settlement one comes by after leaving tilvers gap.
- i added a minor dwarven settlement called "morimest" in the northern thunder gap mountains, a small colony from thunderholme that survived the fall of itīs mother-city, deciding to stay hidden from the world. one pc hailes from morimest (which was originally created as background for him and added later to the campaign through several sidetracks).
- there are two major temples in mistledale: the abbey of the golden sheaf (chauntea) and a temple of silvanus.
- another major player, and a plot twist i added: inzeldrin, the green dragon in the thornwood (cormanthor south of mistledale) is
a) of good alignment (at least iīve tried hard to convince the players of that),
b) the self-proclaimed behind-the-scenes- ruler of the dale (a bit similar to elminsters role in shadowdale) and
c) the father of one pc (which was revealed in one of our most atmospheric game sessions ever).
he was one of the few chromatic dragons allowed to live in myth drannor and decided to defend mistledale after the fall of the elven city. he is a mage of power (...of course! ) and seems to have itīs claws in more plots than he has scales.
having such a powerful ally can easily ruin game balance, so i added another plot: dretchroyaster (see the 2e cult of the dragon) is inzeldrinīs brother and has recently (game year = 1370/1371) found a spelljamming helm, so that inzeldrin has all claws full with not only countering his brothers plans on the ground but also trying to bar him from transforming into an spelljamming dracolich - effectively occupying inzeldrinīs time and leaving him only few ressources to help the party...
and than there is... hmmm... it just happened again: averytime someone mentiones NB i start rambling on and on. 
[edit]: some NB campaign websites:
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/zimriel/NightBelow/ (great site!)
http://www.bluearch.net/night/
http://www.castle-grounds.co.uk/nb/home.htm
http://www.bronzewood.net/nightbelow/
http://jhoover2.home.mindspring.com/nightbelow/
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Edited by - tauster on 11 Jun 2005 14:13:14 |
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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2449 Posts |
Posted - 12 Jun 2005 : 04:48:08
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Wow. Thanks Tauster. I'm going to need some time to go over your post in detail, but it looks great. A lot of thought went into it, obviously.
I'm a little worried that my player's will run for the cavalry. How do/did you keep them from running up to Shadowdale, et al? I've also been thinking of setting the campaign in the past (not quite Arcane Age, but maybe somewhere around 900-950 DR) for a change of pace, so that could probably help as well.
Now all I need is the be-all of timelines. Anyone know where I can find it? |
Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 12 Jun 2005 : 04:55:01
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I don't know if the calvalry will always be able to come from Shadowdale. If you set it in the current time line Elminster gets dropped into Hell when the Shade Enclave comes back, there are Phaerimm agitated in Myth Drannor, El spends some time in Cormyr investigating some things for Mystra, the Rage of Dragons starts to the north of the Dales, and eventually in the Year of Lightning Storms the Daemonfey will be clashing with elves in Myth Drannor.
The Underdark may seem tame by comparison. |
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tauster
Senior Scribe
Germany
399 Posts |
Posted - 12 Jun 2005 : 11:21:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Hoondatha
Wow. Thanks Tauster. I'm going to need some time to go over your post in detail, but it looks great. A lot of thought went into it, obviously.
I'm a little worried that my player's will run for the cavalry. How do/did you keep them from running up to Shadowdale, et al?
[ SNIP ]
quote:
Now all I need is the be-all of timelines. Anyone know where I can find it?
the only timeline i am aware of is http://pages.sbcglobal.net/zimriel/NightBelow/timeline.html , but it only covers past events. i donīt have a set timeline for the adventure itself, because i "go with the flow", i.e. i adjust the events to my players actions: if for example they take a sidetrip to waterdeep following yet another sidetrack (a plot about freeing turaglas the ebon maw, see dragon #312), i give them the time and donīt have half the dale get kidnapped meanwhile. let the "surrounding events" be just enough to give them the feeling that they might succeed. if they think the whole thing outgrows them completely, it was too much. they should think that with luck and good planning (preparation has become party-principle since the beginning of the campaign there is a chance, if only a small).
my way of handling the story flow: i have half a dozen other stories woven into the main plot. three different cults (turaglas, tarizdun and moander. somewhere here in candlekeep thereīs a thread where i described the whole mess), different dwarven settlements (including a campaign of liberating tethyamar), some (few!) harpers, dragon cultists, two good aligned dragons (inzeldrin from NB itself and felgolos "the flying misfortune" (see wizards website)), two evil ones (aurgloroasa and dretchroyaster), an evil mage the party freed from the underdark much like they freed jelenneth before, and who was identified as being (neutral) evil but is loyal to the party, helping them from afar (i absolutely love playing alignments otherwise than their cliché suggest ), a zhentish mage here and there, and so on.
my players have made a to-do-list with enemies they know they should (and could, if they decided to) take care of, but donīt have the time to. they know that this is why elminster would be of no help: his to-do list must be several tomes thick!
so is my way of coping with the cavalry...
apart from fleshing out the campaign world (which was inspired by edīs style of letting the players choose from a multitude of options), the purpose of this abundance-of-plots is to balance out that the combat encounters are generally more or less easily won by the pcīs. without the feeling that thereīs a whole bunch of things that doesnīt get done while they are kicking some underdark racesīs butt (...my words, not theirīs), they would get snotty, and that would kill the atmosphere of dread the campaign needs.
btw: having a large caste of characters enables you to link seemingly independent plots with each other in unexpected ways, which guarantees a deep story atmosphere! example:
in our next session, one player will find out that his very own past is linked with the current adventure: in his "former live", he was an powerful (arch-)mage from the plane of shadows who was one of the leaders of a group of "planar mercenaries". after they crosstraded a group of baatezu in a minor campaign of the bloodwar (which was a sidetrack in another campaign i dm with mostly the same players, so they will recognise the plot), the cabale was hunted down until only two members were alive: he and another leader. they decided to escape definitely by reincarnation, starting a fresh life on another plane (without losing their memories & abilities of course; powerful (planar and necromantic magic should be able to do this).
now he will meet his former companion (a drow wizard from the plane of shadow), who will discover to his dismay that his "collegue" has lost most of his former self. in spite of this, he still feels something like loyalty to him, thus helping the group to hunt down the cult of turaglas that fled to the plane of shadow - and revealing parts of our mages background along the way.
...side note: when your players canīt or donīt like to come up with background stories for their pcīs, just let them have amnesia, complete or in parts! it gives you the possibility to do all kind of cool things later in the campaign.
quote:
I've also been thinking of setting the campaign in the past (not quite Arcane Age, but maybe somewhere around 900-950 DR) for a change of pace, so that could probably help as well.
it depends on how much work you want to put into the whole thing. setting it in the arcane age means that
a) youīll have either to find a way of limiting the pcīs actions to the area covered (netheril or cormanthor, depending on which arcane age setting xou chose) or youīll have to come up with a detailed gameworld beyond the scope of these sourcebooks, which means a lot of work.
b) thereīs a great deal more "cavalry" than in recent times: netherese arcanists or elven magic (high or not) is a lot more powerful and abundant than today, and it might be harder to give your players reasons not to summon these powers.
...hmmm. another rambling post of mine... sorry for that! |
Edited by - tauster on 12 Jun 2005 11:26:47 |
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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2449 Posts |
Posted - 12 Jun 2005 : 23:37:08
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| No problem. Rambling posts filled with information are more interesting than bad, and yours are definately in that category. |
Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
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Crust
Learned Scribe
USA
273 Posts |
Posted - 15 Jun 2005 : 01:39:50
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I ran Night Below back in the late 90s. The group was treasure delving in a side tunnel surrounding the Sunless Sea, and they unearthed a drow lich who was put in stasis there, guarding an ancient dwarven tomb. The campaign ended soon after.
I placed the module beneath Shadowdale. The goblins caves of Cavenauth led to beginnings of the dungeon delve. |
"That's right, hurl back views that force ye to think by name-calling - 'tis the grand old tradition, let it not down! Anything to keep from having to think, or - Mystra forfend - change thy own views!"
Narnra glowered at her father. "Just how am I to learn how to think? By being taught by you?"
"Some folk in the Realms would give their lives for the chance to learn at my feet," Elminster said mildly. "Several already have."
~from Elminster's Daughter, Ed Greenwood |
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Night Below: An Underdark Campaign
