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Arthedain
Acolyte
16 Posts |
 Posted - 28 Jul 2006 : 12:33:15
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Hi
I'm running City of the Spider Queen at the moment, and my players have just finished the Szith Morcane-part. The players have decided to take an alternate route towards Maerimydra instead of through the Deep Wastes, and I could use some help/tips on encounters and stuff to throw at them. Preferably something fun :). After DMing the group for 4 years I could probably benefit from something a bit original, I guess.
The party consists of 5 characters:
Human Paladin14 of Helm
Human Ftr12/Rgr2
Half-drow Ranger9/Bard2/Arcane Archer2/Cleric2 of Solonor
with cohort: half-elf Ranger2/Cleric10 of Solonor
Aasmimar Fighter12
Human Sorcerer13
After finding Dorina's map of the Underdark, they decided that they wanted to take an alternate route to Maerimydra, instead of going through the Deep Wastes. I have given them several ingame hints that teleportation underground is hazardous to their health, and thus they want to head back to the surface, teleport to Shadowdale, and go beneath the Twisted Tower and try to find a path to Maerimydra.
Of course, this means that the entire section on the Deep Wastes is pretty much wasted. My problem is that I haven't been able to come up with some good ideas on what they should encounter on the way from Shadowdale to Maerimydra :/. I have some small ideas, but nothing that kind of stands out from the rest. I could of course just let them come to Maerimydra very quickly, but then I'll have to downgrade all the monsters, and I don't want to do that. To much work, and it sort of degrades the accomplishment.
1) The Twisted Tower: I have the 2nd ed campaign box, and thought about using the adventure therein. Probably throw in a couple of different encounters, but nothing dramatic. The potential drawback here is that the halls below the Twisted Tower are massive, and it might not be fun to battle low-level creatures, and draw maps in order to find out where they are :/.
2) An aboleth and his slaver brood. They have encountered slavers in the Shadowdale area before, and I could possibly use this as a spin-off of the previous encounters.
3) I could perhaps use some stuff from The Deep Wastes section, like the naga caves.
4) I would really like to give out a holy avenger for my paladin, but can't for the life of me come up with a fitting heroic semi-epic mini-plot.
Puh, a bit long. Hope someone had the patience to read it through =).
Thanks in advance for any tips
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Edited by - Arthedain on 28 Jul 2006 12:34:28
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Chosen of Bane
Senior Scribe
USA
552 Posts |
Posted - 28 Jul 2006 : 13:05:45
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Maybe have them run into a city of Duergar before they reach Maerimydra. That can try to use slealth to travel through the city without being seen, they can attempt to use diplomacy and barter with the Duergar for safe passage, or they can attemp to fight a city of Duergar.
Other than that, I think the ideas you have already listed sound just fine to me.
You can also utilize Mind Flayers and other denizens of the Underdark. |
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YRM
Acolyte
17 Posts |
Posted - 28 Jul 2006 : 13:06:13
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We're playing that campaign now too. A friend is running it alternately between my campaign.
We also skipped the deep wastes, and tried to enter the underdark through the Twisted Tower.
We found out that the chosen of Mystra had sealed that entrance to the Underdark very well, as permanently as they could (might as well start digging a tunnel randomly).
But the DM didn't cut us off from a surface route... we gained a very brief audience with a weakened Elminster, recently returned from a trip to Hell (see Elminster in Hell), and found out that we could travel to Ashabenford and head down through a ruins near the town of Hap.
We had several overland encounters and reached Hap (one encounter was pretty fun, with a swarm of rats attacking our river boat).
A Myrmedra Drow Wizard did catch us near Hap at one point (I guess Scrying) and we faced a host of summoned foes that came at us after he tossed Evard's black tentacles on our campsite.
Finally, we solved a trap on a seal and opened a passage to the underdark that wound past a Huge Red Dragon's lair (dunno if it was in the books or still DM improv).
We reached the gates of Myrmedra and encountered some Fire Giants and Heavy Patrols along the way...
I found the way our DM handled it to be pretty realistic, and the surface encounters pretty much evened out with what we might have gained by going through the Underdark the whole time. |
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Ergdusch
Master of Realmslore
Germany
1720 Posts |
Posted - 28 Jul 2006 : 14:05:40
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Well, first there is a web enhancement exclusivly for the CotSQ Adventure giving additional encounter options (See Testoril's Bookshelf/Web enhancements at Candlekeep - I would have liked to add the direct link of the WotC page but the side seems to be down at the moment. Sorry!) Other then that there are two other Web enhancements for the Underdark sourcebook which might give sou some new ideas also.
I played the adventure with my campaign as well and we skipped the deep wastes as well. Here my solution:
I created a special adventure site on the players way through the Underdark - the Tower of the Fugitive! It was an abondent Wizards Tower protected by lots of traps in the entrance level and a few oddities on first and second level. On third level they found the crazed wizard who built the tower, a refugee from Meriamydra, by now a demi-lich. They destroyed him, found his spellbook with lot's of portal magic in it. With the help of those spells the group's wizards analysed the portal and *swooosh* they stood in the middle of the destroyed city surrounded by enemies.
Might have been of help, I hope. Good gaming,
Ergdusch |
"Das Gras weht im Wind, wenn der Wind weht." |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
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City of the Spider Queen - An alternate route....
