Essential Elements For An "Underdark" Campaign


Second Darkness

51 to 71 of 71 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

Shadowborn wrote:
Savage_ScreenMonkey wrote:
In a way Drow are an iconic underdark race. I dont think that you can think about the underdark without thinking (wether you love em or hate em)about drow. Really I have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand their wicked cool villians, but on the other they are really over used and everyone knows more or les what to expect from them. Im really hoping in this AP that the drow will have some kind of twist or special to reinvigorate such a classic race.

In one of my home-brewed worlds I replaced the drow with a different race of subterranean elves. They were tall and pale. One would think they were albinos like most cave-species, except that their eyes were pools of darkness.

I kept the spider affinity, and a goddess that had some similarity to Lolth, but gave them a taste for necromancy and a habit of raiding surface settlements for subjects to experiment on, then releasing the ones that "survived" back on the surface. My players seemed to hate them appropriately, so I call it a success.

THAT'S BRILLIANT!!

I absolutely love this idea for an under ground race of elves. I may have to "yoink" this.


To be perfectly honest...I both love and hate the drow.

I love the drow from the D-series modules.

[Braces for cries of "blasphemy!"] I hate the drow as depicted by R. A. Salvatore. In particular...Drizz't.

I mean...c'mon! Everytime I hear someone try to say his name I want to say "gesundheit!"


A lich that never realised it died? :D
Those used to be a recurring theme.. 14 years back.

Or a young mageling that went below, fought to survive and eventually ran out of food.. still looking for a way out. But now that he´s/(she´s?!?) dead, cannot exactly go above anymore. Wants players perhaps to contact family... a few runs around that, as the family is desperately poor while the ashamed lich is rather wealthy and has a small palace of sorts.
(*"but.. you must like me.." perhaps its a younger brother, who wants to be accepted even tho hes dead now)

Great waystation too for the players in their expeditions ever deeper.

*ps: a line my lillbro gave me once, we were watching mortal kombat, and i used that line -you fool. Well in swedish it sounds a lot like you ful = you are ugly... which those actors all were :D
Anyway, he was saddened by the thought that his big brother perhaps didnt like him... aww..

Dark Archive

Gurubabaramalamaswami wrote:

To be perfectly honest...I both love and hate the drow.

I love the drow from the D-series modules.

[Braces for cries of "blasphemy!"] I hate the drow as depicted by R. A. Salvatore. In particular...Drizz't.

I mean...c'mon! Everytime I hear someone try to say his name I want to say "gesundheit!"

When I first started reading Salvatore I fell in love with Drizzt. Unfortunatly, aside from his melancholic/depressive slumps the character has no faults. I mean the guys needs to get his ass kicked in a fight, and then train like the dickens to overcome the foe. Sort of like a rocky movie or somthing.

I did like the drow from the War of the Spider Queen novels particularly Pharaun and Ryld.It was a great example of how the drow can work both against each other and together.

But from Salvatores stuff I have to say that my all time favorite characters are Entreri and Jaraxle. More Entreri than Jaraxle. I would still like to see a rematch of Entreri vs. Drizzt with Entreri the victor, but Im sure that will never happen.


Shadowborn wrote:

In one of my home-brewed worlds I replaced the drow with a different race of subterranean elves. They were tall and pale. One would think they were albinos like most cave-species, except that their eyes were pools of darkness.

I kept the spider affinity, and a goddess that had some similarity to Lolth, but gave them a taste for necromancy and a habit of raiding surface settlements for subjects to experiment on, then releasing the ones that "survived" back on the surface. My players seemed to hate them appropriately, so I call it a success.

You should check out the Shadowelves gazetteer from Mystara. You'd be able to use a lot of the ideas out of there since you're on the same path that these guys were when they came up with the idea. The Shadowelves got even more badass in the delightfully awful "Wrath of the Immortals" adventure.


DudeMonkey wrote:
You should check out the Shadowelves gazetteer from Mystara. You'd be able to use a lot of the ideas out of there since you're on the same path that these guys were when they came up with the idea. The Shadowelves got even more badass in the delightfully awful "Wrath of the Immortals" adventure.

Hmm...I may have to go lurking on eBay and see if I can't dig up a copy.

In the meantime, I was thinking back to one of my favorite underdark adventures in Dungeon, "Kingdom of the Ghouls." Now that was a great adventure. Plenty of ideas that could be taken from there...like bat riders, flooded cities inhabited by nasty uglies, and just a very Lovecraftian bad vibe all around.


Lovecraftian horror. Something weird, intelligent, and awful. IT SHOULD NOT BE! Something that Kazroug would cheerfully have covered up with a lake (as in the Storval Deeps), that might have crawled it's way underground to make a lair of awfulness.

***************

While underground elves should probably be pale, part of what I love about Golarion is that it's the campaign setting of my youth that was never realized. I loved the "D" series, with Erol Outus' black skinned elves and day-glo armor. I accept that his particular art style is not contemporary, but I'd like to leave the "morlock" features to all the morlock races.

And morlocks in the adventure are fine, just not for the drow themselves please.

******************

Eye candy to go with the awful horror. There was a good point about matriarchal societies. I'd like to pretend it wasn't a good point, honestly, but my brain won't allow it. My answer to that would be to provide eye candy for both genders.

****************

What about beings of elemental nature? Like these Janni? For the earth element? (I'm old school remember, I just looked at the SRD Hypertext and saw that 3.5 did some weirdness.)


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Watcher wrote:


Eye candy to go with the awful horror. There was a good point about matriarchal societies. I'd like to pretend it wasn't a good point, honestly, but my brain won't allow it. My answer to that would be to provide eye candy for both genders.

Hear, hear! I wouldn't mind some lavishly illustrated male drow in revealing clothes. A male-drow version of that lovely but disturbing aranea cover from one of the Dungeon issues would be just about right.

Dress 'em about the way you dress Seoni; that should do very well.

Mary

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Crazy terrain. The Erythnul temple in 3FOE is classic, so are Drakthar's Way, Flood Season, and Zenith Trajectory. I could imagine the PCs bursting into a lava tube from above and having to find a way to the bottom of the surface. A running battle on the entire inner surface of the cylinder of the tube would be cool. In any case, you can't expect folks to get into the Coleridge/Lovecraft vibe without some caverns measureless to man.

Imprisoned weirdness. We need at least one door with "DANGER: DO NOT ENTER" in long-dead languages emblazoned on it; preferably with a new monster behind it. I don't care if it's some extinct variety of angel from the time before time trapped in a planar binding circle, or the riddle/trap/gameboard of a great wyrm good dragon, but it should be there. Bonus points if it's the "easy" way out for the PCs from some chase.

Regrettably, slimes. Maybe you could make the obligatory ooze hide in a tar pit or something. Maybe it could be the gooey center of something else. I have a hard time getting excited about these guys, but since they can slip through the cracks so easily, they're to be expected.

A legendary magic item once lost, now found. Ideally, this item would be unique as well as historic. A ring or sword is a classic choice, but a rod, axe, hammer or pick could also work.

A slightly different treasure mix. With all the spiders, I expect to see silk goods and dyes in the trade goods treasures. Perhaps more wooden art objects, and fewer of precious metals, since trees are rare down there. With the tight spaces, perhaps we will see more pole arms and fewer missile weapons.

Not essential, but nice to have:
A temple carved into a salt vein, like that one Catholic church in Poland. Alternatively, a disposal site like WIPP for tech or psionics. At a sufficient age and depth, the pressure makes the somewhat plastic salt all bendy.

Please spare us the vampire/succubus pair; I think that nostalgia trip was nicely done back in Geoff. Kinda like my feelings about Drizz't, I think you should strive to create a new and different memorable encounter that will be nostalgic in the future.


Essential Elements: Drow, Rock, Oozes
Nonessential: Face Lifted surface races, wanna be evil bad guys, friends that turn into foes later(merchent carevan of slavers inviting the Pcs to travel with them only to try and capture them later), and other

And ,just a thought, make the bad guys truly evil and wicked. They live in a closed ecosystem of the most extrme kind that can be thought of. I would think that things like assulting other cities or neighborhoods for food, slaves, and treasure would be the norm. As well as cannablism, "kissing cousins", trading "favors", selective breeding with demons/devils/etc. Please make them evil, not just bad!

P.S. The females of the drow sociaty.. sosiety.. folk are demonstrating the power, authority, and physical perfection with their lack of modesty. Just a thought!

P.P.S. Sorry for the spelling


redneckroler wrote:


P.S. The females of the drow sociaty.. sosiety.. folk are demonstrating the power, authority, and physical perfection with their lack of modesty. Just a thought!

P.P.S. Sorry for the spelling

Lol.. even though I think there should be something for both genders, the prodominantly masculine part of my brain applauds how you tried to work the ye ol' logic-mojo.


"You are not in Kansas anymore."

Emphasize the otherworldly feel of the realm beneath the earth.

Dark Archive

Lilith wrote:

"You are not in Kansas anymore."

Emphasize the otherworldly feel of the realm beneath the earth.

I would strongly agree with this. The underdark should be more than just an underground cave system. It should have an unsettling and alien feel to it, perhaps as sense of wonderment as well.

Liberty's Edge

Ive ran an Underdark campaign before...I created 3 races (though one was a borrowed one)

1. Nosferatu (the pointy ear and sharp teeth in a narrow mouth version...not the vampire we are familiar with...borrowed from the original ravenloft setting...pale skin- check. shy away from sunlight- check. see in the dark and excellent senses- check. alien visage and strange culture- check.

2. a race of chameleon reptiles that can change coloring against rocks...just used advanced lizardman stats with chameleon instead of water breathing.

3. a small race of insect like men...much like cockroaches. They were neutral and the party could use them as a source of supplies...once they got past the idea of it ...durable and an abundance of them....but not very tough in a fight, except in numbers. good defenses poor damage.


Savage_ScreenMonkey wrote:
Lilith wrote:

"You are not in Kansas anymore."

Emphasize the otherworldly feel of the realm beneath the earth.

I would strongly agree with this. The underdark should be more than just an underground cave system. It should have an unsettling and alien feel to it, perhaps as sense of wonderment as well.

Definitely. I've always wondered if there could be implementation of an environmental hazard due to the alien enviroment. Kind of like the whole "space madness" or cabin fever ideas you see in movies or books. Just the whole idea of all those tons of stone and earth pressing down around a PC every passing second becoming more and more dominant in the mind until it begins to have detrimental effects on the character.


I ran the Night Below campaign during the transition from 2E to 3E and included a river of slime [variant on green slime] and had ooze spawning grounds as another [ - my group still shiver at the thought of Papa Oozo and the Mustard Brothers - don't ask...]

Apart from slimes, moulds and jellies - another elements were areas where things were just plain weird or different: [lava "waterfalls", rivers than ran up walls and along ceilings, salt statues, viens of metal that had been left exposed - leaving a "metallic webbing" look to tunnels...] - more "colour" stuff I guess, but also strange environments for combat, encountering monsters etc.

Oh yeah and undead mushroom men - "Death Caps"...

Dark Archive

Watcher wrote:
While underground elves should probably be pale, part of what I love about Golarion is that it's the campaign setting of my youth that was never realized. I loved the "D" series, with Erol Otus' black skinned elves and day-glo armor.

Elves aren't humans, and, traditionally, the elves who live in bright sunny mountain tops (the Grey Elves) are the palest skinned with golden hair, while the elves who live in the deepest forests (the Grugach) are the darkest skinned, described as nut-brown and dark-haired. The wood elves, from the inner forest, are darker than the high elves, from the fields and towns. The Aquatic Elves, on the other hand, are also shades of blue and green.

It's pretty much canon at this point that elves don't have melanin like humans, and the more sun an elf gets the *paler* it gets. The ones who live in total darkness, therefore, would naturally have the darkest skin of all.

If elves lived in the Elemental Plane of Fire, they'd probably have reddish skin within a few generations. Elves adapt the colors around them, unlike humans.


Make humans who explore the Underdark a bit 'notable', and quirky, here's my campaigns take on such types;

'DEEPERS'
Beneath shimmering hauberks and plates of enchanted mail, their shirts and breeches were of crudely tanned cave-strider hide and iron-tusker skin, and had many patches sewed on with sinews, were worn thin between patches, black from many camp fires, and greasy from many meals. They were threadbare and filthy, they smelled bad, and had paler skin than any spectre. Yet from their grimy bodies hung ancient items of power and gem studded magic weapons rested on their belts in faded hide sheaths. They gulped rather than ate the tripes of rothé and had forgotten the use of chairs. Words and phrases, mostly obscene, of aluari, derro, troglodyte and dengarl, came naturally to their tongues.
- From the journal of xx, describing her deeper guides during the early exploration of the Trades-Under-Road.

The underdark is a strange and most unusual place and those humans who choose to live in it are often strange and unusual as well. Known as 'deepers' these hardy souls are adventurers, explorers, hunters, trappers, plunderers of ruins, and even include a few missionary priests in their number. They often live for years at a time below the ground without ever visiting the surface world, some developing a distaste for, or even fear of, the vast open spaces of the 'up'. Usually loners, or travelling in largely silent small groups of friends, their senses honed to amazing levels, able to smell or hear the faintest changes in the atmosphere around them, some so sharp eyed as to be almost able to see in the dark like an elf, others practically blind yet able to move as lithely as cave panthers with only smell, touch and their hearing to guide them.
Most are lethal fighters, possessed of battle and hunt skills honed by years in the harshest enviroments known.
Their reasons for living such dangerous lives are many and varied, some are outlaws and outcasts fleeing the surface world, others simply men seeking the rumoured wealth of the lands below, some are driven by the bizarre need to explore places unknown to everyone else or learn secrets unguessed even by kings and queens up above. Usually they die, unnoted and unmourned save perhaps amongst their own small, tight-knit community, their names forgotten or never known to the people of the world above, yet legends in the few rendevouz points where such types gather, or spoken of with respect about camp fires in caves far from anywhere.


They could send out their manual labor contracts to be performed by illithid slave labor...

51 to 71 of 71 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Second Darkness / Essential Elements For An "Underdark" Campaign All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Second Darkness