Out of the Abyss Hard Labor

[bookrat]

I'm starting this campaign this weekend, and I wanted to gather a collection of hard labor ideas to make the slavery experience more immersive.

The campaign just says to have them do demoralizing tasks, but I was hoping for something more tangible.

I found these two examples on the web:

Rope Trick:

Earlier that day when the Drow were using the lift to bring some supplies up from the lower level some of the goods fell off when the lift tipped over. Most items were recovered, but a few were snagged on the cliff-side. The PCs are given two coils of rope, each 25ft long and told to recover the goods. A quick check of the rope reveals they are tattered and torn and wouldn’t likely support much weight. A look over the ledge reveals that the closest sack snagged on the cliff was more than 25 feet below. Climbing without the rope was possible, but perilous. About 100ft below the ledge was a spider web net and a Giant Spider was anxiously waiting below for a climber to slip and fall.

Mess Hall:

The prisoners (Topsy, Turvy, 1 or 2 PCs and 1 or 0 NPC) are escorted to the meeting hall where the Drow eat their meals and prep their food. The Quaggoths are told to wait outside while the two Drow escorts led the 3-4 prisoners into the hall. Inside a lone Drow is busy prepping the next meal and was making a good mess of the kitchen. The prisoners are told to clean the mess. The Deep Gnomes quickly started cleaning up the food scraps putting just as much in their mouths as in the trash. The PCs/NPCs were told to move heavy sacks of dried goods from one end of the kitchen to the other – clearly a make-work task with no meaningful objective but to demoralize and de-motivate.

What other situations can we come up with?

[bookrat]

Marching the party for a few hours through the tunnels to a place to mine rocks (or gems or precious metals). This gives the PCs a chance to see the tunnels, possible escape routes, and to overhear the drow talking.

Require the prisoners to buff the floors using their own clothing.

"Micromanage" tasks and constantly criticize the PCs works. Threaten to feed them to the spiders if they don't do it right.

[Lorathorn]

Watch "Cool Hand Luke". That'll be good inspiration.

[bookrat]

I haven't seen that movie in years! Great idea!

[bookrat]

Beyond just hard labor, there's other ways to show drow cruelty, such as punishing a character for the actions of someone else. Or just general tormenting of the PCs.

For example, one of my players got really attached to Stool, and when the drow found out, they took Stool, wrapped it up in webbing, and dangled it over the cliff edge just to torture it (and the PC). The drow laughed all the while as poor Stool was repeatedly dropped over the edge to the waiting giant spiders below, only to be pulled back up at the last second.