101 underground occurences


Advice


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So, I'm currently doing an all-dwarf adventure where my players will soon spend an extented amount of time exploring the darklands. I thought this might be good chance to get a bunch of ideas of possible occurences underground. I could have sworn I had already seen one on the messageboards, but I cant find it, so I'll start my own. It's a bunch of random little sidequests/events that my players (or any other) can deal with in the darklands.

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1) The darkstalkers lair
The adventurers hear from not too far away a high-pitched feminine voice crying “help, help” before being muffled. If you follow the sound, you see a group of dark folk carrying a large, moving sack, going through a door in the tunnel face. Inside is a small, well-appointed room, where the dark folk try to take a break as the bag jiggles in the corner.
If the dark folk are defeated, and the sack is opened, a small, brass-scaled kobold just out saying “my hero” and attempts to kiss the individual who opened the sack. She claims to be a princess from the village of “Shining Scales”, and was kidnapped her to trade for the ressources of her people. She is uncertain of the location of her village, but the darkfolk steps can be tracked to an area in which she is more familiar. During that travel, she will show much affection to the individual who opened the sack OR to the individual who showed the most concern while she was in the sack (for example, if someone cried “I shall save you fair lady!”).
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2) The warrior over the ravine :
The adventurers exit the tunnel into a large ravine illuminated by large luminous crystals. A staircase leads along the side of the ravine to a bridge that crosses it. On the bridge, a powerfully built & ornamentally scarred half orc woman holds back monsters with her falchion (note: any mindless creature, such as zombies, fungus queen thralls, or other “spawned” creatures are appropriate). On one side of the bridge, opposite the arrival of the monsters, is a large stone door. If you approach with 120 ft., the woman calls out, asking for your assistance & telling you to avoid the door. The woman claims to have tried to open the door and been hit by a powerful geas. This geas compels her to stay and defend the door until the monsters stop attacking the door. She has been there for a month however, and they have not stopped. Any attempt to go and destroy the source have been prevented by the fact that the monsters are coming from multiple tunnels, thus whenever she goes down one, monsters are coming out of the others.
She requests the adventurers to go and destroy the source of the monsters. She might even offer to bribe them. (Note: it is best to make her MUCH higher level than the adventurers (5-10 levels higher) to avoid her murder. I consider her a barbarian/scarred witch doctor/eldritch knight, though she doesn’t use her spells in front of the adventurers).
When the adventurers travel down the corridor, they meet an appropriate number of monsters, eventually reaching the “spawner” monster. After it’s defeat, you hear a loud “WOO-HOO”, and the half-orc woman appears quickly form the entry tunnel and gives the closest party member a big hug (grapple). Then she starts a little happy dance. After finishing her dance, she gives the adventurers whatever reward they agreed upon, and offers to guide the adventurers toward their next destination.
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3) The crystal garden
The adventurers reach a tunnel section where there is an increading density of delicate, faintly luminescent crystals on the walls. You hear gently weeping coming from the other end of the tunnel. Eventually you reach a moderate sized cave, with a stream running through it. On the far side of the stream, you see a woman with coal-black skin, white hair, and small crystals growing here & there out of her skin (she is a Lampad, a cave dryad of sorts). The cave is killed with delicate crystalline formation like no other.
If the adventurers try to speak to her, she will explain she is the guardian of this place, and requests that they leave so as to not disturb her crystal garden. For an offering of rare crystals, she will gladly provide the adventurers information on the various surrounding caves and their denizens. She may try to seduce any drow or elven males in the party, trying to convince them abandon their adventuring ways and protect the dark places of the world.
If the party is aggressive, the crystals flare up in bright light, activating the lampad’s “insane beauty” ability. She then attempts to lead them away from her garden & get them lost with the caves. Afterwards, she return to her garden & blocks it’s entry with thick & solid crystalline growths.
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4) The vegepygmies
Over the course of a few days of travel in the caves, you hear rhythmic cliks, taps & beats echoing through the caves. Any speaker of vegepgmy will recognize the communication between several vegepygmy hunting parties claiming they have spotted some prey and are trying to track it’s location.
Eventually, it becomes clear that the sounds are coming from both sides of the tunnel the adventurers are in. If the adventurers rush to one side or the other, they might surprise one of the hunting parties before the others arrive. However, if the party decides to stand their ground, both hunting parties will try to overwhelm them at the same time.
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5) The kobold village of “Shining Scales”
You find a large steel door, clean & free of rust, on a tunnel face. It counts as a strong door. If you knock on the door, a little window high-up will open, and a small golden-scale kobold will open saying “yess?” and be surprised by the presence of adventurers, closing the little window. The adventurers hear a number of sudden clicks & a large number of slits opening in the walls (less than they heard clicks). The kobold will re-open the small window (now with grate) and request that the adventurers not bother their village, and let them live in peace. If you are polite & friendly, the kobold will gladly let you in All the kobolds in this village have scale colors of metallic dragons, and are all good. As long as you behave in a civil fashion, they will trade with you, shelter you, and provide you information on nearby threats. They may even offer quests to the party (see number 1)
If you attempt to break the door, and fail breaking the door on the first try, you will quickly hear a number of dull, loud thuds, and will be unable to break the door open (a number of stone slabs now block it). If you manage to break it on the first try, the door busrts open squasing a golden-scaled kobold. A number of large stone slabs fall in the tunnel, blocking the way. The kobold on the door begs for his life. However, this event will sour any further relations.


bumping!


Most of what works above ground can be changed so that it fits below ground.

6. The adventurers accidentally find their way into a ruined city of a former Dwarven tribe considered lost centuries ago. A searching of the ruin turns up a few monsters/encounters but it is mostly desolate. Strangely, the abandoned buildings all appear as though the people just weren't there the next day. Nothing was cleaned out or packed away and there is no sign of an invasion or other event. Even stranger, there are no remains of any bodies to be found anywhere, except one; A lone skeleton of a priest in the temple, who with a jagged knife the bony hand is still clutching, carved a single word into the altar.


7. The Remnants

A bleak underground society of humans is found. 3-4 generations of families living there, in an almost prosperous squalor. The adventurers discover that these are the remains of a mining concern which was trapped underground 55-70 years ago. There were only three human women. And the orcs. You can tailor this mission to your specific adventure. Perhaps they want to be led out? Perhaps they are happy where they are? Perhaps they can be with assistance of your party. What if some want to leave, but those few are necessary to the functioning of this tiny society.


Whatever town/city the party is based in starts reporting several missing persons. Witnesses have reported seeing an ominous blue light seeping through cracks and fissures and several pets/livestock animals have turned up horribly mutilated. Upon further investigation, some NPCs wake up to find strange scars and injuries on their person that they don't remember being there before.

*Fast Foward*

Derro abducting people and performing invasive surgery on people and acting like 'grey aliens'... but underground and terrorizing Dwarves.


9: The tunnel dead ends into a narrow but seemingly bottomless cavern with a seemingly endless ceiling. Further investigation reveals a permanent Deeper darkness effect 150 feet above and below the tunnel. If the party attempts to ascend to the ceiling of the shaft, they will find the den of a {insert campaign appropriate} dragon. They can battle or parley with the dragon as appropriate. If they go spelunking, the shaft ends in a colony of gelatinous cubes, having fallen into the pit themselves and unable to get out.


10: In the deepest of the darklands, you reach a large cave in which grows giant, hexagonal crystals. At the end of a long passageway through the crystals, you reach a ravine filled with magma, over which arches a large stone bridge. At the far end of the bridge is a apparently a large door. On the bridge stand a humanoid (a dwarf stonelord) that commands them to stand their ground and leave the holy heart of the earth.

If the PCs retrace their steps, nothing happens. Otherwise, the stonelord lets out a loud shout, and several crystal elementals (earth elementals with the crystal creature template) try to heard the PCs away/kill them.

If the PCs manage to slay the creatures & the stonelord (who fights to the death to protect the "door"). They can attempt to open it. ANy attempt fails, and any inspections will reveal pure stone for the next 1km in depth.

Any creature with the earth subtype (like an earth elemental) can successfully "open" the door with a DC 30 strength check. Inside is revealed an immense diamond, about 10 m in diameter, probably weighing several tons. If anybody without the earth subtype touches the diamond, the caves collapse in 1d4 rounds. The large crystal cave ahead starts collapsing once the first one is finished in (1d20+10) rounds. The same effects occur if any piece is removed from the diamond, even by a creature with the earth subtype.


Check out the samples in Caves & Caverns, and see if that's what you're looking for.


bumping


I like the blood rubies idea I read somewhere yesterday
As they are walking through the tunnels it starts to be overrun with roots of plants with some unusually large flowers(or small depending on how you like it)

Couple acrobatic. Checks to crawl.in or out of them or through em

As they are going through there there are.dead miner types (could be dwarfs) on dead bodies are uncut rubies

The flowers if 'fed' blood they bloom with a small or large rubies more blood (quicker it blooms or more it blooms)

It was on a thread asking for horror ideas I really liked it


A collapse traps the players in a maze of rock and metal. The metal is valuable if mined.

The players can't retrace their steps, the collapse closed their path behind them (and may have dealt some damage to them).

The maze should be three dimensional with several loops. But no larger than a standard battle mat. The first floor and third would together occupy one mat while the second floor would occupy 8 one mat by itself(requiring you to have 2 mats).

Draw the maze in its entirety, but don't draw the exit until the players find it.

Haunting the maze is a small variety of random critters. Oozes, cave vermin and fungal creatures are perfect for this. The only intelligent inhabitant of the cave is a small earth elemental with witch levels, but he won't show up until the players try to harm his precious home (like by trying to force their way out with mining tools).


Yay necro! I'll add a couple more tonight.


Approaching a large cavern, the PCs notice an increase in the ambient temperature (Perception DC 18). As they are crossing the cavern, the temperature continues to increase and unshod PCs notice the floor of the cavern heating up rapidly (no check). There is a sudden rumbling right before a geyser of magma explodes through the floor (6d6 fire damage, Ref save 22 for half). After the initial explosion, molten rock is bubbling up through the floor, along with something suitably fiery and fire resistant to scare the braids out of their beards.


Sunken village.

The players come up in the ruins of a castle or keep in what looks like a massive and ancient sinkhole.

A waterfall from above along with piercing beams of light that can only be from the sun give life to a thriving mini ecology of various green flora and harmless critters such as squirrels and hedgehogs. Oozes are the deadliest predators in this paradise in the deep and even they only hunt at night.

If the players explore the ruins however they will find a realm of ectoplasmic terror. Among the ghosts and ectoplasmic soldiers are a few who obsess over the kings golden jewels, which will give the players incentive to go deeper. A variety of explorers and monsters have fallen victim to the undead horde, supplementing the already considerable variety of mindless undead.


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This idea depends on the party.
Magical mushrooms that have a compulsion effect when eaten, or a similar lichen that acts as a touch attack. (compulsion could be addiction, mind affecting, poison, disease, physical infection/possession).

For my party, those that ate the mushrooms (about 1/2) could still roll survival to not get lost, but the rolls all seemed to direct the party back to the nearest mushroom patch, as long as they had the mushrooms to eat there was no other effect, but if they ran out and they were too far away, then they began to feel the damage. This had the bonus effect of forcing them back to the middle of the maze (knowledge of the location of the mushrooms was innate while addicted giving a guaranteed sense of direction if they were clever).

Another idea, Ice caves. A massive glacier has settled into a deep basin and the underdark citizens have naturally carved their way into it. These caves have the usual denizens with frost creature style templates. Light sources have a chance of causing daze to those with regular sight and temporary blindness to those with sensitivity. Fire spell can cause micro floods as pockets of water are released suddenly. And there is the possibility that at the center is an ancient ocean creature... unfrozen and angry!

The surface training camp. The party fights some evil intelligent creatures (Drow?), these were the guards defending a simulated surface town. They were in the middle of training to raid (or destroy) the surface village or to infiltrate it and others like it, in the daylight when everyone would be in the fields and not expecting trouble. It is a perfect replica, including enchanted grass and a shining sun (bright light source embedded in the wall). The players find themselves in the awkward position of raiding the surface town and defeating the evil creatures (and the traps they put in to hurt locals?).

Treasure goblin. A daring Goblin raider has found out how to increase his speed to impossible levels, this coupled with muleback cords and spiderclimb lets him grab valuable treasure (for a goblin) and then run back to his lair to enjoy his spoils. The PC's could run into him in a passage with a big sack filled with clinking coins, or be hired to catch that Goblin that has been frustrating a village for weeks.

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