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View Full Version : [3.5] A Challenging Underdark



Dralnu
2010-10-19, 06:24 PM
I'm running an evil campaign for an RL group of friends. They're set on exploring a massive forest called Underdark Forest. All they know is that it's a forest covered in complete darkness, it's EXTREMELY dangerous (I mentioned that many times), and there's little else known about it because those who travel inside rarely make it out alive.

The party is currently level 8, dinged right when we wrapped up the last session:
Dunsten, Barbarian 2 / Warblade 6: Tank of the group. Smasher of the group. Likes the Bonecrusher maneuver, a lot. Often does around 40-50 damage on his swings.

Jimmy, Rogue 5 / Assassin 3: Sneaky scout, silent killer, and trap disabler. Uses his anklet of translocation and rogue's blade to teleport all over the place.

Don, Favored Soul 8: Support. Likes combat control. Favorite spell is Summon Undead II for skeletal owlbears. Also likes Dispel Magic. Can fly.

Syn, Scout 8: Sneakiest scout of the group. Often hides / moves silently for 30ish and his eyes and ears are the best too. Can mimic Hawkeye pretty well with a diverse array of special arrows.

The biggest reason why they want to visit the place is that Syn is a former drow prince, albeit from a different planet. He's convinced that drow inhabit the forest and he wants to rule them. I don't aim to disappoint.

My current idea is this:
Underdark Forest is a forest cloaked in darkness. How? Dunno. This allows for typical underdark dwellers to move around in a surface without sunlight. Drow live here, as do many other creatures. I'd love to toss in some mind flayers and a beholder.

So the players enter the forest and it's all spooky with.. stuff. They get attacked by a really nasty creature to remind them that hey, this place is dangerous. And somehow this creature has to survive 50ish damage maneuvers from the warblade per turn, skeletal owlbears in its face, and likely dispel magic spam too.

They wander further and pass by drow scouts in the woods. These drow rangers have rigged the place with Alarm. Battle likely ensues. Party will probably try and keep one alive to be led to the main drow encampment and try and negotiate something.

When they make successful contact with the drow, the elves say that to earn their trust, the party must first perform a task for them. They need capable adventurers to go to (insert location here) to fight the (insert race here) and retrieve a (insert item here). The drow don't want to do it themselves because they don't want to deed traced back to them. Bad for diplomacy.

For the mission, one idea I have is using the Grell Outpost Encounter (p116 LoM). To make it harder, the grells are actually enslaved by a band of illithids or maybe a beholder.

Depending how quick / easy that mission goes, I might drop another harder mission. How about the party needs to wipe out a mind flayer colony? Can they handle an elder brain?

When the party succeed in their mission, the drow allow them an audience with their leader. They're escorted deep into a drow city and meet with the leader and her entourage of clerics. The clerics mention that any drow strong enough to defeat their leader can take the throne. The leader laughs and sends her elite guards at the party, saying weaklings are not worthy to challenge her.

When the guards go down she puts on her serious face accepts Syn's one-on-one duel. When she dies, Syn is the new ruler. Fin!


Sooooo... What do you guys think of that rough outline and does anyone have ideas on how to flesh it out more?