Tales of the Underdark [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Seharvepernfan

2012-01-17, 01:17 PM

Wellllllll....

I ran an IRL game for my cousin a couple years ago that started in the underdark. He comes from video games, so is used to being railroaded, not that I railroad with a heavy hand or anything, but I know some of you will think this is railroading. There were choiced, any of which could completely change the game.

He was playing a half-orc barbarian with fiendish heritage who later multiclassed to sorcerer and had plans to go into spellsword, but it never got that far. It was an evil campaign.

He started as part of a small orc horde comprised of several clans that were assaulting a dwarf hold in the spine of the world. He was at the back of a big group who were running up a big gently sloping dwarf tunnel when the dwarves collapsed it on his group. Since he was at the very back, he was the only survivor and managed to break out of the slide zone.

Traveling back down the tunnel, he came to another collapse, where a second group had been crushed. A few of the dead were decapitated and there was blood all over the place. So, he was trapped. He started heading back towards the first collapse when he noticed a crack in the wall that he failed to notice earlier.

It opened into a rough crevice that came to a T at a hewn tunnel. Going one way the tunnel was submerged in water, and standing there at the water was another member of his tribe, a low warrior with a bloody axe and a bloody sack bulging with large sphere-shaped things at his belt.

They decided to try and escape together. So they traveled back the other way and came across two armored dwarves just standing with their backs to the wall in the tunnel (guarding a secret door, but Fangshaar didn't notice it). Both sides noticed each other, and the orcs attacked, and won. Durth then turned on Fangshaar after seeing him take some jewelry off one of the dwarves. Fangshaar won, and found out that the bulges in Durth's sack :smallsigh: were the decapitated heads from earlier. An opportunistic killing in a blood feud.

Traveling along the tunnel, which occasionally dropped straight down or straight up 20-30ft., and occasionally crossing through forge-furnace chutes (requiring jump/climb/balance checks), in addition to splitting off every once in a while. Eventually, he came to a honeycombed labrynth of stone tunnels that were very roughly hewn, as if with claws. Navigating his way through the maze (he only had 4 ranks of survival as a 1st level character, so he couldn't determine north - I rules that if he beat DC 15 three times in a row, he made his way through). Eventually he did, but he came across two dead umber hulks (he didn't know what they were), with crossbow bolts protruding from their corpses. At the exit of the labrynth, he noticed a bunch of spider webbing, and was attacked by a mother spider from the ceiling and her brood of tiny baby spiders. He won this fight, but got poisoned despite his feat and passed out afterwards (from going into negatives after leaving rage, not from the poison).

The second session started with him bound and foggy-headed, being lifted up a wide vertical chute on the back of a large spider, with drow levitating up the chute all around him. He got a chance to make a spot check to notice some things (and could have pretened to still be knocked out) before one of the drow noticed him and knocked him back out. He woke up again in a cave with a small vertical chute as the only exit, which was choked with spider webbing. In the cave with him were a dozen or so other orcs, all unarmed captives.

In this captivity, he got in an unarmed fight over food with the alpha of this little group (I forgot to mention, I use the duel of wills intimidate thing from ToB, and orcs in my games have a bonus to intimidate). He won, and got to eat. Eventually a few armed drow came down the chute, magically disperising the webs, and ordered the most martially capable of the orcs to climb up a spidersilk rope. Fangshaar, the guy he beat up, and a few others climbed it into a chambered cavern sparsely decorated and inhabited by the drow, with a notable iron-circle portal leading into a different very large cavern set into the far wall. A black robed male drow came through and conversed with the captor drow, handing some things back and forth, and took the bound orcs with him through the portal.

The portal opened onto a narrow railed walkway between two stalagmites (? the ceiling ones) in a several hundred feet wide circular tunnel winding in a wide curve from below to above at about 20-30 degrees. The whole tunnel was a city. They were further bound and gagged, then escorted, one by one, through the city to a building set into the floor of the city-tunnel by a couple of plate-armored/armed/powerfully built orogs (half-orc, half-ogres). Once there, they were put into pens (jail cells), then inspected for worth.

Being a full-hp barbarian with elite stats (str 17, dex 10, con 12, int 12, wis 8, cha 13) and noticable fiend heritage, he was the favored of the group and was placed with the "high worth" slaves. The two inspecting him were an old duergar warrior bedecked with black plate armor, and a slender young female drow in black garb. The two orogs from earlier stood by the duergar, and the drow had a couple blackscale lizardfolk with large spears as her escorts.

The collected were then informed that they were going to fight as gladiators until they died or were sold. They were then sent to their own cells.

The building was a large tavern/casino/slave market with a fairly large arena in the "basement" (built into the rock of the city-tunnel). The slaves were bought, and filtered through the arena, weeding out the weak and sick (who were then sold to necromancers and beast owners, for material and feed respectively), all the while being trained when not fighting, the training and experience increasing their value, then sold at a much higher price at the establishments slave market. The duergar and the drow were the slave handlers, the duergar in charge of organizing the fights and training the slaves, as well as security, the drow in charge of marketing and selling the slaves and managing the customers of the arena (and dealing in drugs and poisons on the side), some of whom were low-drow nobles who participated in the fights for money (for fun or easy practice, its cheaper than killing your own slaves, and probably safer).

So, fangshaar was put into training, becoming a fighter at second level and receiving the bonus equipment he selected for being a halforc in the spine of the world (a greatsword and spiked banded mail). His first fight in the arena (a large oval of glowing white sand with stands on one side, and levitating crossbow wielding drow above - spellstoring poisoned bolts!) was a match between him and a few other orcs against double their number in goblins. His team won, after which he was approached by both the duergar and the drow at different times, both offering him perks if he did their bidding against the other (they were rivals, working for the owners' favor).

If he went with the duergar, he got generally better equipment and more favorable fights/knowledge of what the fight was going to be, and had less conflict with the security and other prisoners when not in the arena (it was basically a prison environment - shanking, cornering, poisoning, guard beat-downs - you dont want subdual damage before an arena fight, etc.). If he went with the drow, he got to keep the treasure he found earlier (the drow gave it to him with a leather thong he could hide under his loincloth), he was marketed to better buyers (for him, at least, typically nobles and mercenary groups, as opposed to necromancers/demonologists/the city's military/etc.), and got access to poisons and drugs (like potions with drawbacks and withdrawal) without having to deal in the prison black market for them.

He went with the duergar, because he wanted his starting armor and weapons more than his treasure, and decided that an easier cell life and picking his own fights (somewhat, at least) was better than what the drow offered, and he could deal with the poisoning/drugging that he had to deal with for offending the drow (his fiend blood gave him a bonus against poison, his orc blood against drugs) and he could use his intimidate to get singled out by good buyers and look too expensive for the bad ones.

He eventually got cell-paired with another orc, a shaman who fought unarmed and prefered touch spells, and could craft war-paint tattoos that held spell charges, similar to spell storing. Fangshaar allied with him and got him into as many of the same fights as possible - persuaded for healing occasionally.

I had this complicated system for determing the fights - there were many different kinds, and against many different opponents, many of which were randomly determined to have random status effects, such as dismemberment, various diseases at various stages, old, suffering from withdrawal, etc. I'll list what I can remember, there were 12 or 13 fights:

1. Fangshaar vs. a group of weaker goblins.
2. Fangshaar + orcs vs. another group of orcs.
3. Fangshaar + bugbear vs. wounded umberhulk missing an arm
4. Fangshaar vs. bugbear - race for the only weapon
5. Fangshaar vs. several monstrous centipedes
6. Fangshaar + orcs and goblins vs. captive shield dwarves who fought together efficiently
7. Fangshaar vs. drow nobles (rogues with studded leather, dual rapiers, and poison), sometimes in group fights
8. blindfolded fight
9. one armed fight or unarmed fight (I dont remember)
10. Fangshaar vs. well armed duergar slave soldier
11. cant remember
12. private pit fight somewhere else in the building against a bugbear champion (3rd level, ranger/fighter?) - high stakes fight
13. private pit fight (same place) against one of the drow's blackscale guards - this one won him his way out, he was chosen by a good buyer, but the drow bitch got him put in this fight behind the duergars back

The drow bitch became more antagonistic with each fight he won, and she started putting more pressure on him, such as threatening to drug him before a sale if he didn't lose a certain fight, or having one of the drow guards shoot him during a fight ("he was trying to escape!"), but he survived lived long and prospered.

I think he was 3rd level when he got out, I think he took another of fighter.

He was bought by a noble house of drow to serve in their private army/house guard.

I'm a bit tired, I'll add more in a later post.