Underdark Ideas!

[Voltage89]

Hey everyone. So, the campaign I am running is going to the underdark. The players were recently captured by a group of drow who are looking to do experiments on them. They are basically attempting to extract their brains and put them in monsters such as umberhulks in order to create super creatures. Now, why would they want to do this?
There is a war going on against an Ullathid who rose to power with a little help. He made a deal with a devil, something no other illithid would ever do. So, the players escaped through a back entrance of this secret lab in the drow city. Behind them they heard footsteps as an alarm had gone off.
They will be confronted with by a chained up Fomorian who will break free and chase them down a long bridge that is collapsing. Afterwards, there will most likely be another room filled with spiders and a Drider. So, I now need ideas of other encounter ideas. I've never run an underdark story ark so I need some help!

[Amdy_vill]

their drow. they like to torment things. but you could do this has them trying to make a better army.

[mgshamster]

Look at Chapter 3 of the Out of the Abyss Campaign book. It has tons of information for underdark exploration and random encounters (both creatures and terrain).

It would supplement your campaign very well. It also describes multiple locations in the underdark in other chapters, but take them with a grain of salt as they're tailored to that specific adventure. Ignore the stuff another demons, but use the maps and physical locations and general culture to help create full communities of underdark denizens.

Remember that although many intelligent creatures in the underdark are evil, they're still people within a civilization and most just want to live. So drow merchants traveling around won't automatically attack the PCs. Duergar mining bands may try to enslave the PCs or may just ask them to step aside and let them get their job done. Roving bands of Myconids will likely provide shelter and entertainment for an evening. A wandering group of Kua-tao may - in equal parts - attack, befriend, or worship the PCs.

Other escaped slaves may try to steal from the PCs or seek asylum with them. A clergy of Stone Giants may give theological lessons to the PCs in exchange for good conversation.

Most other denizens have their own goals and desires - use that to create an immersive setting rather than just having everything be in relation to how much harm they could do to the PCs. A group of Derro ex-slaves may be plotting a revolution in the city of Deurgar (Gracklstugh), and that could happen with or without the PCs (and makes for a great setting for the PCs to try and navigate through the city streets to accomplish their own goals while a completely unrelated revolution is going on).

An aboleth may have escaped from the pits of Darklake and is setting up his own fort in an abandoned temple long overcome with an underground river, and had corrupted the waters flowing past. Every intelligent being he tries to enslave.

A group of Illithids have decided they don't want to be a part of Illithid culture, and instead are trying to create safe trade routes to improve commerce between cities in the underdark. They pride themselves as intellectuals and are always seeking ideas from others for the best way to ensure the most direct and safe route from one city to the next. They inquire to the PCs for ideas.

Purple worms could have their own network of tunnels that are constantly being reformed and collapsed - and they have absolutely no interest in anyone except themselves.

And that's citizens of the underdark.

There's even more you can do with terrain obstacles. Cliffs, lava flow, rivers and streams, gaps that drop a hundred miles, bridges (with or without guards or other creatures), fungus (lots of fungus of tons of varieties, many listed in OotA book), animals and other critters that have absolutely no interest in the PCs and only exist as a back drop, and many many more.

Remember that natural caversn twist and turn a lot, and noise (even loud noise like music or combat) may not travel that far depending on the tunnels and natural environment. Lots of other natural noise (dropping water, rushing rivers, waterfalls, animal noises, moving rock) may drown out sounds from other chambers. Even light may not travel that far, as it'll only go as far as the tunnel is Straight.

And then there's the magical Faezress. This makes teleportation extremely unreliable. There are patches of it everywhere, and whenever a spell is cast (1st level or higher) it potentially triggers a wild surge as if they were a wild mage sorcerer. Heck, it could even block out magic entirely (I like to throw in areas of antimagic here and there in the underdark).

There is so much you can do. :)

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Hey everyone. So, the campaign I am running is going to the underdark. The players were recently captured by a group of drow who are looking to do experiments on them. They are basically attempting to extract their brains and put them in monsters such as umberhulks in order to create super creatures. Now, why would they want to do this?
There is a war going on against an Ullathid who rose to power with a little help. He made a deal with a devil, something no other illithid would ever do. So, the players escaped through a back entrance of this secret lab in the drow city. Behind them they heard footsteps as an alarm had gone off.
They will be confronted with by a chained up Fomorian who will break free and chase them down a long bridge that is collapsing. Afterwards, there will most likely be another room filled with spiders and a Drider. So, I now need ideas of other encounter ideas. I've never run an underdark story ark so I need some help!

Definitely look at Out of the Abyss. Another useful resource is the 3.0 Underdark source book.

Think about the kind of story you're trying to tell and the kind of mood you're trying to create. Brain extraction and experimentation says body horror to me. Ullathid making a deal with a devil sounds... interesting - but why a devil? Further the horror aspects by making it an Elder Evil or Great Old One instead. Really lean into the weird, unknowable aspects of the Underdark as a place and create a tense, paranoid atmosphere.

If you have a conflict between drow desperate enough to use adventurer brains in monsters and illithids, you need to know how you want that to end. Who are the players meant to side with here? If it's no one, what's the goal - why do they stay in the Underdark instead of running to the surface ASAP?

Edit: Basically, answer the big questions about your campaign. What's the theme? What's the conflict? What are the possible resolutions? Where is it happening? And then a lot of the small stuff will flow from that.

[Falcon X]

Interesting things we have run into input Out of the Abyss game that weren’t in the book:

- We fought some Orogs, but halfway through the fight, a beholder bursts out of a tunnel and starts disentigrating stuff. They were level 2. A chase scene followed, going straight through a goblin camp. Players, goblins, and orogs all forgot their grievances at that point.
- Rock Lobsters. The Underdark version of giant lobsters. We killed one and realized it had babies, so we adopted the babies. Same deal with Rocktopusses too!
- Spent days wandering along a long, noodle-shaped pathway suspended in midair, with other similar pathways close by. We could see other groups traveling on others far away. At the end was a sloping hill with odd rock formations and two pools of water. It was basically a giant face with the long pathway being its hair. We had been traveling along the body of a dead god.
Fun fight scene along the way. Great opportunities.
- Pechville. We found a side path of ladders going straight down into the abyss. At bottom was a town of humans, svirfneblin, and peches. Apparently an expedition of humans had decided to stay and formed an alliance with peches. Humans live on topside while peches live underground. It is a little pocket of good-natured folk who have festivals and singing every day.
But a monster has appeared in their gardens and stealing heir children. This was our Halloween game and the monster was the Great Pumpkin. We basically did 7 Samurai to defeat it.
- I got my hands on a 2e Illithiad book and all its sweet Mind Flayer technology.
The players encountered a couple Mind falters beating slaves. They killed the Mind flayers. Boss mind flayer wasn’t happy and hunted them down Predator stlye. He had a long trench coat, antimatter rifle, proximity and remote mines, a long katana, a device he used to speak through remotely, a spear that disable Magic users from using spells, tentacle extensions, a bomb that went off when he died. The works. Culminated in a fight on a bridge over lava where it was shoving people in.
My players are terrified of mind flayers now.
- Anti-Matter technology, which is pure negative energy, was the technology the Mind flayers in my game were working on and infusing into their weapons and bodies. Good times :)

Also go to elventower.com and look at the extra encounters for Out of the Abyss. Great ideas (thanks mghamster)

[Voltage89]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I think I am going to have an area where refuges that have fled from the drow live at. It will most likely be a few miles away, but the trek there will be horrific. Spiders, giants, oozes, and much more! Will definitly use some of your ideas for the walk there! Also, I think the plan is for them to not side with either. More to be the outsider that ends up defeating them both.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I think I am going to have an area where refuges that have fled from the drow live at. It will most likely be a few miles away, but the trek there will be horrific. Spiders, giants, oozes, and much more! Will definitly use some of your ideas for the walk there! Also, I think the plan is for them to not side with either. More to be the outsider that ends up defeating them both.

Seems reasonable - I wouldn't want either to win. So how are you going to get them from here to there?

[Voltage89]

Seems reasonable - I wouldn't want either to win. So how are you going to get them from here to there?

Well, my idea is that as they escape through the back entrance and fight there way through the first room, which is going to be hard as ****, there will be words written on the wall. They will basically be directions on how to get to the Lost Tower. My idea is that other people who know of this back entrance put these on the wall in order to save anyone who met the same fate they did, being captured by the Drow.

[mgshamster]

Well, my idea is that as they escape through the back entrance and fight there way through the first room, which is going to be hard as ****, there will be words written on the wall. They will basically be directions on how to get to the Lost Tower. My idea is that other people who know of this back entrance put these on the wall in order to save anyone who met the same fate they did, being captured by the Drow.

I think it'd be a good idea to convey that last bit in some way to the PCs. Maybe make a symbol as a signature, and the PCs may be able to identify it as a symbol of a freedom group or something. That way they know to trust it and they have something to look forward to. "We have to get to the tower, the Freedom Group will save us when we get there." It's a common trope and works really well for people eacaping some sort of calamity (escaping slavery like in Maze Runner, escaping zombies like in Walking Dead, etc).

From there you have a few follow up tropes to use:

1) The Freedom Group isn't what they seemed; are actually evil themselves. This is a trope for a darker genre where the innocent discover that there's no one to trust and no one is Good. This happened in season 4 or 5 of Walking Dead, where the protagonists discover that the village is just as evil as the zombies.

2) The Freedom Group is in some sort of trouble. Here, the protagonists must rise up to be heroes and save the Freedom Group. This happens in Book 2 of Maze Runners, where the original slavers attacked the Freedom Group and killed lots of people, and the protagonists had to help save them and join in the revolution.

3) The Freedom Group has long since died or is missing. Protagonists goes to the major city to find the army for salvation from zombies, only to discover they're all zombies themselves.

4) Freedom Group is exactly who they say they are, and they're recruiting good men like you. This happens in Divergent, where the protagonist joins up with the renegade faction to fight the heads of society.

(It's been a while since I've watched any of those shows/movies, so I could have gotten specifics wrong, but the tropes all still exist).

[Voltage89]

I think it'd be a good idea to convey that last bit in some way to the PCs. Maybe make a symbol as a signature, and the PCs may be able to identify it as a symbol of a freedom group or something. That way they know to trust it and they have something to look forward to. "We have to get to the tower, the Freedom Group will save us when we get there." It's a common trope and works really well for people eacaping some sort of calamity (escaping slavery like in Maze Runner, escaping zombies like in Walking Dead, etc).

From there you have a few follow up tropes to use:

1) The Freedom Group isn't what they seemed; are actually evil themselves. This is a trope for a darker genre where the innocent discover that there's no one to trust and no one is Good. This happened in season 4 or 5 of Walking Dead, where the protagonists discover that the village is just as evil as the zombies.

2) The Freedom Group is in some sort of trouble. Here, the protagonists must rise up to be heroes and save the Freedom Group. This happens in Book 2 of Maze Runners, where the original slavers attacked the Freedom Group and killed lots of people, and the protagonists had to help save them and join in the revolution.

3) The Freedom Group has long since died or is missing. Protagonists goes to the major city to find the army for salvation from zombies, only to discover they're all zombies themselves.

4) Freedom Group is exactly who they say they are, and they're recruiting good men like you. This happens in Divergent, where the protagonist joins up with the renegade faction to fight the heads of society.

(It's been a while since I've watched any of those shows/movies, so I could have gotten specifics wrong, but the tropes all still exist).
To be honest, I was thinking about having something where they were in trouble. However, I feel like I would rather have the players finally find a place of rest once they arrive there. The trek there will be far from easy!

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

To be honest, I was thinking about having something where they were in trouble. However, I feel like I would rather have the players finally find a place of rest once they arrive there. The trek there will be far from easy!

Are your players going to be using this as a base camp of sorts?

[Voltage89]

Are your players going to be using this as a base camp of sorts?

That was kinda my goal, but obviously it depends on what they want to do.

[Voltage89]

I am still trying to figure out what to do with their gear though. Any ideas?