| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Arivia |
Posted - 01 Apr 2016 : 02:30:18
I've always been obsessed with megadungeons in D&D. Undermountain, Castle Greyhawk, the Emerald Spire...whatever it is, the idea of a huge dungeon that is a campaign unto itself, and that can never be fully explored nor mapped, has always appealed to me. I've been working on a couple of campaigns I want to run, and I was struck by how Ed's home Realms campaigns both center around megadungeons (the Haunted Halls and Undermountain) and I decided to start working on one of my own. As my campaign is going to be in the early-1370s Silver Marches, the Fallen Lands was a natural choice. After all, they are the most infamous ruins in the North!
I've ended up moving my second group into the Fallen Lands to strictly run through the megadungeon, as they wanted something a bit simpler than the classic Realmsplay I was working on in Cormyr. So I've really been pushing myself to get more details down and to start researching how to put a good megadungeon together. (Obviously, if you're a player in one of my Pathfinder games, don't look at this thread!)
I've sketched out the basic outline of the dungeon's history so far, and here it is:
Under the Fallen Lands lies a terrible secret, Shar’s infection of Chauntea unimaginably long ago. Seeking revenge on Chauntea for wanting warmth, Shar poisoned Chauntea, driving a lance of impossible darkness deep into Toril.
It has always been said that the lower depths of the Underdark likely lead to the Shadow Plane, and this is due to Shar’s corruption. Inside the Fallen Lands is a seed, a primordial of the long ago, ready to bleed itself into existence. It is the Darkest Cold, and Shar has kept it safe and nurtured it for eons.
Over the years, like so many things on Toril do, the Forgotten Womb of the Darkest Cold was forgotten. The Fallen Lands are damaged, ill and sickened by the horrors below, but their reputation as the foremost adventuring spot in the North comes from other sources, such as the dwarves of Ammarindar, Spellgard, and a Netherese floating enclave (Delia) that crashed into the Fallen Lands when Mystryl died.
The enclave’s fall altered Shar’s plans. Previously, the Forgotten Womb was inviolate and unbreakable, but even the Lady of Loss could not prevent the damage of a fallen city as magic itself writhed in pain. The enclave’s crash dug deep into the ground, breaking open the Forgotten Womb. Shar saw this is as a good thing, viewing Mystryl’s death as the beginning of the end, but was quickly rebuffed by Mystra’s birth.
The break in the Weave caused by Karsus’ spell gave the Darkest Cold a terrible shuddering growth spurt. It nearly broke its own bonds, and grew its own sentience (in contrast to Shar’s desired madness.) The outer reaches of the Forgotten Womb were broken; Shar rebuilt a smaller, stronger womb and sealed it shut. Inside, her handpicked servants would live for eternity, torturing the Darkest Cold back into insanity.
Above, Shar coaxed the already mad Lady Polaris, archmage of Delia, into serving her. Lady Polaris and the other survivors of the Fall staked their claim to the Fallen Lands, turning the remains of Delia into a new city-state where the Fallen Lands are today. On Shar’s behalf, the survivors sunk a great shaft into the ground on the edge of Anauroch, opening the ruined outer Forgotten Womb to entry. Lady Polaris still lives, insane and utterly broken, attended to by throngs of constructs and undead, tormented.
The ruined outer Forgotten Womb was riddled with holes, both spatial and intraplanar. Throngs of outsiders were pulled into it during the Fall, filling the Outer Womb and the ruins of Delia. Shar let them stay to serve as a distraction from her own works below. Shar’s own Shadow Weave magics went awry as well, producing the oddities that cloak the Fallen Lands today.
As happened with the other successor states of Netheril, the survivors of Delia died off. They started wars they could no longer finish with Ammarindar; they were lead by an insane wizard-queen; the growth of Anauroch doomed them. Their new homes turned into ruins.
The primordial Darkest Cold is taken from 4e stylings about the history of Faerun (and indeed inspired by the conclusion to epic LFR). The idea of a single evil force at the bottom of the dungeon is obviously inspired by Rappan Athuk, although like that I'm not expecting anyone to get there and actually kill it. If I'm doing a huge dungeon on the edge of Anauroch, there has to be some tie to the Netherese I think, and a crashed major enclave is a good option I think. Part of my goal (as with all good Realms design) is going to be to tie together what already references the Fallen Lands and what's around it. So that means Stormkeep, the infamous beholder lord, Yathchol and Ammarindar, Spellgard and goblin refugees from the Goblin Marshes. |
| 3 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Cards77 |
Posted - 05 Apr 2016 : 00:20:08
I totally love this. Please post more! |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 04 Apr 2016 : 05:19:37
I just found this and I'm hoping you continue describing your creative process. Dazzlerdal and I have been working through a megadungeon concept of our own for quite a while now and would love to see how it is approached by others. The lore here is really cool too. |
| Arivia |
Posted - 01 Apr 2016 : 03:21:34
One of the campaign techniques I've adopted over my last few games is to mix up Pathfinder's progression tracks. My players aren't enthused by very low levels, and they're certainly a very swingy kind of play. Conversely, I really like that scrabbling attempt to get your first masterwork dagger, and the low levels are really good for giving newer players confidence in the rules and allowing everyone to settle into their characters. I definitely want to make sure the sweet spot of 3e levels (roughly 3-11) lasts as long as possible. Therefore, I've taken to starting off groups on the fast track, and switching them to slow when they hit 3rd level. (Note that this also requires switching up treasure allotments, as those are pegged to experience rewards.)
This switch doesn't work very well for a megadungeon. Megadungeons generally adhere very strictly to the dungeon level idea, where each floor down is a corresponding increase in monsters and treasure. (You can see this extremely strongly in OD&D/1e, a bit in 2e and 3.0, and it's gone by the time you get to 3.5/Pathfinder, although you can reconstruct it out of the character level-challenge rating interaction.) If the idea of a megadungeon is to allow the players to head further and further down as they see fit, a dramatic change in treasure ratios fights that idea. Originally, this wasn't a problem. When I was just planning the megadungeon for my Silver Marches group, I knew I'd be taking them to level 3 somewhere else; I'd just start the first level of the dungeon to challenge level 4 characters or whatever and it would work fine. Now that I've moved my other group into the Fallen Lands, I need somewhere to start them off.
So I'm going to create a separate dungeon for the accelerated levels 1 and 2. Fragmented or other dungeons that lead into a main dungeon is certainly not a new or unusual concept. The Cliffwatch Ruins in Waterdeep could be considered one with their connections to Undermountain.
Trying to figure my separate dungeon out lead me back to my research, as usual. A Grand Tour of the Realms (from the Revised Campaign Set) notes that goblins from the Goblin Marshes fleeing the expansion of Anauroch fled to the Fallen Lands. I was uncertain, but a bit of searching around here and a look at Elminster's Ecologies and the Grand History of the Realms tells me that the Goblin Marshes contained the goblin realm of Hlundadim. So I have refugees from the fall of Hlundadim coming to possibly a worse place in my insane Sharran Fallen Lands (and with an additional check of the timeline, they did it AFTER the fall of Netheril.)
I was already researching Grodd for the Cormyr game I'm not running, so I'm going to tie the Iron One as an unknown goblin deity in as well. My players in this group are largely new players, making goblins a good fit. In Pathfinder's rules, goblins are one of the easier humanoid races, much less fearful than the monstrously tough orcs, and goblins aren't also quite as crafty as kobolds. I'm thinking my Goblin Halls are going to be sprawling and decadent, the last gasp of a dying power as it gives in to death and madness. The current goblins have fallen far, and fallen hard. They look up to Great Hlundadim, but they have only a cargo-cult idea of what made him so successful. They'll do strange rituals and odd things in combat, their barely-remembered traditions insisting this will lead them to victory.
I broke out a random dungeon generator (Gygax's from The Strategic Review #1/3e Dragon Compendium) and came up with this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v6kerbmlu3j332n/IMG_0643.jpg It's a lot larger than most Faerunian dungeons, but it is a megadungeon after all. One of the better tips I've seen for a megadungeon is that you just want to get it in play as soon as possible, and then expand when your players show you where they want to go and what they want to do. That map has plenty of exits leading to more of this level, and leading down, and I'll keep those as is until the players choose one. If I prepare a few extra encounters, I can definitely keep ahead of them the session they do choose to go off the starting map.
Speaking of the starting map, remember what I said above about the relationship between dungeon levels and the increase in monsters and treasure? I want to keep that intact for my megadungeon, so each level is going to be pegged to a character level it's built for. I only need these Goblin Halls to take the PCs to level 3, so I just need 2 levels, but those can sprawl out pretty large. (The second level is going to have a passage leading to the main dungeon, of course - little details like that make the megadungeon setting come to life and also allow for traffic back and forth.) Even though I used a random generator to map out the level, I'm going to use the sample goblin lairs from Elminster's Ecologies to actually flavour and fill in the rooms. And I think for each level, I'm going to convert one monster from D&D to Pathfinder to use, and adapt one Pathfinder-only monster to the Realms. (I don't want Pathfinder's goblins with horsechoppers, but I think the goblin dog is an easy include, and I might put in the goblin snake as a Scaled Folk trick.)
And even though I just have some ideas written down and one level mapped (but not keyed) I really need to start writing a timeline because my head is already swimming with dates. That's a good thing about running in the Realms though, always more to sink your teeth into. |
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