Edge of the Underdark

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Edge of the Underdark
GM: Paul Schmidt
Season: Winter 799 WK

Party

• Sabrina Namer Elf/Valkyre Female (Leader)
• Turf Namer Elf Male
• Naiden Necromancer Human Male
• Scratch ??? Human Male
• Vychan Adam-Jones Earth Giant Male
• Basalic Earth Human Male Scribe
• Flamis Fire Human Female
• Kryan Illusionist Human Male
• Neroc Necromancer Human Male

Employer

Cuculain of Greyhawk

Mission

Find out what the drow’s plans are for the surface.

Plane

Greyhawk

Places visited

Greyhawk City

Gnome city in the UnderDark

Iren-Kithic - Drow city in the Underdark

The Skillet - Efeeti town in the Plane of Elemental Fire

City on the surface that had been taken over by the drow

City of Midrick

Major NPCs encountered

Lord Ebonhand

Shriek - a goblin

Matriarch of House Melshak

Lawfakir

Dr Stephanopolois

Trusty Jack

Original Scribe Notes

Media:Snwi9903.zip

Adventure Summary

1st Frost ‘99 - Day 1

Spent 26 days at the Guild having potions and scrolls done

27th Frost - Day 27

Went to Greyhawk City

1st Snow - Day 31

Reached entrance to Underdark. Encountered trolls in mushroom forest.

5th Snow - Day 35

Encountered and defeated large beholder. Obtained it’s treasure

6th Snow - Day 36

Found large underbground city, ex-dwarven, now populated by undead. One end contained two magical pillars which kept the undead away from that section. They are also an Earth place of power. Here resides an old red dragon on a large treasure pile. Nearby is a lava stream which is a fire place of power.

10th Snow - Day 40

Finally left the old city and encountered petch who told us how to get to the gnome city. On the way we reached a starway down a cliff. The minerals there distorted earth magics.

11th Snow - Day 41

Reached the gnome city. Stayed with the gnomes for some time while new spells were learnt and some training done.

12th Ice - Day 72

Left the gnome city with the plan to find a drow trading party and hijack them.

14th Ice - Day 74

Reached a kua-toa trading post. Various trading parties are here, including illithids, human, and drow.

15th Ice - Day 75

Go after one of the drow parties. Attacked by illithid on a rock bridge over a lava stream. Later on, we got directions from a bunch of duager riding giant spiders.

17th Ice - Day 77

Ambush drow party who are members of House Tormentor in the drow city. Have to fight off a summoned demon.

19th Ice - Day 79

Reach the city of fire giants located on the shores of a lava sea. Cross the sea and encounter an efreeti who wants a fire opal retrieved from the drow city. On the other side of the sea was an old male drow wizard who helped us maintain our drow illusions and also gave us stones that would help us speak drow. He also wants the House Matriarh of House Tormentor slain.

22nd Ice - Day 82

Arrived at a drow settlement where we obtained a goblin called Shriek. Stayed there overnight.

23rd Ice - Day 83

Bought two gnomes off a drow trading party. Later on, reached drow guardhouse and managed to pass through into the city. While we were there, we achieved the following:

• captured the steward of House Tormentor
• fought and defeated the house wizard of House Tormentor
• looted the House Tormentor vaults
• captured the Matriarch of House Tormentor
• captured the Matriarch of House Melshak (a rival house)
• looted the House Melshak vaults.

The House Melshak Matriarch was released and the House Tormentor Matriarch turned over to her. In the Melshak vaults was the fire opal the efreeti was looking for. We also discovered that the drow are using a large orray in the centre of the captured surface city to change the conditions at the surface to match those of the Underdark. The vaults contained notes and a model of the orray.

29th Ice - Day 89

Returned to the shore of the lava sea where the wizard and steward were released. The fire opal was turned over to the efreet. In return he conveyed the party to The Skillet where we were healed and rested.

Candlemas - Day 91

Arrived back at the gnome city and used a summoned xorn to reach the surface. Two party members had to be retrieved from an evil temple near the surface. Had an interview with the regent of the area. It was his city that the drow had captured. Currently there was a dark dome over it that was slowly expanding.

3rd Thaw - Day 94

Arrived in Greyhawk city and reported to the Wizard Lawfakir. Discovered how the orray worked.

5th Thaw - Day 96

Back to the regent and organised an army to invade the city once the dome was brought down.

9th Thaw - Day 100

Entered the domed city and made our way towards the centre. City populated by drow, formorian giants, and undead.

10th Thaw - Day 101

Reached the centre where the giant orray was. Had a large battle with drow and formorians. Sunlight spells were used to cause the orray to fade away and the dome to vanish. It is believed that the orray is still present and may reappear someday. The secret to permanently destroying it is said to lie in the underground dwarvish city which is directly below.

12th Thaw - Day 103

Returned to Greyhawk City and thence to the Guild.

The Unabridged Basalic

It was the day of the Guild Meeting but before the actual meeting itself that Flamis was approached by Adam-Jones. The party he was in was in the plane of Greyhawk and were investigating some incidents with drow. They were after some extra firepower. Since they were likely to be going underground, an Earth mage with reasonable ranks in Tunnelling would be useful. So Flamis and I agreed to join them. We didn't leave immediately though. One of their party, Axis Dragonmage, was unable to continue owing to other commitments this session but there was enough time for him to put useful spells onto scrolls for us. So we ended up with 8 Rank 13 Quickness scrolls, 10 Rank 16 Enhance Enchants, and 6 Rank 6 Opening spells. All this took 26 days and cost 20,000sp. Sabrina put the money up front. She also borrowed Axis' crystal ball. During this time we were briefed on what was going on. The party had been employed by the paladin, Cuculain. About seven years ago, the drow had been behind an uprising by the giants. The giants moved into elven lands while the drow attacked the capital city and surrounded it with some sort of dome. The elves fled the city. Meanwhile the giants infested the countryside but were beaten back. A few were still about causing trouble. The reason the giants were beaten back was because of a special race of orcs who were dedicated to liberate people from oppression. They had special abilities such as harder blows, cannot be disarmed, and form weapons out of nothing. At the moment they're against the drow. Our job was to find out what the drow were up to and give them a good 'cleansing'. The drow are skilled fighters and use poison. They don't like the light, use magic as talents, and most of them are pacted. The principle Colleges are necro, mind and celestial. Their society is matriachial and any battle with them is likely to be 'difficult'. The original party had already gone down the entrance where the fire giants had arrived from and had reached the bottom. Down there was a doorway leading to a temple and the entrance to the drow levels. The only treasure left down there was too dangerous to get at. The party had ran into trouble at the temple and had to return to be de-cursed. 27th Frost Finally made our way over to Greyhawk City. Once there, Flamis tried a Flamesight ritual. The first attempt produced the image of a desert, while the second was an image of a corner of a drow city in a cavern. She then tried her Contact Other Selves ritual. To our surprise there seemed to be two of them about. One was definitely malignant and the other 50/50. Spent a few days looking around Greyhawk City. 1st Snow Set off towards the entrance to the UnderDark, through the entranceway that the fire giants had come out of. It took four days to get there. 4th Snow Reached the entrance and headed down to the point where the party had already been. A wall was placed over the entrance to the temple and we carefully went through the double doors and into the lower levels. A ward on the other side was bypassed but, strangely, it seemed to slip around the counterspell. The walls of the passage were granite with embedded pyrites. A faint reddish glow could be detected ahead. As we progressed there were limestone deposits appearing but they didn't seem to be natural. Soon we could see the lava flow ahead and the path continued on alongside it. Two hours later the rock was mostly flowstone and there were more steps. The surface was also rougher and also more slick. Finally we reached a huge cavern containing several fungi and toadstools with eight or nine other entrances. I looked for tracks and detected several that were troll. It appeared that they were harvesting the fungi. Scratch went hunting and found three trolls. It looked like they were 'spaced out' from the effects of the mushrooms. One was snoring in the stream. The other two followed Scratch back to where we were. Scratch slipped and the troll leapt at him. Sabrina and Adam charged in. Adam head-butted one troll and knocked it over. Meanwhile Flamis hosed the other one with dragonflames. Finally we managed to dispatch both of them. The poisons were purged from the remaining troll and he was put under a charm. He knows where the drow are but their caverns were a long way from here. They don't trade with the drow preferring to stay out of their way. Their troll village is on the way but it is possible to go around although both of the alternate routes are more dangerous. One goes near a dragon and the other he wasn't sure about. All that went down there never came back. Finally we found a small defensible cavern to heal up and rest. .2. 5th Snow We followed the troll in order to bypass the village, going the way that no one had returned from. A while later we reached an area of flowstone that was more artificial with scalloped walls and artificially joined pillars. It was soon established that those pillars were hollow but, without breaking one open, it was impossible to determine what was inside. No magic was detected. An hour later we reached a large flowstone cavern. Flowstone steps led down into it and another set went up from the other end. In the centre was a large sinkhole at least 100ft deep. A slight cold airflow was flowing down into it. We made our way down by rope. Unfortunately Adam slipped. He would have made a large dent in the floor but, he was able to shrink himself into a cage which Scratch was able to catch. The troll was allowed to return to his village. Down below it was a mixture of granite and flowstone. Everything was scalloped and smooth. Five tunnels ran off from this area. We headed down one. The tunnel twisted and turned as well as getting smaller, much to Adam's discomfort. Finally he hopped back in his cage. At the end we found a single pillar and two uncut emeralds in the wall. I estimated they were worth several hundred silver pennies. However it was decided to leave them alone in case it was a trap. The other tunnels were found to be identical except there were no gemstones or they had been removed. There seemed no other way out of here until a crack in the floor was discovered. Inside we discovered a space with three trolls inside and they weren't happy. Shortly we found the stopper over the hole. I created a tunnel down to the chamber and the trolls panicked. One of them was ripped to pieces. Sabrina managed to calm them down and discovered that they are afraid of 'it', a large round creature. Just as we got the trolls out, we saw a light floating above. Then a note floated down with just one word on it 'Surrender'. One of the fleeing trolls fell over with its head missing. Also Naiden started stripping, obviously charmed in some way. The rest of us backed off into one of the tunnels, just as a 12' diameter beholder floated down into view. It was a much bigger one than the one I had heard about from Aqualina and probably much more powerful. What followed was one of the strangest battles I had ever witnessed. Sabrina cast several counterspells on herself then charged out on Ajax. Meanwhile Scratch rendered Naiden unconcious. He then joined the fray by having Adam throw him towards the beholder. No spells would work in the anti-magic field so it was down to range weapons, even though it was well out of suitable arrow range. However, somehow, both Scratch and Sabrina were able to attack it with their weapons even though they weren't in range. Turned out that they had acquired some strange items that allowed them to attack from outside the time stream. Scratch then sailed past the beholder and landed on the edge of the sinkhole above. His hump was beginning to melt from the beholder's disintegrate ray. As Sabrina and Ajax closed with it, it fired beam after beam from its eyestalks at them which they were resisting. Adam launched Turf at it. The beholder turned its attacks onto Turf but Turf was very resistant. Turf then landed on the beholder and took out its anti-magic eye before being knocked off, landing on the ground near Scratch. The beholder aimed its disintegrate beam upwards and carved a hole in the ceiling. We could hear the sound of rushing water from above. Sabrina attacked it again and it bit back. Meanwhile Flamis started climbing the walls of the hole, with a tiny statue of Adam, as the water started pouring in. I followed, carrying Naiden. Just then the beholder, looking rather battered by now, went thin and wispy and headed for the hole. Sabrina hit it with a mattock but it disappeared up the flow of water. She then used a special dagger to remove the charm from Naiden. Sabrina - "I'm suffering from Beholder Interruptus" Finally the water stopped flowing. Scratch sent a Wizards Eye up to have a look and discovered the beholder was holding back the incoming flow with a Wall of Force. The cavern it was in used to be a large lake surrounded by a pebble beach. On the beach was a pillar of rusty metal with a magical aura. Remains of healing potion vials were scattered nearby. We tunnelled our way in, emerging on the beach. Two Quickness scrolls were used on us and a good thing too. Suddenly two large snake-like monsters, GTN: Behir, erupted from beneath the pebbles, one on either side of our group. One blasted us with lighting, the other missed. Sabrina went to attack but, as it tried to coil itself around her it was stricken by arthritis. The other behir went for Scratch and was also stricken as it attempted to curl around him. I managed to score some good hits on the one around Sabrina while she extricated herself. Then a wound appeared on Ajax. The partially regenerated beholder had decided to join in the fight. .3. The only place that the beholder could be was one of the holes on the far wall. Unfortunately there were so many holes that the entire wall looked like a certain variety of cheese. My instructions were to try and locate the beholder so I drank my last ten point potion in order to recover some of the damage I had taken. Meanwhile the behir were starting to back off after being dragonflamed and pummelled. I decided to take a guess and cast the widest Tunnel possible at a random spot in the wall. It was very serendipitous that a rather surprised beholder was revealed. Turf tried to leap on Ajax to join in the charge but Ajax stepped sideways. As Sabrina charged in a scroll floated in front of the beholder that was being rapidly read. It suddenly vanished but reappeared above the lake, flying backwards. Then, it dropped out of the sky and into the lake. A short while later the water in that area started boiling and a message appeared on a rock near the shore. It wanted to negotiate. We decided to allow this. As it appeared above the water, I checked it's aura and discovered it was innately honourable. It offered us our lives and its own. It didn't have any maps but could describe a path to the drow city. It also believes that the nearby red dragon is dangerous. It has a small treasure pile, which we could make use of, and promised not to harm us directly or indirectly for at least ten years. So we had a look at the treasure and retrieved the useful items. I went for a set of drow half-plate armour. The rest of it consisted of troll bits, rotting food, clothing and some other stuff. Scratch also removed the horn off the dead behir. Some of the others want to have a go at the dragon but finally conclude that is too foolhardy.