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I strongly suggest hiding the fact that Book I is a "warm-up" from the players. Do not allow them to get bored with the task at hand. First, hide the box and don't let the PC's see the cover of Book I until you've started Book II. Don't even let on that the campaign is called "Night Below" until then. That way, Haranshire will look like any other generic campaign area with a hot spot or two to mop up. The epic nature of your quest should be hidden.
Second, reconsider Jelenneth's role. Sargent wrote her first as a reason the PC's are in the game, and second as a spy on Shaboath. If you are emphasising the former, don't leave her out of the plot for such a frickin' huge time: let her be kidnapped later and/or be found sooner. Keep in mind that the less of a time gap, the less she would know about Great Shaboath and the less her personality would change. In fact, if you want Jelenneth to spy on Shaboath, you can't let her be found before Book III.
Perhaps the best solution is to let the PC's find Jelenneth relatively early. If she is to remain a spy, I suggest that she was spying on the derro and kuo-toa instead of the aboleth. The poster elmonster instead had her cooling her heels in the drow outpost preceding the slime cavern - in which case she would know most about the quaggoth and hook-horrors. Either way, let some other long-lost NPC(s) inhabit her Book III hideout, like those mentioned in Handout 13.
Third, make Haranshire an demanding place to work. Eastern Haranshire contains the Thornwood, the Shrieken Mire, and Howler's Moor, all of which contain legends far more terrifying than the rag-tag bands of orcs in the Great Rock Vale. Build on them. Chris Anderson suggested putting the Count under the aboleths' spell and killing off Oleanne. Another tested-and-true way is to add a few other quests here and there. They should be longish ones like B5 or "Return to the Keep on the Borderlands", although I don't recommend anything on the scale of Temple of Elemental Evil. Again, your goal in Haranshire is to let the campaign build up under the PC's noses. Plus, a modular adventure will allow experience level growth, and will acclimatize the PC's for the long slog through the Underdark.
What I generally do is stir up the pot. For example: there's a level-draining undead not far from the Rock Vale, guarding some treasure. Suppose some dumb-ass orcs pay the area a visit... and then lurch home. Soon, there's an army of hobgoblin wights threatening the whole barony. Or, some other horror from the Underdark may burst out and need to be put down (the shadow dragon is one example, given that it lives southwest of here). It'll have nothing to do with the campaign (at least, not during Book I) but it'll remind everyone that they sit atop a dangerous area. The Lyrchwood is almost logged out of mature growth, which means that the loggers will start coming into conflict with the rangers and the druid. Noting the werebear family, Chris Anderson added a werewolf family as well. And who says the PC's are the only adventurers here? Add some others - and make them lose their spellcasters. Suddenly there are a lot of upset out-of-work thieves and bashers roaming the area - and that means crime and banditry.
And don't let the aboleth sit still, twirling their tentacles, while they wait for the PC's to take down the City of the Glass Pool and Great Shaboath. Admittedly, as long as the City of the Glass Pool is standing, the aboleth probably won't care about what goes on in Haranshire and the upper Underdark - but their subordinates will, and the mind flayers have the brains to do something about it. Have them distribute Potions of Domination liberally around Haranshire, and not just among the baddies, either. If the Bloodskull Orcs are eliminated, have the illithids (with derro aid) form a new base of operations elsewhere. The stream of captured mages will hiccup, but then start anew from a different location.
If the PC's actually start to succeed in changing the balance of power in the area, and the illithids find out about their Haranshire links, make the illithids carry out a terror campaign against Haranshire. If an entire village - Harlaton, for instance - should collapse into an underworld cavern, attended by fireballs and the phantasmal forces of a few laughing fiends, popular sentiment should shift decidedly against aiding and abetting PC efforts. (elmonster suggests, rightly in my view, that the illithids would be setting servile derro to this task.)
Remember above all that the aboleth have a vested interest in making the place a haven for adventurers (read: spellcasters), both good and evil. Think about it. The fishie rotters'd get caught if they targeted a major city. But how can they obtain their raw materials out here in the boonies?
Of course, the aboleth are targeting other areas, too; note Kranin in Book II, p. 23. Also, the adventurers Hazakian the Wise, Marshank the Evoker, Brother Ferarius, Sushina the elf, Sonnore the thief, and Arkanse the warrior are not known to Haranshire. Nor is the tavern "The Rat and Chitterlings". (Player Handouts 13-16.) Haranshire is not an island.
Most of Book II's suggestions I'm handling elsewhere, since they represent additions and alterations to the map. There are a few points I can address here, though.
First, the text wasn't clear as to the PC's entry point. The two major candidates are the northwest open tunnel, and the northeast area 10. Here are the clues:
I once assumed area 10, but now I'm leaning to the northwest passage. You make the call. Area 10 is 110 miles to the east of the northwest passage.
The DM shouldn't get rid of the vast amount of treasure; I have a feeling Sargent was using it so players could Make XP Fast. Instead of removing it, move it; when you redo the map, shunt some of this junk into new caverns guarded by new dangers, and not a big tribe of monsters this time. I personally count magic items and even information as treasure. Don't give them everything at once; don't tell them everything at once. Besides, it's open to question whether the PC's will even run across any of it (c.f. Gary Affeldt).
As for what to do with the stuff when your party's earned it: the original intention of XP for gp was that the character only earned the XP when he spent the gp. In ye olden Arnesonian days, this meant "wine, women, and song", or some other player-defined interest of the character (like spell components and guild fees). Might and Magic games make the character spend money on training before he gained a level. There's also the effect a glut of gold will have on a rural economy. (Not to mention the lawsuits. "Oi! That's moy WEDDING RING in that hoard!") Is there a monster for whom the PC's need a weakness? Hire a sage. Items can miss saving throws. And Parlfray can decide to tax the PC's. (Most of this courtesy "shaman", 343c5a1d.0@news.nucleus.com)
Speaking of big tribes of monsters, remember to gear them to diplomacy first, where possible. I also suggest removing the trolls (the trogs can stay). The party has just finished wearing itself out hacking up orcs. A cave full of TWO tribes of troll isn't going to impress them, and some parties have found them too deadly for an opening act. There are also no wandering trolls in Books I or II, although they do hang out in the outskirts of the Sunless Sea. They aren't even necessary to the overall plot of NB. Sum it up and you have a waste of time for the players' first taste of the Underdark. Instead, the gnomes could ask to be guarded while they migrate away from those pesky surface races (there are other svirfneblin tribes: III.33; these may be reached through secret doors in area 10: II.5), or they could ask the party to investigate or procure something for them: for instance, the magical dagger currently in the troll caverns (II.10), which ought to stay in the upper levels. Not counting the trog cave and the dagger, there are 39425 gp here plus 63575 XP worth of monsters, totalling 103000 XP; the DM should devise other encounters to bestow those XP on the characters before they tangle with the deepspawn or the dragons. As for the troll lair, you needn't delete it entirely. I saved that for the start of Book III, here.
On the plus side, with the derro free to act again, they might aid the PC's. Diirinka Himself may get involved if he sees His people dominated by aboleth, especially if you've added some priests; and if you have Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, he might send down his Abomination to "help". Of course, such intervention would throw additional obstacles in the PC's path.
By the way, do not underestimate the illithids. Illithids can use psionics and plane-shift. Has your party got a defence? If not, read these testimonials from NtlAcrobat (20010708100246.18442.00003011@ng-fa1.aol.com) in rgfd:
It all went fine for about a year until we reached the point where the only thing left at that point was to attack the Kuo Toa city. Unfortunately there are like 5 or 6 mind flayers guarding the city and the dm wouldn't allow any psionic characters. Basically we show up to sack the city and 6 mind flayers fry us in less than 5 minutes. Campaign over.
and from Aardy:
Illithids can cast /plane shift/ at will as a touch attack. Let me reiterate: Flayers can use /PLANE SHIFT/ *AT WILL*! (Once a round, anyway.) This can be a devastating tactic against PCs who can't get enough distance to "safely" kill them with missile weapons without being in /mind blast/ range, and don't have a mage powerful enough to regularly break through their SR. Sure, there's a save, but it's essentially "save or die" by a CR *8* creature. Now imagine what could happen if a flayer more interested in removing danger than in supper gets close enough to touch a PC already felled by a mind blast. Not pretty, is it...
and plan ahead before your players bring out the tar and feathers.
In addition, Aardy DeVarque wrote that there are at least two encounters involving Improved Invisibility in the Slime Temple and beyond. I noted a mage with Invisible Stalker, II.23; and an Ixzan wizard, II.58. Apparently Aardy's DM had also granted this power to the mage himself and to the slaver party, each of whom had "only" the standard version in the book. At any rate these creatures can attack while "invisible". Night Below assumes Second Edition D&D, in which "invisible" meant that the intelligent and experienced (Int 13+ and Lvl 10+) members of the party must save v. spell from two experience-levels down. Then they could swing back at their transparent assailant at -4 to hit (Player's Handbook p. 142, 159).
In Third Edition rules and "simulationist revisionary" house rules (like mine), matters are different. The 3E Will check replaces the 2E Spot check, and 3E "Concealment" replaces the 2E TH penalty. In case you want to follow up, 3E refers Improved Invisibility to the standard Invisibility rules for details (Player's Handbook pp. 217-8), and the latter is what refers to the Concealment rules (pp. 132-3). For "Will" (p. 120), I resorted to the index.
If I am reading 3E and 2E right, game balance ought to be preserved; once a Will check is made, the enemy is visible for that PC, and there is no more need for Concealment rules. But some DM's are stricter than others:
"Between the Spot roll necessary to be able to target an invisible character for direct attacks, and the flat 50% miss chance even if you do hit, those two encounters are as bad or worse than some of the encounters that are far above the party's [experience level] due to the utter inability to affect an opponent in any way."
2E was vague about whether the party would need to "Spot check" an attacker in the middle of melée, and 3E didn't say how often PC's had to roll for Will. But it seems to me that a mage in a dark cave need never enter melée, nor tip the PC's off to his invisible status. He could cast a spell, sneak to another part of the cave during the confusion, and cast another. In fact, he barely needs invisibility at all...
Back to the caverns prior to area 16. I agree with Aardy that, the party ought to "have access to /See Invisibility/ [historically misnamed "Detect" - ed.] or a priest who's
willing to constantly dedicate a slot to /Invisibility Purge/ [3E only - ed.]... Without access to either or both of
those spells, either or both of those two encounters will almost certainly
result in PC deaths.
" DM's in turn ought to provide such access - Finslayer is one way, but both rakshasa and the Rockseers also know the spell - and be careful about assigning a spell-casting Hollow Man to earlier parts of the campaign.
In the case of large-scale combat against sentient species, Dunc/Eggplan522 suggested in 24 April 2000: "It is also more fun if you let a guest player control important evil NPC's, especially in the city combats, and then allow them to general the city forces rather than using the generic responses provided." <20000424162033.00320.00000838@ng-fj1.aol.com> In particular, it'd throw off the players from your usual fighting style.
Dunc added that the pot can be stirred down here, too. The brackets are mine: "Underdark plague, [Bloodskull?] Orcan refugees encroaching on [DM's race of choice] space, Holy War [derro?] ... that spills between surface and underdark, and a Rakshasa dreamstalker that threw the svirfneblins under Carmeneren into chaos. These were mystery and diplomacy related and helped a lot to change the pace." In addition, the troglodytes of the troll caverns, whether or not the DM keeps them in said caverns, can become a "major problem" if the trolls do not keep them in check (II.7).
Above all, there are a number of spellcasters who have reason to fear the aboleth. There are some - the rakshasa, Kranin - who may be able to protect themselves until they can leave. Many others are at risk, though. Carmeneren, the Rockseers, and the non-aligned derro are obvious candidates for sacrifice; but there is also the quaggoth thonot (II.16), the grell (II.14), the fire giant witch doctor (III.12), and even Fandruzsch (II.28). If they are smart enough to cast spells (when's the last time YOU successfully cast one?), then they are smart enough to negotiate with the PC's. Or they might disappear mysteriously when the PC's come back to visit...
Mike had a Dao invade the Rockseers from Elemental Earth. Another gambit the DM can play is to side-trek the PC's off to Rictus in Mount Chamada of Gehenna, or just as far as the Rotting Oracle in the Outlands (Dead Gods pp. 17-18). The aim: to aid Tenebrous in destroying Maanzecorian, primary deity of the illithids involved in this campaign. In this case change Ipshizeen's allegiance to Ilsensine.
If the DM is employing a time limit, the DM might consider holding off on it until the PC's wreck the City of the Glass Pool. Don't rush the players, or they will rush their characters, and lose them. Instead, let them traipse around. This is not a D-series with hundreds of miles of off-track tunneling. Every place they go will have something to do with the plot. DM's of a simulationist bent can rationalise that long-lived and arrogant beings like aboleth might not get around to imposing a deadline until they perceive a threat from outside entities, like adventurers. Urgency can be created with other time limits: foiling the Bloodskulls, rescuing Jelenneth, aiding various factions, etc.
At the end of the game, Josh Jasper suggested this way to fix the repetition: "Make [the four Towers of Domination] one Tower, then trap the PC's in underearth and have them have to fight their way out. Say that the exploding tower wrecks any of those magic transport rocks. Or fling them into the outer planes. Heh." (390244D3.61DA90C6@jps.net)
Haranshire is a rainfed limestone country above the water table. The entries noted in the text cannot exhaust the potential caves of the region. The Halfcut Hills contain fossils, which strongly implies a sedimentary origin (i.e. more limestone). Also, the Great Rock Dale has all the hallmarks of being an immense collapsed cavern. And the goblins of the western Patchworks found their magical ring "deep underground" over "two years ago", before they broke off from another tribe - Book I p. 26. The Patchworks and underground passages still host the odd pack of wandering goblins (Book I & II, back cover). Perceptive players may well decide to take on the Underdark before they've polished off the Bloodskull orcs.
No underdark menaces have yet shown their faces in Haranshire, unless you count the recently-arrived fomorian family (I.38). In fact, the reverse is true: in this area the underdark natives are currently being harassed by migrants from the surface. I'm not counting the trolls, which are not found on the surface, nor even in the underdark outside the Sunless Sea environs (see "Suggestions"). There are ogres, orcs, and even a couple of hill giants.
The back cover of Book II claims that all those near-surface creatures will only be found within 30 miles of the starting point. Especially here must be more entrances than are mentioned in the narrative. The Blanryde Hills are not too far to the northwest of the entrance point, they are limestone (I.31), and their abandoned lead and copper mines make for ideal shelters. As lairs, of course, they're lousy, since there's nothing to eat. That's what forces the monsters to go foraging underground, where there are all manner of critters to snack on. Of course, by now they realize that if they venture too far they are more likely to be snacked on.
So, what happens when the players try to get in on the action? The shadow dragon will leave the more obvious hints to his entrance's location; but in my opinion, low-level PC's foolish enough to try that door deserve to be eaten. I would be more inclined to generosity if my players were searching the Rock Vale or the Blanryde mines. In this case I would reward their efforts - but only to meet the party with an armed force of svirfneblin. The gnomes are on watch for meddling outsiders; the aboleth have influenced too many from the surface. (Also, an earlier party either robbed them of a map to their cemetery, or went prying to such an extent that they created their own map: Handouts 13 and 15.) The party won't have proven themselves, and will be weak enough that the gnomes can afford to oppose them. The gnomes can then direct the PC's to the Bloodskull orcs and the rest of Book II can follow as usual.
The DM shouldn't blame the players for being bored with Haranshire; if the DM thinks he can do better, then I for one welcome his ambition. These areas should link with other features of the regional Underdark.
To the east, the ledgeway/pit near the gnomish tombs may also extend to the surface. However, the deep gnomes keep the entrance blocked off at X2 and probably keep an eye out for visitors and new passages. The piercers of the area may even be trained (II.22).
Further east, the narrative demands that there be a land of surface elves around here (III.4); in fact, there are "woodlands far to the east of Haranshire" where humans and elves once united to drive down the Broken Ones. To give the Broken Ones as short a journey as possible, these woodlands should be placed due north of the Great Cavern: roughly 20 miles due east of room 21, followed by 11.35 miles southwest = 11.35sin50 = 8.7 miles due east, which is in turn 55.3 miles east of area 10; add another possible 10 miles to the north corner of the Great Cavern: 90+/-5 miles to the east of area 10 in total and up to 150 miles south. (III.18) Broken Ones are unnatural creations, and doubtless these were made not too long before they were chased into the Great Cavern. There must have been over 100, for the illithids only kept the Greater sort, and quite a few of those. In addition, the fomorian giants of the Great Cavern did not arrive via Haranshire; nor did the fomorians of the Shrieken Mire come from below. It may not be coincidental that those woods to the east now house deformed giants below and used to house deformed humanoids above. There are powerful magical energies there; and that's leaving aside what the aboleth and illithids have been up to lately.
These passages feed directly into the northern tunnels of book III and thus do not allow a Book II-based dodge around the Glass Pool (although there might be an additional tunnel from the above northern network to the City itself). Where this section meets book III, see here.
There also is or was a connexion with the Plane of Shadow somewhere, whence the Tenebrous Worm of the Great Cavern's side passages, derro specialties, and the strange nature of some of the magicks. This hints that the portal is in a surface forest very close to the worm's territory. This may be the elven woodland depicted above or another one far to its south. It all depends on how you restrict the worm's territory via Book III's encounter tables.
Optionally, to the south, area 17 could be given dragon-sized access to the surface world. Fandruzsch the shadow dragon got here only 30 years back (Book II p. 26), and is known to Inzeldrin (Book I p. 39). The more obvious solution is to widen the passage to the ledgeway just to the north, and have that ledgeway traverse an enormous pit that rises to the surface. This is some distance south or southwest of Haranshire, depending on where you put the entrance point. In this case Fandruzsch flew in from the east. Another possible solution is Aranamarunda's (from the forum), that the dragon has or had other access to the Plane of Shadow, via portal, and that Inzeldrin knows about him because it has been 30 years, and he's a dragon himself and makes it his business to find out about such things.
"The only monster-infested area which the PC's must enter [on the way to the Derro warrens and the Kuo-Toa city] is the slime caverns. Everything else here is optional. However, sidetracking earns experience, treasure, and clues." - Book II, p. 13. This implies that any DM modifications must still force the players to pass through area 16.
There is a direct route from X1 to X6 with no side passages, but it is kept blocked by the mind flayers (II.11). It's possible that the mind flayers are keeping it direct, too. There may be side passages blocked with rubble. If so, these passages are only accessible to PC's who have braved area 16. Otherwise, the PC's would bypass area 16. (Can't have that.)
Similarly, PC's may be given alternate routes to bypass area 13, and the expanded maze can even incorporate rooms 14 and 15. These routes should "be cruel" (II.13). Some of those alternate routes - possibly leading to additional encounters - can be accessible via ledgeways and wormholes. The wormhole hazards do not bypass area 16 either, which has implications for their denizens (see next page). Xorn create their own passages too, possibly leading back to Elemental Earth.
Before you go too wild here, I must point out that Book II's main theme is to get the party from Haranshire to the Glass Pool. Everything else in it, in particular the Rockseer subplot, is a distraction. These distractions are concentrated on the hither side of area 16. There is not much a DM can or should do to delay the party from the passages beyond. (My proposals up to that point remove at least as much as they add.)
The derro sector serves the main plot of Night Below and it is here that the DM has the greatest leeway for expansion. Also, the passage from the Glass Pool to the Sunless Sea is not straight, but is riddled with side passages, including more ledgeways and wormholes.
For suggestions on how to stock this map, go to next page
4 August 2001 - created from index & underdark. 17 August - wormholes. 24 August - Plane of Shadow, separate 'Beyond Haranshire' section. 2 Sept - more to redrawing map. 10-11 Nov - improvements based around new worm page. 24 May 2002 - don't need a shadow dragon sinkhole after all. 7 October 2003 - the forum poster "elmonster" has implemented some of these suggestions, and has addenda which I am posting here.