Session 15: The Underdark

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The Underdark

Summary

Ryltar T'sarran, the Drow Lookout
Cloaker
Roper

The party wasted no time silencing the drow lookout, Ryltar T'sarran, as Glenn's frog tongue deftly snatched away his whistle before he could summon Umber Hulks. Despite a brief scuffle—including Lilia resisting drow poison and the celestial badger's polite but fruitless diplomacy—the group subdued and interrogated their prisoner. Ryltar, after enduring a cycle of unconsciousness and waking via starry-smelling salts, relented. He revealed Aunrae Drezz'Lynur's deception: the ogres had been led to believe they were teleporting below Surthay, but the sigils would instead cast them into the duergar-infested Black Gloam. With faerzress somehow shielding her from divination, Aunrae played both sides, taking coin from both Tharos and the duergar slavers.

Leaving Ryltar with his weapons and free to seek his fate on the surface, the party pressed deeper into the Underdark, following ogre footprints past glowing fungi and a fork in the tunnels. A false trail led to an abandoned camp—only for Lilia to discover, firsthand, that a tattered cloak was a living Cloaker. The ensuing battle saw Unit 137 unleash hellfire, Glenn sever its tail, and Smokescale fall (for now) as the creature latched onto him and Lilia withered them both into oblivion. Glenn and Unit 137 harvested its carapace.

Realizing the ogres had backtracked, the party corrected course and found themselves on the shores of the Cold Sea, an expanse of still, dark water. Flying silently over its surface, they extinguished their light, narrowly avoiding a roper's grasping tentacles over an expanse of bibberbangs. Draped in the cloaker's carapace, they mimicked its movement, fooling another roper into letting them pass. Their journey took them to a second mooring post, where signs of a massive object—likely the Monolith of Stars—had been unloaded from a barge.

Tracking the ogres' movements inland, the party discovered the aftermath of a slaughter—drow bodies lay about, throats slit, backs pierced with massive javelins. Their path led to a grim confrontation: ahead, Vaergath, the ogre assassin, held Aunrae Drezz'Lynur by the throat, slamming her against a cavern wall. Beside them were a teleportation circle and the Monolith of Stars. Enraged by her betrayal, he demanded she honor their deal and open the way to Drezz'Lynur. She sneered through bloodied lips, invoking Lolth's name. As Vaergath prepared to convince her, the party made their move, launching boulders and starry bolts. The ogre fought with savage fury, taking blows and turning invisible—only to be caught in Faerie Fire. Aunrae, desperate, attempted to summon a Cloudkill, but Octavius snuffed it out with a well-timed Counterspell.

And then — the session ended, combat hanging in the balance.

XP Award

  • 200 XP for Octavius's encyclopedic knowledge of this part of the Underdark
  • 900 XP for defeating the drow lookout and preventing Umber Hulks from appearing
  • 975 XP for defeating the Cloaker
  • 900 XP for bypassing the two Ropers
  • 200 XP for identifying all flora encountered
  • 200 XP for barely reaching the Monolith of Stars in time
  • Total: 3375 XP
  • Current XP: 17380 XP -> 20755 XP (Level 6)
  • (Required for next level: 23000 XP)

Things That Happened

Silencing the Lookout

  • Date: 15th of Tarsakh (The Claw of the Storms, April), afternoon, 1372 DR
  • The party executed their plan to Hold Person the drow (Ryltar T'sarran) to prevent him from calling Umber Hulks with his whistle.
    • He promptly resisted the spell.

Encounter: The Drow Lookout

  • Highlights:
    • Glenn barreled through the tunnel, pushing Diedric out of the way.
    • Before the drow could blow the whistle, Glenn removed it from his neck with his frog tongue.
    • The polite badger attempted to talk down the drow to no effect.
    • The drow was beaten down by the party, including bludgeoning with a cosmic scythe, but not before grazing Lilia with his hand crossbow.
      • She felt sleepy from the drow poison, but resisted its effects.

The Interrogation

  • After tying up the lookout and dragging him to the other side of the tunnel, Lilia cleansed his wounds and woke him up with conjured, starry smelling salts.
  • Then began a cycle of refusing to cooperate, in both Elvish and Undercommon, and being beaten into unconsciousness by Glenn, only to be awakened again.
  • Octavius recalled from his studies that this drow was likely from Drezz'Lynur, one of the ten city states making up the drow metropolis of Underk'Thoz. Each is connected to the others via teleportation circles that do not allow some metals to pass through, in order to avoid warfare amongst them.
  • He eventually relented, giving a full exposition dump.
  • "Aunrae Drezz'Lynur… ambitious, reckless, a spider who thinks she spins the grandest web. She works under Matron Zorratha's name, but her true allegiance is to herself."
  • "She plays Tharos for a fool. Promised him safe passage for the Monolith, but her hands weave two threads—one for him, one for the duergar of Fraaszummdin. The ogres march to a lie. She will use the sigils, speak the words, and when they step through that teleportation circle, send them not to below Surthay, but to darkness. They'll be cast into the depths of the Black Gloam, left as playthings for duergar slavers."
  • "Tharos's gold is good, but a second patron makes her bolder. The duergar match his coin, and she is shielded from the high diviner's watch by faerzress."
    • He went on to explain that faerzress is a radiation that permeates some parts of the Underdark, interfering with divination and conjuration.
  • After some convincing, he agreed to try his luck on the surface. The party left him his weapons on the other side of the tunnel after freeing him from his bonds, but only after removing their drawstrings to slow him down.

The Underdark Proper

  • The party excited the Umber Hulk tunnel and entered into the Underdark fully.
  • The cavern complex was vast, the air thick and damp, with sounds of dripping water and strange echoes, with some areas lit by blue and purple bioluminescent fungi.
  • The party spotted and identified benign flora, including bluecap mushrooms (spores used to make bread), fire lichen (used by duergar to make a bitter liquor) and barrelstalks (filled with drinkable water unless the plants were too old.)
  • They continued to follow ogrish footprints. There was evidence of bite marks on mushrooms.

A Fork In The Flight

  • Date: 15th of Tarsakh (The Claw of the Storms, April), evening, 1372 DR
  • Six hours into the flight, they ran into a fork in the road, where ogre footprints led to the right.
  • After some investigation, they agreed to go right.

The Path Less Traveled

  • After an hour of time, they arrived at a dead end -- an abandoned camp, with the remains of a fire, two backpacks, and a pile of bones beneath an old cloak.
  • Lilia investigated, and found that the old cloak was a living creature -- a Cloaker.

Encounter: The Cloaker

  • Highlights:
    • The party realizing that the creature recoiled from the bright light emanating from the flying carpet.
    • Unit 137 unleashing hellfire from his hands for the first time.
    • Glenn chopping off the creature's tail.
    • A barrage of lunar and starry guiding bolts.
    • The Cloaker conjuring mirror images of itself and frightening most of the party with its loud moans.
    • The Cloaker attaching itself to Smokescale, causing his defeat as Lilia finished the creature by withering it.
  • After the battle, Unit 137 and Glenn skinned the cloaker, looting its leathery carapace.

The Path Most Traveled

  • Now realizing that the ogres had backtracked after leaving this false trail, the party returned to the fork, noting more subtly hidden footprints in that direction.
  • One mushroom was partially bitten, as if an ogre were admonished and stopped mid-bite.

The Cold Sea

  • The arrived at the shore of a vast, underground sea. The waters were still and dark, a mooring post empty of any ships.
  • Octavius identified this as The Cold Sea, a vast body of water in this part of the Underdark.
  • They flew their carpet over the lake, their reflections disappearing as they extinguished the light spell and flew in darkness.
  • Stalactites (not to be confused with stalagmites) hung overhead. They were often covered in frost, the cavern very cold.
  • Their flight eventually took them over an island containing a field of bulbous green mushrooms (later identified to be bibberbangs, which exude a poisonous cloud and can explode when exposed to flame.)

Who Roped Us Into This?

  • Diedric's warhammer rang in alarm as half the party, unable to see in darkness, dodged as best they could on their mount.
  • Diedric's light spell revealed one of the stalactites was alive, with a gaping maw, a single red eye, and tentacles lashing out.
  • The party could also see bones of past victims in the vast field of bibberbangs below.

Encounter: The First Roper

  • The party narrowly flew out of range as two tentacles tried to reach for Diedric.

The Disguise

  • Using the cloaker's carapace, the party disguised their flight as a cloaker, doing their best to imitate its behavior.

Encounter: The Second Roper

  • Knowing not to mess with cloakers, the second roper did its best stalactite impression.
  • The island of bibberbangs disappeared behind the party.

The Second Shore

  • Date: 16th of Tarsakh (The Claw of the Storms, April), morning, 1372 DR
  • Six hours later, the party arrived at another island. This one had a hitching moor with a large wooden barge attached, with clear scrape marks of a large monolith-sized object having been onboard.
  • The party deliberated the destruction of the monolith once they found it, but ultimately may have agreed to return it to the Rashemi people.
  • Sets of ogre tracks were joined by humanoid tracks, leading into a tunnel system.
  • The ogre tracks became lighter, as if their burden were lessened. The party deduced that Tenser's Floating Disk may have been involved.

The Slaughteryard

  • The party passed by more flora they correctly identified, including bibberbangs (poisonous and explosive), torchstalks (literally can be used as torches, but explode sometimes) and timmasks (explode if meddled with, causing confusion in a large radius).
  • They spotted a dead drow, floating in a small pond with a javelin-sized arrow in his back. Fishing him out and noting he bore no metal on his body, they continued onward to discover several more. Some were nearly decapitated from having their throats slit, and others were also shot with large arrows.
  • The party heard a woman's shout up ahead.
  • Lilia ran up to investigate in rat form.

The Confrontation

  • Lilia spotted Vaergath, the ogre assassin, holding up a drow wizardess by her throat, pummeling her against a cavern wall.
  • Beside him was a teleportation circle, with little bits of metal (belt buckles, buttons, a dagger, and a spoon) left behind.
  • Beside them both were two dead ogres and the Monolith of Stars, floating on a black disc of energy.
  • She reported back to the party, who sprinted forward to hear more of the cutscene:
  • Vaergath: "You thought yourself clever, little spider."
  • Vaergath: "You spun your web. Laid your trap."
  • Vaergath: "But I *saw*. I *knew*. The sigils were WRONG."
  • Vaergath: "Your poison words do not work on me. I break webs. I break traitors."
  • Aunrae of House Drezz'Lynur of Undrek'Thoz: "Blind, still. Like all your kind. Lolth's web stretches beyond your feeble m—"
  • Vaergath pummelled her repeatedly.
  • Vaergath: "Open the way to Drezz'Lynur as agreed. Maybe I let you limp back to your Spider Queen."
  • Vaergath: "Or maybe I send Tharos your body, piece by piece."

Encounter: The Betrayed Ogre

  • Highlights:
    • Octavius opening the fight by knocking the ogre back with a boulder.
    • A barrage of unerring starry and lunar guiding bolts, with vain attempts to dodge by the agile ogre.
    • Diedric deflecting two deadly javelin-sized arrows with his shield.
    • The ogre attempting to escape into invisibility, only to be marked with Faerie Fire.
    • The ogre attempting to barrel through Glenn and Unit 137.
    • The drow wizardess shouting "LOLTH TAKE YOU ALL" and almost resolving a Cloudkill spell before a Counterspell by Octavius nullified it.
    • The session cruelly coming to an end mid-combat.

Maps

Undrek'Thoz, Drow City-States
The Underdark, Earthroot Region

NPCs Encountered (or mentioned)

Memes

  • DM: This lore accuracy has been brought to you by ********* syndrome.
  • Party: Does the ogre have a fuc--
    • DM: NO.

DM Thoughts

  • Agency = happy players.
  • Little details matter. Bits of metal unteleported, ogre bites, etc. There's limited room for descriptions, though, so it's a balancing act.
  • The drow betrayal of the ogres demonstrates that the storytelling can be non-linear and layered. The party may expect more of this.