Greyhawk Underdark Updated

It's been quite a while since I posted my updates to, at that time FtF campaign, delve into the Underdark. My online Roll20 campaign is now half way through the Giants series, and so it was time to re-visit those maps.
I had originally re-done Denis' Encyclopedia Subterranica maps at that time, but I'm still not completely 100% happy with it. Since the original module is already in the old-school blue, and the other scans I have of the Underdark maps from the various Into the Depths modules aren't quite high enough resolution for the online game, I did the next best thing. Now any normal/sane person would have just fired up their scanner and used any of the many modules he owns of this product to get a better, higher resolution image, but noooo, not this guy. Fired up the imaging software instead and went in and redid the map in a closer adaptation of the original maps found in the published works. Don't get me wrong, I liked the others maps out there, just had to make one I was satisfied with.

Here are the results from that little side trip into OCD-land. While it's doubtful the time spent resulted in any great contribution to this already overdone [and some cases better done] map, it nevertheless made me happy about the results achieved. Now to get on with the all the battlemaps for all those many encounters listed on the map. [heavy sigh]

Edit; Since things can always be tweaked now that there is a template to work from, changed out the b&w for colored passages on the map.













Since I already had the hand drawn maps from the Trading Grounds done went ahead and did that first. These are only for my personal online game on Roll20 and meant as an example of my hack job at putting together maps.

This from the original below

Underdark Caves and Underground Rivers

While perusing the internet doing research for my campaign which recently went into the Underdark I ran across these interesting articles. They were helpful in getting into the right headspace while laying out the upcoming sessions.

via Collossal

A Trip by Air and Kayak Through Tham Khoun Xe, One of the Largest Active River Caves on Earth by Christopher Jobson on February 10, 2016

All photos © Ryan Deboodt Photography
Beijing-based photographer Ryan Deboodt (previously) recently returned from a trip to Laos where he spent two days exploring Tham Khoun Xe, one of the largest active rivers caves in the world. Stretching nearly 4.5 miles (7km) underground, the cave system is extraordinarily remote and Deboodt was permitted to photograph and film beyond where tourists are normally allowed to visit. The immensity of the subterranean space is staggering, with an average ceiling of almost 200 feet (60m) and width of 250 feet (76m) it’s hardly imaginable a space like this could exist underground.
Deboodt brought an arsenal of camera and video equipment as well as a drone to capture the expansive interiors of Tham Khoun Xe, much of which he edited into a short video included below. You can follow more of his cave photography from around the world on Facebook or Instagram, and read an interview about the endeavor on Smithsonian.

via Colossal

An Aerial Tour of ‘Hang Son Soong,’ the Largest Cave on Earthby Christopher Jobson on March 13, 2015

In his new 6-minute film, cave, adventure, and travel photographer Ryan Deboodt takes us on a breathtaking aerial tour of the world’s largest cave, Hang Son Doong, located in central Vietnam. Deboodt brought a drone and an array of cameras to help capture the cave system, the largest chamber of which is 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) long, 200 meters (660 ft) high and 150 meters (490 ft) wide. Despite its enormity, the cave was only discovered in 1991 by a local man, and it wasn’t even studied by scientists until about five years ago. One of the most disorienting thing about watching Deboodt’s film was my brain not comprehending the scale of what I was looking at. It’s only once you notice the ant-like people walking through some of the shots that you realize just how massive this place is. You can see more of Deboodt’s cave photography on Instagram. (via PetaPixel)

Underdark Map - Trading Grounds

Since the last Underdark update the party has been exploring the lower third of the map. Actually more accurately party B has been exploring the Underdark while party A has been travelling the surface world clearing the Gray Plague from the land. Most of the player's had 2 PCs for a while there and since they're getting pretty high level [in the low to mid-teens] the group decided to split the party into Group A and Group B so that they weren't waltzing so easily through encounters and also partially to avoid having to split up XP so many ways.

As mentioned in my previous post I've been using much of the material from the Dragonsfoot Collaborative Project: Mapping the Depths of the Earth. As happens much of the time the players decided to go where you haven't prepared fully ahead of time. Wouldn't you know it the party decided to go to the trading grounds [L/19 M/19 on the Underdark map] which has no associated map. So I put together a quick map from the description for the PCs on the spot. This is the PC version only, the DM version has the manor and the rest at the bottom of the map behind the locked gate. I edited that portion out because the players do look at the blog posts occasionally. This way they're not tempted to look at what they haven't seen/explored yet. I'm finding the whole Encyclopedia Subterranica from this project to be of tremendous help and a great time saver in getting the various locations fleshed out for exploration. I would recommend it highly for anyone running the D series modules or any other Underdark adventure.

D3 - Vault of the Drow Walkthrough - Jason Thompson

I enjoy all of the cartoon adventure walk through's drawn by Jason Thompson. They are overall endearing, pretty amusing, and quite often uncannily accurate as to what happens in one of the depicted adventures. I'd love to hang 'em all on my wall.

The latest release is the classic AD&D 1ed Vault of the Drow from the bygone days. Below is the lo-res version. Go to the WotC link for the larger, hi-res version.

WotC link for larger version

In an odd bit of serendipity, the FtF group is just now finishing up D2 and getting ready to go on to explore D3. That is, after they take care of the grey plague ravaging the land as a result of Lareth's machinations.

Greyhawk Underdark Update

Well the PCs have finally made it through the "Against the Giants" series of modules

and are proceeding into the

"Descent Into the Depths of the Earth" portion of the whole GDQ series. Now, while I own the original modules, I still like using printed out maps in game, usually as covers in the 3-ring binders I have all my DM notes in. While the maps provided in the modules D1-2 and GDQ 1-7 are all good, I ran across Maldins Greyhawk pages a long while back and he has a color map he re-did for the Dragonsfoot Collaborative Project: Mapping the Depths of the Earth. While I like his map the distinction between the tertiary tunnels and the hidden tunnels are hard to distinguish (for my old eyes anyway). See for yourself.

 

Maldin's original page and map

That's why I dusted it off and edited it slightly to conform more closely to the black and white map in the Descent series, as far as the tertiary tunnels go anyway. I also changed the encounter hex colors for the non-module encounters to yellow as well as the river color. It's easier to just look at the revised map to see the revisions.

Revised DM map of the Underdark

For me anyway, it makes it clearer which are the secret passages and which are the tertiary tunnels, as well as distinguishing between the Gygax module encounters at a glance. My thanks to Denis for a fine map.

Now with that all said and done the players, naturally, don't get the pretty printed  out map, but rather they have to make do with the hand drawn map below.

Players Map of the Underdark

They got this from the deep gnome spy in the Trading Grounds, for the appropriate price of course as well as a promise to debrief him on their escapades in the Underdark as well as any intel on the Drow.