RPG a Day #28 Delve

 

I’m going to try and take part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

I hope you’ll forgive me for being a little late today. I had some good family stuff come up and it made it impossible to get the blog posted before just a bit past midnight. Thus, technically, this is tomorrow.

Also, I’m going to ask a favor before I jump in. Today’s main prompt was solo and while I’m fascinated by solo RPG’s I’ve never played one. I’d love to try a couple out and if you can drop a comment below with a couple of recommendations I’d be grateful.

On to the topic.

I’m going to talk about the greatest delve I’ve ever been on; the Undermountain. To be specific, the Undermountain as run by my friend Scot. For those of you who don’t know the Undermountain is a massive dungeon found beneath the city of Waterdeep. It is run by the mad mage Halaster Blackcloak. While there are many entrances to the Undermountain, the most popular and celebrated is in the center of a tavern named the Yawning Portal.

The adventure was a boxed set containing several poster sized maps, multiple encounter guides, and a large creature codex. It was designed as a funhouse style dungeon where parties go in and go from room to room killing monsters, avoiding traps, and gathering loot. One of the elements of this boxed set was a lot of empty space. Large sections of the dungeon weren’t populated by the writers and left it to the DM to fill in the blanks.

There are a couple reasons why I love Scot’s Undermountain. First, there was very little dead space. Scot went through and created encounters for most of the dungeon. In the few places where he didn’t place an encounter, trap, or point of interest he’d done it with purpose. One of the first empty rooms we’d found was behind a heavy secret door and functioned as the perfect place to make camp.

The second reason was that Scot worked to give his dungeons character and sensible layouts. He’s dedicate entire sections to a tribe of orcs, a cluster of spiders, or a dark temple and its cultists. On your way to that section there’s be clues as to what was to come. You might find crude warding symbols, a proliferation of cobwebs, or occult symbols. If you paid attention you could figure out what was coming.

The final reason is that Scot to very detailed notes. I’ve been in three different Undermountain campaigns run by Scot. Each of them started at the yawning portal and while exploring we’d find signs of old parties. I still remember coming across the hole burned into the floor by a cursed coin that was caused by one of the earlier group’s actions. I also remember coming across the same hole several levels down as it passed through the ceiling and floor of multiple levels.

Scot’s one of the best DM’s I’ve ever had and while he had his flaws I will always remember with great fondness his Undermountain. Every piece from the hall of mirrors of opposition that ended up with me playing my own characters reflection for several levels after it beat me in a fight and left me imprisoned to figuring out a couple of seconds too late that the mist filled room of statues signaled a medusa.

Anyway folks, I could go on with stories about the Undermountain and the ridiculous things that came out of it for days. I’m very tempted to return to this topic if just to talk in depth about the Church of the Crumpled Helm, a temple of Mystra that was dedicated to the Paladin in our party and run entirely by prostitutes. For now, I think I’ll stop so I can get this up as close as possible to the deadline.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

Until then, stay safe and be well.