At the start of 2017 we started playing a game called Upon a Dark Place taking place in the Deep, or my worlds equivalent to the Underdark from Forgotten Realms or the Darklands from Pathfinder. The game world is entirely homebrew and modifications were made to some of the Pathfinder content to make sense story wise, creatures were altered, and bad guys customized. The adventures started around the city of Halfbuilt, a haven for the lost and forgotten of the Deep.
Our party consisted of Nimhe the lamia grappler, Bastion the aaismar oracle of the heavens, Zamira the tiefling rogue, Cecil the goblin barbarian, Burf the deep gnome druid, and Wilbur the rat person alchemist. We have troubled pasts across the board, people that hate drow slavers, people hiding from past crimes, hiding from strange otherworldly monsters, or seeking revenge for lost family.
When
the adventure began, they were hunting troglodytes that had been attacking
trade routes within the Deep. They were suspicious because they were offered
more than the normal amount for such a base task. As they began their journey
in the tunnels, they were able to catch one of the troglodyte patrols unaware
and eradicated the threat before an alarm could be raised. They followed the
trail to an old and no longer abandoned dwarven mining outpost and found the
leader of the troglodytes as well as their devil spawn brethren. The battle was
quick, finding the building full of strange devilish eggs. They crushed most of
the eggs and Nimhe ate a few. On their return home, they encountered two
friends from town fighting against trolls by the main entrance. They met
Stonebreaker, a large sized bug person with an even for him oversized maul.
Unlike his fellow bug people, Stonebreaker was severed from his old hive and
was a mercenary within Halfbuilt. They made their way to Lord Halibar Nel Daxis
Aldrabriane, their employer, to collect their reward which suspiciously seemed
like too much money. He had given them a bonus as well as a new mission to
accompany a goblin alchemist gunsmith, Torobor, back to her home cave to retrieve
his order of firearms and mechanical wonders. They were also asked to drop off
a parcel in a town they would be passing through to a friend of his, they did
not ask any questions about this friend. The group grabbed supplies they knew
they might need as well as things they just wanted to spend money on while
wandering town. They met an enormous riding beetle named Black Bettie as well
as bought pickles. They purchased much smaller riding beetles and sojourned
into the Deep. There was much attempted flirtation with their new goblin boss,
and she ignored most of it. She had two metal men constructs as well, her
people were oddly gifted with magical science they used to create helpers for
their various dangerous experiments with the dark powder that fueled their guns.
They
passed sites where struggle was apparent and made camp in an easily defendable
spot. After sharing stories around the cooking fire, they were attacks by large
bug men that grew huge when shot at. These Trox seemed infected by some foul
abyssal power. The party made quick work of the monsters, took a power nap, and
broke camp after. They passed tunnels that looked carved out by giant worms and
eventually found a large sized city with giant open adamantine doors. The city
was empty of people and a large surface folk castle sat on a stone shelf above
the common folk dwellings. The empty city was silent except for the sounds the
party made as well as a distant irregular clicking sound. They investigated the
castle and found a gargantuan purple and black scaled dragon slain on a throne
and decided it was time to leave, only to be stopped by a weird floating man.
He was wearing a dark verdant green cloak and introduced himself as Pullman. They
attempted to cast magical spells at him but he countered with swarms of
beetles, so they ran. As they fled, they made tactical decisions on routes and
obstacles and made their way out of the city and back into the tunnels, sealing
the exit with stone magics. Further and a few miles down the corridors they
found themselves on a stone bridge crossing a deep chasm. As they started
across, they heard odd strange warbling sounds and saw stone squids flying in
the darkness. The squids and their master, a strange flying cloak like beast
attacked the party and made off with one of their riding beetles. The party
killed the monsters and broke the bridge in the process but were able to make
it across before most of it fell into the abyss.
They
finally made it to the goblin city of Noragast and spend three days resting and
preparing for the return journey which would have to be a new route, the old
one full of bugs and a broken bridge. Cecil and Wilbur worked on a new mount
for Cecil, since monsters stole his riding beetle, the artisans of Noragast
were more than happy to help. Together they made what looked like a stone and
metal spider that would listen to Cecil’s commands and had some sort of hidden
feature as well. While there they made friends with the goblins and recruited
them to come to Halfbuilt and the empty city they saw on the way there. The
goblins were on the lookout for a new home and agreed to come along, but a few
days behind. The party and their escort of carts and a few more goblins made
their way back to Halfbuilt.
The
group found a mushroom enclave with friendly mushroom men, but part of the
party of skeptical of their alliances, where the others embraced them and
welcomed them to come along. One party member, Bastion, did try to purify food
on a mushroom child till he was convinced that might be a bad idea. Deeper into
the darkness they found a group of slaver dwarves with some of their Halfbuilt
allies in chains and combat ensued. They found a map maker gnome as well as
another lamia that told a tale of a patchwork man trading items with her clan
and shortly after all the men died. The party was joined by the now free Toppa,
Lady Shar, and Tor. Their small army came to a large terrible smelling chamber
with pools of not jade, but acid. About halfway across the chamber there was a
triggered rockslide blocking the exit and gunshots as a rival gang of
gunslingers attacked the party. The rockslide also woke the acid hydra sleeping
in one of the pools. Chaos ensued, the rivals gun slingers were devoured, and
eventually the acid spraying beast was put down. They cleared away the rocks and made their
way back to Halfbuilt only to find it in ruins, still burning.
As a bonus chapter, session 5 was a flashback session, as to playing with a few players missing and wanting to save the big reveals and drama for the full group. The party encountered a group of Kobolds in the caverns being forced into labor by Ogres and their cruel secret master. The Kobolds were chained up to ogre task masters and forced to mine within a series of tunnels. The party did not like this arrangement and defeated the ogres, making sure not to hit the kobolds in the process. Eventually the ogre's boss showed up, a Gauntlin giant. Gauntlin are giants in my world that were cursed by a god to be forever hungry, they are just as strong as normal giants but thin, emaciated, and terrifying. This gauntlin also was missing an eye. The party made quick work of the giant and it's minions, freeing the kobolds. As a reward the kobolds gave the group a bag of holding as well as a token of respect they could show to other kobolds they found in the wild to show they were allies, not enemies.
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