Underdark campaign

>>49181539
Could just run Out of the Abyss, an adventure that takes place entirely in the Underdark and goes from 1rst to 15th level.

>>49181539
>I was wondering how to get around the hostility most under dark settlements seem to have towards outsiders

You could make the player characters underdark races from underdark cities themselves.

You could give the player party a specific role. Settlements in the upper underdark actually do quite a lot of trade with the surface, so if the players are traders, or guards for caravans heading into (or through) the underdark, that could work.

You could give the player party a powerful patron who gives them a kind of 'letter of marque' that gains them access and/or a degree of trust from the rulers underdark cities.

You could make your own setting, and in your underdark the cities aren't so hostile to outsiders.

Finally you could just leave it to the players to work out how they're going to earn the trust of underdark cities.

>>49181650
Thanks, I've decided to to include some major trading cities in my settings version of the underdark to have more cosmopolitan areas where numerous races are accepted but I was wondering how an adventuring party would be accepted in some of the smaller villages with them being more insular and isolationist.

>>49181650
>You could make your own setting, and in your underdark the cities aren't so hostile to outsiders.

I would recommend yo go with this one.

Just remember that the subterranean sea is the final bottom layer, not counting aquatic cities. Otherwise you have to think of an explanation as to why the sea isn't at the lowest point.

>>49181539
Always consider that most tunnel adventures tend to be monotonous. Throw in some crystal caves, ore mines, fungi forests, toxic exhausts of volcanoes and such, and the occasional lava pits.

Mostly civilized places outside of underground cities (because at that point it's just an urban landscape, only with different ways of lighting) can be buried temples and ruins of cities, a dungeon that stretches from the surface down and happens to be open to the rest of the underdark by some slide or anything else. Some monasteries can work wonders if you flesh them out the right way, explaining why they chose seclusion in the dark.

A cool twist could be a hollow earth-like situation: you are in a tunnel many km under the surface, when suddenly you find an opening, and there's a grassfield, you can't see the end of the room, or even the ceiling, but you know that you are still underground. it could be a planar overlay to somewhere like faerie or hades, depending on how you make the plane.

In cities, remember that most creatures either work by darkvision or by scent, so use smelling equivalents of signs and traffic lights if the city is advanced enough. For the evil civilizations, make lots of undead as there's no sunlight to harm them, and turn the city into a necropolis. Mausoleums with lots of traps are cool. Then there might be nomadic civilizations of tunnelers that dig their way through the underworld with giant drills and loud machinery that scare away all the predators in the area.

What do you think of the underdark being a series of interconnected underground waterways and rivers, some with air pockets above them, some with no airways, and only minimal tunnels to walk through, with transport being primarily by boat or along the shore of these subterranean rivers and lakes, similar to the underway beneath nagaroth in warhammer fantasy.

>>49181784
>Otherwise you have to think of an explanation as to why the sea isn't at the lowest point.
I usually explain it away with different chambers and regions of the Underdark, with the water naturally pooling in areas with no drainage, but possibly still at higher elevation than other areas. Or just 'magic', since the Underdark may operate on different rules depending on interpretation.

Digging in the Underdark runs the risk of Dwarf Fortress grade devastation from a sudden, massive flood.

>>49182131
Now I want to play a pirates of the Sunless Sea campaign.

Is it possible to make an entirely unnagrown self sufficient nation without resorting to magic dun it every other explanation?

>>49183645
Depends on if you want it to be remotely human-like civilization.

>>49183645

Are you saying that things like sustainable underground crops need to be explained using hard science? Because honestly you might as well just bullshit it.

>>49183718
Not entirely explained. Just explained enough that it passes a casual inspection.

So far what I got is underground sea that might be connected to the normal deep ocean via caves somewhere unknown. Might not but is very deep. Possibly there is a deep sea geothermal vent if you go down far enough. The fish are edible but unholy nightmare fuel looking.

Cultivated pale clam beds and other shellfish and mollusc farms in the shallows.

Mushroom farms are obligatory. They are supplied with the "biological waste" of the city. Soil from the graveyard once bodies have rotted away completely, sewage and the inedible parts of the fish make up most of it.

Long spindly and pale deep cave cockroach is considered a nice crunchy snack.

>>49183662
I was thinking some sort of highly isolated Albino Elf society. Like the Aenar from Star Trek but with more rock and less ice.