ICONIC dungeons and such [Archive] - Wizards Community

ICONIC dungeons and such [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
kisama
02-15-05, 10:19 AM So I was just gawking at the map of Undermountain and it got me thinking.

I've only had the opportunity to delve into Undermountain once in a FR campaign a long time ago. The party got killed. We were upset but the DM reasoned with us that going into the Undermountain was suicide for even the best of adventurers, so don't feel bad.

My question is how would you handle a dungeon like Undermountain in an Eberron setting? Would you let the players be the first an only party to ever successfully explore the dungeon, discover it's secrets and walk away with the title of being "The only group to ever have lived through the deadly dungeon so-and-so"?

I would. In my mind it fits right in with the idea that the players are the only ones who can do the job theme of Eberron. But that's just me.

What do you think?
CzarGarrett
02-15-05, 10:22 AM I would think that any dungeon that large has been explored, at least in part, by past adventurers and more likely, the Lords of Dust. The LoD could send in a small party of lackeys and have them take weeks to explore what most PCs would explore in a day. That way they get a better picture of the dungeon and are more likely to find all the little bits and pieces.
PoeticJustice
02-15-05, 10:26 AM I think Eberron is better suited for such endeavors. The lost dwarven holds in the Khyber under Mror, the labyrinth of the Demon Wastes, a forgotten ruin in Xen 'Drik, the haunted boneyar of the endworld mountains, possibilities are endless...
kisama
02-15-05, 10:42 AM I would think that any dungeon that large has been explored, at least in part, by past adventurers and more likely, the Lords of Dust. The LoD could send in a small party of lackeys and have them take weeks to explore what most PCs would explore in a day. That way they get a better picture of the dungeon and are more likely to find all the little bits and pieces.

I think you're not understanding the nature of Undermountain. It's DEADLY. Nobody comes out alive from Undermountain. It's riddled with traps and magic and monsters and the wizard who lives above the dungeon is very not nice. It's a huge contained ecosystem of monsters who prefer to be left alone.

It's a dungeon of legend. If anyone including LoD sent someone in to explore it, then they failed. They could spend days, weeks, months, it won't matter, they all fail in the end to make it out alive.

Nobody goes in and makes it out alive...

That is until one day a small group of heroes decided to explore the Undermountain for some reason. That group is your players.

My question is would you let them succeed or not in an Eberron setting.

Hope this makes it clear.
Lara Flynn
02-15-05, 05:14 PM Unless I dm a CoC game I do not send players into dungeons in order to die.
Gurv
02-15-05, 05:33 PM I think Undermountain could be brought into Eberron with only a little tweaking. It barely makes sense in Forgotten Realms actually, but there are plenty of places where it could go in Eberron and be reasonable. Thats what I love about Eberron...reasons for things like dungeons.

I don't send players into a dungeon for the purpose of dying. As discussed in another thread, the game is not about Player vs Dungeon Master, or a video game where you see how far you can get before starting over.

What I might do in Eberron is place whatever the players are seeking somewhere other than the end of the dungeon. Show them what lies ahead without forcing them to go on. Let them come back, say, when they run out of cash or desperate need that thing they know can only be found in one place... :evillaugh

That said, I think that all major encounters should hold the threat of death, or at least serious defeat. Battles over lava flows, on airship railings, and lightning rail tops can be exciting when the foe is merely equal EL. It is much better to wrestle a 3rd level wizard for a dropped disintegrate wand than a pile of hit points with an armor class.
Edymnion
02-15-05, 05:37 PM Well, it depends on how you define "explored".
Obviously if there are intelligent monsters and opponents inside of the dungeon, than it has already been explored, by said intelligent monsters and opponents.

If you define it as meaning "searched through by sticky fingered tomb robbing adventurers", then it really depends. Anything that is easily reached (as in its not a mini campaign to just get there), then yeah, its probably already been stripped pretty clean. You're not going to find any unexplored ruins filled with treasure thats a 20 minute walk out from Sharn, for example.

Or, you could define it as "recently explored by adventurers", you can have areas that have been explored before centuries before, but that no one has touched since then, and perhaps something else has moved in and started using it as a base, which would replenish the goodie trove.
zambuka
02-15-05, 05:50 PM Undermountain would work well in Eberron.

There is even a suitable place for it, right under sharn.
There is plenty of unexplored space between the lower parts of Sharn and the Cogs. So here is how I see it working.
The upper levels of undermountain are the older sections of the city, the ancient hobgoblin ruins that Sharn was originaly built atop. This is reasonable since the Forgotten Forge in the back of the ECS presents sharn as having many unexplored and abandoned levels between the inhabited parts and the cogs. Below that, the level that contains Skullport, connects up with the Cogs.
Skullport could be a community of all the misfits, brigand and monsters that are a little more civilised but still don't fit in with the city proper.

Carath paused before the door. "Shouldn't this be on the other side of the corridor?"
Pike shrugged off his pack. "Lemme check da map"
He fumbled around in the pack and carefully pulled out a wad of parchment. Flipping through it he found the sheet needed. Peering in the dim light Pike checked the markings on the map and the etching the left on the floor from the last time. "Yup.. dis is da right place. Da markings we left last time is still on the wall nexta where the door use ta be."
Carath sighed. That 3 foot ruby statue they hid in there was probably as good as gone now. Slumping slightly he reached for the door.
"Guess we should see where this one goes."

Now as for should the PC's succeed.. well... when I ran it they did, kinda. But when you really get down to it you can never really succeed in undermountain. Sure you may make it out, even survive a few trips down there. The yawning portal has patrons who pretty much spend their lives exploring undermountain. So "success" isn't really the right thing to cal it.

Things change down there. There is absolutely no guarantee that the next time you visit the bits you cleared out wont be repopulated, or even completely changed. Halaster is a complete nutcase, he likes to mess with the inhabitants of undermountain and has almost godly control of the corridors and rooms.
greatfrito
02-15-05, 08:30 PM You're not going to find any unexplored ruins filled with treasure thats a 20 minute walk out from Sharn, for example.

Actually, I'd guess that Sharn would be a good site for a large dungeon-esque area to be located and -not- explored. If we're talking the very roots of Sharn, perhaps not accesible by those who do not know its secrets? Yeah, I could see a big dungeon there.

Though... funny enough, now I agree with you - you wouldn't find it -outside- of Sharn, but you could find it inside.

In fact, that might be a good place to put the Undermountain map - just tweak it completely.

It doesn't sound like it has the Eberron flavor though... give it flavor too.
Darkest90
02-15-05, 10:57 PM There could definitely be dungeons like the Undermountain in Eberron. The trick is making them Eberronesque (cool word by the way).

One little figment I would like to add is that there was an expedition into the dungeon by the Wayfinders or some other adventure/exploration organization. However, their numbers have been split in half again and again, and their equipment has been lost in the battles. Now, they have holed up in some small room, fighting for their lives until someone can rescue them. Its up to you to rescue them.

Other ideas could be that the expedition isn't really in need of rescue, but they are actually your rivals. They have managed to fortify a room as their home base, and are making small explorations from this area. The 'lucky refuge' can be used in many ways, and often it has traces of Eberronism.

Use the dungeon like other things of Eberron. Create a few organizations centered on the dungeon. An expedition, a follows that worships the dungeon as a holy landmark and is willing to protect it, a Cult of the Dragon Below, and other entities that are vying for power. Compare your Eberron dungeon to the dungeon in Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, where Indy gets past ancient and supernatural traps and encounters interesting NPCs, then when victory is his, the enemies come to take it for themselves.

Blah, hopefully some of those imaginationisms make sense.

Take luck,
- Darkest90
N'wah
02-16-05, 12:09 AM It doesn't sound like it has the Eberron flavor though... give it flavor too.
Yes, flavor! MORE FLAVOR! WE DEMAND IT!

Sorry, that just sounded funny.

Actually, when I heard they were re-doing the Undermountain maps, I was thinking it would be great for Undersharn/Cogs, etc. I'm planning an expedition into the Citadel of the Closed Circle, and I'm awful at maps. So I'll just grab a cool-looking section of the Undermountain map with chambers large enough to belong to a wizard's college, fill it with aberrations, traps, and magic, and call it a night. If they decide to take up the torches and explore further, that's their deathwish- er, decision.

Side note- why does the largest metroplotan area of each campaign setting have a megolithic dungeon of death lurking below it? Or maybe the question is- why do people keep insisting on building their metropilitan areas on these megolithic dungeons? You think someone would put up a sign or something. I suppose as long as the sewer grates are bolted on tight enough, everyone thinks they'll be fine, but that great wyrm red dragon I randomly rolled as the final denizen of Level 17 has GOT to want more than a 50' x 70' square room to hang out in. I mean, apparently, he's never even seen the sky. Surely he's curious. :D (Sorry, I couldn't help myself. It's been a wierd day.)
Marshall Stone
02-16-05, 01:33 AM Side note- why does the largest metroplotan area of each campaign setting have a megolithic dungeon of death lurking below it? Or maybe the question is- why do people keep insisting on building their metropilitan areas on these megolithic dungeons? You think someone would put up a sign or something. I suppose as long as the sewer grates are bolted on tight enough, everyone thinks they'll be fine, but that great wyrm red dragon I randomly rolled as the final denizen of Level 17 has GOT to want more than a 50' x 70' square room to hang out in. I mean, apparently, he's never even seen the sky. Surely he's curious. :D (Sorry, I couldn't help myself. It's been a wierd day.)

LOL, no N'wah, you are so right. But thier is a reason why the people of Sharn built on top of the ruins of the goblin city/state.

But my question is What would you call it? I suppose you could just keep "Undermountain", but I don't know, that just doesn't feel right for Eberron.

Some suggestions:
- Khyber's Heart, "Deep below the lower levels of Sharn, further down than even the Cogs, lies Khyber's Heart!"
- Or something Goblin-ish, since Sharn itself is built over goblin ruins.
- The Realm of the Dragon Below
Okay my imagination is failing me ("bad imaginiation, bad!") but you get the idea.

Also, would you keep Skullport? Actually I guess you would but again, rename it:
- Daelkyr Town
- Dolgaunt and Dolgrimm
- Mind Flayersville
- The Keeper's Cove

Lastly if Sharn has a manifest zone to Syrania then maybe Eberron's "Undermountain" should have one too. Then again Undermountain is so huge it might have several.

Though Eberron's "Skullport" should/maybe also be in a manifest zone. Actually that could be very interesting. If "Skullport" is directly below Sharn is it too part of the same manifest zone to Syrania as Sharn? How far down do manifest zones go? If not, then what would be a cool manifest zone for "Skullport"? It might be interesting if Eberron's "Skullport" lied within a manifest zone to say...Risia, plane of Ice. Where the Sharn lies in or close to a tropical zone and the Cogs near lava pools, Eberron's Skullport is Icy. :smirk:
kisama
02-16-05, 09:53 AM Agreed a dungeon like Undermountain would be in Eberron.

Agreed that a good DM would never send players into a dungeon just to die.

Going back to the ECS. In the artificer section there is a short biography on an artificer who is to date "the only person" to have survived a particularly nasty dungeon in Xen'Drik. I don't remember the name of the dungeon off-hand.

When I was reading undermountain it got me to thinking about the different types of DM's there are out there. Some DM's have no issues with the players becoming icons in the campaign. For instance, the PC's might hear about a legendary dragon and decide to go after it in hopes of becoming heroes known throughout the world. Or the PC's might say "hey lets explore Undermountain! We'll be famous!"

In my mind there are two reactions a DM can have when the PC's decide to try such tasks.

The first type of DM think immediately that if nobody else in the campaign world has been able to accomplish said goal, then why should the PC's be able to? The DM then attempts to discourage the players from comitting suicide by proceeding through with their plan.

The second type of DM puts aside that kind of logic and instead focuses on what the players want to do, and how he can make it a serious enough challenge for the players but ultimately allow them to succeed in acheiving their goal.

For a long time I was the first type of DM. What about you?
kisama
02-16-05, 09:56 AM Oh, I don't have the ECS on hand so I'm quoting from memory. I recall reading about the Medusa who lead a particular nation and that their base of opperations was close to some kind of ruins which they generally discouraged folks from exploring.

That is where I would put my Undermountain in Eberron.

Not under Sharn, because it would seem too accessilble that way.
Kid SixXx
02-16-05, 10:04 AM In a nutshell, all Undermountain really is, is the deadly playground of a mad wizard, and if that ain't pulp for Eberron, I'm not sure what is.

I've been tempted to tinker with either UM or the Tomb of Horrors as Vol's stronghold, but those two dungeons have the distinction of being the most lethal ones in the game.

As most people have already said, they are where adventurers go to die.

I want to keep the threat level extremely high, but I want the players to have a whisper of a chance of success. Railroading my players with a ring though the nose that turns into an express elevator ride to the grave isn't my idea of DM fun.

Turning The Cogs section of Sharn into an iconic dungeon seems like a good way to go. It's creepy, abandoned qualities remind me a lot of Cathedral from the movie, Logan's Run, and it's accessibility makes things easier for me.
Makabriel
02-16-05, 12:28 PM *ponders*
Hmm.. wonder if I can tailor the Temple of Elemental Evil...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kisama 02-15-05, 10:19 AM	So I was just gawking at the map of Undermountain and it got me thinking. I've only had the opportunity to delve into Undermountain once in a FR campaign a long time ago. The party got killed. We were upset but the DM reasoned with us that going into the Undermountain was suicide for even the best of adventurers, so don't feel bad. My question is how would you handle a dungeon like Undermountain in an Eberron setting? Would you let the players be the first an only party to ever successfully explore the dungeon, discover it's secrets and walk away with the title of being "The only group to ever have lived through the deadly dungeon so-and-so"? I would. In my mind it fits right in with the idea that the players are the only ones who can do the job theme of Eberron. But that's just me. What do you think?
CzarGarrett 02-15-05, 10:22 AM	I would think that any dungeon that large has been explored, at least in part, by past adventurers and more likely, the Lords of Dust. The LoD could send in a small party of lackeys and have them take weeks to explore what most PCs would explore in a day. That way they get a better picture of the dungeon and are more likely to find all the little bits and pieces.
PoeticJustice 02-15-05, 10:26 AM	I think Eberron is better suited for such endeavors. The lost dwarven holds in the Khyber under Mror, the labyrinth of the Demon Wastes, a forgotten ruin in Xen 'Drik, the haunted boneyar of the endworld mountains, possibilities are endless...
kisama 02-15-05, 10:42 AM	I would think that any dungeon that large has been explored, at least in part, by past adventurers and more likely, the Lords of Dust. The LoD could send in a small party of lackeys and have them take weeks to explore what most PCs would explore in a day. That way they get a better picture of the dungeon and are more likely to find all the little bits and pieces. I think you're not understanding the nature of Undermountain. It's DEADLY. Nobody comes out alive from Undermountain. It's riddled with traps and magic and monsters and the wizard who lives above the dungeon is very not nice. It's a huge contained ecosystem of monsters who prefer to be left alone. It's a dungeon of legend. If anyone including LoD sent someone in to explore it, then they failed. They could spend days, weeks, months, it won't matter, they all fail in the end to make it out alive. Nobody goes in and makes it out alive... That is until one day a small group of heroes decided to explore the Undermountain for some reason. That group is your players. My question is would you let them succeed or not in an Eberron setting. Hope this makes it clear.
Lara Flynn 02-15-05, 05:14 PM	Unless I dm a CoC game I do not send players into dungeons in order to die.
Gurv 02-15-05, 05:33 PM	I think Undermountain could be brought into Eberron with only a little tweaking. It barely makes sense in Forgotten Realms actually, but there are plenty of places where it could go in Eberron and be reasonable. Thats what I love about Eberron...reasons for things like dungeons. I don't send players into a dungeon for the purpose of dying. As discussed in another thread, the game is not about Player vs Dungeon Master, or a video game where you see how far you can get before starting over. What I might do in Eberron is place whatever the players are seeking somewhere other than the end of the dungeon. Show them what lies ahead without forcing them to go on. Let them come back, say, when they run out of cash or desperate need that thing they know can only be found in one place... :evillaugh That said, I think that all major encounters should hold the threat of death, or at least serious defeat. Battles over lava flows, on airship railings, and lightning rail tops can be exciting when the foe is merely equal EL. It is much better to wrestle a 3rd level wizard for a dropped disintegrate wand than a pile of hit points with an armor class.
Edymnion 02-15-05, 05:37 PM	Well, it depends on how you define "explored". Obviously if there are intelligent monsters and opponents inside of the dungeon, than it has already been explored, by said intelligent monsters and opponents. If you define it as meaning "searched through by sticky fingered tomb robbing adventurers", then it really depends. Anything that is easily reached (as in its not a mini campaign to just get there), then yeah, its probably already been stripped pretty clean. You're not going to find any unexplored ruins filled with treasure thats a 20 minute walk out from Sharn, for example. Or, you could define it as "recently explored by adventurers", you can have areas that have been explored before centuries before, but that no one has touched since then, and perhaps something else has moved in and started using it as a base, which would replenish the goodie trove.
zambuka 02-15-05, 05:50 PM	Undermountain would work well in Eberron. There is even a suitable place for it, right under sharn. There is plenty of unexplored space between the lower parts of Sharn and the Cogs. So here is how I see it working. The upper levels of undermountain are the older sections of the city, the ancient hobgoblin ruins that Sharn was originaly built atop. This is reasonable since the Forgotten Forge in the back of the ECS presents sharn as having many unexplored and abandoned levels between the inhabited parts and the cogs. Below that, the level that contains Skullport, connects up with the Cogs. Skullport could be a community of all the misfits, brigand and monsters that are a little more civilised but still don't fit in with the city proper. Carath paused before the door. "Shouldn't this be on the other side of the corridor?" Pike shrugged off his pack. "Lemme check da map" He fumbled around in the pack and carefully pulled out a wad of parchment. Flipping through it he found the sheet needed. Peering in the dim light Pike checked the markings on the map and the etching the left on the floor from the last time. "Yup.. dis is da right place. Da markings we left last time is still on the wall nexta where the door use ta be." Carath sighed. That 3 foot ruby statue they hid in there was probably as good as gone now. Slumping slightly he reached for the door. "Guess we should see where this one goes." Now as for should the PC's succeed.. well... when I ran it they did, kinda. But when you really get down to it you can never really succeed in undermountain. Sure you may make it out, even survive a few trips down there. The yawning portal has patrons who pretty much spend their lives exploring undermountain. So "success" isn't really the right thing to cal it. Things change down there. There is absolutely no guarantee that the next time you visit the bits you cleared out wont be repopulated, or even completely changed. Halaster is a complete nutcase, he likes to mess with the inhabitants of undermountain and has almost godly control of the corridors and rooms.
greatfrito 02-15-05, 08:30 PM	You're not going to find any unexplored ruins filled with treasure thats a 20 minute walk out from Sharn, for example. Actually, I'd guess that Sharn would be a good site for a large dungeon-esque area to be located and -not- explored. If we're talking the very roots of Sharn, perhaps not accesible by those who do not know its secrets? Yeah, I could see a big dungeon there. Though... funny enough, now I agree with you - you wouldn't find it -outside- of Sharn, but you could find it inside. In fact, that might be a good place to put the Undermountain map - just tweak it completely. It doesn't sound like it has the Eberron flavor though... give it flavor too.
Darkest90 02-15-05, 10:57 PM	There could definitely be dungeons like the Undermountain in Eberron. The trick is making them Eberronesque (cool word by the way). One little figment I would like to add is that there was an expedition into the dungeon by the Wayfinders or some other adventure/exploration organization. However, their numbers have been split in half again and again, and their equipment has been lost in the battles. Now, they have holed up in some small room, fighting for their lives until someone can rescue them. Its up to you to rescue them. Other ideas could be that the expedition isn't really in need of rescue, but they are actually your rivals. They have managed to fortify a room as their home base, and are making small explorations from this area. The 'lucky refuge' can be used in many ways, and often it has traces of Eberronism. Use the dungeon like other things of Eberron. Create a few organizations centered on the dungeon. An expedition, a follows that worships the dungeon as a holy landmark and is willing to protect it, a Cult of the Dragon Below, and other entities that are vying for power. Compare your Eberron dungeon to the dungeon in Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, where Indy gets past ancient and supernatural traps and encounters interesting NPCs, then when victory is his, the enemies come to take it for themselves. Blah, hopefully some of those imaginationisms make sense. Take luck, - Darkest90
N'wah 02-16-05, 12:09 AM	It doesn't sound like it has the Eberron flavor though... give it flavor too. Yes, flavor! MORE FLAVOR! WE DEMAND IT! Sorry, that just sounded funny. Actually, when I heard they were re-doing the Undermountain maps, I was thinking it would be great for Undersharn/Cogs, etc. I'm planning an expedition into the Citadel of the Closed Circle, and I'm awful at maps. So I'll just grab a cool-looking section of the Undermountain map with chambers large enough to belong to a wizard's college, fill it with aberrations, traps, and magic, and call it a night. If they decide to take up the torches and explore further, that's their deathwish- er, decision. Side note- why does the largest metroplotan area of each campaign setting have a megolithic dungeon of death lurking below it? Or maybe the question is- why do people keep insisting on building their metropilitan areas on these megolithic dungeons? You think someone would put up a sign or something. I suppose as long as the sewer grates are bolted on tight enough, everyone thinks they'll be fine, but that great wyrm red dragon I randomly rolled as the final denizen of Level 17 has GOT to want more than a 50' x 70' square room to hang out in. I mean, apparently, he's never even seen the sky. Surely he's curious. :D (Sorry, I couldn't help myself. It's been a wierd day.)
Marshall Stone 02-16-05, 01:33 AM	Side note- why does the largest metroplotan area of each campaign setting have a megolithic dungeon of death lurking below it? Or maybe the question is- why do people keep insisting on building their metropilitan areas on these megolithic dungeons? You think someone would put up a sign or something. I suppose as long as the sewer grates are bolted on tight enough, everyone thinks they'll be fine, but that great wyrm red dragon I randomly rolled as the final denizen of Level 17 has GOT to want more than a 50' x 70' square room to hang out in. I mean, apparently, he's never even seen the sky. Surely he's curious. :D (Sorry, I couldn't help myself. It's been a wierd day.) LOL, no N'wah, you are so right. But thier is a reason why the people of Sharn built on top of the ruins of the goblin city/state. But my question is What would you call it? I suppose you could just keep "Undermountain", but I don't know, that just doesn't feel right for Eberron. Some suggestions: - Khyber's Heart, "Deep below the lower levels of Sharn, further down than even the Cogs, lies Khyber's Heart!" - Or something Goblin-ish, since Sharn itself is built over goblin ruins. - The Realm of the Dragon Below Okay my imagination is failing me ("bad imaginiation, bad!") but you get the idea. Also, would you keep Skullport? Actually I guess you would but again, rename it: - Daelkyr Town - Dolgaunt and Dolgrimm - Mind Flayersville - The Keeper's Cove Lastly if Sharn has a manifest zone to Syrania then maybe Eberron's "Undermountain" should have one too. Then again Undermountain is so huge it might have several. Though Eberron's "Skullport" should/maybe also be in a manifest zone. Actually that could be very interesting. If "Skullport" is directly below Sharn is it too part of the same manifest zone to Syrania as Sharn? How far down do manifest zones go? If not, then what would be a cool manifest zone for "Skullport"? It might be interesting if Eberron's "Skullport" lied within a manifest zone to say...Risia, plane of Ice. Where the Sharn lies in or close to a tropical zone and the Cogs near lava pools, Eberron's Skullport is Icy. :smirk:
kisama 02-16-05, 09:53 AM	Agreed a dungeon like Undermountain would be in Eberron. Agreed that a good DM would never send players into a dungeon just to die. Going back to the ECS. In the artificer section there is a short biography on an artificer who is to date "the only person" to have survived a particularly nasty dungeon in Xen'Drik. I don't remember the name of the dungeon off-hand. When I was reading undermountain it got me to thinking about the different types of DM's there are out there. Some DM's have no issues with the players becoming icons in the campaign. For instance, the PC's might hear about a legendary dragon and decide to go after it in hopes of becoming heroes known throughout the world. Or the PC's might say "hey lets explore Undermountain! We'll be famous!" In my mind there are two reactions a DM can have when the PC's decide to try such tasks. The first type of DM think immediately that if nobody else in the campaign world has been able to accomplish said goal, then why should the PC's be able to? The DM then attempts to discourage the players from comitting suicide by proceeding through with their plan. The second type of DM puts aside that kind of logic and instead focuses on what the players want to do, and how he can make it a serious enough challenge for the players but ultimately allow them to succeed in acheiving their goal. For a long time I was the first type of DM. What about you?
kisama 02-16-05, 09:56 AM	Oh, I don't have the ECS on hand so I'm quoting from memory. I recall reading about the Medusa who lead a particular nation and that their base of opperations was close to some kind of ruins which they generally discouraged folks from exploring. That is where I would put my Undermountain in Eberron. Not under Sharn, because it would seem too accessilble that way.
Kid SixXx 02-16-05, 10:04 AM	In a nutshell, all Undermountain really is, is the deadly playground of a mad wizard, and if that ain't pulp for Eberron, I'm not sure what is. I've been tempted to tinker with either UM or the Tomb of Horrors as Vol's stronghold, but those two dungeons have the distinction of being the most lethal ones in the game. As most people have already said, they are where adventurers go to die. I want to keep the threat level extremely high, but I want the players to have a whisper of a chance of success. Railroading my players with a ring though the nose that turns into an express elevator ride to the grave isn't my idea of DM fun. Turning The Cogs section of Sharn into an iconic dungeon seems like a good way to go. It's creepy, abandoned qualities remind me a lot of Cathedral from the movie, Logan's Run, and it's accessibility makes things easier for me.
Makabriel 02-16-05, 12:28 PM	ponders Hmm.. wonder if I can tailor the Temple of Elemental Evil...