SESSION 26B: A DISPOSITION OF TREASURE

August 24th, 2008
The 13th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

The bodies of Faeliel and the other Erthuo scholars were gone, and the Erthuo mercenaries had gone with them. Reconvening in the dilapidated living room of Greyson House, there was an involved discussion revolving around how they could go about getting the rest of the bulky valuables out of the complex below.

There were three main problems to overcome: The sheer weight of the arcane equipment and precious metals. The pit of chaos warping the hallway. And the difficulty of lifting the material out of the basement here at Greyson House.

Out of everything, the “Drill of the Banewarrens” was going to prove the most difficult: Everything else could be mostly parceled up into smaller bundles, but the drill was both bulky and weighed several thousand pounds all by itself.

“Could we just sell the location of the drill to somebody?” Elestra asked.

“Like House Erthuo?” Tee said. “I doubt they’d be all that interested considering what just happened.”

In the end, they decided on a complex scheme involving fifteen hired laborers to move the drill; an architect to design the supports and ramps necessary to get it up into Greyson House; and then spells from Dominic and Elestra to quickly create the structure itself.

It was going to take some time to pull all of that together. Plus, they still had to get rid of the chaositech items. (“And the sooner the better,” Tee said.)

So Agnarr headed back down into Ghul’s Labyrinth to keep an eye on things. Dominic and Elestra headed back to the Ghostly Minstrel to rest up and prepare the proper spells.

THE HALLOWED VAULT

Tee and Ranthir headed towards the location in the Temple District they had been given by Aoska when they had asked for a secure place to store the tainted items.

They found the address wedged into a narrow gap on the Street of a Million Gods. The door opened to reveal a small, largely unadorned room with little more than a door draped with a beaded curtain. An elderly man sat in a worn-looking chair.

They were momentarily confused, but once they had identified themselves to the elderly man they were led through the beaded curtain and down a narrow flight of stone stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs they emerged into a long chamber lit with a pale blue light. A shallow pool of holy water ran the length of the room. The walls were covered in niches of various shapes and sizes, all of them obscured by sheens of silvery energy… except for one, towards which the elderly man pointed.

Taking her cue, Tee approached the niche and placed within it the tainted items she carried. As she drew back her hands, the niche quickly sealed itself with the same silvery energy as the others.

Tee turned to the man. “Thank you.”

He smiled, nodded, and led them back out onto the street.

THE TROUBLE WITH ILTUMAR

Tor returned to the Ghostly Minstrel. As he came through the door, Tellith called him over to the front desk. Apparently Hirus Feek, one of the owners of the Bull and Bear Armory next door, had stopped by and asked if Tee or Elestra or any of their companions could spare a few minutes to meet with him.

Tor turned around and headed back out into Delver’s Square. As he entered the Bull and Bear, Hirus – a skinny, balding man with a thin gray hair – smiled at him.

Tor quickly explained that Tee and Elestra weren’t with him, but he had been the first to return to the Ghostly Minstrel and he wasn’t sure when the others might return.

“That’s all right,” Hirus said. “I just needed to speak with one of you about Iltumar.”

“About Iltumar?” Tor said. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m not sure,” Hirus said, frowning. “He’s been hanging out with some shady people. Ruffians. I don’t like it. I was hoping one of you might be able to speak with him. Straighten him out. He looks up to you.”

“Any idea who they are, exactly?” Tor asked.

Hirus shook his head. “Not really. But I heard Ilutmar say something about ‘the Brotherhood’ the other day. For some reason, I didn’t like the sound of that.”

“Is Iltumar here now?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“When will he back?”

“He’s supposed to be back here by 10 o’clock.”

Tor agreed to come back then and try to talk with Iltumar. Then he headed back towards the Ghostly Minstrel.

Coming out of the Bull and Bear, however, he spotted Elestra and Dominic coming across the square. He called out to them and, as they headed into the Ghostly Minstrel together, quickly filled them in on the Iltumar situation.

Tee arrived as they were grabbing some food and drink from the bar. She told them that she had sent messengers to Castle Shard, Jevicca (as a representative of the Dreaming Apothecary), House Erthuo, and even a place called Avery’s Armory with details on the drill, construct parts, and adamantine – basically every place she thought might be interested in them.

As Tee was finishing up her explanation, Iltumar entered the inn. Elestra, seizing the opportunity called him over.

“What are you doing?” Tee hissed to her while giving Iltumar a friendly smile and wave.

Elestra waved her off. “Trust me, I’ll explain later.”

“Tee! Elestra!” Iltumar grinned. “Master Tor!”

“How are you doing, Iltumar?” Elestra asked.

“Very well!” he said. “Very well indeed.”

“That’s good.”

Tee decided to make the best of it. “I’ve got an answer for your riddle.”

“Really?” Iltumar said. “Already?”

“I couldn’t help thinking about it,” Tee said. “Is the answer a fish and the ocean?”

Iltumar pursed his lips. “That’s… close.”

“Huh,” Tee said. “Then it must be a fish and the river.”

“That’s right!” Iltumar clapped his hands. “Do you have a riddle for me?”

Tee shook her head. And then her eyes widened. As Iltumar had raised his hands to clap, she’d spotted a new ring on his finger: A ring marked with the symbol of a broken square.

She had a ring just like that in her bag of holding. They had found it in Pythoness House as part of a cache of artifacts belonging to the chaos cultists. Tee glanced over towards Elestra, and she could tell that she’d seen it, too.

Thinking quickly, Tee smiled broadly. “Oh! That’s a nice ring! Where did you get it?”

Iltumar suddenly seemed very nervous. “What? Oh, this ring? Just… around.”

“Really? I’d love to have a ring like that!” Tee was putting everything she had into a flirtatious voice. “Do you think I could have it?”

“No,” Iltumar said sharply. “I can’t.”

“Oh…” Tee suddenly got very sad.

“It’s just… Somebody gave it to me.”

“Oh,” Tee said, brightening slightly. “Another girl?”

But it wasn’t working. Iltumar babbled slightly and then clammed up. Tee was left promising to come up with a new riddle for him soon, and then he went off to get a drink.

Seizing the opportunity, the others quickly filled Tee in on what Hirus had told him.

“Do we think there’s a connection between the ‘Brotherhood’ and the chaos cultists?” Elestra asked.

“There must be,” Tee said.

“What should be do?”

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” Tee said. “At least not right now. We’ll let Tor talk to him later.”

MAKING THE SALE

Tor and Dominic headed back to Greyson House to rejoin Agnarr. Tor was uncomfortable with letting entirely unknown workers handle the material directly (they might steal stuff). So, taking crates from the basement of Greyson House, he started packing up as much of the loose material as he could.

Tee, meanwhile, received a letter from Avery’s Armory, informing her that he was always interested in sources of adamantine and would be willing to pay market value for anything she might have (which she estimated to be worth a few thousand gold).

Later that evening, Tee was able to track Jevicca down in the common room of the Ghostly Minstrel. When she showed her the schematics of the Drill of the Banewarrens, Jevicca became very interested and immediately offered 10,000 gold pieces on behalf of the Inverted Pyramid.

Tee thought that was a decent offer, but told Jevicca she would need to check with the others first (since they all had equal stakes in the matter).

It was perhaps well that she did, because a few minutes later a letter from Castle Shard arrived. In response, Tee caught a carriage.

It turned out that Lord Zavere was also primarily interested in the drill. He offered to not only purchase both the drill and the construct parts for a total of 13,000 gold pieces, but to take care of transporting all of it, as well. Plus, he would deliver the adamantine directly to Avery’s Armory for them.

It was an offer that significantly simplified things for them. (And saved them a large chunk of money.) Tee accepted it on the spot.

After leaving Castle Shard, Tee sent a messenger to Jevicca to inform her that she had accepted a different offer. Then she stopped by Avery’s Armory personally to confirm the deal with him. Once that was done, she headed back to Greyson House and told Tor to stop prepping crates: It had all been taken care of.

KADMUS AND THE GATE

(09/14/790)

The night passed quietly.

The next morning, a gate appeared in the middle of the corridor. Kadmus stepped through the portal, greeted them cordially, and, with one hand, lifted the impossibly heavy adamantine drill.

They were universally taken aback by this prodigious display of strength.

“Remind me never to pick a fight with him,” Tor said.

It took Kadmus about fifteen minutes to move everything through the gate. When he was finished, Zavere stepped through himself. Handing Tee a pouch filled with platinum, he promised to have the adamantine delivered to Avery by noon at the latest.

Zavere stepped back through the gate. A moment later, it disappeared.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Treasure Logistics – Campaign Journal: Session 26C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Last week we looked at what you can do when the PCs decide to call in a Big Uber-NPC to deal with their problems. But what happens they decide to call the cops? Or the CIA? Or the army? The big organizations of Little Guys who keep civilization working?

If you have evidence proving that someone is a murderer, it makes sense to call the cops. But how do you keep the spotlight on the PCs?

Good gaming! I’ll see you at the table!

The Yawning Portal seems utterly synonymous with the Forgotten Realms today, but it actually didn’t appear in the original Forgotten Realm Campaign Setting boxed set, published in July 1987.

The wait was not particularly long, however. By the end of the year, driven in part by the prodigious amount of Realmslore Ed Greenwood had created for his setting, TSR had released nearly a dozen Forgotten Realms books, including FR1 Waterdeep and the North and the first details of Durnan’s tavern.

(The “and the North” portion of the title was actually something of a misnomer. According to Shannon Appelcline, Greenwood had warned TSR that his Waterdeep lore alone was enough to fill a book. And that was more than true: Almost all of the material about the rest of the North got knocked out of FR1 and later handed over to Jennell Jaquays for FR5 The Savage Frontier. It’s unclear why they didn’t just drop “and the North” from the title. Perhaps they felt locked in by the title they had solicited? But I digress.)

THE EARLY DAYS

In FR1 Waterdeep and the North, the Yawning Portal appears as Building #4:

4. The Yawning Portal (inn) – See Durnan, p. 17

Thus, most of the original information about the Yawning Portal is actually contained in the NPC write-up of its proprietor, and these are fairly barebones: It contains a “well-like shaft leading down into Undermountain, the subterranean ways under Mount Waterdeep.”

The Yawning Portal’s next appearance is in the City System (1988), a boxed set filled to the brim with twelve huge poster maps, ten of which joined together to form an insanely huge map of the city. The City System was designed to be used in conjunction with FR1 Waterdeep and the North: FR1 described the city. The boxed set only included the huge maps and a small pamphlet with useful tools (like random Street Scenes and indices).

(This confused the heck out of me as a kid, who bought City System but never saw a copy of FR1 at the local game store.)

In the City System, therefore, the Yawning Portal remains Building #4, but no additional text description is provided. The boxed set does include the first official map of the interior of the inn, but we’ll come back to this later.

The Yawning Portal’s next appearance was in the adventure module FRE3 Waterdeep (1989), also by Ed Greenwood. The PCs are taken to the Yawning Portal by Elminster and Khelben Arunsun the Blackstaff. The adventure tells DMs that they can use the map from the City System boxed set, but also includes a much more detailed description of the Portal’s interior:

• It’s a “large, rambling building.”
• A signboard above the “round door” reads “The Yawning Portal,” and “on the door itself, someone has chalked ‘Come Ye Inn.’” (sic)
• It is dimly lit.
• There’s at least one private side room.
• A 14-year-old girl works as a server.

Most notably, FRE3 adds a second well to the Yawning Portal:

Durnan leads the party to the back of the inn. (…) The innkeeper lifts a huge bar from the door with one hand, as though it weighs nothing, and leans it against the wall. Then he opens the door and leads you into a dark room. The torch’s flickering light shows a covered wall and a table. On the table lie coils of rope, a tinder box, and a half dozen unlit torches…

“I haven’t been down this back way in some time,” he says. “We usually go down the dry one; it keeps the water cleaner.”

At some distance down the well, there’s a side tunnel that leads into a cavernous region of Undermountain which includes the Pool of Loss.

(The reason for this addition is fairly obvious: The adventure wants to send the PCs to Undermountain, but doesn’t have the space or page count to do that. So Durnan has a short cut that takes the PCs more or less directly to where they need to go.)

Despite only being an adventure module, FRE3 Waterdeep was frequently cited in TSR products as the authoritative source for the Yawning Portal. This notably includes the Ruins of Undermountain boxed set (1991), which rather hilariously notes:

More about Durnan and the inn can be found in the sourcebook FR1/Waterdeep And The North, the City System boxed set, and the module FRE3/Waterdeep. Details of the inn itself have been omitted from these pages to allow DMs free rein in customizing this rambling, shady place.

“We’ve detailed this location in THREE different books, but we haven’t included those details here so that you can have ‘free rein’ in customizing it.” Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, TSR.

(Ruins of Undermountain II actually doubles down on the absurdity here, similarly demurring to describe the inn, but this time asserting that “the Yawning Portal is detailed in the original Ruins of Undermountain boxed set,” where, of course, readers will instead find the boxed set declaring that it definitely does no such thing.)

But because the Portal actually hasn’t been particularly detailed previously, Ruins of Undermountain does add several new details:

• “The Portal is a rambling, dingy, blue-tapestried building of smoothly carved pillars and paneling.”
• It is located “squarely on the site of the long-vanished tower and fortified warehouses of the archmage Halaster Blackcloak.”
• It is the “the only known entrance” to Undermountain accessible to the general public.
• The first well is 40’ in diameter and located in the main taproom. It’s “situated between the bar and most of the dining tables” and surrounded by a “waist-high, foot-thick stone ring/rampart.” Lit torches are placed around the circumference of the well and there’s a massive block-and-tackle “hanging from a stone lintel above the well, hiding among the roof beams.” The well is 140 feet deep, dark below 50 feet, and there are noisemakers at the bottom (used to signal the taproom for the rope to be lowered).
• You pay Durnan 1 gold piece per head to be lowered into Undermountain.
• The “wet well,” which is used only for washing water, is lesser-known and hidden in a backroom. It leads to a section of the dungeon not detailed in the boxed set, but which connects “with the city sewers in many places” and the plane of Hades (via the Pool of Loss). It’s possible that there are actually multiple passages intersecting the wet well, but the phrasing here is ambiguous.

Now, you might expect to find some reference to the Yawning Portal in Volo’s Guide to Waterdeep (1992), but not really. It has a city map which my copy lacks, but which I believe is essentially identical to the one from FR1 Waterdeep and the North and on which the Portal remains Building #4. And it has a footnote telling you to go check out FRE3 Waterdeep.

So our next stop is actually the City of Splendors boxed set (1994), which is very much designed to replace both FR1 Waterdeep and the North and the City System boxed set (although it lacks the latter’s prodigious map). The numbered key for Waterdeep is overhauled with ward-based numbering, and the Yawning Portal is now C48 (C for the Castle Ward).

City of Splendors mostly compiles the known information about the Yawning Portal from all of our previous sources, but there are a few notable new details:

• Durnan established the Yawning Portal in 1306 DR.
• The Yawning Portal is a 3-story Class C building. (Class C buildings are generally the “tall row houses that line the streets” with shops on the ground floor and offices or apartments above that, but the “better-kept” inns and taverns are also grouped in here.)
• It now also costs 1 gold piece to get pulled OUT of Undermountain. (Make sure to budget accordingly.) I believe this is also the first reference to patrons wagering on would-be adventurers.

There is actually now a long break in the Yawning Portal being described in RPG supplements, with one interesting sidenote in Skullport (1999), which claims in two different places (p. 9 and 64) that there is a secret door in the Yawning Portal’s wine cellar which leads, along a side passage, to the Bonewatch Pass, a tunnel which runs all the way to Skullport.

THE VIDEO GAME ERA

During this gap in RPG books from 1994-2004, the Yawning Portal actually makes two notable appearances in video games: Descent to Undermountain in 1994 and Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark in 2003.

These are particularly notable because, as far as I can tell, they’re the first visual depictions of the tavern.

Note: Some online sources claim that the Yawning Portal also appeared in the Eye of the Beholder games, but although there is an unnamed tavern that briefly appears in the later games of that trilogy, there’s nothing to suggest that it’s the Yawning Portal.

The depiction of the tavern in Descent to Undermountain is rather severely limited by the FPS technology of time, with everything rendered in Doom-style blocks.

• The common room is depicted as a big square room, with a big square well.
• Rather than a rope dangling over the well, there’s a wooden platform with a skull-embossed cage that’s lowered into Undermountain.
• The common room is surrounded by a hallway studded with guest rooms. (The guests are delightfully eclectic, including a mind flayer, a drow, and the Open Lord’s son.)

Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark has a very different design for the inn. The game starts on the second floor, which features:

• An armory in the back corner of the inn, stocked with adventuring gear.
• A large common room, which is sort of a hostel with multiple bunkbeds and a small library of books.

A stair leads down to the first floor where there’s:

• Another common room, this one with cheap cots for sleeping but also accoutered with medical supplies for treating those injured escaping from Undermountain
• The taproom which… uh… lacks any taps? (The games’ presentation is a little ramshackle here.)

Notably the taproom also lacks a well. The well is instead located in the basement, and is less of a well and more of a “gaping chasm.” A “well” is located on a rocky spur jutting out over the chasm, and is protected by a clockwork brass dome that irises up and down.

(The pointlessness of this defensive device is established a moment later when a beholder floats up out of the chasm and near-murders Durnan.)

More recently, in the new Neverwinter game (2019), the Yawning Portal is depicted once more:

This presentation is heavily influenced by the Portal’s presentation in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (as we’ll see below).

• The taproom is shown to have a vaulted ceiling all the way to the third floor, with balconies featuring additional seating lining three sides of the room (and skylights!).
• The three-sided bar juts out into the room.

Next: Novels & Later Expeditions

João writes:

I don’t want to railroad my players. But how can I create a classic quest to destroy the Evil Thing™ without railroading?

The principle of “don’t prep plots, prep situations” can also be thought of as prepping toys and then letting the players either (a) figure out how they want to play with them and/or (b) how they’re going to react to you actively playing them.

So if you’re prepping an RPG version of The Lord of the Rings, don’t prep the journey to Mt. Doom. Instead, prep:

• the One Ring
• the villains interested in the Ring (Sauron & Saruman)
• the tools those villains can use against the PCs (Nazgul, crebain, orcs)

And so forth.

Let’s say that we’re in Rivendell and Elrond, et. al. have just explained the history of the Ring, that Sauron is seeking it, and that the only way to destroy it is by throwing it into Mt. Doom.

(You could also design this scenario without proscribing one method for destroying the Ring: It could be  Mt. Doom or the fire of an Elder Dragon or the sunken forges of Beleriand. Or could also take one step further back and not make Sauron’s defeat or destruction dependent on the One Ring. But, for the sake of argument, let’s just focus on the McGuffin Delivery concept.)

So you’re in Rivendell. You have the One Ring. And the know the Ring has to go to Mt. Doom.

Add a map of Middle Earth showing where Rivendell and Mt. Doom are.

Now, let the players decide how they want to get to Mt. Doom.

And… that’s it.

Railroad averted.

ACROSS THE MAP

The players now have a vast array of options open to them: Go through Moria? Over Caradhras? Through the Gap of Rohan? Head straight down the coast and sail to Gondor? Escort Bilbo to the Lonely Mountain, call in old favors owed, and taken army of dwarves south?

This, of course, makes a “here’s a map of the whole world, plot a course for yourself” campaign like this incredibly daunting to prep in advance and basically impossible to do so without wasting a bunch of time prepping stuff that will never be used.

If this is for your home campaign, though, you don’t need to prep everything in advance. You can figure out what your players are planning to do and then prep specifically for that.

They’re heading over the mountains? Prep Caradhras.

They’re heading to the coast? Prep the Corsairs of Umbar.

So what DO you need to prep for the map?

You need a broad patina of the world so that the players have enough context to make their decisions regarding route. The map provides the structure here, and so your prep mostly boils down to being able to answer the question, “What’s here?” when the players point at the map and ask.

You don’t need a lot of detail for this. Just one to three sentences for each broad region.

“What’s here?”

“That’s the Lonely Mountain, a dwarven kingdom ruled by King Dain.”

Just drawing the map will honestly do 90% of the work here. (There’s mountains here, a kingdom called Rohan there, etc.)

DEFAULT TO YES, FLESH OUT THE WORLD

As the players begin making their plans, they’re going to propose routes you never even considered. When this happens, default to yes and flesh out the world.

Player 1: There are mountains here. Should we go around them to the north or south?

Player 2: What about climbing straight over them?

Player 3: What about under the mountains? Are there any dungeons we could go through?

DM: (thinking fast) There are two, actually. A system of caves in the north near Mirkwood, infested with goblins. And an abandoned dwarven city to the south.

The players decide that sounds too dangerous and they decide to head south instead.

But now, of course, we’ve established that the Mines of Moria exist…

PLAYING WITH YOUR TOYS

The other thing you’ve prepped, of course, are those toys we mentioned earlier. With the planning session complete, you can use these tools to flesh out your prep for the players’ intended route. For example, they’re heading towards the Gap of Rohan, so you pull out some crebain spies dispatched by Saruman and plan to have those followed up by Uruk-Hai patrols if the PCs get spotted.

But these toys are also designed for active play. When the players do something unexpected that you weren’t prepared for, the first thing to ask your self is: How can I use my scenario toys to respond to that?

The second thing is to see if you have any generic toys that can be plugged in. (The PCs have gotten spooked by the crebain and are heading to Caradhras now? Well, it’s a good thing you’ve got this Living Mountain write-up from the bestiary.)

And the third thing is to say (when the players fail the extended skill check on Caradhras and are forced to turn aside to Moria), “Reaching the top of the stone steps, you look down upon the Walls of Moria. There the Gate stood once upon a time, the Elven Door at the end of the road from Hollin by which you have come… Okay, well this seems like a good place to wrap things up for this week.”

That should give you plenty of time to prep a legendary dungeon.

(Double check your challenge ratings, though. Otherwise someone might die in there.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #8

In the world of Exandria, in the city of Bazzoxan, there lies Betrayers’ Rise. Once a “dark temple instrumental to the machinations of the Betrayer Gods during the Calamity” (Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount), the Rise is a gargantuan complex worming its way into the earth; a place of vast, unexplored depths where explorers delved too deep and woke up abyssal horrors from an elder age, placing the people of Bazzoxan on the front lines of an ancient war.

As presented in the Call of the Netherdeep campaign, however, Betrayers’ Rise is a tiny little dungeon with just sixteen rooms.

They’re good rooms. Great rooms, even.

But it doesn’t quite deliver the experience promised by the lore.

THE PROBLEM

To be fair, Call of the Netherdeep knows it has a problem. The writers kind of toss out the idea that “the characters experience a particular version” of Betrayers’ Rise, and that others experience “different configurations” of the dungeon. They also provide “Betrayers’ Rise Encounters” (p. 63) that can be used as inspiration to “expand” the Rise.

And this is not actually an unusual problem: You want to send the PCs into a legendary dungeon — Moria, Undermountain, Castle Blackmoor, Betrayers’ Rise — as part of a larger adventure. But these vast dungeons have dozens of levels and hundreds, possibly thousands, of rooms.

At that scale, in published adventures, page count becomes an issue. For another example of this, consider Ed Greenwood’s FRE3 Waterdeep module. Greenwood wanted to send the PCs through the well in the Yawning Portal and into Undermountain as part of this adventure, but obviously couldn’t include the entire dungeon (which usually requires hundreds of pages) in a 52-page adventure. (His solution was to create a previously unmentioned secret well in the Yawning Portal’s backroom that conveniently led directly to where the PCs needed to go.)

But even if page count or prep time weren’t important (which they obviously are), there’s also pacing to consider. Megadungeons are awesome. I love megadungeons. But it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to put Call of the Netherdeep on hold for 10 or 20 or 40 sessions while a largely unrelated dungeon crawl is happening.

So what’s the problem?

If I’m saying that you can’t do a megadungeon in Call of the Netherdeep and that you shouldn’t do a megadungeon in Call of the Netherdeep, don’t we just have to accept that micro-dungeon that Call of the Netherdeep presents?

No, actually.

THE SOLUTION(S)

We’ve been hearing “vast underground complex” and we’ve been defaulting to “megadungeon” as the solution. The solution is to shift our paradigm, and we can do that by rephrasing our goal.

The micro-dungeon in Call of the Netherdeep is (a) good and (b) probably has about the right narrative weight for its role in the campaign. So what is it that we want?

Ideally, we’d take the exact same micro-dungeon and present it in a way that’s consistent with Betrayers’ Rise being a gargantuan complex with vast, unexplored depths where explorers delved too deep and yada yada yada.

OPTION 1: MULTIPLE ENTRANCES

Instead of Betrayers’ Rise having a single entrance that leads to a sixteen room micro-dungeon, the Rise has multiple entrances leading to a convoluted honeycomb of many different dungeon complexes. Some of these are small; some are vast. Some are connected to each other; others are not… or, if they are, the ways are secret, blocked, or only accessible through interdimensional spaces.

One of these entrances, of course, leads to our micro-dungeon.

The key question now is, how do the PCs know to use this specific entrance?

To answer this question, we simply step back and look at the PCs’ goal in Bazzoxan: They’re here to get answers about the Jewel of Three Prayers, the enigmatic Vestige of Divergence which has come into either their possession or the possession of their Rivals.

Therefore, this entrance must have a specific connection to the Jewel of Three Prayers.

There are many ways you could create his connection, but you can keep it quite simple: There’s a giant drawing or bas relief of the Jewel depicted on the entrance or near the entrance or just inside the entrance.

The next question is: How do the PCs learn about this connection?

This revelation is essential for the adventure, so we want to use the Three Clue Rule here. In fact, there are two closely related revelations here.

REVELATION 1: WE HAVE TO GO TO BAZZOXAN.

• The Elder in Jigow who told them to go to Bazzoxan (p. 37) should tell them: “I was in Bazzoxan once, where the legacy of the Calamity lingers more strongly anywhere else in Xhorhas, and I saw this very Jewel depicted on the walls of the Betrayers’ Rise. Perhaps you will find answers there.”
• The PCs can discover references to this depiction of the Jewel at Betrayers’ Rise through their own research.
• The Rivals will conduct their own research (or perhaps seek the casting of a legend lore spell) and discover the Jewel’s depiction at Betrayers’ Rise. They’ll then inform the PCs, ask for the PCs’ help, or the PCs can pursue them there.

REVELATION 2: THE LOCATION OF THE JEWEL’S DEPICTION.

• The PCs can do their own survey of the Rise’s exterior to find the depiction.
• The Three Scholars of Ank’Harel in Bazzoxan (Question, Prolix, and Aloysia) are all here researching ruidium (which is specifically found around this entrance and in this micro-dungeon). They can be questioned and their notes also include depictions of the Jewel.

Design Note: This conveniently also addresses some other structural weaknesses in Call of the Netherdeep. For example, in the adventure as written the Elder doesn’t actually give the PCs’ a reason to go to Bazzoxan; so when they arrive, they end up just kind of wandering around hoping to bump into the plot. By having the Elder give them this specific connection to Bazzoxan, the PCs now arrive in town with a specific agenda which will drive the action forward.

You could also further develop this lore to strengthen connections between Bazzoxan and Ank’Harel. Perhaps the excavations in the sunken city of Cael Morrow have recently discovered a depiction of the Jewel of Three Prayers, and some or all of the scholarly factions have independently discovered its depiction in Bazzoxan (providing an alternative or additional motive to ruidium for coming here).

OPTION 2: THE POINTCRAWL

If you want to actually delve into the “true” Betrayers’ Rise — that vast, unexplored depth which yada yada yada — then what you need is a pointcrawl.

A pointcrawl adventure uses a point-map to represent navigation at an abstract level. One way of understanding a pointcrawl, and its original application, is modeling travel along a trail system (i.e., the connections between points are literally wilderness trails running between the locations).

In the case of a dungeon pointcrawl, like the one we would use for Betrayers’ Rise, the points represent notable locations or regions within the dungeon and the connections between them model the navigational connections between them. Because these navigation connections are being represented at a high level of abstraction, they are often not specific. (There might be several different passages you can take from the Low Halls to the High Throne, but they’d all be represented by a single line. This is similar to how there are many streets you could take while driving across town from McDonald’s to the Museum of Natural History, but they’ll all be heading in basically the same direction.)

Let’s make this less abstract. The way a dungeon pointcrawl would work here is that the vast depths of Betrayers’ Rise would be abstracted. You’d narrate large spans of the journey as a sort of travelogue through terrifying-yet-empty vaults.

The Rise is not a beehive with every inch filled by demons. It is a wasteland.

If you want a touchstone for what this would look like/sound like in actual play, consider the journey through Moria in The Lord of the Rings:

For eight dark hours, not counting two brief halts, they marched on; and they met not danger, and heard nothing, and saw nothing but the faint gleam of the wizard’s light, bobbing like a will-o’-wisp in front of them. The passage they had chosen wound steadily upwards. As far as they could judge it went in great mounting curves, and as it rose it grew loftier and wider. There were now no openings to other galleries or tunnels on either side, and the floor was level and sound, without pits or cracks. Evidently they had struck what once had been an important road; and they went forward quicker than they had done on their first march.

They had marched as far as the hobbits could endure without a rest, and all were thinking of a place where they could sleep, when suddenly the walls to right and left vanished. They seem to have passed through some arched doorway into a black and empty space. There was a great draught of warmer air behind them, and before them the darkness was cold on their faces. They halted and crowded anxiously together.

Gandalf seemed pleased. ‘I chose the right way,’ he said. ‘At last we are coming to the habitable parts, and I guess that we are not far now from the eastern side. But we are high up, a good deal higher than the Dimrill Gate, unless I am mistaken. From the feeling of the air, we must be in a wide hall. I will now risk a little real light.’

He raised his staff, and for a brief instant there was a blaze like a flash of lightning. Great shadows sprang up and fled, and for a second they saw a vast roof far above their heads upheld by many mighty pillars hewn of stone. Before them and on either side stretched a huge empty hall; its black walls, polished and smooth as glass, flashed and glittered. Three other entrances they saw, dark black arches: one straight before them eastwards, and one to either side.

Then the light went out.

The “points” of the pointcrawl would be points of particular interest/danger. They’d also represent key navigational choices. In the movie version of Moria, for example, these are:

• the Entrance;
• “I have no memory of this place”;
• Balin’s Tomb; and
• the Bridge of Khazad-dûm

In designing this for an RPG, you would need to include options for the paths Gandalf didn’t take (so that the players would have navigational choices).

PREPPING THE POINTCRAWL: Unlike Option 1, therefore, this option would require significantly more prep, because you’ll need to create other points within Betrayers’ Rise in addition to the original micro-dungeon (which I’m going to call the Cyst of Avandra).

My guess is that you’d want at least a half dozen points that are actually micro-dungeons. (You could think of each of these as a 5-Room Dungeon.) And then you’d probably want another dozen or so points that are just individual rooms or cool landmarks (a statue, a strange chasm, a subterranean bridge, etc.).

Some of these points might be better thought of as entire regions, out of which navigational choices can be made.

“You’re in the Hex Pits. You see a number of stairs winding down. Or you could perhaps try to make your way up one of the great ramps at either end of the Pits.”

OPTION 3: THE GUIDE

If we consider Gandalf an NPC instead of a PC, then we can get some of the atmosphere offered by the pointcrawl, but wrap it in a simple package (with near-zero prep) by simply requiring the PCs to have a guide.

What guide? One of the Three Scholars, of course.

And how do they know where to take the PCs? Once again, it’s the depiction of the Jewel of Three Prayers. Rather than being an entrance to Betrayers’ Rise, the painting or bas relief of the Jewel is located deep within the Rise.

The chosen scholar(s) can guide the PCs there in abstract time (a montage of moments as they delve into the dungeon; just like the hobbits’ experience in Moria), perhaps triggering a few “random” (actually scripted) encounters along the way.

When the PCs arrive at the depiction of the Jewel, you simply shift to now time as they come to the entrance of Cyst of Avandra.

Design Note: You could enrich this interaction a bit by having the Three Scholars each propose/take differing routes through the Rise. But there’s probably not a huge gain from this unless the PCs can make some sort of meaningful choice between route options.

The PCs could also avoid the need for an actual guide if, for example, they steal one of the researchers’ notes from their rooms. (Allowing them to study the notes and guide themselves.) You can prompt this as an active premise by having one of the scholars ask the PCs to steal a rival’s notes. (Prolix might do so in order to figure out what Aloysia is doing in Bazzoxan, for example.)

For the encounters studded along the route, you can use (or at least start with) the “Betrayers’ Rise Encounters” on p. 63 of Call of the Netherdeep. Try to have these encounters really reflect the vastness of the spaces through which the PCs are traveling, however: They pass through a galley looking out over a vast underground chasm or chamber, lit by the ruddy light of a lake of fire on the far end. In the center of the lake is an island upon which is a slab of stone. And upon the slab of stone there lies a sleeping balor.

Best not to rouse it.

FURTHER READING
Call of the Netherdeep: Running the Rivals