D&D 5E Can someone please summarize Out of the Abyss for me?

[Mercurius]

I had a chance to briefly browse through the book earlier today and think it would be enjoyable for my group, but was a tad disappointed that there wasn't an intro chapter that gives an adventure summary - it just starts with chapter one. Can someone please summarize the plot, with the major sections and corresponding levels?

Also, where is it on the railroad-to-sandbox spectrum?

Or if you know of a good review or summary online somewhere, a link would be great.

Thanks!

 

[Daern]

This is badly needed. The whole thing really needs a set of cheat sheets for synopsis, key developments, etc. A plot chart would help too.
I read through it yesterday. It's pretty sandboxy. Here's what I remember: SPOILERS





Escape from drow slave pits.
Choose a direction to travel in the underdark, engage in a long term fight from drow hunters, using the travel and exploration rules, have various random encounters and discover strange labrynths, most likely ending up at an underground lake at a Kuo Tuo or a Duergar city but possibly at a Myconid forest. Find out the place is going crazy, maybe see a demon lord.
Return to the surface. Enjoy the sunshine. Get summoned by the Dwarves of Gauntelgrym to lead an expedition of torchbearers into the depths to stop the demon lords.
Visit an underground trading post
Visit a mystical Stone Giant Library
Visit the Tower of a renegade drow wizard who has a PLAN
Search the Underdark for spell components for the ritual to lure all the demonlords together and banish them. Maybe see a demonlord.
Go to a demon lord wedding. Have an astra battle in a rotting skull, then maybe a physical battle with a demon lord.
Go to the Drow Homeland City of Menarezzzoboring to steal stuff.
Summon all the demon lords to a godzilla battle (option to have players play them) then maybe fight the surviving demon lord who is hopefully super messed up.
And I think that's a wrap!

 

[Wik]

Summon all the demon lords to a godzilla battle (option to have players play them) then maybe fight the surviving demon lord who is hopefully super messed up.
And I think that's a wrap!

Okay. That actually sounds super cool. Were I to run it, I wouldn't mention that the PCs were going to fight the survivor. I'd instead buy something all my players like (Chocolate?) and say "and the last guy standing gets this."

 

[Mercurius]

Haha, thanks [MENTION=81800]Daern[/MENTION], that was classic. It was like a movie trailer in which you see the entire movie in 2 minutes.

Anyhow, sounds like a blast. A question. Do you have a sense of what impels them forward? What you describe sounds rather linear, but then you say that it is rather sandboxy. Are there lots of hints and hooks or is it more that, for instance, a wise old dwarf tells them what to do next?

 

[Daern]

The drive at first is to escape the Underdark and the Drow. After that, its knowledge of an existential threat that motivates the group.
It's sandboxy in the sense that there's no set way to get out of the Underdark, nor is there a set route you follow back down. You don't have to go to any of the places I listed, but you will end up going to most. Like, some groups will go through the Fungus Forrest on the way up and others will go to the Fishman Town.
There's places to go, things to get but no set order. Underground travel is done abstractly, with a lot of random rolling for encounters and terrain. Within that theres some set piece encounters and cut scene things the DM can drop in front of the players when appropriate.

 

[fuindordm]

Also, madness!

I've only read halfway so far but there are a lot of ways for the PCs to acquire a long-term madness. Players who like acting out a bit should get a kick out of it.

Ben

 

[Irennan]

This is badly needed. The whole thing really needs a set of cheat sheets for synopsis, key developments, etc. A plot chart would help too.
I read through it yesterday. It's pretty sandboxy. Here's what I remember: SPOILERS





Escape from drow slave pits.
Choose a direction to travel in the underdark, engage in a long term fight from drow hunters, using the travel and exploration rules, have various random encounters and discover strange labrynths, most likely ending up at an underground lake at a Kuo Tuo or a Duergar city but possibly at a Myconid forest. Find out the place is going crazy, maybe see a demon lord.
Return to the surface. Enjoy the sunshine. Get summoned by the Dwarves of Gauntelgrym to lead an expedition of torchbearers into the depths to stop the demon lords.
Visit an underground trading post
Visit a mystical Stone Giant Library
Visit the Tower of a renegade drow wizard who has a PLAN
Search the Underdark for spell components for the ritual to lure all the demonlords together and banish them. Maybe see a demonlord.
Go to a demon lord wedding. Have an astra battle in a rotting skull, then maybe a physical battle with a demon lord.
Go to the Drow Homeland City of Menarezzzoboring to steal stuff.
Summon all the demon lords to a godzilla battle (option to have players play them) then maybe fight the surviving demon lord who is hopefully super messed up.
And I think that's a wrap!

Nice summarizing skills

 

[Kramodlog]

This ends with a royal rumble between demon lords? What is Lolth's angle? She was mentioned as behind it all. Or something.

 

[Daern]

She is not present. She helped the wizard summon all the DLs in the first place so she could take over the Abyss while they are gone.

 

[Daern]

Weddings everybody knows are a mistake... Inscrutable shrieking and violence. Totes KuwtKs.