Need cool Underdark locations

[Dog Moon]

Okay, finally DMing soon and I could use some additional encounter areas that the PCs can come across beyond those listed in the main 2 adventures I'm planning on using [Night Below and Kingdom of the Ghouls].

I've only begun thinking about areas, but any help would be appreciated, whether as simple as general areas in the Underdark like 'Mushroom forest in a cavern' to something, uh, more detailed, I guess.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Gilladian]

Well, it may be larger than you want, but I set the whole Forge of Fury module in the underdark at one point in a campaign. The front entrance was seriously modified, but it was very cool. Tough, tough tough to get into. I think I only used about the first half of the module, leaving out the dragon and some other stuff. Mostly it was a cool ancient abandoned dwarf road-outpost.

Bridges over deep chasms are always fun. They should have heavy guard posts, and if occupied are fun to have the party try to sneak or bluff their way through. There was a really good one in a dungeon magazine a few years back.

I've always wanted to create a dwarf city in a huge stalactite hanging above an underground sea. The whole stalactite would be carved into a series of balconies and riddled with tunnels. Or several near each other could have bridges arching across the icy black waters below. Imagine going fishing off your balcony into an underground ocean. Cool!

Smaller sites - have you ever seen small cave pools? They're crystal clear. You almost can't see the water. Cave pearls and other lovely formations are visible beneath them. Imagine if something valuable were deep in the water but you couldn't see the water.

Dungeon caves are always too neat and too easy. Search out online cave maps - there are any number available, and just make the PCs understand what kind of climbing and crawling and dangers they're really facing!
In fact try this link: http://www.caves.com/Voronja.pdf

 

[smootrk]

The Forgotten Realms book Underdark is loaded with locales and ideas. You can even salvage a lot of the old edition materials (available quite inexpensively as pdf's) for ideas.

 

[DerHauptman]

Smootrk beat me with the FR Underdark book which is about the best book there is for underdark type adventures.

Go to the WoTC site and go through all the maps they have. A good many are underground type caves and complexes. Don't give up easily though, they are archived all the way back to 2003 I think so there are plenty of them there. Also on WoTC site is a section of free adventures, which are little ones that could be played in 1 session or less. (mostly a few are bigger)

Again on the WoTC site there are fantastic locations a few of which are underdark.

IMO the WoTC site is one of the best resources for small encounters and locations to enhance your homebrew games.

 

[Nellisir]

Hellhound had a really cool thread here http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=133677

 

[Wycen]

How about an earth elemental node, guarded by one of these guys: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060704a

 

[Varianor Abroad]

A Roper "guild hall" where there are dozens of the things, engaged in mysterious commerce and plotting.

A dark elf listening post keeping an eye on the Underdark traffic, and reporting back via scrying items and spells.

An undead cavern. (Yeah, cause everyone's done living caverns.) This is an area where the walls move occasionally and feel clammy to the touch, but they aren't alive. It radiates evil and extrudes undead from the walls when PCs reach the very center of this vile locale.

The Shrinking Lands - a place where the PCs lose size in these smaller caverns, wandering amongst what appear to be dire creatures, but are in reality normal. Once they emerge as cursed beings, they have to seek out a cure elsewhere in the Underdark. Optionally, they could meet reduced size creatures from the Shrinking Lands and get asked to help them.

 

[WarlockLord]

Uranium mine!

 

[Piratecat]

A huge chunk of my story hour was developed from the Kingdom of the Ghouls. Don't read the thing - it's huge - but you may get some inspiration by skimming it for locations. In particular, I have an underground community named Akin's Throat and a good kuo-toa city.

If you want to skim, start here. You'll also find group brainstorming about the underdark in this thread.

 

[EricNoah]

Always keep the third dimension in mind. A tall cave with openings high up the walls that serve as home for flying or climbing critters, or a chasm with a rickety rope bridge and a swarm of bats that seems to attack those who cross at just the wrong time, or an underground waterfall concealing a dank gargoyle lair, that sort of thing.