Underdark
by Rob Heinsoo and Andy Collins
(Copyright 2010, Wizards of the Coast, L.L.C.)
“The physical substance and spiritual energy of the Underdark are raw, mutating, and unfinished. Most surface creatures that cross into the Underdark gradually begin to sense the alien nature of their surroundings. The specific sensation or emotion experienced by each surface creature varies. Each individual experiences his or her own form of Underdark anxiety. The most common experiences are:
*Brief flashes of paranoia
*Moments of déjà vu that continually imply that the memory being re-experienced will end in terror or pain
*The taste or scent of foul mud, randomly overwhelming all other tastes and smells
*Echoes of some sounds but not others, as if nearby sounds were traveling through entirely different spaces to reach you
*Tricks of the light that make faces and other distinguishing characteristics briefly unrecognizable“
[excerpt from page 16]
Pre-Readthrough Impressions:
Art: Generally very good, some that makes me say WOW!
Layout (initial perusal): Well organized, detailed table of contents
Content Quality: Very good to excellent
Crunch vs Fluff: At first glance, the mix seems about 30% crunch to 70% fluff
Cost: Typical price point for this size supplement from WotC, $29.95 USD for 159 pages, so slightly more than 18 ½ cents per page plus nice hard bound cover
Ease of Use in Alternative System: Probably okay as inspiration if you are interested in the setting
What’s in the Book?
Chapter 1 gives a nice overview of the Underdark, with sections about how much surface dwellers know, the origins of the Underdark and its primary ruler, its geography, and typical phenomena found therein.
The first 17 pages is pure background fluff – good stuff about what made the Underdark what it is, what interesting phenomena happen when you go there. For example, a sidebar about “pervasive gloom” on page 13 says that it can have effects on PCs if you want that to be apart of your game. This is fluff, no hard and fast rules about it, just ideas you could use if you so choose. The next 10 pages give ideas for campaign arcs that involve the Underdark as a central focus. Again, with the exception of some terrain features that affect lighting conditions, there are no solid rules to implement, just ideas and suggestions. So, chapter 1 contains not a single stat block.
Starting with Chapter 2, the book outlines the four main regions of the Underdark in an extremely consistent way. Each chapter covers a particular main area of the Underdark: The Shallows, The Deeps, The Feydark, and The Shadowdark (chapters 2, 3, 4, & 5, respectively). Within each chapter, topics are laid out as follows:
1) Descriptions of the most common races/creatures encountered in this region
2) One “typical” encounter that would be likely to occur in that area
3) Environmental features of the area that may affect game-play or be used to set the mood
4) Places of interest in this region of the Underdark
5) A dungeon delve focused on the region
For example, Chapter 2 is spent describing the area of the Underdark known as The Shallows. It starts with a two page spread describing the most common races found in this area. Stat blocks are not included here, but they do list common encounter groups and a short descriptions indicating why an adventuring party might run across the group of creatures. This is followed by a two page, crunchy description of a “typical” Shallows encounter, complete with map and stat blocks.
The next 16 pages of Chapter 2 describe some typical cities that you would find in this geographic region, Forgehome (the dwarven City of Mines), Maelbrathyr (ruined tiefling city of old, called the Taken Place since it was dragged (stolen) by the King of the Underdark), The Dark Lake Ziggurat (an ancient stepped pyramid that sits in the middle of a bottomless black lake and inhabits several planes all at once), Hraak Azul (the Fungi City), and a few others. The section for each location describes its characteristics, its history, what race rules/inhabits it, how the inhabitants would probably behave, etc. Here and there (~4-5 times in ten or so pages) the chapter includes a rule tidbit about a special power a particular race may have or a disease that may be contracted when exposed to some phenomenon.
The last part of each of the chapters (2-5) is the rather crunchy section of the book, which consists of about 8-9 pages spent outlining a dungeon delve based in the area of focus for the chapter. These short dungeon delves consist of 3 encounters, complete with maps and stat blocks, a few short paragraphs about how to hook the players into the story, and a couple of rules notes regarding new creatures and such, as well as a bit about how to make the delve longer or work it into an existing campaign.
The final chapter of the book details the new monsters talked about in the book. Chapter 6 has about 16 pages of Monster Manual style descriptions and stat blocks describing several new creatures, and new iterations of existing ones. The final 4 pages of the book are devoted to describing Torog, the God of Torture, Imprisonment, and the Underdark, also known as the King that Crawls. The first chapter spent a good amount of time detailing the fate of Torog and how he came to inherit (and help create) the Underdark, so his treatment in chapter 6 is merely one of utility, detailing his powers, attacks, and combat tactics, as well as the stats of his servants.
Final Impressions:
Art: I know there have been complaints about WotC recycling art for new 4e releases, but this book has only a small amount of that, as far as I can tell (but I’m far from an expert in this matter). The more important thing for me is that the art fits the book and adds to the text, rather than detracting from it – in terms of this, the art in this book is very good. The cover is one of my current favorites (I’m biased though, I love the Mind Flayer!), and the quality of the interior art is mostly top notch as well.
Layout: My initial thought was that the book was well organized, and after a closer perusal, I am even more impressed – the entire book follows a clear progression through the Underdark, explaining each main region individually, offering easy to follow formatting. In short, very well done!
Crunch vs Fluff: By my tally, we have 159 pages including 1 chapter with virtually no crunch, 4 chapters with roughly 10 pages of crunch each (the delves), plus the final 18 page monster stat extravaganza, which ends up being 58 pages of crunch out of 159 pages, or about 36% crunch, to 64% fluff. Pretty close to my initial assessment of 70% fluff…
Cost: I think I said it all in my initial impression above. At roughly 18.5 cents per page this book is well worth it. I know that the ~30$ USD price point keeps this out of range for many RPGers, but it is well worth the cost for any DM that wants to run their group through a harrowing underground journey filled with interesting cities and creatures, with a rich history and interesting opportunities for exploration.
Ease of Use in an Alternative System: If this setting is of any interest at all to a DM running a non-4e system, I recommend the book. It is basically stats-light and inspiration-heavy. Even if you have little to no experience porting over basic information from one system to another, you will have no problems doing so here.
Notes on Content: The crunchy part of this book is like many other 4e products… some of it is very good and some of it makes me say, “meh.” However, a large portion of this is driven by my personal preferences rather than any inherent flaws in the material. Having said that, I can also say that some stats are refreshing and interesting (e.g. Primal Mud [page 101] and Godsblood [page 102] on the King’s Highway in the Feydark chapter), while some are old and feel rehashed (e.g. Grimlock Thug – how many ways can we re-do a minion and come up with the same basic thing? [page 145]). One of my fears was that this Underdark book would focus too heavily on Drow – I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of diversity in the book. Some things are so good I wanted more of them, but the material just wasn’t there (can anyone say Mind Flayer?). I think in the interest of space and diversity, they cut some things short. Even so, the book feels compete – i.e. it is a complete overview of the Underdark, and a well done one at that.
My personal thoughts on the book:
I tend to gloss over the stat blocks they give when I first glance through a 4e book. The stat blocks are not the most important in my mind, and I don’t buy a 4e book just to get a set of stats. Besides, I end up fiddling with WotC generated stats anyway, and making my own creatures, so I generally use books like this as a source-book myself, even though I actually am playing 4e. In other words, this book’s main value for me is in the inspiration it gives me.
As I read it, Underdark produces mental vignettes so strong that I have ideas flooding almost too quickly into my brain… As I imagine the tortures that I am going to put my players through, and how much fun they are going to have trying to figure out the weirdness that the Underdark inspires… this is the first supplement in a long time that really got my creative juices flowing and inspired me to write new things about my homebrew world and brainstorm about ways to get my players interested in going underground (a place they have yet to venture).
I can imagine campaigns where my PCs are in the Underdark, in the Deeps, the area most corrupted by the pain and misery of betrayal, by the bloody tracks on the King’s Highway. I can see them being there for days or weeks, and having a miserable go of it, the gloom, the dimness, the hatred that breeds… And then when they get out, time has passed differently for them, they are older and suspicious… they are no longer sure of the friendliness of people, of the possibility of living without the crushing bitterness that the Underdark made them face.
They start having flashbacks (I imagine these played in-game as vignettes of occurrences the players don’t remember!) and some of them, or possibly the entire group, will start to long for the eternal darkness (there are ways to mimic this in-game as well, and they open up interesting role-playing opportunities). The PCs fight the urge mentally and at the same time, it drives them and gives them purpose…
Those are the type of thoughts that this book has inspired in me. It will take some planning, and some extended campaigning, to get the feel just right. But when it happens, it will be sweet goodness in a role-playing book. And that is priceless. So if you ask me if the book is worth it – the answer is YES!!
“Creatures that have a connection to the gods, including player characters whose powers derive from the divine power source, suffer greater emotional effects, including a crushing feeling of despair.
Underdark twists the fabric of what seems real, the results of attempts to perceive locations and energies that were not meant for the creatures of the gods.”
[excerpt from page 16]
—
Please remember that this blog is written with the intention of spurring discussion of roleplaying games in general, and Dungeons and Dragons specifically. The copyright for the Dungeons and Dragons gaming system is owned in whole and in part by Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. Views expressed in this blog are entirely mine and are not endorsed by Dungeons and Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, or Hasbro.
Until next time, I wish you good gaming.
~DM Samuel
Note: This review will also be posted on the RPG Geek website as a review report. Stay tuned for episode 5 of the Ruboryn Campaign in a few days!