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Something this anon has wanted to explore many a time- an adventure wherein traditionally 'evil' creatures go through a reverse dungeon crawl- escaping the fortress in order to desert the Dark Lord's armies!
Campaign Starter: From Under the Shadow
No where to go but up
Setup: More than a mere underdark fortress, Ykandri’s Shackle is a marvel of engineering and hubris that only the Duergar could have managed. Filled with visions of industry and conquest, the architects tasked with building a simple lift through a miles long fissure through the world below let their ambitions sprawl, becoming a make-work project for their subterranean empire and a monument to the pride of their succession of dour and powermad rulers.
Like any expansionist Military power, the Duergar of the “Great-Chain” conscript their defeated foes and societal rejects to do the worst of the labor, toiling away to expand the warrens supporting the Shackle or fending off the beasts of he dark vastness that infest the surrounding caverns. This is where we find our party, the lowest of the low, captives bound together by their mutual desire for escape.
Adventure Hooks:
While freedom is their primary goal, the party must keep up appearances and thier first mission will be a crawl through an mine and adjoining excavation site that has recently become infested with underdark pests. This will give them a chance to show off their characters and you an opportunity to hammer home just how miserable life on the Shackle really is. What’s more, having them return victorious and then being forced to hand over their gear and trophies under threat of lashes will set up great minor taskmaster/guards villains that they can avenge themselves against on the way out.
Have them plan their escape like a heist, rolling out a hastily drawn sketch of the Shackle standing between them and nearby underdark portals. Lay out what sidetasks they may need to perform or challenges they’ll need to overcome to get the resources they’ll need for their escape.
While preparing for their great escape, the party hear whisperings of some tumult among the upper ranks of the Clan’s hierarchy, something to do with a prisoner and the overreach of the notoriously wicked spymaster. Leadership may shuffle from time to time but the lot of those captive in the Shackle never does. “ Different Boot, Same Neck” goes the saying... at least it does until a blinding burst of divine light suffuses the fissure and a band of high-level heroes from the surface world come to rescue that prisoner and bring the Tyrants of the Great Chain down in the process. Pull this trigger before your party is fully ready to escape, or just as things go righteously wrong after they’ve decided to attempt a more risky escape. It’ll be clear they need to get out while the getting’s good, now having to sprint through a warzone rather than sneak through a prison.
Portals in the underdark are tricky things, leading an escaping party to all manner of potential locales ( that they may might not know ahead of time unless they stole the right information). Maybe they’ll end up in a disused mine on the outskirts of a city of new beginnings, a far cavern trading post with fortunes waiting to be made, a friendly settlement of exiles and make their reputation while defending its swampy borders. Perhaps somewhere even more strange?
Operation of the Shackle: The Shackle was built to ferry supplies, thralls, and soldiers en-mass across the great altitudes of the fissure, a task that could otherwise take days of marching or carting and be equivalent to descending a tall mountain. Instead, cargo is loaded from one level into an adjoining fortified platform attached to the great chain, which is raised as the other side decends, until it comes level with another platform. Cargo from one is loaded into the other, and then the mechanism reverses, sending the first platform down while the second platform ascends the way it came. By this way are the Shackle’s contents moved where they need to go by way of an overly elaborate, two way bucket chain, a process important to know should the party seek to escape their current level, or later should they wish to return to the site of their imprisonment and raid its ruins.
Future Adventures:
During the hatching of their escape plan, the party are slipped a few vital supplies by a drider merchant who did a little black market business on the shackle and took a shine to them in the process. Delighted to find the party no worse for ware ( despite possibly hopping dimensions) and that they’re now in a position to afford his more exclusive stock, the drider will be happy to send them on missions to fill their pockets then sell them things to empty them again.
The Party and their favorite spider boy aren't the only survivors of the Shackle, as one of the mercenary captains hired to keep order in the prison fortress has made it out with a newly formed legion of followers, and is interested in carving out a new territory for himself that just so happens to include the party’s new home.
It’s inevitable that the party left unfinished business on the Shackle, and some time into their adventures they may feel the call to return to their one time prison/home. Thoroughly in shambles after the heroes hit it with everything they had, the seat of empire has now become a patchwork of warlords fighting over the remnants of power, with vast stretches inhabited by the beasts of underdark attracted by the slaughter. Bonus points if the party runs into the pests they first fended off in the mines, grown in size, threat and swarming number without their population being culled.
Magic Shop: The Ascendant Apothecary
“New lofty location: Same low prices!”
Setup: While exploring a town in the highlands, the players come across a rather obvious crater at the edge of the settlement, obviously unnatural in origin. Asking around, they discover that the damage was caused when the town’s alchemist decided to pack up shop and leave town after one too many of his clients complained of unsatisfactory side effects in his creations. Though most thought him nothing more than a feckless swindler, the Alchemist Jashik Meuller, apparently managed enough magic to rip his shop and its surrounding anchorage free of the earth and have it float up into the mountains. Though the anger that nearly had Meuller chased out of town by a mob has long faded, his neighbors remember him with little fondness, instead spinning tall tales about al the mischief his creations caused.
Adventure Hooks:
Before he was a village apothecary, Meuller spent years as a traveling huckster attempting to use his middling magical power to charm the powerful into giving him patronage. Invariably one of his slapdash spells causes trouble, and the party are hired to seek him out in the hopes of putting right the chaos he inadvertently caused. Following rumors of his antics, the party eventually finds themselves at the edge of the crater left behind by his sudden departure: and the dangerous, chilly mountain they’ll have to climb if they want to finally track the man down.
While traveling in the mountains, the party runs across a young woman gathering herbs and other small ingredients in the foothills. This is Jashik’s daughter Lisbyth, who’s spent the last ten out of her sixteen years following her father about from one scheme to the next. Unbothered by a life of constant change and frequent “misunderstandings”, she’s delighted to have someone new to talk to as she completes her chores. When it looks like a sudden storm may force the party to find shelter for the evening, Lisbyth suggests that they might shelter in her father’s shop and warm themselves by their hearth.
The Strangely coloured clouds that’ve started drifting down from the mountain are getting a very mixed reception: No one minded the spiraling clouds which rained beautiful hues of light, and the glinting ones that drizzled pennies across the trade river was quite an event, but the pokadotted ones that hail needles, or the mottled sort that rain mice are ill received by the populace. These clouds are caused by the oblivious Jashik “evaporating” the remnants of his failed experiments with a newly built machine, and someone needs to go up the mountain and inform him before he starts a truly disastrous period of trial and error.
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