The Night Below: One of D&D’s All-Time Great Adventures

There have been a number of iconic Dungeons & Dragons adventures over the years. The first epic campaign, consisting of G1-G3, D1-D3, and Q1 is probably the most well-known mega-adventure. You start off against raiding giants, discover a conspiracy that leads you into the depths of the earth, and then travel to a demonic plane to beat up the drow goddess Lolth.

Other adventures that are generally accepted as incredible are Tomb of Horrors, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, and Ravenloft (although many trace the concept of railroading to that adventure – erroneously, as D1-Q1 is obviously a railroad). The Temple of Elemental Evil is mostly considered to be a classic. Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia by Judges’ Guild. There are some modern classics that I am not really familiar with, but whether they are really any good or just included because you MUST have some recent efforts mixed in with the greats is up for debate. Not here at this time, though (unless you feel compelled to make a case in the comments). Necromancer Games had a few that I consider classic, like Tomb of Abysthor, Vault of Larin Kar, and Lost City of Barakus; they all have an older-style feel to them.

And I am no doubt leaving out some that I’ll think of later with an emphatic, “D’oh!”

But I think maybe the coolest of all was the Night Below. Your party of first-level adventurers goes to a backwater shire on a delivery job, and gets drawn into a large, dark plot by vile creatures. It eventually leads underground to an epic trek (similar to D1-D3) where you must overcome many obstacles to arrive on the shores of the Sunless Sea, and then the hard part starts.

It was cool, and unique in the Second Edition days, in that the drow were not the main enemy. The aboleth were featured in that role – Lovecraftian fish monsters from beyond. An awesome choice, and probably a surprise to most PCs when they discover the true enemy.

The flaws of the adventure were legion, from flat characters to forcing characters to do certain actions to some simply silly situations. A lot of things you were supposed to care about were forced, and the actions of many of the NPCs were reflective of the 2E days were charcaters were expected to be heroic all the time and had to act a certain way or the adventure didn’t work.

The layout of the Underdark section was kinda convoluted. It required an immense amount of side travelling and backtracking. It was all in the name of building experience so that the characters were powerful enough to handle the threat at the end, but it turned what should have been a marvelous journey into a back-and-forth slog. The treasure handed out is obscene, but it followed the 1E and 2E convention of gold for XP so it was necessary in that paradigm.

A lot of the situations above ground were contrived, and felt less than natural when you want characters to care about the land they are adopting as a home territory. For example, the girl Jeleneth that you meet once before she is kidnapped is supposed to make the characters care and investigate with a sense of urgency, but you never get close to finding her and then the DM is encouraged to have the party make repeated trips back to the surface, exposing the sense of urgency as false.

The Rockseer elves felt like another contrivance. They could certainly be handled well, and maybe some characters would be moved by their eventual reuniting with their surface kin. But as written, it is just another plot device to make characters jump through more hoops to acquire certain powers and knowledge, again something forced rather than organic.

So there are a lot of modifications that should be made, but this does not detract from the sheer scope of the adventure. I have always wanted to run it, even though it would probably take a couple of years to finish. Most campaigns that have been reported about online say that they fizzle out before finishing, most of them in the Underdark trek when it becomes a slog rather than a journey. A few campaigns actually concluded, and the players all seemed to feel a sense of tremendous accomplishment.

The Night Below boxed set came out in 1996. I got a physical copy from eBay around 2008, when the price was still reasonable. Now the physical copies go for $200 or more. A pdf is $10 last time I checked.

It has been a long time since I ran a D&D campaign. The last few decades I have been playing Legends of the Ancient World, our bastardized (and, I feel, improved) version of The Fantasy Trip. I love and favor the combat for LAW/TFT, but the character development in D&D and the scaleability of the challenges as the characters grow in power is superior. A big reason for this is the 3d6 versus d20 resolution mechanic. d20 is free of the bell curve, so it can reflect a level 1 to level 29 progression in terms of power more naturally. Maybe an examination of that is a post for another time.

Anyway, most of my friends are too busy with their lives/kids and other hobbies to form a consistent group, particularly if we wanted to play through an epic campaign like the Night Below. Not sure I want to get involved with finding new players. But I think I’ll see if some of my friends could commit to meeting every other week; why not? I know some of them miss D&D.

That begs the question of which rules to use. The campaign was written for 2E, and it’s not super-crunchy. But I do like 1E better. Maybe I’d want to go with Original Edition, 0e, to make things move as fast as possible and get as far as we can each session. There are some 2e specific things like some spells required to pass certain plot points, but that can be dealt with. I said before that I’m not a fan of the Gold-for-XP paradigm and why, so I’d be into giving far higher XP awards for monsters that the party waxed and for specific challenges overcome leading to further the adventure.

Lotsa food for thought, here. There are some great sites online for modifying the overall adventure that I’ve read and considered.

The hamster wheel in my mind is turning. Stay tuned!