Editing D1-2-3: Drow Trilogy (section)

==Plot==
The plot of the three modules places a party of player characters (PCs) on the trail of the drow priestess Eclavdra through what we're now calling "the Underdark": a vast subterranean network of interconnected caverns and tunnels, battling various creatures on their journey.

If teeing off from ''Hall of the Fire Giant King'', M5-138 on the Greyhawk map: the PCs were supposed to have discovered that the drow had instigated the alliance between the races of giants and their attacks on neighboring humans. The drow that survived the party's incursion have fled into tunnels leading deep into the earth. The adventurers will have arrived at the bottom of the dungeon below the cave-castle of King Snurre. That, campaign-pending, is optional. Quite a lot of the following is ''intrinsically'' optional ...

... but the D series doesn't let you ''cheat'' on those options. Drow (and Gygax) aren't retarded. They don't let any asshole rules-lawyer just ''[[teleportation|teleport]]'' their party ahead on their route. "Pressure" and "powerful magnetic forces" disable all teleporting short of a ''[[wish]]'' down in the underworld. You're going to walk it.

The basis of the trilogy - especially "D1-2" - is the [[Gen Con]] Tournament, XI played at 1978 to be exact. This explains the linear and three-step waltz format, fractally arranged in three steps of module: different parties get different encounters, meet back up, compare notes, then split off again. D3 at the end goes full sandbox.

The network is a hex-based flowchart, one mile per hex, with three types of cavern. Single hex is a 130' x 130' map - basically just an "area of interest". Doublehex is the endgame for D1 and D2, a map to fill a 1970s-era cover and (here) ''nowhere near'' 5820' x 10560'. Six hex is the Vault. There's a "Sunless Sea" off to the northeast, from Coleridge; sporting the only fourhexer, an island. But if you're there you have traveled too far to be playing this series, or blown an encounter in D2 so hard your character's probably not rejoining the party.

DMs up for saving trudge time and don't care about muh canon can rule that a hex is only ''half'' a mile. The Vault would then be ''24''-hex but feh. There's a plot here and the Vault is off on the northwest corner. For the canon-conscious DM, boots / potions of <strike>''Erythroxylum coca''</strike>''speed'' might work on some of those longer stretches on tunnel.

The players get a Player's Map of the network, with only the relevant part of the route, but with pretty icons to hint at what they're to face. The ''Queen of the Spiders'' remake editors took the icons away, those bastards. It's still on the mimesis-stretching hex plan though.

{{spoilers}}
Players with an ounce of sense will grasp that if one hexes are small, and two hexes are big; that last six-hex area should be... important. They'll be seeking intelligence on the Vault. The drow all bear medallions usually in brooch form, and their servitors have nightvision goggles; the PCs will want some, to avoid a confrontation with what drow laughably term "the law". DMs who bypass the caverns mentioned in the printed text will need to think up means to get medallions into the party's hands (or necks).

===D1 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth===
The PCs seek the home of the drow by traveling through an underground world of caves and passages. At hex D3 (not to be confused with the module) just before the intersection the drow have posted a patrol - so the PCs can't avoid this, and might not be able to avoid a fight. The patrol is sex-segregated: male from house Aleval, female Despana but led by Lolth clerics. Both sides are directed from the Fane itself; one wonders how ''Eclavdra'' got past them. Module D3 will inform us that Despana are rank 3 over Aleval at rank 8.

The next encounter on the main road - if the party wants it - is at hex M12 with a raiding party of [[illithid|mind flayers]] and wererats, who have halted their patrol long enough to "question" their male drow merchant prisoner of the silver [crescent] clan. As of module D1, Gygax knew that drow merchant society works on the clan system; the Merchant Villa in D3 will inform us which clan aligns with what Drow house (Aleval again, here). But unless the party got ''speak with dead'' you will probably not save this poor guy to question him, either.

The illithids subsequently absent themselves from the D1-2 narrative, next showing up as mere random emissaries in the Vault. But we did get that lovely [[Bill_Willingham|Willingham]] illo on the D1-2 back cover out of it! And we shall admit, hex M12 is a decent hook to foreshadow a (major!) expansion of the scope if the DM is up for it - that is, a supra-genius him/herself. (The GDQ compilation book will hint at their city, the plot-blasting Dra-Mur-Shou.)

Module D1's centrepiece is a grand cavern containing drow soldiers loyal to the Spider Queen, purple worms, Asberdies the max-level party-wiping [[lich]], a clutch of undead, a giant slug annoying the undead. Also gargoyles wandered in from the main-passage encounter-table, who "fear" the drow but are not on their side; likewise two hieracosphynges who serve Eilservs (dissident) drow who aren't here. The trolls, bugbears, and troglodytes in the warrens east of here with their pet wyverns all work with the Lolthian faction; the trogs tend a massive fungus patch at the eastern edge. While it is possible to forge an alliance with the Lolthian drow - thereby the ghouls, trogs, trolls, and bugbears - by demonstrating you've killed the mind flayers (saving the prisoner is virtually impossible); the module doesn't really account for this. There's a lich skulking the module D1 and D2 tertiary-passage encounters both; maybe that's Asberdies.

The tournament map of the Caverns And Warrens Of The Troglodytes only allowed three exits, and all on the west bulge of the two-hex network: the south way in, northwest out, and northeast to the bypass (more on that anon). As D1, two more exits / entrances connect to the wider DM (and players) map. These never made it to the published Caverns map. Instead, we got "NOTE: There are 2 entrances to area not shown on this map. DM should assume secret entrances are around area '''4''' and '''30/31'''." Area 4 would actually head to a full-on highway and 30/31, to a tertiary - not secret.

First appearance of the [[Jermlaine]] therefore, really, the [[gremlin]]. They're noted in tertiary passages only, so are there for the DM to punish PCs for not playing hex M12. By the book, they're met in packs of 15-30 (d16 + 14; yes, sometimes d16 do appear in early AD&D) but there's a 60% chance they're operating from a lair within 60'. So, if their number is 21 on up: plan on a lair and add some rats to the total.

Much of this can be bypassed; the Players Map even ''shows'' how not to play M12. Such bypasses are great for tournaments... or just for players who don't want to dick around with mostly-irrelevant encounters before getting to the Vault. Other DMs may be saddled with players who know most of the printed content already because it's all just that famous, and would rather roll their own encounters. So, on to the big whale in the room, module D2:

====How Not To Play D2====
The deadites are "on their way northwest to serve the Drow" - by way of a bypass that end-runs the whole damn D2 module, northeast, currently obstructed. If the party clears their way for them, they'll get a horde of stinky rotting travel-companions on their way right to D3. If the party fights the ghoulies off, they now own a map to the doublehex ST-17 presumably their home - how very Lovecraft Dreamland. Not that the ghoul-kingdom (or -baronetcy) has anything more to do with the plot than, er, D2 does. And Gygax probably should have mooted this at the first encounter of D1, by way of hex O10. BUT ANYWAY

The Player's Map like it did for M12 shows part of this bypass too - but only the start of it, so PCs won't naturally dare it. If the DM wants to cut to the chase, as it were, s/he can have someone hint at this route instead. Although probably not Eclavdra herself since she's not a spider-worshipper anymore. The ghouls are an option.

For an encounter-table north to hex S20's intersection you may as well stick with module D1's. Beyond, use D3's except - at the last tertiary - you'll have to omit or at least explain the Deep Gnomes (they can't ''teleport'', remember). Maybe the svirfs got spies at intersections S, K<sup>2</sup>, and/or T<sup>2</sup>.

DMs who dislike kuo-toa, are creative, and have time on their hands, can consider another end-run. That's through W22 and then F<sup>2</sup>29; doublehex I<sup>2</sup>J<sup>2</sup>-34/35 sits out on the latter sideline as optional-to-that-option. Since the ghouls don't take this path we may assume it is not ghoul-friendly; the DM gets to decide why, and where to put the obstruction. The ''Queen of the Spiders'' appendix 3 has ideas.

===D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa===
''If'' the party pursues the drow directly the encounter-tables shift. Yes kuo-toa and (tertiary only) gnomes; no jermlaine or beholders or wererats or illithids. Reading between the lines, the DM may presume the secondary route from A<sup>2</sup>30 to be gnomish also.

First the party encounters at W27 a kuo-toan rogue monitor (thus introduced to D&D for the first time). He helps the PCs cross a large river "Svartjet" for a fee, assuming they have an interpreter or magical means of understanding his language, otherwise he beats their asses and summons a gigantic gar. A party of [[Svirfneblin]] (or deep gnomes - also new here) approaches the player characters on the other side, and the party has a chance to convince them to help them fight against the drow and kuo-toa in exchange for gems. As the party travels, signs of the drow are all around; the drow are allowed to pass through these subterranean areas, even though they are hated and feared by the other local intelligent races.

The party then moves through kuo-toa territory, or not, to the eponymous shrine ruled by the Priest-Prince Va-Guulgh. Although statted as neutral-chaotic evil, the fishmen behave more like neutrals although, yes, with a sliding scale of chaos. The party learns that the drow and kuo-toa trade with each other openly, but the kuo-toa hate and fear the drow, resulting in frequent skirmishes between the two peoples. If the PCs appease the kuo-toa and respect their customs, they are not openly hostile to the party. They will attack if... they go crazy (there's your chaos) or if the party gives them a reason, which may or may not include accidentally violating their weird customs with no owner's manual.

At least ''this'' map's exits correspond to those marked in the wider map of the Depths.

This whole module is, as noted, technically optional. ''Within'' this module, from W27, the party can get on the barge and head off to B<sup>2</sup>24 - which although a river-junction is ''not'' an encounter area - and to the Sunless Sea beyond. Based on the map, this text probably means to dock you at <u>E</u><sup>2</sup>24. Once there, um. I guess you go through that sixhexer J<sup>2</sup>K<sup>2</sup>-26-28, thence find your way to that aforementioned bypass. It doesn't look like Gygax thought much of this through himself.

Contains major write-ups for both [[svirfneblin]] and [[kuo-toa]], some of if not the first sources of extended information for these races.

===D3 Vault of the Drow===
If the party didn't play D2 they fight through the spider-lair in U<sup>2</sup>48. Either way after that, the party get a choice. The main route goes to Q<sup>2</sup>49 / VII standing in for the Black Gate of Mordor, so good luck with THAT. Otherwise the Players Map guides to a straight route down a tertiary through the "nondescript" R<sup>2</sup>47 crossroad but SURPRISE there's some vampire / succubus ecchi there, map VIII. Here the two lovers try to charm the party to stay for lunch, and get bonuses to fight if combat starts because, in the vein of the [[Graz'zt]]/[[Iggwilv]] relationship, they do love each other despite being depraved and horrible people.

The gargoyles and that lich don't come down here; instead, expect Type I-IV demons. The encounter tables' tertiary does preserve the deep gnomes from D2's table (how did they ''get'' here??).

At last the adventurers come upon the Vault, the vast subterranean capitol of the drow; and its slum [[Erelhei-Cinlu]]. The adventure is written in a very open-ended fashion, giving the Dungeon Master (DM) free rein to script any number of mini-campaigns or adventures taking place inside the drow capital. An extensive overview of the drow power structure is given for just this purpose.  The book also notes the party will hopefully have accumulated enough medallion-passes from prior modules to get through this one with minimal fuss and muss just from walking around; the chaotic dark elves will not organize to stop them for anything short of a major slave uprising.

May as well list the Drow Houses, in descending order: Eilservs, Kilsek, Despana, Noquar, Everhaite, Godeep, Tormtor, Aleval. Lots of 
stupid-obvious [[METAL]] puns which get even worse when the GDQ compilation drops the i from D2's "Everhaite". Kilsek will show up again in [[Sundered_Empire|Chainmail '02]].

Eventually, the players may discover an astral gate leading to the plane of the Abyss, leading into the Q1 module, by exploring the Fane of [[Lolth]].