D1-2-3: Drow Trilogy
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The Drow Trilogy, also known as the D Series due to its official coding (D1-D3) are an Adventure Path for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition in which the party ventures into the Underdark of Greyhawk to confront the machinations of the drow. They are canonically a sequel to the Against the Giants trilogy, and have their own sequel/conclusion in the module Queen of the Demonweb Pits. The entire Adventure Path has been published in the form of the super-module Queen of the Spiders.
These adventure paths consist of three modules; Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Shrine of the Kuo-toa, and Vault of the Drow. Confusing things, Descent and Shrine were also republished in a combined format, also named Descent into the Depths of the Earth.
Plot
The plot of the original modules Descent Into the Depths of the Earth and Shrine of the Kuo-Toa places a party of player characters (PCs) on the trail of the drow priestess Eclavdra through the Underdark, a vast subterranean network of interconnected caverns and tunnels, battling various creatures on their journey.
In the last module in the preceding G-series, Hall of the Fire Giant King, 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.
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. In the tunnels, the adventurers first fight a tough drow patrol, and the next major fight is with a raiding party of mind flayers and wererats, who have halted their patrol long enough to torture their drow prisoner.
The centrepiece is a grand cavern containing drow soldiers, purple worms, Asberdies the max-level party-wiping lich, a clutch of undead, a giant slug, sphinxes, trolls, bugbears, troglodytes, wyverns, and fungi. While it is possible to forge an alliance with the drow by demonstrating you've killed the mind flayers (saving the prisoner is virtually impossible), the module doesn't really account for this.
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.
The Player's Map actually shows part of this bypass - 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.
DMs who dislike kuo-toa, are creative, and have time on their hands, can consider another end-run. That's through W22 and then F229; doublehex I2J2-34/35 sits out on the sideline as optional-to-that-option. These won't be ghoul-friendly sites. The Queen of the Spiders appendix 3 has ideas.
First appearance of the Jermlaine.
D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa
If the party pursues the drow directly it encounters a kuo-toan rogue monitor (thus introduced to D&D for the first time). He helps the PCs cross a large river 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.
This whole module is, as noted, technically optional.
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 U248. Either way after that, the party get a choice. The main route goes to Q249 / VII standing in for the Black Gate of Mordor, so good luck with THAT. Otherwise there's some vampire / succubus ecchi at R247 / VIII, where 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. Depending on how kind is the DM, the party might have to go out of their way to fight those spiders first anyway.
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.
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.
Legacy
The impact of these modules cannot be overstated; they literally defined the existence of the Underdark and many of its most notable denizens. These were the first ever printed stats for the drow, who had prior to that simply been mentioned as an evil, underground-dwelling counterpart to the elf race, as well as the first ever revelation of lore for their goddess Lolth. The modules also provided stats for other Underdark creatures, most notably the svirfneblin.
Gallery
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D1 cover -
D2 cover -
D3 cover -
D1-2 cover -
D3 cover
