The Dark Beneath the Ice - A Pathfinder Remaster Compatible Adventure *.PDF
The Dark Beneath the Ice - A Pathfinder Remaster Compatible Adventure *.PDF
This adventure takes your players inside the foreboding walls of a Dark Elf prison outpost located far below the surface of the arctic, overlooking an ice-blue underground river. Built by an exiled Dark Elven House who lost favor to their goddess, the Dark Elves have partnered with a local clan of malicious underworld dwarves called the Dökkar. The dwarves act as muscle for the Dark Elves. The outpost serves as a staging point for the Dökkar surface raids where they sail their Dark Elf jet-black galleys down the icy blue underground flows to the open arctic sea and along the coastline of the nearby whaling villages of the tundra’s Arctic Elves.
This adventure assumes an experienced party of players with characters of at least level 5 with a blend of magic items, healing resources, and utility items to conceal themselves when overwhelmed by superior numbers.
The inspiration for this adventure dates to 1978 in my childhood when a group of eight of my teenage friends all ventured into the Vault of the Drow. D3, an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure, should be hailed as one of the most significant writings of my generation, so original in its ideas that its themes became the basis for villains and heroes in novels, books, and campaigns for decades to come. Even then, we wondered what could be beyond the hexes of the main adventure where underground rivers, lakes, passageways tempted further exploration. My goal with this adventure is capturing that sense of adventure that we all felt in our youth, but with compatibility for Paizo’s Remastered version of Pathfinder Second Edition.
This adventure returns to the digital landscape format used in The Indigo Oasis for the modern digital Game Master! Fully hyperlinked with page numbers for Player Core and GM Core.
Details
-2 Story seed options to help you integrate into your world
-30 pages front to back with 22 pages of adventure content
-Base commercial map by Dyson Logos
-Original Stat Blocks for classical Drow and Duergar inspired enemies (Dark Elves and Dökkar)
-A unique final battle in a pocket universe worthy of the classic Sword and Sorcery era of novels
-A terrifying artifact treasure with messiah-like powers surely to corrupt the most honorable of PCs
Unlike many dungeon crawls, this adventure serves as an operational location. It can be the site for a covert rescue operation or a jailbreak-style escape. Perhaps an important non-player character has been captured and is slated for execution, or is it the players that find themselves staring at four walls? Did the players end up captured after stumbling across the location while exploring? The idea is to provide you, the Game Master, with the flexibility to utilize the location for whatever adventure theme you like, without fear of breaking any balance or the need to follow a sequence of linear events. This should help you integrate it into your own campaign world with minimal set up.
All maps and area descriptions are in the Map and Location Key section. Each location has an overview of the spatial function with additional details as necessary for game play. A new variant enemy based off the Hryngar (formerly Duergar when Pathfinder was under the OGL) called the Dökkar are in the Enemies section along with their House Ronquar Dark Elven allies. Lastly, in the following sections are Adventure Seed options for your consideration as you think of how to kickstart the adventure.