Spawning Grounds of the Crab-Men

[Deleted]

I have been GM for a three year campaign into The Darkness Beneath. The players in my game have made it most of the way through level three and have indicated the next time they play they intend to follow the rushing water into area 31. As I read the description of area 31. Waterfall, the passage says the waterfall leads down to level 4, but when I read through level 4, I see no room that connects to 31 in level 31. Have a missed something or does anyone have suggestions of how to tie these two levels together? Thanks in advance. Other than this little problem I am currently having, The Darkness Beneath has provided countless hours of great play. My group gets together almost on a monthly basis and very few times has anyone left disappointed (except for those that did not survive.

[calithena]

The second connection wasn't taken into account. I guess I'd probably have it pipe into area 2 on level 4, since that's the only one described with water, or else add an extra point for it to come in (maybe another watery cavern set back behind 8 and 16 for instance).

Great to hear about your fun play! I hope it continues.

The new issue with another level will be out this month, but it sounds like you won't need anything that deep for a bit yet. :-)

[kesher]

@gru: That's awesome! My group played through the first level at one point, but that's as far as we got...

[Deleted]

Thanks for the reply. I took your advice and added a room behind 16 and we played tonight. The session was really good and I was surprised by how well everything played out. I did not expect that the players would embrace the idea of the fighter and cleric being on their side, but they went along with them for awhile and not until the very end did they realize that they were being led into traps. In the end, half died as they were unable to take the trolls and it was only by luck that the other half found the exit. The Darkness Beneath continues to provide great sessions. Thanks again for the help, and based on this most recent session, you are right cal, I will not be needing the next level for some time, but I am looking forward to reading it.

[Alex Schroeder]

I basically try to do what Calithena said, find rooms below that might possibly have a connection and add it. This is usually based upon me wanting to provide the party with a shortcut to deeper levels. Unfortunately, the earlier authors didn't know what later authors were going to write so it was difficult to add shortcuts to deeper dungeon levels. When I wrote the Caverns of Slime I added this paragraph:

If you are running the Darkness Beneath megadungeon, there are two main entrances from above: you can reach the Shroom Lord from the Fungus Forest (Fight On! #13) and you can reach the Vats of Gar from the Deep Caves (Fight On! #12). In addition to that, you can connect any unexplored body of water to the river Styx (see River Travel). You could, for example, connect the waterfall in room #4 of the Upper Caves (Fight On! #1) via a long pipe with the river Styx and thereby provide a shortcut.