About Undermountain Maps

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I figured I'd make this discussion public, since it's not specifically revealing anything about the Ruins of Undermountain III: The Deadly Levels project.

We're going to be releasing a preview of the finalized Level 7 map in order to whet everyone's appetite. I won't reveal the Level 8 or various sub-levels maps because revealing too much will dilute the surprise and the fun when we release this massive project later this year.

Anyway, about the maps. We are of course making them totally compatible with the original maps from The Ruins of Undermountain (the original box set). Same style, same coding, etc. Doirche and I were talking on the phone the other night about how cool it would be - once we finish RoUII & RoUIII, and re-do RoUII - to be able to print up maps of all 9 levels and a handful of sub-levels and fill a wall with all those maps, having them all identical in style to the original maps. Wow!

One thing I am doing a tad differently is making the maps unique. What I mean is this. While I have no gripes whatsoever with the maps from RoU (aside from wishing it had been a bit easier to compartmentalize them), there are a lot of very similar, standard-shaped rooms. Lots of squares and rectangles. I prefer to make each dungeon unique. In other words, I like each one to feel like something never seen before. One of my complaints about The Dungeon Under the Mountain (a Ruins of Undermountain clone, just maps, no writing) was that the rooms looked randomly generated, as if by computer. I like unusual shapes, something to make a dungeon feel unique. You can always tell when a dungeon has been meticulously designed by a creative mind and when it's been generated randomly or without imagination. So the maps for Level 7 and Level 8 are different in that I use more unusually shaped rooms and stray from the basic clusters of squares and rectangles whenever possible.

I think this incorporates the spirit of the original maps from the first box set with the creativity we should expect from a place like Undermountain. I really want people to be able to look at the maps and say:

"Wow, what a cool looking dungeon!"

Right now the development team is working on the maps for Level 7 and Level 8, with the map to Level 7 pretty much complete and ready now. I have an idea for Level 8 that may entail some reworking before we finalize it.

I've decided that Level 9 (Halaster's Lair) will consist of 4 full sized maps. Imaging hanging the 2 maps to Level 3 on the wall, then hanging too more to the side of it (ie like two Level 3's next to one another). Now you can see why the Ruins of Undermountain IV: Lair of the Mad Mage is going to be its own release with just that one level developed for it!



Well, that's it for now. Back to work. Er...maybe I better get some sleep first.

[Varl]

When it comes to room configuration inside dungeons, if you really want to convey a certain type of feel towards each level, you have to consider both the dungeon's history and its current inhabitants.

I feel the history of a dungeon explains a lot when it comes to determining its shape and room structure. Was it naturally created? Artifically created via magic? A combination of the two? Has any of it collapsed? Have past adventurers changed the face of the dungeon?

It current inhabitants also have to make sense. So many adventures have areas that are set up where it makes very little to no sense that two species, characters, or monsters would be in such close proximity to one another, and NOT be warring with one another. A dungeon is a cage. You put wild creatures in such close proximity to one another, it's not a matter of if they're going to fight, it's a matter of when. It's a matter of suvival, whether it's one creature(s) trying to avoid being eaten, or another trying to get to its prey, that dynamic is key in running believable dungeon scenarios. Static room occupants should be an extreme exception rather than the rule.

The only reason why you should ever encounter static room creatures is because they've holed up against some superior force, and you find an alternative way in they didn't know about or the creature is unintelligent to begin with and prefers quiet areas isolated from any "outside stimuli". Food sources must still be able to be acquired regardless.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Varl, I agree on pretty much all of that. Undermountain though tends to bend some of those rules. For example, Halaster may gate in monsters from arctic regions or other places that make no sense in a dungeon setting. It's like a whacked out zoo. Which is why I don't worry too much about dungeon ecology with places like Undermountain, as compared to a small dungeon in a different game.

[McDeath]

Remember the Eye of the Beholder Game where it had the levels divided like this:

1. Upper Sewer Level
2. Middle Sewer Level
3. Lower Sewer Level
4. Upper Level Dwarven Ruins
5. Dwarven Ruins and Camp
6. Bottom Level of Dwarven Ruins
7. Upper Reaches of the Drow
8. Drow Outcasts
9. Lower Reaches of the Drow
10. Xanthar's Outer Sanctum, Mantis Hive
11. Xanthar's Outer Sanctum, Lower Reaches
12. Xanthar's Inner Sanctum

Besides the sewers, do you think those are just subsections of undermountain or areas somewhere else beneath Waterdeep?

I've never looked at the game Undermountain (can't recall the full name) and how they divided up the sections. I don't even know how deep it went and who the major antagonist was.

BTW, any of you buy all those Dungeon Under the Mountain pdfs? (wink wink, nudge nudge).

EDIT-----
Ah, I found the name: Descent to Undermountain. Here's an excerpt from this review:

And then there's the artificial intelligence of the enemies - or should I call it artificial stupidity? These beasties are some of the most rock-stupid to ever prowl a dungeon, at least in recent memory. During the first adventure you encounter the Kobold, a minor threat even at their worst - but the last thing you'd expect is for a couple of them to start doing a synchronized soft-shoe routine when you run across them. Ghouls, zombies, and undead may see you invading their lairs, but they're apparently too tuckered out from the strain of being the walking dead to even bother with you until you bump into them.

But the horrors don't end there. A lot of the monsters you meet seem to have learned how to defy gravity itself: Giant rats float in midair, bats that have been hacked to death hover several feet off the ground, and even an undead skeleton can somehow manage to stay three feet off the floor. I guess that getting rid of all the zero-gravity stuff in Descent was just too much of a stumbling block for whomever it was who "rewrote" the Descent engine for this game.

So, is there really a whole lot of "Zero-Gravity" in Undermountain?

[Doirche]

BTW, any of you buy all those Dungeon Under the Mountain pdfs? (wink wink, nudge nudge).

I have them all

The same program the folks over at 0one Games used to make those maps is the program I am using to make the Undermountain maps for the BIP project.

[McDeath]

Just in case any of you have the game I did finally find this this walkthrough.

Lloth, now what the hell is she doing in undermountain?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

McDeath, the sewers only connect to Level 1. I have no idea what they did in Eye of the Beholder, but then I only go by what's in RoU (the original box set). Everything outside of that box, I consider non-official. Mainly because everything else is a jumble of errors and confusion.

According to the original box set, only the lower 3 levels (Level 7-9) were built by dwarves.

Below those last 3 levels are caverns and subterranean passages that lead to the Underdark, where Drow and others come to access Undermountain.

Xanathar is the beholder that appears on the cover of FR1 Waterdeep and the North. He's a rival to another fellow beholder/crime lord, The Eye (who is described in RoU). Xanathar has a lair somewhere in the sewers where they meet Undermountain, and presumably also in Skullport on Level 3.

Like I said, I just ignore everything that came out after the original box set, except for incorporating the Lost Level adventure and Maddgoth's Castle adventure, and some of the Skullport supplement (I ignore their idiotic stunt of turning Sharadin into a crimson mist ). Greenwood only wrote the original box set, and you can tell the difference in quality with subsequent releases.