Apr 9, 2025 5:22 pm
Introduction
"Night Below" is a well regarded campaign for 2e Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, taking players from the surface to the Underdark, from level 1 to at least 14 and it does that in three chapters, each contained in a 64 page booklet, with the entire pdf (plus maps etc) at a chonky 255 page total, so to say it's epic in scope and length wouldn't be an understatement. It's got an overarching plot but is also very sandboxy, with some good bits of combat, exploration, investigation and horror thrown into the mix. There's a little bit for everyone and depending on what players enjoy and focus on, it can be expanded upon accordingly.
Visit the magnificent sights of the Underdark! Meet welcoming new creatures! Eat bioluminsecent fungi!
Having said that, this is going to be a long term project. It would be long if played regularly around a table and it's going to take even longer when played on a forum. This doesn't mean you have to commit today for the next decade or you won't get to join at all, but please understand that even if there's frequent posting and the pace of the game itself is quick, levelling and storytelling will require some time to develop, so adjust your expectations accordingly. Of course, life happens and I fully expect members of the starting group to be replaced down the line, so no one's backstory shall be crucial to the narrative. The focus should be on how the PCs develop throughout the game (as opposed to expanding on their pre-game backstory) and an overall "swords for hire" vibe is the desired tone that will allow new characters to join the party in time, as needed.
Game System
As mentioned, Night Below was written for the 2e Ad&d rules system and by now those rules are available online, but I'm choosing to run this one using For Gold and Glory, as it is a faithful 2e Ad&d retroclone that clears up a lot of that edition's mess. This means fewer and easier conversions of this massive module on my part as a GM, a ruleset that players familiar with 2e Ad&d can run with and on top of it all, the rulebook is available for free (DriveThru RPG, LuLu). Oh, also, I'm open to switch from descending AC and THAC0 to ascending AC and "to hit" bonuses.
Given the scope and lethality of this thing, I'm looking to kick things off with a party of 6 to 8 players. Characters will begin at 1st level and attributes shall be rolled using 3d6. You are encouraged to roll down the line, but will be allowed to shuffle scores around. Available races are Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half Elf, Halfling and Human.
If you were thinking something along these lines for your character, I'm sorry but this is not the campaign for it.
The wider world and campaign setting range from neutral to irrelevant, so it will be implied and maybe filled in as necessary on each occasion. Locals only tend to know and care about their immediate surrounding area and deities will be named using descriptors such as "The Lightbringer" instead of setting-specific names like "Pelor" or "Lathander". No need to learn a new campaign setting, or to put in extra work to make your character fit into a specific setting.
I feel it's necessary to put a disclaimer here and point out that levelling will not be based on awarding a level up for hitting various milestones, but it will happen through the gradual accumulation of XP. Everyone automatically gets an equal share of every XP reward, but it's up to players to track their individual XP and let the GM know when they've got enough to level up. Furthermore, on top of hitting the relative XP benchmark to level up, characters will need to spend some downtime training with an appropriate mentor NPC in order to gain the benefits of a level up. This prevents the whole "I just slew a rat in a dungeon and next thing you know, I can cast a new spell" paradox. On that note, PCs will be local to the area in order to give them a built-in reason to care for what's happening, so there's also a chance they can start with one of the NPCs already as their trainer and mentor.
Logistics will be a part of the game, but I'll try to keep things to a reasonable level. A basic 10 minute turn when exploring dungeons, which in turn faciliatates tracking how torches burn out, long term spell effects expire and any random encounters occur. You will be responsible to track your character's encumberance, but since this isn't the type of dungeoncrawler that relies heavily on finding and extracting treasure, don't expect frequent and big variations. Likewise, food and water shouldn't be an issue, unless you know in advance you're heading out for a potentially long trek into unknown territory.
I promise, it's fun!
Combat will be handled in a more minimalist, theatre of the mind kind of way. There may be maps to give you an idea of a combat set piece location, but we won't be using tokens on them, or precisely measure movement using a square grid etc. We will be using group initiative, but in resolving everyone's actions, the speed factor of their weapon or spell will matter. Friendly fire is an actual risk when shooting into targets engaged in melee. One rule I'm changing is death at 0 hit points. While death due to massive damage (50hp from a single attack) is still a thing, reaching 0 hp will drop a character unconscious, at which point they will continue to lose one hit point per round from blood loss until death occurs at –10 hp, although any additional damage suffered by an unconscious character (aside from bleeding) will kill them instantly. The blood loss of 1 hit point per round may be stopped immediately in the same round that aid of some kind is administered to the wounded character, without requiring any dice rolls. To avoid the silliness of characters getting up and down during a battle, unconscious characters returned to 1 or more hp (by means of a healing spell, potion, or natural rest) will remain in a coma for 1-6 turns and must rest for a minimum of one week before they will be capable of resuming any sort of strenuous activity, mental or physical. If any attack (so bleeding out doesn't apply) drops a character to –6 hit points or below and they survive the encounter, they do so with a lasting scar or other such visual reminder.
Theme and Content
Violence will obviously be a thing, as will cults and dark religions, but nothing too intense or serious. Abduction and enslavement will be mentioned and even depicted, but again nothing graphic or dehumanizing, certainly nothing condoning slavery. Mind control will be magical and not psychological (so no grooming, gaslighting etc). Any romantic content that might come up during the game should be taken off screen once it crosses into more risque territory. As a general catch-all rule, I trust you to be responsible adults, treat your fellow players in with respect and discuss anything that comes up and causes you discomfort. And of course, this game is explicitly friendly to LGBTQI+ people and any other minorities or marginalized groups, no hate or abuse will be tolerated.
Post Frequency – Discord
I'm happy as long as all participants check the game thread at least once a day and participate, ideally more than that when there's a combat going on. I like to focus on the forums so I don't tend to set up Discord servers/channels to facilitate a campaign, but if you want to do that and invite the rest of the group, you're welcome to. Just know that it's going to be forums first, Discord second.
Applying
Congratulations for making it this far, if you're still interested in joining, drop a comment below and declare your interest. Newcomers to the rules system, newcomers to Gamers Plane or even to tabletop RPGs are welcome and encouraged to join, I only ask you do read the rulebook (at least the character creation, adventuring and combat bits) first and foremost, instead of jumping in thinking you'll figure it all out as you go along. As mentioned, looking to get 6 to 8 players for this. Once the participants have been selected, they will receive an invite and I'll post here to let everyone know the recruitment process is over. However, I expect some people may leave later so I will be using this topic again to let you know when there is a spot available.
"Night Below" is a well regarded campaign for 2e Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, taking players from the surface to the Underdark, from level 1 to at least 14 and it does that in three chapters, each contained in a 64 page booklet, with the entire pdf (plus maps etc) at a chonky 255 page total, so to say it's epic in scope and length wouldn't be an understatement. It's got an overarching plot but is also very sandboxy, with some good bits of combat, exploration, investigation and horror thrown into the mix. There's a little bit for everyone and depending on what players enjoy and focus on, it can be expanded upon accordingly.
Visit the magnificent sights of the Underdark! Meet welcoming new creatures! Eat bioluminsecent fungi!
Having said that, this is going to be a long term project. It would be long if played regularly around a table and it's going to take even longer when played on a forum. This doesn't mean you have to commit today for the next decade or you won't get to join at all, but please understand that even if there's frequent posting and the pace of the game itself is quick, levelling and storytelling will require some time to develop, so adjust your expectations accordingly. Of course, life happens and I fully expect members of the starting group to be replaced down the line, so no one's backstory shall be crucial to the narrative. The focus should be on how the PCs develop throughout the game (as opposed to expanding on their pre-game backstory) and an overall "swords for hire" vibe is the desired tone that will allow new characters to join the party in time, as needed.
Game System
As mentioned, Night Below was written for the 2e Ad&d rules system and by now those rules are available online, but I'm choosing to run this one using For Gold and Glory, as it is a faithful 2e Ad&d retroclone that clears up a lot of that edition's mess. This means fewer and easier conversions of this massive module on my part as a GM, a ruleset that players familiar with 2e Ad&d can run with and on top of it all, the rulebook is available for free (DriveThru RPG, LuLu). Oh, also, I'm open to switch from descending AC and THAC0 to ascending AC and "to hit" bonuses.
Given the scope and lethality of this thing, I'm looking to kick things off with a party of 6 to 8 players. Characters will begin at 1st level and attributes shall be rolled using 3d6. You are encouraged to roll down the line, but will be allowed to shuffle scores around. Available races are Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half Elf, Halfling and Human.
If you were thinking something along these lines for your character, I'm sorry but this is not the campaign for it.
The wider world and campaign setting range from neutral to irrelevant, so it will be implied and maybe filled in as necessary on each occasion. Locals only tend to know and care about their immediate surrounding area and deities will be named using descriptors such as "The Lightbringer" instead of setting-specific names like "Pelor" or "Lathander". No need to learn a new campaign setting, or to put in extra work to make your character fit into a specific setting.
I feel it's necessary to put a disclaimer here and point out that levelling will not be based on awarding a level up for hitting various milestones, but it will happen through the gradual accumulation of XP. Everyone automatically gets an equal share of every XP reward, but it's up to players to track their individual XP and let the GM know when they've got enough to level up. Furthermore, on top of hitting the relative XP benchmark to level up, characters will need to spend some downtime training with an appropriate mentor NPC in order to gain the benefits of a level up. This prevents the whole "I just slew a rat in a dungeon and next thing you know, I can cast a new spell" paradox. On that note, PCs will be local to the area in order to give them a built-in reason to care for what's happening, so there's also a chance they can start with one of the NPCs already as their trainer and mentor.
Logistics will be a part of the game, but I'll try to keep things to a reasonable level. A basic 10 minute turn when exploring dungeons, which in turn faciliatates tracking how torches burn out, long term spell effects expire and any random encounters occur. You will be responsible to track your character's encumberance, but since this isn't the type of dungeoncrawler that relies heavily on finding and extracting treasure, don't expect frequent and big variations. Likewise, food and water shouldn't be an issue, unless you know in advance you're heading out for a potentially long trek into unknown territory.
I promise, it's fun!
Combat will be handled in a more minimalist, theatre of the mind kind of way. There may be maps to give you an idea of a combat set piece location, but we won't be using tokens on them, or precisely measure movement using a square grid etc. We will be using group initiative, but in resolving everyone's actions, the speed factor of their weapon or spell will matter. Friendly fire is an actual risk when shooting into targets engaged in melee. One rule I'm changing is death at 0 hit points. While death due to massive damage (50hp from a single attack) is still a thing, reaching 0 hp will drop a character unconscious, at which point they will continue to lose one hit point per round from blood loss until death occurs at –10 hp, although any additional damage suffered by an unconscious character (aside from bleeding) will kill them instantly. The blood loss of 1 hit point per round may be stopped immediately in the same round that aid of some kind is administered to the wounded character, without requiring any dice rolls. To avoid the silliness of characters getting up and down during a battle, unconscious characters returned to 1 or more hp (by means of a healing spell, potion, or natural rest) will remain in a coma for 1-6 turns and must rest for a minimum of one week before they will be capable of resuming any sort of strenuous activity, mental or physical. If any attack (so bleeding out doesn't apply) drops a character to –6 hit points or below and they survive the encounter, they do so with a lasting scar or other such visual reminder.
Theme and Content
Violence will obviously be a thing, as will cults and dark religions, but nothing too intense or serious. Abduction and enslavement will be mentioned and even depicted, but again nothing graphic or dehumanizing, certainly nothing condoning slavery. Mind control will be magical and not psychological (so no grooming, gaslighting etc). Any romantic content that might come up during the game should be taken off screen once it crosses into more risque territory. As a general catch-all rule, I trust you to be responsible adults, treat your fellow players in with respect and discuss anything that comes up and causes you discomfort. And of course, this game is explicitly friendly to LGBTQI+ people and any other minorities or marginalized groups, no hate or abuse will be tolerated.
Post Frequency – Discord
I'm happy as long as all participants check the game thread at least once a day and participate, ideally more than that when there's a combat going on. I like to focus on the forums so I don't tend to set up Discord servers/channels to facilitate a campaign, but if you want to do that and invite the rest of the group, you're welcome to. Just know that it's going to be forums first, Discord second.
Applying
Congratulations for making it this far, if you're still interested in joining, drop a comment below and declare your interest. Newcomers to the rules system, newcomers to Gamers Plane or even to tabletop RPGs are welcome and encouraged to join, I only ask you do read the rulebook (at least the character creation, adventuring and combat bits) first and foremost, instead of jumping in thinking you'll figure it all out as you go along. As mentioned, looking to get 6 to 8 players for this. Once the participants have been selected, they will receive an invite and I'll post here to let everyone know the recruitment process is over. However, I expect some people may leave later so I will be using this topic again to let you know when there is a spot available.
