There is one table in the book that will be very valuable for the whole game, but is too literal and precise for my taste, so I have modified it. My modified table shows you the distance from one location (settlement) to any other in weeks of travel. It replaces the need for a map of the Underdark.
Traveling to any location takes at least one week, and frequently three or more weeks. Therefore, I recommend simplifying travel by treating one turn of travel as one week rather than one day unless your players are really into daily exploration. Treat fractions of a week as negligible, except see travel pace and failed navigation.
Travel Pace: For simplicity, players can travel slowly to extend the travel time by 1 week or fast to reduce it by 1 week (minimum 0.5 weeks treated roughly the same for purposes of running the game). Keep in mind the advantages and disadvantages to fast, normal, and slow paces.
Lighting: most of the Underdark is dark imposing penalties (i.e. disadvantage) on ALL actions or checks that require sight for those who rely on darkvision. Nightlight is a type of phosphorescent fungus present in some places which sheds light half as well as a torch. Also see faerzress below. In any given area, roll a 1d6. The area is lit on a roll of a 1 to 3, and dark on a roll of a 4 to 6.
Guides: Any NPC could conceivably act as a guide, depending on the NPC, and so navigation is automatically successful if they guide you. This can encourage PCs to be friendly or offer money.
Wandering Encounters: Roll three per week if you're generous, though in the Underdark their chances of occurring are one roll per day and one per night of travel. Wandering encounters are important for making travel in the Underdark feel risky. For each encounter:
- Roll for terrain as the terrain varies greatly. See the book or make your own.
- Choose or roll the encounter. See the book or make your own.
- Roll or determine NPC reaction (attitude) to the PCs, including hostile, indifferent, neutral, or friendly.
- Roll starting distance, direction of travel. Determine marching order.
- Roll for surprise, or rather Stealth and Perception.
- Allow the players every chance to avoid combat by hiding, using speech or trade, or some other tricky, creative thing they can think of that could reasonably succeed.
Fixed Encounters: I'm not a fan of the idea of fixed encounters in the Underdark, and ones in the book might have a family-friendly-ier tone than I like. I would add it to the random encounters or make it a reward that the characters can discover with effort, say by learning rumors and following them.
Actions. Below is a list of actions that the player characters can make while traveling. Player characters are limited to one action per travel turn (or 1 action per week).
Navigating: Call for one check per week of travel. For game purposes, navigation is not about successful navigation, rather, it's about effective navigation. On a failed navigation check, the player characters add a few extra days to their trip (treat as narrative only for the purposes of running the game) though several failed navigation checks (say 3) can add up to an additional week. Additionally, a failed navigation check can be interpreted as the player characters finding more challenging or hazardous paths that make resource collecting harder and make encounters more likely and/or less fortuitous.
Foraging: DC 15 to find edible food; 20 in some places. Success means wild edibles (mushrooms) are foraged for a single person for the week. Alternatively, permit the players to make several foraging checks per week, one for every day. Edible fungi and one inedible, exotic fungus are listed. Other exotic fungi are omitted. Needless to say, Underdark fungi are fantastic. You can get creative.
- Barrelstalk: can be tapped like a barrel and drained of water.
- Bluecap: it's spores are like flour and can make sporebread.
- Fire Lichen: can be ground into a spicy paste. Can also be fermented into liquor.
- Ripplebark: resembles rotting flesh. Can be eaten raw or roasted.
- Trillimac: the cap is like leather for crafting, the stalk can be soaked in water and become like bread.
- Waterorb: sponge-like, squeeze out water
- Zurkhwood: spores are edible, stalks are like wood for crafting.
- Nightlight: lights up half as well as a torch. If uprooted, goes out in 1 round.
Tracking and Hunting: Players who track game (usually monsters) spend a day. May be better off relying on wandering monster encounters. Creatures slain can yield an amount of food based on size. Tiny: 1 day of food for one person; small 4; medium 16; large 32. Meat not properly preserved spoils the next morning. Alternatively, player characters can employ Counter-tracking to cover their tracks.
Crafting: Most crafting efforts produce makeshift or improv-quality goods. Zurkhwood is a type of mushroom that resembles wood and can be foraged. Assume crafting can only be done while stationary (at camp). Making anything complex distracts a player from effectively keeping watch. Trillimac has a cap that resembles leather and can be used as parchment or paper. Giant Spider silk can be used as rope.
Mapping: If characters have the tools, mapping is possible. By relying on a map of a route between two locations that they have previously made, they can travel that route without having to navigate.
End of standardized actions. What else can your players think to do?
Faerzress (pronounced fae-er-zer-ess probably): a magical ethereal substance like a mist or lingering radiation that glows and permeates some chambers and tunnels of the Underdark. If spells are cast in the presence of faerzress, on a d20 roll of a 1, something goes wrong with the casting.
Madness: There are horrors in the Underdark that stress the mind and challenge spirit. Madness is tracked on a scale of 0 to 3. Characters begin at 0 and add 1 for any time they witness something weird, have prolonged exposure to faerzress, or receive psychic damage. At 1, they suffer madness for ten minutes; At 2, one week; At 3, until treated, usually magically. When mad, the character expresses strange behaviors or speech, and actions are generally penalized (disadvantage).
Death: What happens if someone dies? Suggestions for resurrection are a scroll of raise dead can be found as treasure, the faerzress can mysteriously revive someone but add 1 to their madness, and any dead left behind can be collected and raised by pursuing Drow who want to capture them. Replace characters by introducing new PCs in a random encounter, convert an NPC into a PC, or new characters might be meet and recruited in a location (settlement) of the Underdark.
Drow Pursuers: The Drow captors from Velkynvelve are actively pursuing the PCs during part 1 of the campaign. The lead priestess has taken their escape personally and wants to capture them. The pursuit is tracked as a number on a scale of 0 to 5. On a 0, the pursuers have been evaded. On a 5, the Drow forward scouts have encountered the PCs, and the main Villains are 1d6+4 rounds behind. Players begin at 4. Add 1 for every day the players travel at a slow rate, engage in combat, certain random encounters. Subtract 1 for every day the players travel at a fast pace, employs counter tracking to cover their tracks, cross terrain that obscures their tracks, or if the part split up. Adjust the pursuit by + 1 or - 1 if the players do anything that would reasonably affect the pursuit, including meeting any Drow in s settlement or publicly discussing their escape and pursuers. If captured, the PCs will be taken either to Menzoberranzan or Velkynvelve, whichever is closer. The Drow Pursuers conveniently meet the PCs at the exit of the Underdark for a climactic confrontation at the end md of Part 1 of the campaign.
Dungeons: There are three small dungeons in the Underdark: the Hook Horror Lair, the Oozing Temple, and the Lost Tomb. They have no fixed location in the Underdark; they can be placed anywhere by the GM, or discovered by luck or effort, say by learning about rumors and then following them. You can create and add your own too to break up the monotony of the game.
Warnings about Running Exploration: Exploring the Underdark in some ways must resemble the backrooms, if you're familiar with that concept. It sounds boring because exploring a nebulous and empty space for weeks at a time is lacking interesting dramatic conflict and it doesn't offer any sense of instant gratification or a feeling of progression that that is offered by other games or aspects of other games. I feel like it must have a very, very delayed sense of gratification, like boredom-torture or sensory-deprivation torture might have.
Further it lacks that sense of internal reward system where you do something and your brain rewards you with a hit of dopamine to encourage you to do it again. Effective gameplay loops take advantage of this. The Underdark by comparison is a game about earning things slowly. It is mechanically monotonous albeit flavorfully varied. It's conceivably a gauntlet of random encounters that have no value beyond novelty and material reward.
Therefore, I can only recommend that you speed-run or speedrun the exploration, or that you turn every encounter into an interesting and fun set-piece encounter where you establish a dramatic goal, an obstacle, and some stakes (stakes means consequences for failure) that the PCs presumably care about because their survival may be dependent on it. Give it a timer, a threat, and a treat. Consider that there needs to be a good reward with an encounter or else the players may simply stop caring about encounters after a while. If an encounter isn't fun and doesn't offer valuable material rewards, it's probably worth skipping else the players will surely grow exhausted of the game.
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