Undermountain. A vast, ever changing labyrinth of monsters, traps, death and dead ends, but with nearly limitless rewards for the intrepid adventurer. Ruled over by the Mad Mage Halaster, it has successfully survived assaults by dark elves, the wrath of the Hero of Waterdeep, and even the forces of Hell itself.
But now, 70 years after the defeat of the Armies of the Eighth Circle, Undermountain has gone quiet. Halaster’s disappearance does not bode well– last time he vanished, an archdemon attempted to dominate the world of Faerun. Adventurers have gathered in the Yawning Portal, an inn located above the only entrance to Undermountain, in an effort to find the Mad Mage– or what’s left of him.
Complicating matters further is the reappearance of an artifact thought long gone: The Relic of the Reaper, the object that allowed the Hero of Waterdeep to cheat death long enough to defeat the dread Mephistopheles, ruler of the Armies of the Eighth Circle, and last known to be in the Hero’s possession.
How this bodes for the fate of Faerun… Remains to be seen.
Recent knowledge:
In recent times, however, the Hero and the drow were rumored to be seen in Waterdeep again , possibly investigating the second disappearance of Halaster. The reappearance of the Relic of the Reaper in the Yawning Portal inn certainly seems to corroborate that rumor. But the Relic wouldn’t part from the Hero’s hands willingly.
The implications of both Halaster Blackcloak and the Hero of Waterdeep vanishing in the space of a few months is immense, and as adventurers answer the call to venture into Undermountain to investigate, an atmosphere of foreboding descends over the town…
Setting:
The continent of Faerun is a large and varied one, but this story takes place primarily in two certain locales, though a third is extremely important to the story.
The Yawning Portal: An inn built by the first adventurer to ever successfully return from Undermountain, on top of the well he used to enter the dungeon. While a relatively basic inn in terms of quality and price, the clientele is anything but ordinary. The tavern on the ground floor is full of a diverse and often rowdy crowd of adventurers from all over Faerun, and a room on the second level is devoted entirely to useful gear and weapons available to dungeon crawlers– for a price, of course. The inn is managed by the original adventurer’s daughter, Tamsil, whose half-elf heritage has kept her looking young far past the death of her father Durnan.
Undermountain: A legendary, massive dungeon ruled over by the mad mage Halaster. Maps are useless in Undermountain, as its corridors and rooms are bound to Halaster’s will– he can reshape and reform them whenever he wishes, though he doesn’t do it often. Ordinarily, the monster inhabitants of Undermountain are kept in check by Halaster’s presence. With his disappearance, Undermountain has fallen into chaos, with warring factions of monsters and creatures fighting in the halls. Rooms that are known through songs and tales of returning adventurers are few, but they include the Hall of Sleeping Kings, a large throne room that serves as the tomb for the greatest warriors of a past age, and the Maze, a nearly completely empty room with only a few magic pillars in it. Invisible traps line the floor in certain patterns, waiting for the unwary adventurer to take a wrong step and suffer the wrath of a magic missile storm.
The Underdark: While not playable at the beginning of the RP, the Underdark is a subterranean world where a large population of the dark elves know as drow live. The only way to get to it from the surface world is through Undermountain, on the deepest level.
Character Creation:
Blank profile form, with necessary information following it. Your char should roughly be on or below the level of Toren Thomason in the example profiles.
Name:
Species:
Age:
Class:
Alignment:
Abilities/Skills:
Gear:
Spells:
Personality:
Biography:
Name:
Species: See Races of the World.
Class: See Classes.
Alignment: Alignments are done along two axes, good to evil and lawful to chaotic, with neutral being in the middle.
Abilities/Skills: This is where you detail what your character is good at and can do naturally. Incredible skill with a sword or a natural affinity for casting illusions would go here.
Gear: List your relevant items such as armor and potions here. Any magical item must be listed, its effects detailed, and staff approved. It isn’t such a big deal if you have a set of ordinary gloves that isn’t stated in your profile, but if you spontaneously have a cloak that ignores all physical damage… It’s a problem.
Spells: See Magic, the World, and You.
Personality: How your character acts.
Appearance: How your character looks.
Biography: How did your character come to Waterdeep? How did they get involved? This is their life story until now.
The Races of the World:
Base playable races include humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings, along with hybrids. Custom races are acceptable, though they will have to be described in your profile if they aren’t in Forgotten Realms/D&D canon.
Humans: The most adaptable and the shortest lived of the common races, humans have spread like wildfire across Faerun. They can be anything from magical to martial arts masters, and anything in between.
Elves: With lifespans reaching into the millennia and legendary beauty, many other races look upon elves with something approaching awe. Shorter and more slender than humans on the whole, an ordinary elf can’t take a punch as well as a human can, nor are as resistant to disease and poison– but they are more nimble and can see in almost complete, nonmagical dark.
Dwarves: The underground craftsmen of Faerun, dwarves as a whole are a hearty, hardworking sort, though that is by no means a universal trait. Shorter than elves but built far sturdier, a dwarf is far more robust even than a human against physical trauma, and their innate familiarity with caves gives them an edge underground.
Halflings: The shortest and smallest of all races, halflings tend to be masters of trickery and thievery, though many will claim that is an “offensive stereotype propagated by the elven rulers of society”. No matter what the opinion of their mannerisms, however, the facts about their biology remain: Humans, elves, and especially dwarves are far stronger than they are– but nobody’s fingers move as fast or with as much skill as a halfling’s.
Classes:
For the sake of simplicity, the class system has been condensed into six basic classes, three martial and three magical. You are not bound to explicit definitions of these– they are merely guidelines so the staff and other players know what to expect from your abilities. A combination of two is okay.
Fighter: The most combat oriented of the classes, fighters are not necessarily the tanks of any adventuring group, though they often are. Combining skill with weapons and shields with the strength to wear armor, a tough fighter can brutalize nearly anything in a straight, no tricks fight while suffering minimal damage themselves.
Monk: Specializing in the control of a subtle inner energy known as Ki, powerful monks are ridiculously fast and can do rapid, brutal damage with their unarmed strikes, sometimes even becoming speedy enough to block arrows. But wearing heavy armor and using all but a few weapons distracts them from the inner calm that they must maintain to use their Ki to its utmost potential, causing them to lose their focus and thus their abilities.
Rogue: The technical fighter of the lot, Rogues combine speed and skill to aim strikes at their opponent’s most vital regions, but cannot take as much punishment as a fighter’s rigid discipline and skill allows them to. Most rogues are stealthy, and experts at dealing with mechanical devices like traps and locks.
Wizard: Wizards are followers of the arcane, casting spells using their own power, ancient words, and certain gestures. Wizards have the widest range of spells of the three magical classes, but since they rely on their own ability and very specific words and gestures they are more suspect to exhaustion and spell failure than clerics and druids. The movement restraining properties of heavy armor, for example, can contribute to spell failure for spells that rely on gesture.
Cleric: A blanket term for any spellcaster that relies on the power of a higher being or deity, clerics are usually extremely good at casting the spells relevant to the being they follow. A follower of Torm, the patron deity of divine warriors, would be very good at turning undead and healing– but would not be able to throw rays of ice or fireballs. There are compensations, however: Since clerics are calling upon the power of another being, they are not subject to spell failure, and spells won’t drain their energy as much.
Druid: Druids call upon the natural world for their magic abilities, so their spells mostly fit into manipulations of nature: Animal enchantment, weather manipulation, and even shapeshifting fall under the abilities of a druid. Arcane spell failure does not apply to druids, but being indoors makes their abilities suffer.
Magic, the World, and You
Magic works quite a bit differently in this game than from classical NWN or D&D. You do not have to rest before casting spells to charge them, though physical exhaustion is a factor for a wizard who has cast a lot of powerful spells recently. What is required for the magic section is a listing of the spells your character knows and how often they can cast them, along with any reagents necessary if applicable. Custom spells are okay, but if they are not canon to D&D or NWN, you must detail their effects. Magic that causes instant death, like “Power Word: Kill” is ineffective.
Clerics must list their patron in this section.
Rules: (READ THESE)
1. All site rules apply.
2. Listen to the staff.
3. Your posts should go something like this, with IC for “in character” and OOC for “out of character”:
IC: A mad gleam in his eyes, Halaster advanced on the captured drow with a bolt of magic forming in his left hand.
OOC: I LOVE DIS PART
4. Arguments/debates may go on for 3 posts in the main thread. After that, take it to PM or the discussion topic.
5. No godmodding. Dodging unavoidable attacks, ignoring injuries, etc. HOWEVER, this rule also applies to the attacker. Autohitting is not permissible.
6. This fits under godmodding: No metagaming. Knowing things your character didn't learn, magically crashing another player's party without a good IC reason.
7. Don't kill another player's character without permission from him/her. Make sure to write that you have permission in the post where you kill the character.
8. IN THE EVENT THAT DEATH SEEMS UNAVOIDABLE: Your character may be killed to avoid breaking rule 5. Only staff can do this. This isn't a punishment, just realism. If you have a good way to get out of it after your character is dead, please PM Kaithas or another staffer.
9. NPC autohitting is permitted as long as you play realistically.
10. No bunnying. That means taking control of another person's character without permission.
11. Double posting... Nah.
12. Have fun!
Your staff are:
Nick (Kaithas)
But now, 70 years after the defeat of the Armies of the Eighth Circle, Undermountain has gone quiet. Halaster’s disappearance does not bode well– last time he vanished, an archdemon attempted to dominate the world of Faerun. Adventurers have gathered in the Yawning Portal, an inn located above the only entrance to Undermountain, in an effort to find the Mad Mage– or what’s left of him.
Complicating matters further is the reappearance of an artifact thought long gone: The Relic of the Reaper, the object that allowed the Hero of Waterdeep to cheat death long enough to defeat the dread Mephistopheles, ruler of the Armies of the Eighth Circle, and last known to be in the Hero’s possession.
How this bodes for the fate of Faerun… Remains to be seen.
Recent knowledge:
In recent times, however, the Hero and the drow were rumored to be seen in Waterdeep again , possibly investigating the second disappearance of Halaster. The reappearance of the Relic of the Reaper in the Yawning Portal inn certainly seems to corroborate that rumor. But the Relic wouldn’t part from the Hero’s hands willingly.
The implications of both Halaster Blackcloak and the Hero of Waterdeep vanishing in the space of a few months is immense, and as adventurers answer the call to venture into Undermountain to investigate, an atmosphere of foreboding descends over the town…
Setting:
The continent of Faerun is a large and varied one, but this story takes place primarily in two certain locales, though a third is extremely important to the story.
The Yawning Portal: An inn built by the first adventurer to ever successfully return from Undermountain, on top of the well he used to enter the dungeon. While a relatively basic inn in terms of quality and price, the clientele is anything but ordinary. The tavern on the ground floor is full of a diverse and often rowdy crowd of adventurers from all over Faerun, and a room on the second level is devoted entirely to useful gear and weapons available to dungeon crawlers– for a price, of course. The inn is managed by the original adventurer’s daughter, Tamsil, whose half-elf heritage has kept her looking young far past the death of her father Durnan.
Undermountain: A legendary, massive dungeon ruled over by the mad mage Halaster. Maps are useless in Undermountain, as its corridors and rooms are bound to Halaster’s will– he can reshape and reform them whenever he wishes, though he doesn’t do it often. Ordinarily, the monster inhabitants of Undermountain are kept in check by Halaster’s presence. With his disappearance, Undermountain has fallen into chaos, with warring factions of monsters and creatures fighting in the halls. Rooms that are known through songs and tales of returning adventurers are few, but they include the Hall of Sleeping Kings, a large throne room that serves as the tomb for the greatest warriors of a past age, and the Maze, a nearly completely empty room with only a few magic pillars in it. Invisible traps line the floor in certain patterns, waiting for the unwary adventurer to take a wrong step and suffer the wrath of a magic missile storm.
The Underdark: While not playable at the beginning of the RP, the Underdark is a subterranean world where a large population of the dark elves know as drow live. The only way to get to it from the surface world is through Undermountain, on the deepest level.
Character Creation:
Blank profile form, with necessary information following it. Your char should roughly be on or below the level of Toren Thomason in the example profiles.
Name:
Species:
Age:
Class:
Alignment:
Abilities/Skills:
Gear:
Spells:
Personality:
Biography:
Name:
Species: See Races of the World.
Class: See Classes.
Alignment: Alignments are done along two axes, good to evil and lawful to chaotic, with neutral being in the middle.
Abilities/Skills: This is where you detail what your character is good at and can do naturally. Incredible skill with a sword or a natural affinity for casting illusions would go here.
Gear: List your relevant items such as armor and potions here. Any magical item must be listed, its effects detailed, and staff approved. It isn’t such a big deal if you have a set of ordinary gloves that isn’t stated in your profile, but if you spontaneously have a cloak that ignores all physical damage… It’s a problem.
Spells: See Magic, the World, and You.
Personality: How your character acts.
Appearance: How your character looks.
Biography: How did your character come to Waterdeep? How did they get involved? This is their life story until now.
The Races of the World:
Base playable races include humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings, along with hybrids. Custom races are acceptable, though they will have to be described in your profile if they aren’t in Forgotten Realms/D&D canon.
Humans: The most adaptable and the shortest lived of the common races, humans have spread like wildfire across Faerun. They can be anything from magical to martial arts masters, and anything in between.
Elves: With lifespans reaching into the millennia and legendary beauty, many other races look upon elves with something approaching awe. Shorter and more slender than humans on the whole, an ordinary elf can’t take a punch as well as a human can, nor are as resistant to disease and poison– but they are more nimble and can see in almost complete, nonmagical dark.
Dwarves: The underground craftsmen of Faerun, dwarves as a whole are a hearty, hardworking sort, though that is by no means a universal trait. Shorter than elves but built far sturdier, a dwarf is far more robust even than a human against physical trauma, and their innate familiarity with caves gives them an edge underground.
Halflings: The shortest and smallest of all races, halflings tend to be masters of trickery and thievery, though many will claim that is an “offensive stereotype propagated by the elven rulers of society”. No matter what the opinion of their mannerisms, however, the facts about their biology remain: Humans, elves, and especially dwarves are far stronger than they are– but nobody’s fingers move as fast or with as much skill as a halfling’s.
Classes:
For the sake of simplicity, the class system has been condensed into six basic classes, three martial and three magical. You are not bound to explicit definitions of these– they are merely guidelines so the staff and other players know what to expect from your abilities. A combination of two is okay.
Fighter: The most combat oriented of the classes, fighters are not necessarily the tanks of any adventuring group, though they often are. Combining skill with weapons and shields with the strength to wear armor, a tough fighter can brutalize nearly anything in a straight, no tricks fight while suffering minimal damage themselves.
Monk: Specializing in the control of a subtle inner energy known as Ki, powerful monks are ridiculously fast and can do rapid, brutal damage with their unarmed strikes, sometimes even becoming speedy enough to block arrows. But wearing heavy armor and using all but a few weapons distracts them from the inner calm that they must maintain to use their Ki to its utmost potential, causing them to lose their focus and thus their abilities.
Rogue: The technical fighter of the lot, Rogues combine speed and skill to aim strikes at their opponent’s most vital regions, but cannot take as much punishment as a fighter’s rigid discipline and skill allows them to. Most rogues are stealthy, and experts at dealing with mechanical devices like traps and locks.
Wizard: Wizards are followers of the arcane, casting spells using their own power, ancient words, and certain gestures. Wizards have the widest range of spells of the three magical classes, but since they rely on their own ability and very specific words and gestures they are more suspect to exhaustion and spell failure than clerics and druids. The movement restraining properties of heavy armor, for example, can contribute to spell failure for spells that rely on gesture.
Cleric: A blanket term for any spellcaster that relies on the power of a higher being or deity, clerics are usually extremely good at casting the spells relevant to the being they follow. A follower of Torm, the patron deity of divine warriors, would be very good at turning undead and healing– but would not be able to throw rays of ice or fireballs. There are compensations, however: Since clerics are calling upon the power of another being, they are not subject to spell failure, and spells won’t drain their energy as much.
Druid: Druids call upon the natural world for their magic abilities, so their spells mostly fit into manipulations of nature: Animal enchantment, weather manipulation, and even shapeshifting fall under the abilities of a druid. Arcane spell failure does not apply to druids, but being indoors makes their abilities suffer.
Magic, the World, and You
Magic works quite a bit differently in this game than from classical NWN or D&D. You do not have to rest before casting spells to charge them, though physical exhaustion is a factor for a wizard who has cast a lot of powerful spells recently. What is required for the magic section is a listing of the spells your character knows and how often they can cast them, along with any reagents necessary if applicable. Custom spells are okay, but if they are not canon to D&D or NWN, you must detail their effects. Magic that causes instant death, like “Power Word: Kill” is ineffective.
Clerics must list their patron in this section.
Rules: (READ THESE)
1. All site rules apply.
2. Listen to the staff.
3. Your posts should go something like this, with IC for “in character” and OOC for “out of character”:
IC: A mad gleam in his eyes, Halaster advanced on the captured drow with a bolt of magic forming in his left hand.
OOC: I LOVE DIS PART
4. Arguments/debates may go on for 3 posts in the main thread. After that, take it to PM or the discussion topic.
5. No godmodding. Dodging unavoidable attacks, ignoring injuries, etc. HOWEVER, this rule also applies to the attacker. Autohitting is not permissible.
6. This fits under godmodding: No metagaming. Knowing things your character didn't learn, magically crashing another player's party without a good IC reason.
7. Don't kill another player's character without permission from him/her. Make sure to write that you have permission in the post where you kill the character.
8. IN THE EVENT THAT DEATH SEEMS UNAVOIDABLE: Your character may be killed to avoid breaking rule 5. Only staff can do this. This isn't a punishment, just realism. If you have a good way to get out of it after your character is dead, please PM Kaithas or another staffer.
9. NPC autohitting is permitted as long as you play realistically.
10. No bunnying. That means taking control of another person's character without permission.
11. Double posting... Nah.
12. Have fun!
Your staff are:
Nick (Kaithas)