An Underdark Tale

An Underdark Tale

Escape drow slavers into a demon-infested Underdark where madness spreads, bizarre allies await, and the only way out is through the chaos

TYPE

Campaign

LEVELS

3–15

LANGUAGE

English

EXPERIENCE

Open to all

AGE

18+
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$10.00

/ Session

Details

1 player following this game

Play by Post (Asynchronous)

Billed Weekly / Tuesday - 12:30 AM UTC

Session Duration / 2–4 hours

0 / 5 Seats Filled

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This game will begin once 3 players have joined
About the adventure

You wake in darkness. Cold stone. Chains. The drow have taken everything—your weapons, your armor, your freedom. But they cannot take who you are. Who you will become. This is not a campaign about builds or optimization. This is about characters. Real, terrified, courageous, broken, and beautiful characters thrust into the Underdark—a living realm of fungal forests stretching into eternity, demon lords warping reality with their presence, and cities pulsing with alien intrigue. Madness whispers at the edges of your mind, patient and hungry. I seek players who want to live their characters, not just play them. Players who treasure quiet moments between battles—the hushed conversation while hiding from patrols, trembling hands sharing the last ration, unlikely friendships forged in chains, tears shed for an NPC who became something more than a name. I want to see your characters break and rebuild. Fall in love with the strange and monstrous. Realize this isn't just survival anymore—it's something bigger. Mechanics serve the story, never the other way. Dice are rolled because narrative demands it, not because a battle map says so. I will bend rules, rewrite encounters, and follow emotional truth over technical precision. Your creativity is the only true limit. This journey spans from desperate prisoners clawing at freedom to reluctant heroes standing against demonic corruption consuming the Underdark. Along the way, you'll gather allies as strange as they are loyal—a myconid sprout communicating through spores, a derro with shattered mind and surprising wisdom, a kuo-toa who believes you might be gods. These are not companions. They are friends. Family. Liabilities and lifelines. They will grow, change, and their fates rest in your hands. Cinematic moments await: narrow escapes across lakes of bubbling madness as reality unravels behind you, demon lords shaking caverns until stalactites fall like stars, desperate negotiations with a lonely beholder, a final stand measured not in victory but in what you're willing to sacrifice. This campaign traverses the full spectrum of emotion. Terror. Despair. Joy so bright it hurts. Laughter in darkness. Love blooming in unlikely soil. Profound beauty that steals breath. I am not here to run a meat grinder. I am here to tell an epic, sweeping story with you as its beating heart. If you crave immersion above optimization, character arcs that leave you emotionally devastated in the best way, a tale you'll tell for years—step into the dark with me. The Underdark is waiting. Your story begins in chains. Where it ends is up to you. New players and veterans welcome. Bring an open heart, commitment to the fiction, and a love for the beautiful mess of being human in an inhuman world.

Game style

Theater of the Mind

Play By Post

Roleplay Heavy

Rule of Cool (RoC)

Rules as Written (RaW)

Game themes

Meet the Game Master

5 years on StartPlaying

About me

Dungeon Master for 8 years IRL AND online.

View Profile →
Character creation

Creating your character

We will use dndbeyond. Characters must be adults, no children characters. Starting level will be 3 Using 5E updated rules. Any WOTC approved race NO home brew Give your character a back story, think about who they are. Have fun with it!!! Let’s make more than just a stat block.

What to expect

Preparing for the session

We use DNDbeyond for dice rolls As a player you will join the general part of my IRL dnd discord. Sessions can take place over voice OR in text chat, players preference. (I will extend the session longer for text option) Your group will not miss out on the immersion using the text sessions, I still use just as much detail and resources to bring you an epic story. And honestly text option is way less annoying than everyone having to repeat themselves over unreliable audio. OPTIONALLY you can have players from the discord join your adventure if you would like an extra hand in the adventure and extra roleplay variety.

What Chris Frater brings to the table

You are getting more than just another tabletop stat contest with my game. Here you will be provided an unforgettable epic experience as I have provided for my players for 8 years now. Im offering a story, an epic adventure. If you are interested in min maxing your characters and just interested in “winning”, I may not be the dm for you. Newbie friendly dm, with a team in the discord and myself ready to assist you if needed so you can get instant help while I focus on the group getting their moneys worth for the time. Combats do happen but the campaigns do not revolve around them. Fighting doesn’t even always have to happen depending how the story goes. I customize and make my own monster sheets to keep veterans and newbies on the same level of knowledge about what they face. When you reach a certain level, you can instant kill civilians or things too trivial to roll for with no initiative needed. My “planned” fights are typically set to pretty difficult, I think since fights arent EVERYWHERE in my campaigns, the few that happen should be fun and stressful so the win just feels THAT much sweeter, or the character death is that much sadder and understanding. I DO NOT WORK AGINST YOU!!!!!!! I actual like to make you look like rockstars in the story. But I honor the dice and sometimes that does mean your character just failz. I never try to get a character to fail, I only describe the scene and situation honestly and call for roll when I see them. Im very strict about spellcasting rules. I read every letter of every spell carefully. Spells are powerful, I think it’s important to honor them to keep the game balanced. I stick pretty much fully to WOTC rules. I much make a few exceptions from time to time but it’s rare because I’m very interested in balance…. However…. Rule of cool does happen sometimes too. Critical pass (20) means I make sure you look as badass and succeed in the coolest/best way possible. Critical fail (1) means I put your character through the first mean thing I think of. (Usually started by a saving throw)

Homebrew rules

In combat. Critical hits do double damage. Critical fails means you might slip, or drop your weapon, or any other mean thing I think of first.

Equipment needed to play

Internet

Computer

Microphone

Mobile Phone

Safety

How Chris Frater creates a safe table

We will discuss triggers/ things I should know/ things to avoid before we ever start a session.

Content warnings

Slavery
Mental Illness
Alcohol Use
Animal Death
Blood
Cannibalism
Character Death
Child Abandonment
Cults
Death
Deep or Large Bodies of Water
Devils / Demons / Fiends
Drowning
Drugs (addiction, use, withdrawal)
Execution
Extreme Violence
Fire
Gore
Human Trafficking (adult only)
Kidnapping
Mass Death
Mind alteration
Violence
Torture
Spiders
Sexual Content
Racism

Safety tools used

Frequently asked questions