Something to keep in mind for Rangers is that your character wouldn't have had the opportunity to make the Underdark one of their favored terrain. There are ways to mitigate that - I think there's an alternative class feature you can take in Tasha's, and you could simply wait until you get an additional favored terrain at whatever level that is - but it's just something to take into account.

So I've got an idea for a character now....Mormir is a shield dwarf cleric/fighter.   I'm going to go with Forge Domain.    Do you have a template for character sheets that you'd like me to use?

Sounds good to me. I do not have a template sheet for this site.

Ok, I’ll do most of it in DnD Beyond and can copy it however we decide to track things.   I didn’t pay for any of the extras, so some of the choices (forge domain) aren’t available.

I've stated working on the This is Your Life for Mormir, and made some rolls on here....but halfway through I realized I could do it much quicker on 5eTools (so ignore those rolls).

Here is some info about Mormir:

As a small child he was sent to live in a temple of Moradin, after his father was killed under suspicious circumstances (rumored to be at the direction/hand of Ghazrim DuLoc).    He had an ordinary childhood, and a few close friends.   He became a Cleric, and his first assignment was to serve in a bureaucratic role however he was bored and instead was fascinated by the elite soldiers of the Hammers of Moradin.   After years of hard work and training, he honed his skills and joined the ranks of the elite.

For the NPCs that will make up the rest of the party, I was thinking at least one other dwarven cleric/Hammer of Moradin.   Originally I was thinking the whole party could be that, but I think a little variety might be nice.   Thoughts?

Backstory sounds good. Variety is definitely what we're going for with the NPCs.

We could have the other dwarf be a different type of "divine" class, like.a Paladin, a Celestial Warlock, a Divine Soul Sorcerer, a Zealot Barbarian, etc. Or we could just have them be a full cleric with a different subclass than yours.

I can propose some ideas for the other NPCs if you're stuck on ideas.

I think a Paladin might be interesting...what other ideas did you have?    I’m guessing that I’ll run into these NPCs along the way, so they all need a reason to be in the underdark right?   Are any of them prisoners with me?

Also. I’ll try to get a character sheet uploaded/copied tomorrow

Yes they all need a reason to be in the Underdark. I was thinking one of them would start as a prisoner with you, so when we have them solidified you should choose wisely for the purposes of eventually getting your stuff and getting out.

I'll compile a list of ideas and show them to you in a little while.

Potential Companions:

• This character is a sorcerer whose ancestor was an infamous unicorn hunter. This ancestor slew a legendary unicorn, took it's horn as a prize, carved it into a wand, and performed dark rituals on it until they were satisfied. Now this character is part of a cursed bloodline capable of summoning the wand at will and using it to perform dark magicks.
• This character claims - whether it's true or not - that they are in fact a famous and powerful archmage who has shaped history and made many enemies along the way; their explanation for why they appear to be a teenager who can only cast initiate-level spells is that some recent event caused them to be time-reversed, most of their memories and previous talents locked away by magic.
• This character enters a dangerous state where they find it incredibly difficult to control themself. Due to this, they were imprisoned and chained like an animal, only released to protect the premises and it's inhabitants. Another PC (your character) came upon (or will come upon) the ruins of this character's prison, found only them alive - and just barely at that - and nursed them back to health before gaining their trust and becoming one of the only people who could keep them in check.
• This character was very young when they found themselves trapped in another dimension, where they were trapped for a time. They eventually earned something that allowed them to return home, but their body returned to the state that they were in before they had entered the alternate dimension. Now, they have years of wisdom and experience that their youthful appearance does not bely.
• This character is a decorated veteran whose career was ended quickly by a wound that left them paralyzed from the neck down. In order to be able to use the only skills they knew in life, they found a way to transfer their consciousness into a Warforged body; they now suffer from a severe variation of Phantom Limb Syndrome.
• This character comes from a culture where masks are worn that represent the most innocent thing they have slain; a special mark is put on the mask for an intentional kill. Though most people won't realize it's implications because of the foreign nature of this character's culture, this character will wear a mask that represents humanoids and which is marked as an intentional act.
• This character's desire is to restore the power of their clan.
• The spirits this sorcerer absorbs fuels their baleful fire.
• An awakened dog warlock whose patron is it's owner.
• Tiefling sorcerer whose magic is flavored as originating from the Nine Hells. Could possibly be a race other than Tiefling, perhaps even a welpish fiend sent from the Abyss or the Nine Hells for some reason or another, but who has gone rogue.
• This character is afflicted by some curse or illness that will eventually kill them. The most notable symptom of this affliction is the victim's hair slowly becoming gray and dead from one side of the head to the other. Their objective is to find the person that put this curse upon them or someone who can cure their ailment, but they only have a few months/years left to live.
• This character was part of a group of thieves/bandits who were quickly rising in infamy due to their success in the field. They caught wind of an unusual shipment of something - an item that was constantly being moved around - and decided to ambush it in order to learn what it contained. They succeeded yet again, but whatever was inside gave a certain power to this character and/or killed their crew.
• This character has a creature/item that desires power of some kind, and has incentivised the character to get it for them. Whenever it's demands are met, it will immediately fight the character and/or the party as a whole in order to test it's capabilities. If it is defeated, the cycle starts all over again, if it succeeds...
• This character is a result of several generations of selective breeding, genetic manipulation, and other methods, and their origins come from a dark secret that they will have a hard time accepting the truth of.

Hey there....sorry for not posting for a bit, work/life got a little busy for me.    I think the following look most interesting:

This character was very young when they found themselves trapped in another dimension, where they were trapped for a time. They eventually earned something that allowed them to return home, but their body returned to the state that they were in before they had entered the alternate dimension. Now, they have years of wisdom and experience that their youthful appearance does not bely.

This character was part of a group of thieves/bandits who were quickly rising in infamy due to their success in the field. They caught wind of an unusual shipment of something - an item that was constantly being moved around - and decided to ambush it in order to learn what it contained. They succeeded yet again, but whatever was inside gave a certain power to this character and/or killed their crew.

It's alright; I've got a few irons in the fire too, so we can just take it at our own pace.

Let's give those concepts code names, something like Journey Child for the first one and Bad Bandit for the other.

For the Journey Child, I'm imagining them to be some sort of full caster class, themed according to the plane of existence they were transported to: a sorcerer, a druid, pretty much any full caster. RP-wise, they'd be totally lost in the Underdark and worried about getting back to their family - even hoping that their family is still alive and nothing has happened to them - while at the same time grappling with their weak body. Maybe they actually aged in that other plane, and had some really great adventures, but none of it transferred when they came back to the Material Plane.

For Bad Bandit, I was imagining anything in a spectrum between Rogue and Warlock/other spellcaster. If we went full rogue, I would give them a cursed magic item, so they'd pretty much end up with some sort of cursed magic item some way or another. Also definitely a stealthy person regardless of class, in order to fit that "infamous thief" archetype. For roleplay, they'd be guilt-ridden over the death of their crew, and struggling to manage whatever dark desires the cursed magic item has.

We can go as heavy or as light into the details of builds as you want; maybe you just give me a general theme, and I can go from there, or maybe you feel like doing the level ups for all of the custom NPCs - it's up to you.

Sounds good!   Let’s have Journey Child be a sorcerer, and Bad Bandit a rogue.   And I was thinking the character imprisoned with me could be the dwarf paladin, and we got caught as we ventured into the underdark in search of the answers about who killed my father.

And with that, the campaign has officially begun! That was a lot of text to start off with, but it's to be expected when the module throws in more named NPCs all at once than you can count on one hand.

If you have any questions about what else your character knows about the outpost and the other prisoners, then ask away over here in the OOC chat; I'm sure there are some clarifications you may need, and I didn't want to add anymore than I absolutely had to to the introductory post.

Btw, when you have the time, you should compile a list of what you would have had before the drow confiscated your items; there's a chance that you'll be able to get back your gear during your eventual escape, so it would be better to know ahead of time.

I'll see if I can figure out how to add the map of Velkynvelve, so that you have more of a clue of the layout. In the meantime, go ahead and talk to some NPCs or something - maybe Kilvar, or Eldeth.

EDIT: Ok, added the maps. The prison cell is area number 11.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:15, Tue 23 Nov 2021.

Sweet!  I'm excited to get started....I've been pretty bad about updating my character sheet, I'll try to get on that this weekend at some point if I can.

Do I recognize the mushroom guy?   Based on my background I've melded with the myconids, so I'd imagine I might be able to communicate with it.

That is true, you did have an experience with myconids before. You don't recognize this one as one of those you met, but you are correct that it is a myconid. This one seems like a young one, a sprout; if you can befriend it, then it should be able to release a cloud of telepathic spores which will allow you to communicate with it.

So I've made a few more updates to the character sheet (still have a bit to do), and below is a list of my equipment:

Warhammer
Chain Mail
Light Crossbow with 20 bolts
Priest's pack
Shield
holy symbol - emblem
prayer book
5 sticks of incense
vestments
common clothes
pouch containing 15 GP

Thanks for that, I'll write it down.

You know, you didn't have to waste a whole post just to ask about the manacles; if you're not ready to have your character start actually interacting a lot, maybe consider asking me questions here instead.

As for what Mormir can tell about the manacles, I'd like for you to make an Investigation check. What kinds of tools are you proficient with? If you're proficient with Smith's Tools or another type of set that does metalworking, then I'll give you advantage.

Sounds good, I’m still trying to figure out what’s what on here.    So I do have proficiency with Smith’s tools, but even with advantage I rolled a 9.

That's alright; I'll just give you only the most basic of information on the manacles. There are a few things you know you can try:

• Slipping out of them (Dexterity check)
• Breaking them (Strength check)
• Picking them open with Thieves' Tools
• Damaging/destroying them (they have hit points)

Much the same can be applied to your collars. You get the sense that failing a check would require you to wait a day in order to try that check again.

Ok I’m going to have Kilvar keep an eye out for guards while Mormir tries to slip out of the manacles.   I rolled a little better this time, 20 with my dex mod.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:30, Tue 07 Dec 2021.

I went ahead and edited your character's "biography" to show your class, AC, and HP; I also realized that I didn't mention anything about HP calculation, so I gave you max HP for both your official 1st level and your extra 1st level in Fighter, which increased your HP from 18 to 22 (after including your Con Mod).

Additionally, as a small note, I'm really hoping that you're just focused on escaping Velkynvelve and that's why I'm not seeing much interaction from your character. At this point, I'm not too impressed by your IC posts so far. I just wanted to be honest so that you know what I'm looking for.

Thank you for updating my character's stats, but more importantly on the feedback on my IC posts.   I can see that you put a lot of effort and thought into your posts, and I can see how my short posts might have seemed a bit unimpressive.   I'm still getting the hang of this, and will try to do more in terms of character interaction and building the story.  I totally didn't expect Mormir to be able to get out of those bindings (obviously!)...but I might have just learned something about how he approaches problems, and has to figure his way out of sticky situations.

Also - what kind of bindings does the mushroom have?   Since I'm assuming he doesn't have hands?

And I realize now that I didn't pick my spells yet, I will do that and update my sheet.  I'm thinking since my hands are free I could potentially cast cantrips and spells that require verbal or somatic components (but not materials).
This message was last edited by the player at 21:43, Tue 07 Dec 2021.