Arelith

Just a question for Underdark players.

We've seen a fair bit of increase in the last years of resources (fauna mainly) to be found, especially with the addition of cooking, and I know that for many of these there is no UD equivalent. I'm generally happy with this as it opens up means to trade, but suspect that nevertheless the Underdark could do with its own version of at least some of it.

I'm hoping to get some idea of what resources are few and far between in the Underdark, and what players think it could do with.

Honey is deliberately surfaceside.

Garlic comes from mainly the Tinkers, as far as I've been aware - I've not seen any plants with it.

Ancient Softwood, for some reason, seems to be incredibly rare (or I'm not touching the right writs).

Flameberries are only from the Burning Shores.
Weirdly, do Flame Beetle Bellies, which are used for a one/use summon item that's entirely outclassed by the time you reach there. Adding those to the Sewers would be super helpful.

Some plants only grow in the Spore Farms; Mintspear, Lady's Tear, if you're underground. A big problem is the Spore Farms are a district lock - which can limit who can access things. This means that if they are slaves or part of the wrong district, you can't get things like Lady's Tear or Mintspear. UDers also can't buy from Azoun, as well as spices, rice, kaeth, etc - everything is locked there.

Mandrake roots are also Spore Farms exclusive below, that I've seen

Sailfin, Eagle Feathers are more important thanks to being needed for Gravity items, but neither spawn anywhere in the UD that I've seen

Zinc is rare, but that's everywhere! Mithril seems very common (to the extent steel can be harder to get hold of sometimes).

Also, give us one of the new Fishing vendors, with hooks, simple poles, knives, small bait, and kelp! They'd fit perfectly in the Rothe Farms - there's a fishing spot there

Peacelily wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 1:37 pm

UDers also can't buy from Azoun, as well as spices, rice, kaeth, etc - everything is locked there.

The not being able to buy from Azoun is intentional - there is an Import Trader that has these goods (albeit also locked inside the Spore Farms).

A Digital Vagrant wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 3:55 pm

The not being able to buy from Azoun is intentional - there is an Import Trader that has these goods (albeit also locked inside the Spore Farms).

I'm aware - that's why I added it to the Spore Farm section, though I could have been clearer!

A Digital Vagrant wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 3:55 pm

Peacelily wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 1:37 pm

UDers also can't buy from Azoun, as well as spices, rice, kaeth, etc - everything is locked there.

The not being able to buy from Azoun is intentional - there is an Import Trader that has these goods (albeit also locked inside the Spore Farms).

There should be evil/neutral other port because before Dread Pirates from Sencliff used have access to Azoun and was a great reason for UD-ers interact with Sencliff to bring goods. Now Dread Pirates don't have access to trader.
It would be great to have criminal port that still not welcomes monsters but serves for outcasts and pirates.
It is not that important though, because right non-outcast evil surfacer who is friend to character easy can buy everything in Azoun while monsters/pirates stays on ship. But again, what reasons to enforce such mechanical (tiny) things when there no other places in seas like Azoun but for pirates/outcasts. So it just turns in to small complication and just cheesed/ignored.

Ascended Mage wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 4:31 pm

It would be great to have criminal port that still not welcomes monsters but serves for outcasts and pirates.

that was meant to be sencliff but yall done screwed that one up

Zinc there really never seems to be be enough of it for how useful it is.

Kuma wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 5:07 pm

Ascended Mage wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 4:31 pm

It would be great to have criminal port that still not welcomes monsters but serves for outcasts and pirates.

that was meant to be sencliff but yall done screwed that one up

Fite me. Kobold pirates when?

fr fr
King's Crown is ludicrously rare to find in ud.
Zinc and tin deposits seem rare.
I feel spider silk spawns in too small quantities and there's not enough nodes in the literal spider-infested dungeons.
Iceberries and flameberries could use low level spawns. Iceberries could also be a little more generously placed around the ice roads.

I'd say honey, garlic, and maaaaybe milk (but I admittedly haven't looked that hard for milk) are all pretty hard to find with the same availability as the surface.

Edit: Depending how you want to label resources, I'd also add the UD has no trade writ equivalent which isn't really something that matters for individual characters but affects resource balance a little from a district perspective imo.

Milk drops in limited amounts from Derro but can be bought in Dis, which Andunor has easy access to

Peacelily wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 7:27 am

Milk drops in limited amounts from Derro

....derro milk....

In Sorrow We Trust wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 7:33 am

Peacelily wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 7:27 am

Milk drops in limited amounts from Derro

....derro milk....

:<

I feel like rothe should be milkable creatures like cows, if they aren't already.

Hazard wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 7:59 am

In Sorrow We Trust wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 7:33 am

Peacelily wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 7:27 am

Milk drops in limited amounts from Derro

....derro milk....

:<

The new black lotus of Faerun. Smugglers rejoice, you finally have a reason for existence!

https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Herbalism

When plants and other things were introduced into the module, before even the fertile ground update, UD players could plant plants and there was a beautiful, creative time where we delved deep into lore, had the resources, and named them appropriately.

There were also people who planted cotton on flagstone, which seemingly led to another episode of why we can't have nice things.

I think we need to relook the penalty we place on the UD specifically in regard to these resources and their surface-only tags. Maybe that is part of what this thread is about?

I think there are two branching paths, where either we allow substitutionary equivalency (i.e. both surface plants and underdark plants produce 'nuts') or we go completely unique (blood root stalk does not produce 'nuts') and there are underdark-specific resources and products (see original Nitharit idea.)

Arelith has been of two minds on this essential question, where we have some examples of each path. I would argue more for the equivalency principle and having most resources available above and below. This makes things easy, where you can still have racially-locked cultural items, but resourcing is a bit more fair.

tlldr: I think we specifically need to allow UD plant equivalencies so that, for example, cooking is a viable trade path below.

C.f. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5JEoD7keVo

For the feathers we could add an area with dire corbies as enemies. They are barbaric Underdark creatures that lend themselves well for a low level dungeon. I think the main issue would be to find them a suitable model.

https://neverwintervault.org/project/nw ... volume-one

This small file lists wereravens as available models, and I think it could be adapted fairly well if scaled down, to corbies.

Other than that, I would like to see some exclusive Underdark resources that could be used in productions needed both above and below, so that the trade would be bidirectional.

Incidentally, I think this could be a good opportunity to add some canon Underdark creatures that are sorely missing from Arelith:

https://neverwintervault.org/project/nw ... ple-worm-0

One above all, the purple worm, but there are many other ones, unfortunately not all with a suitable model on the vault.

Fishing is also a problem, since Sailfin are very important now for the Beads, but there's a possible solution!

Redo the Coral Grove as a Surface/Lake biome. This would explain the light above, and add fishing. This would let sailfin be caught in the UD!

I could have made a KUDOS thread on this but thought I would put a bow on it here instead.

This is an elegant, lore-appropriate solution to the UD resource/herbalism problem.

Thanks Iron!

Is there a lore-appropriate UD source of Yarrow? And if there isn't, could there be?

I find myself looting every crate for the random drops and never have enough.