Blast From the Past: Night Below

We return today to my "Blast From the Past" series, a look at memorable published adventure modules from each edition of D&D. Today I'll cover Second Edition. This is my favorite D&D era, so it was difficult to choose a single adventure as my favorite.

My pick is Night Below (1995), a boxed set containing a massive campaign set largely in the Underdark. Billed as "The Ultimate Dungeon Adventure," it lives up to its claim with a sprawling storyline and harrowing encounters with mind-flayers, kuo-toa, aboleths, and other Lovecraftian monstrosities. Back in 2000, I ran this adventure in the Shattered Realm setting. We used our existing characters, so the heroes were a bit overpowered for the first two-thirds of the adventure. As Kevin and Jason may recall, the third and final chapter was a mad dash through the Underdark -- one encounter flowed directly into the next in a seemingly endless battle. I hope it was as fun for the guys to play as it was for me to DM!