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Lands of Deepearth	-	-	-	DSG

Geography: This lake occupies a large, open cavern that is
about twelve miles long, and thirteen miles wide at its broadest
point. The chamber is about 600 feet high, and the bottom 500
feet are filled with water. Near the center of the ceiling, a constant
column of water spills from the drain in the Upper Lake. The
water around this column is quite turbulent, but the rest of the
lake is rather placid.

The cavern leading here from Area 16 ends in a tunnel mouth
50 feet above the surface of the lake. As elsewhere, the walls of
the lake’s cavern are cracked and rough, so that climbing them is
not difficult. The lake’s shoreline is inaccessible; rocky cliffs drop
far below the water line on all sides.

To the north, a broad and placid river flows from the lake and
slowly meanders through a wide cavern. The river maintains a
fairly constant width of about 100 feet, and a depth of 1dlO + 10
feet. The ceiling of the cavern is always at least 20 feet above the
water level, and sometimes soars as much as 50 feet from the
water’s surface.

The bottom of the lake is smooth rock coated with a few inches
of fine silt. A half-dozen underwater caves penetrate the cliffs
bordering the lake, but their mouths are all at least 100 feet below
the water’s surface.

Denizens: The lower lake is the scene of an ongoing struggle
between the aboleth and the kuo-toa. Each race maintains outposts
in the lake, and savage battles often rage both on the surface
and in the depths of the lake.

The kuo-toa have built a domed city near the southern end of
the lake. It is very similar to their community in the Upper Lake.
The men-fish often travel between the two lakes, and have established
a well-worn path leading up to the tunnel mouth near their
lair. Occasionally a kuo-toa travels from the Upper Lake to the
lower by following the water down the drain, but the inherent risks
of this plunge generally convince them to travel overland.
The aboleth have erected their own city at the lake’s northern
end, and they attempt to exert strict control over creatures using
the river to exit or enter the lake. (The city of the aboleth is
described below, under Unique Features.) About 300 aboleth
occupy the lake dwellings, although nearly half of them may be
swimming in other parts of the lake at any given time. A small
group of these repulsive beings is on guard at the mouth of the
river at all times.

The lake is also host to a number of waterborne fungi and
numerous fish upon which other creatures survive. The only
other denizen of the lake is given a wide berth by both the aboleth
and the kuo-toa: this is a massive kraken that has somehow
adapted itself to live in fresh water. The kraken dwells in the largest
of the side caverns leading off the lake.

Resources: A constant supply of fresh air finds its way into the
cavern through several entrances, and the spout of water from
the ceiling throws out enough turbulence to keep it circulating.
The only mineral resource that could be gleaned from the lake
lies on its floor, directly under the waterspout. Here, a vast
amount of gold in the form of tiny flakes (or gold dust) has settled
after being washed downstream. The total value of this gold
exceeds 100,000 gp, but the problems involved in recovering it
(namely, the 500-foot depth of the water, the kraken, aboleth, and
kuo-toa) make mining here a very risky operation.

Unique Features: Any character following the water through
the drain on the floor of the Upper Lake remains submerged for
2d6 rounds. The water eventually bursts through the hole in the
ceiling of the Lower Lake and plummets 100 feet straight down.
Characters and creatures not native to water will sustain 6d6 of
damage from this fall, although this is reduced to half damage if a
save vs. breath weapon is successful. Creatures native to water,
such as the kuo-toa and aboleth, sustain 3d6 of damage; if their
saving throws are successful, they take no damage.

The cavern inhabited by the kraken is the largest of the caves
branching off the lake. The entrance tunnel is 40 feet in diameter,
and leads into a vast complex of caverns. Some of these are completely
water-filled, while others are partially filled with air. The
kraken has no less than 50 slaves here, all toiling to expand the
caverns for the greater glory of their tyrannical master. A huge
pile of tailing stone lies at the bottom of the lake beneath the
cavern-a sure sign that major excavation has occurred in the
area. The kraken’s slaves are an odd mix of human adventurers,
drow, duergar, svirfneblin, and even a couple of kuo-toa. The
slaves have developed a temporary truce among themselves
against the day when they might strike out for freedom.
The city of the aboleth is .not attached to any surface, but is
designed to have a neutral buoyancy and to float in the water at
whatever depth the aboleth desire. Like the bodies of the aboleth
themselves, the city is encased in a cloudy mucous. It is shaped
like a broad disk, about 1,000 feet in diameter. Six slim towers
rise around the outside boundaries, and often these towers are
the only portions of the city extending above the surface of the
water. The city walls, towers, buildings, and base are made from
an unnatural substance that combines many properties of wood,
stone, and metal.

A fairly high wall connects the six towers around the circumference
of the city. The base of the wall is pierced with a number of
drain holes, and a common tactic used by the aboleth is to come
up under the enemy. The water trapped in the walls drains away,
leaving the victims trapped high and dry in the city of the aboleth.

The buildings of the aboleth city are completely different from
any others in the world. Each structure is an almost perfect
sphere, and rests on a very narrow base. They resemble balls
resting on a slightly soft surface, so that the bottom 10% of the
spheres is submerged. The number of entrances is determined
by size; smaller buildings (20-30 feet in diameter) have one
entrance, and the largest buildings (about 100 feet in diameter)
have six. Each entrance is simply a three-foot-diameter hole near
the base of the sphere.

The buildings are all single-room structures, filled half with
water and half with air. They frequently have ledges that resemble
perches about halfway up their interior walls. The smaller
buildings are individual lairs, while the larger ones serve as nurseries
for the aboleth young or prisons for their many human,
drow, pech, derro, and duergar slaves. Each race of slaves is
held in a different structure.

The largest buildings are used as halls of government for the
Three Clans (each clan has its own building). These buildings
contain many ledges up and down their interior walls. Members
of the clans perch here when their sessions convene.
The mechanism controlling the buoyancy of the aboleth city is
located in the disk that forms the city’s foundation. This device is
perfectly circular, and about 40 feet thick. While seemingly solid,

it is in fact riddled by a maze of corridors and machinery rooms.
Many sturdy doors close off the various parts of the disk. Most of
this area is air-filled, as this is where the city gains much of its
positive buoyancy when the controller wishes it to rise.