Running Night Below (AD&D 2e): Session 9 – Retiring Beryglus, The Harpers, and the Troll Caves

Session Overview & Character Changes: Beryglus's Retirement

This write-up covers Session 9 of our campaign. It turned out to be a relatively short session where we didn't push through massive story milestones, but it featured crucial character shifts and tactical combat that are worth detailing.

Between Sessions 8 and 9, the player of Beryglus contacted me with a request to retire his character. This decision stemmed from two main reasons:

In-Game Narrative: Given everything Nyssa (Jalenneth) went through during her kidnapping and rescue, Beryglus wanted to step back from the adventuring life to focus entirely on supporting her through the heavy emotional trauma and physical recovery. He felt a deep responsibility to care for her safety.
Out-of-Game Mechanics: The player felt that his rogue character wasn't contributing enough utility to the active party dynamic and wanted to try something new.

For me, the golden rule of running a table is simple: my players need to have fun and genuinely want to play their characters. I immediately greenlit a new character, and we kept the transition smooth by carrying over full XP from Beryglus. In my view, stripping away experience points feels like an unfair punishment—especially in a brutal, highly lethal campaign like Night Below where characters need every drop of XP and survival advantage they can get.

Introducing the New Character: A Harper Wizard

The player decided to build a Militant Wizard, which fits the party composition and the high-stakes Underdark environment exceptionally well while being straightforward to weave into the narrative.

To maintain deep historical and faction grounding in the world, we tied his background directly into a legendary Forgotten Realms organization: The Harpers.

What are The Harpers? They are a legendary, clandestine network of scouts, spies, and wizards dedicated to fighting for freedom, justice, and balance. Founded in the ancient elven realm of Myth Drannor, the organization primarily consists of traveling bards, rangers, and mages. Their core mission is to protect the weak against tyranny, preserve lost historical lore, and prevent malicious organizations—such as the Zhentarim or the Cult of the Dragon—from amassing too much power.

The new character will be officially introduced to the group right at the start of our next session.

Session Preparation and DM Collaboration

In preparing for this session, I focused closely on the Svirfneblin's motivations. I leaned heavily on the collaborative prep work shared by my fellow DM u/Lucky_Type on Reddit, whose detailed breakdown of what the Deep Gnomes know and share with the party proved immensely helpful.

Prepping Book 2 - Perils of the Underdark

Sticking to my standard workflow, I read up on the upcoming troll encounter, printed the dungeon map in color, and jotted down enemy placements, environmental details, and potential traps directly onto the physical map. Because I anticipated the party wouldn't push much past the initial troll defenses in a shorter session, I kept my prep scope targeted right there.

Surface Trip: Economy, Silverymoon, and Transparent Rolls

After reconnecting with the Svirfneblin, the party initially chose to head back up to the surface to offload accumulated loot and upgrade their gear.

In my Forgotten Realms setting, you cannot simply walk into a general store and buy magical items off a rack. Magic is rare, and powerful items are almost always custom-made commissions or treasured heirlooms. Because of this, magic items are treated as rare commodities, though consumables like scrolls and potions are more readily available. The group traveled to the nearby city of Silverymoon (situated not far from Haranshire in my world) to trade and acquire upgrades.

When handling the purchase or trade of standard magic items, I rely on a percentage-chance system. Crucially, I roll these percentage dice completely in the open where the players can see them. I have nothing to hide; once a percentage chance is established for whether a shop or contact has an item, fudging a dice roll behind a screen defeats the purpose of an honest sandbox economy. The characters successfully upgraded their gear and returned to Haranshire well-satisfied.

Back into the Underdark: Drokki's Awakening Axe

Returning to the depths, the party met once more with the Svirfneblin, who laid out their ongoing crisis with the local trolls. The party agreed to help eradicate the cave-dwelling trolls in exchange for deeper intelligence and assistance down the line.

Meanwhile, Drokki, our specialty priest of Clangeddin Silverbeard, has a mysterious dwarven battle axe that we established earlier as being in a "dormant" state. As they venture deeper into the Underdark, that axe is finally beginning to wake up. Multiple runes along the blade are starting to glow faintly. It has gained the ability to cast the light spell at will, and it now flares to life when specific hazards or monsters are nearby—though Drokki hasn't entirely figured out which specific dangers trigger it yet.

Drokki with his axe. AI generated

The Troll Lair and Open Dice Mechanics

Moving forward cautiously, the group scouted the primary troll outpost. They executed a clean tactical play by deploying a Silence (15' radius) spell, completely neutralizing the enemy's reaction time and preventing them from sounding an alarm to alert the rest of the warren.

Elmrin's New Gear: Elmrin traded up for a powerful two-handed sword—a Flame Tongue—which proved exceptionally effective against the regenerating horrors of the troll caves.
Brutal Combat: Even with the tactical advantage, the fight was tense. Trolls are dangerous; it only takes a couple of solid hits and a natural 20 from the monsters to rapidly drain a character's hit points.
Troll battle. WoC all rights reserved

Because I run games with completely open dice rolling, the players see every single numerical result on the table. This means I cannot fudge rolls to save them. While it can feel utterly unforgiving—especially in a punishing module like Night Below—it ensures that every victory feels entirely earned through smart tactics rather than DM mercy.

We wrapped up the session right after clearing this initial encounter, leaving the rest of the troll complex waiting for next time. It will be exciting to see how the group handles the remaining challenges and whether I can successfully sustain the narrative momentum as we push further into Book 2!

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