Sloobludop Out of the Abyss Easy Guide

About to run the city of Sloobludop and need things made easy?

Here is an easy breakdown of Sloobludop (Kua-Toa City) Out of the Abyss!

Sloobludop: A city-sized fishing net full of talking crazy fish with seaweed and mud coming out of every corner.

Or more officially:

“A Kua-toa villiage on the eastern edge of the Darklake. From a distance, it looks like a massive tangle of reeds stretching up into the darkness, lit by glowing spots of phosphorescence. Upon closer approach, a series of rickity towers can be seen, lashed together by rope and plank bridges set into a haphazard patterns. Even above ground, the Kua-toa build in line with their three-dimensional aquatic sensibilities, constructing their “great city” as if it were underwater.”

– Out of The Abyss Handbook

With a whopping 500 population count, the Kua-toa are as chaotic as the dwarves are organized. Their “houses” are basically hovels that are scattered around at random, the more important members are actually closer to the lake rather than physically higher into the air.

And I don’t mean closer to the dock, I mean closer to the ground, in the mud. This is so that if there is an emergency they can make an escape into the water below.

Now to break it into easy little bite-sized pieces!

Keep in mind that the sea mother may not even be real and the Kua-Toans are so desperate to worship that they possibly made her up.

Her priest is currently named Ploopploopeen, you may choose to use the possible hook and have him show up after an ambush of other Kua-toans. His second in command (called the whip) is named Glooglugogg, who is actually his son.

In reality, she was dreaming about the Demogorgon and has gotten enough followers for there to be strife between her and her father. The Kua-toa people are basically split in half between these two factions. This is exactly what your characters get to walk in on.

5 Possible Plot Hooks

Sloobdelop is probably the most reasonable place for the players to go first, but if you want to sort of help steer them towards wanting to come here, here are some possible reasons why:

Basically, he will use the party as bait and offer them as a sacrifice, but instead, they will all attack her and her awful cult. He then pretend ties them up and brings them inside, putting them inside his house for them to rest and have some food, he may also give them weapons/gear that might be helpful in the upcoming fight… or he might not, depending on how you want to run your game.

Inside the city

Now that the party is inside Sloobludop it’s broken up basically into 4 spots, here is a free easy map with the possible combats and treasures of the area 🙂

Key points to know:

If you don’t read anything else in this article, hopefully you read this:

• Ploops Plan: Plooploopeen meets the party as they approach Sloobdelop (DMs choice on if it’s after an ambush from Bloppblippodd or not). He tells everyone that his daughter is trying to overthrow him as ruler. She worships a new entity (Leemogoogon!). Ploop has a plan – he tries to convince everyone to pretend to be prisoners that will be used for human sacrifices. No big deal.
• Keelboats: AC 15 HP 100 fits 6 people, DMG page 119. The Kuo-toa have 6 of these at the docks.
• Hemeth: The Leemogoogon worshiping Kuo-toa have a duergar named Hemeth that they are getting ready to sacrifice. He is being held in Bloppblippodd’s hovel and will be sacrificed at the same time as the players.
• The Ritual: This is one of the best scenes in the whole game. The ritual begins, and the DEMOGORGON rises out of the water to come to get his sacrifice! The heroes need to make DC 13 CHA saves or gain a level of madness.
  • The party has no chance against the Demogorgon, make sure to drop some obvious clues to give your party a fair warning.
    • You can have the Demogorgon make two tentacle attacks on a Sloobludop building and say out loud: “He has +17 to hit and does 35 damage per tentacle.”
• Make sure you use the titles of characters in the module, having to remember all the names is a huge pain in the butt, also use these super helpful tent cards:

The Ritual

The book has an amazing little blurb to read during this part, also having Ploop kill his own daughter is a great little extra that you should totally consider adding to your game.

And then of course the Demogorgon rises, all kinds of fun stuff. If you are playing your game in person and don’t want to buy a mini, you can make one on the cheap with this handy guide on how to make your own BBEG. The guide is actually specifically for the Demogorgon, so that works out. When I dropped it on the table my players almost shit a brick, it was amazing.

Try to give your players a bit of time to think about what they want to be doing before Sloobludop implodes, like when they are having their little rest in Ploops house (if they do that)

Players could potentially leave by boat or by land depending on which way they want to go. The NPCs will want to go specific ways and this might be the perfect opportunity to shrink down the massive NPC list.

Another little fun freebie for you (Wow I am so giving this article, I love that you are playing in the Underdark and I want to encourage it! Keep on keeping on)

I give you: Sloobludop afterwards!

Now get out there and go enjoy your game 🙂

Comment below if you have other awesome tips for DMs about to run Sloopdelop or things that should be added to the list to make it easier to run!

This concludes the Sloobludop Out of the Abyss Easy Guide.

Check out the next areas in Out of the Abyss to help you run your game faster and easier