The Underdark

THE UNDERDARK

DESCRIPTION - LOCATION - PEOPLE - CLIMATE - FLORA - FAUNA - RESOURCES

• Description:

The Underdark is a subterraineal world, found deep underground. It is the all encompassing world of tunnels and giant caverns under the earth, filled with a surprisingly large amount of life in its dark and dismal environment.

Far underground, the endless number of tunnels which run their lengths through the Underdark create a world much more vast than anything above ground. And just as the world is as different above ground, it is the same below. Caverns full of stalactites and stalagmites are highly abundant, some even crealring away into underground cities. Seas of stagnant water can be found in the darkness, and opposite to that, closer to warmer parts of the world, caverns aglow with magma flow.

Location:

Neither can the underdark be found by travelling north, east, south, nor west, but rather, downwards, into the depths of the earth. It is the world below ground.

People:

There are many intelligent races found in the Underdark which form their own societies. Some may include:

Drow

One of the most well known people that populate the Underdark, the Drow are a race of evil elves, driven below ground by their cousins far in the past. Now, their time is spent in violent conflicts with one another and plans against the world above, as the Drow live violent and cruel lives, based around power.

Appearance:

Like all elves, the Drow possess lithe figures, have slender and long fingers, and chiseled features. The skin tone of Drow range from grey to black, and their hair is white, though some usually dye it other colours.

Abilities:

All Drow possess the power of infravision, or commonly called elvensight, which allows them to see in the dark due to the temperature of their surroundings, however, living underground, drow have a further range in this power than other elves. Also, like their above ground cousins all drow possess an innate ability in the art of spellcraft, however, specifically the drow are the very masters of the art. Like all elves, the drow possess a natural resistance to diseases and extreme temperatures as well as some enchantment spells compared to other species.

Society:

Drow society is made up of many noble houses and merchant families, all opposing one another in a struggle for power, as the drow believe that only the strongest may rule. Matriarchal in nature, the females are the leaders of the Drow, and are generally more powerful than any male counterpart. Worshipping their spider goddess, Lloth, drow have an affinity for spiders.

The Drow live in giant cities underground, whose architecture is as wonderous as it is horrible. Feuds between rival noble houses or merchant families are common, usually spilling into wars within the city grounds.

Derro and Duergar

Dwarves, whose homes and strongholds are based underground beneath mountains or rolling hills, are not truely creatures of the underdark, as their strongholds and cities are often not too far underground and they are carefully build, sealed away from the subterraineal world.

However, there are dwarves that live in the underdark. Unlike their cousins, these dwarves are evil, having been driven deep below ground. There are two verieties of dwarves in the Underdark, and those are the Derro and Duergar. Derro, the more vile of the two are charactaristically cruel. Duergar live in the etreme depths, and sunlight provides pain to their vision, which keeps them from venturing above ground.

Appearance:

Derro are duminitive dwarves, smaller than the others. They are short compared to other dwarves, possessing white skin with blueish undertones, sickly pale yellow hair, and pupiless eyes.

Duergar however, are more healthy speciments. Though they live in the far extreme depths, they appear as other dwarves, but for their nasty look. They have grey skin, which gives them their common name of 'grey dwarf', white or dull grey beards, and their heads are usually bald, shaved or naturally.

Abilities:

Like all dwarves, the dwarves of the underdark also do not possess any great skill with spellcraft, being only limited to priests. Derro however, do not worship deities. However, they are very well attuned to their subterraineal homes.

Society:

Derro build their lairs closer to the surface than drow or kuo-toa, but deeper than goblins or trolls. They are led by a leader called a savant, which they readily obey. The derro possess mob mentality, and are never encountered alone.

Duergar however are the same as all other dwarves, but they live much harsher lives due to being in the deep underground.

Deep Dwarves

Unlike the Derro or Duegar, the deep dwarves are not evil by nature, but more neutral. They are the dwarves that escaped deep underground early on in history, and are considered the most isolated of all dwarves, avoiding all outsiders, and also, they consider themselves as the most pure of dwarves, their ways untainted by other influences of the world.

Appearance:

Deep dwarves appear thinner than other dwarves, but possess big bones. Their hair range from red to blonde, their skin range from a light tan to a pale brown, and their large eyes are usually a pale blue. Unlike other dwarves, the females of thise species do not shave and wear their beards long.

Abilities:

Like all dwarves, the dwarves of the underdark also do not possess any great skill with spellcraft, being only limited to priests. However, they are very well attuned to their subterraineal homes.

Society:

Deep dwarves share the same society as other dwarves. However, isolated, they do not readily trust strangers, and often are at war with the other creatures of the Underdark.

Illithid

The great horrors of the Underdark, commonly known as the mind flayer, the illithid are a race of powerful psionic creatures. They often enslave, kill, or even eat the minds of their enemies.

Appearance:

Illithid are humanoid creatures that stand 6' tall. Their skin is muave and glistens with slime. The head of an illithid resembles and octopus; with two white eyes and four tentacles around its maw, a many toothed circular orifice like that of a lamprey.

Abilities:

Illithids are extremely powerful psionic creatures, able to communicate with any creature using telepathy, though they have no spoken language themselves, hisses and clickings will accompany their thoughts. Illithid, like many of the subterraineal creatures, possess infravision. They also possess skill in spellcraft.

The powerful psionics of a mind flayer is able to create a mind blast, a psionic cone of force, which stuns creatures in its are of effect. Also, illithid have many other mind affecting abilities, usually more powerful than any other creature can produce due to their mental prowess.

The tentacles of a mind flayer are extremely powerful, able to rend someone's head open if given the chance so that the illithid may feed on the victim's brain.

Society:

Illithid form communities of 200 to 2000 in numbers, each having slaves which are controlled by a powerful mental connection and will obey their masters without question. The center of a community is the elder brain, a pool of briny fluid that houses all the brains of the community's dead illithid. In this state, the telepathic brains merge together and elder brain is still sentient, it's influence reaching up to 5 miles in radius. The combined telepathic influence of the elder brain rules the community.

The elder brain is not able to attack, but due to it's far reaching telepathic influence, it is able to communicate with the rest of the community, warning it when intelligent creatures enter it's area of influence.

Illithid have no family structure. Their activities are eating, communicating, debating with each other, and forcing slaves to fight in gladiatoral combat.

Svirfneblin

Svirfneblin, or Deep Gnomes, unlike all the other racial counterparts that live in the Underdark, are not evil. Attracted by the lure of gemstones, these gnomes live in the underdark, digging for the precious stones. They are the mortal enemies of drow.

Appearance:

Deep Gnomes are small creatures, about 3' tall with wirey muscles and strong bones. Like all gnomes, they have predominant noses. Their skin is rock coloured, usually grey or brown, and their eyes are shades of grey or black. Generally, svirfneblin have hairless bodies, but females may have some thin stringy hair.

Abilities:

Deep gnomes, like many of the creatures of the Underdark have infravision. Also, they have an innate form of magic resistance and are experts at hiding in their underground environment. Also, like the dwarves, they are highly atuned with their environment, able to detect slopes, depths, and directions underground. Deep gnomes, like many gnomes, are also innate illusionists.

Society:

Svirfneblin have very rigid roles in society due to gender, unlike many other gnomish cultures. The males take the task of mining, soldiering, and almost all other jobs within their cities. Females however are exclusively given the jobs to raise the young and prepare food. Deep gnomes govenment is made up of a monarchy.

Climate:

Subterraineal, the Underdark does not experience weather.

Flora:

The Underdark, being subterraineal, lacks sunlight. Vegetation usually ranges from various species of moss and fungi, though many plants that do not need sunlight also grow in thea areas of the Underdark. Some special forms of plantlife include one such vegitation that grows close to water, letting out an iridescent glow. This usually attracts insects close to the water or small fish, which it catches with a tantacle and slowly devours in its transparent stomach, and others are the various sentient forms of fungi.

Fauna:

There is no place safe in the Underdark for travellers, each creature after another. It is a horrible envirnonment where only the strong survive. In the endless darkness of the underground, horrors await at every turn.

In the labirynth like tunnels, umber hulks, massive creatures with scaley hides and iron like claws bore their way through stone to hunt down prey. Possessing the power to confuse prey when it looks into any of their four eyes, the monster can easily tear adventurers apart in a manner of seconds with sharp claws and great mandibles.

In the open caverns of the deep dark, one can always be attacked by lurkers, a monster similar to a stingray which drops down on top of prey to kill and eat, or the great eye tyrants, beholders, monsters with spherical bodies that float around, one giant eye adorning their body while several eyestalks sprout from the top of their heads, each eye magical in nature.

Or the leftovers of the drow, driders, monsters which use to be drow, but have fallen in disfavor and cursed to have the upper body of their former selves and the lower body of that of a giant spider. Twisted and destroyed, these mindless abominations are commonly hunted by the drow or used as sentries in areas.

In the dark stagnant bodies of water of the Underdark, a vicious race of fishmen called Kuo-Toa dwell, appearing as bloated bodied people with the heads of fish, their limbs short, and their toes and fingers long and webbed. Or worse, the aboleth, a giant plump looking fish 20' in length with three eyes in the front of its head. It possesses four tentacles and a round toothless maw. The moster moves on land with its tentacles, and swims through the waters. However, worse of all, it is a highly intelligent monster that enslaves others for its evil biddings.

Yet, though the underdark houses such monsters, there is more to it that that. In the great arcane depths of the world, there are many portals and tears, open to the denizens of other planes, such as the Githyanki from the astral plane, or the devils from the abyss.

However, not everything is harmful, as the drow have managed to tame species of giant lizards that live underground as steeds in their battles, or a species of musk ox-like mammals with an aversion to light called rothe that live near moss and lichen.

Resources:

A dismal place like the Underdark does not produce vast amounts of food, though most creatures feed off one another and some even canabalize their own.

However, underground, there are many precious gemstones to be found or veins of metals; iron, coal, gold, silver, adamantite, some of the possibilities. Adamantite, on special metal only found in the underdark, is exclusively used by the drow in making their armor, weapons, and cities, as they are the only ones capable of using the metal for craftings such things. It is said that adamantite is the strongest of all metals, but it is never found above ground because of the natural radiation that the Underdark produces, it disintegrates in sunlight instantly and will slowly disintegrate if removed from the radiation of the underdark. Drow, when found on the surface, usually carry armor which are heavily enchanted due to the restriction of adamantite.

((Moves the city to its own thread))

Traversing through Underdark, the mercenary band was wary of attack, especially in such a place where attacks came at anytime, from any direction. One of which was the drow named Beldaeyn. Like many of the others around him, he did not dress the same as any other, his armour appearing as a light breastplate, pitch black, absorbing any light which struck it. His weapon too, were very much unlike the usual drow, they were not adamantine, instead, the metal had a somewhat blue hue to it. But of course, his equipment radiated magic, being enchanted by such.

Like him, none of the other drow had anything made of adamantine. It was something relatively odd, but there must be a reason for this. And that reason was that they were a part of a surface expedition force, currently on leave to return to the underdark until they were called back to duty. This specific group, which Beldaeyn was a part of, were headed to Nezlidrichynn, which of course was not far off, as the central gates, built right into the stone, loomed over them as they neared.

The group was met with a challenge, where an answer was returned by one of the drow. A moment of silence later, the gates began to creak open, straining the gears as the mercenaries entered the city of Nezlidrichynn, Beldaeyn among them...

Weeks of traversing the caverns and tunnels below the city of Lament had lead the small band of explorers deep into the earth. It was hard to judge the passage of time exactly since the band had only been sending communications to the surface via magical spells. However, they knew that there were a massive network of tunnels that most likely extended under the entire mountain range, and perhaps even further. However, even with all the progress the team had made, they still had no more information reguarding why Lament had been attacked. Still, they searched on, hoping to find an answer.

The small group of explorers examined the body for a few moments before noticing the trail of old blood leading away from the body. The smell was horrible. The party couldn't tell exactly how long it had been laying there, but they could clearly see the trail of blood leading away from the body. By the clothes on the corpse, they believed it to be from Lament. This was the first clue they had towards the raid, and so, they moved on quickly following the blood trail.

The five guards moved to surround the other members of the party, begining to charge energy, warrily looking around for the source of the clicking noises. They drew their weapons looking about as best they could in the darkness, listening for any sign of movement or attack.

The light glow from the energies being charged was enough to illuminate the flash of a claw as it swooped down from the darkness and towards one of the guards. With a shout, his sword flew up, catching the claw as a powerful barrier went up from one of the guards, surrounding the group in a protective barrier of bright light energy, enough to illuminate for a distance of about thirty feet, farther with less effect, as well as protect the small party from most types of attacks.

The guard who's sword had made contact with the beast's claw let loose with a burst of lightning energy that traveled down the length of his short sword sword in a flash as it made contact. The guard to his right then let lose with a powerful flame related burst towards where the creature should be, the flames being enough to scorch exposed body parts and burn clothing with relative ease, the energies passing though the light barrier to make contact.

The two remaining guards heard rubble crunch as something dropped from the ceiling behind them. They then spun about and combined their two energies to launch a powerful strike of ice and wind energy. The shards of ice whipped about in the cutting force of the wind, creating a small storm of cutting blades to attack the creature. With any luck, this first strike would help to dissuade further attacks from the beats.

Small lightning-like lines pulsed about on the barrier as the mostly dead creature made contact and slid down to the cave floor. The other two guards turned to face the creature that had been knocked back, and then the four free guards slammed their hands to the ground, the four of them combining their energies to form a powerful ground based attack.

The ground around the creature would erupt into a flurry of razor sharp spikes traveling at nearly thirty miles per hour. The tips of the spikes were as sharp as a pin head, and supported by bases that were roughly six inches in diameter. Hopefully these would be strong enough to defeat the creature.

The group then quickly headed out of the cavernlike opening and towards the tunnel beyond, still wary. Chances were that those screaches would alert more creatures that another meal had arrived, so with guard high, the group moved on following the trail of dried blood.

The small party looked around at the area. It was massive. The air was quite chilly, oddly enough. Colder than the air had been before. It seemed they had arrived, both at their destination, and at a sort of crypt holding god knows what within its musty confines.

The trail of blood had seemed to come to an end in this place. The small party then began to walk inside the large open area, still wary of another surprise attack. Chances of finding survivors from the raid deminished as not a sound was heard in the stagnant place.

They could not shake the feeling that their deaths would soon come within these walls.

The group didn't stop to admire the moaning throngs of undead bodies walking towards them. They formed a circle again, one of the five guards once more creating a barrier around the group as the four remaining sent powqerful blasts of flames at the closest bodies.

All the while, they moved for what looked like an exit opposite the room...

Just outside Nezlidrichynn, in one of the main tunnels towards the city, a creature wandered. A shadow within the already dark tunnels, the creature only gives itself away by the glow of it's single visible eye, a dull blue throw down the darkness. It moves quietly, and slowly, hands tucked within sleeves, clutching unknown objects. Out of place, the creature appeared Drow, by dark clothing and silent nature alone.

The thing blinked, blue eye vanishing for a moment, before hands parted and turned upwards, at the guards, showing a sign of no-ill will. Soft 'thack's accompanied whatever he was clutching falling to the dirt-packed floor. It made soft, gutteral, mumblings. "Nngh. Uhhnn."

The guard with the polearm would notice what looked to be socks, made of a brown canvas material, tied shut but a thong of leather. Coincidentally, these rested on the creatures feet. "Uhhhn." He groans in agitation, before slapping away the weapon. "Nngh." He murmurs, hands and entire body taking the defensive, legs going wide, and foot hooking the pouch so as to keep it over the top of it.

The creature was there, one moment, standing calmly, if somewhat defensively. And then body was a snake, writhing and lashing, though with precision. Foot would hack sock into the air, while arm was brought forward to intercept Glaive, other slinging to capture the longsword in reinforced hand, stony glove on hand. Thrust was ignored, blade slicing through cloth of torso, to exhume on the otherside... Injury? Nay, Alteration. Cannonball belly, such fun.

The thing debated this sudden opening. The guard with the intercepted swipe would find his eyes meeting golden light, and his hands capturing air, as Adamantine weapon was decomposed and stolen, metal slinking acrossed the cloth of his arm, to swirl about his face, creating a simplistic mask, covering one half of his face, and the rest of the metal forming hooks around the back, to keep it on. Stone glove, now with no service, curled with gentle guidance, and thrust forward, aiming to smash the guard's face.

The thing was once again quick. Second pouch was flung into the air, caught by hand, and brought open with a flick. The creature held it within it's hand, like one might a staff, around the lip. The package was brought to lips, like a blowgun, and exhaled into, powerfully... And then it too, glowed. THis he pinched shut, letting it swell with whatever the hell, while his body nimbly leaned back, from the first swing of sword, the second by Glaive parried with a deft hand. The package glowed like a paper latern, a dull blossom.

The thing grinned, pleasantly. Bringing the pouch to torso as one might hold a football defensively, pinched tip outward, he let it go slowly, hot air accumulating pressure, as fire belched out like a flamethrower. Interesting device. Simple pouch, spewing... flame. The tunnel would quickly fill with the gagging stench of sulphur.

The creature had left atleast one living. The punched one. They had circled, not bumrushed him. The two still standing, indeed were flash-fried by the bag of aggrivated sulphur, but the first, question-posing one would be bound by strong ribbons of canvas, and silenced by a gag of likeminded material.

"Ilkalik..." a man said in a crumbly voice. The Ilkalik ignored them but when a member of the group moves and place its gunpoint on the heart of the creature, It screams in a very unlikely voice... "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrkkkkk" the sound produce echo in the entire place. The Ilkalik attacked the three and one of them fall into the ground with blood on his head. One supported the other, prepare his shield and ready to fight. The people look at them doing nothing. So the gang continued their survival. The archer attacked the creatures structure, then it scream again. The noise attracted the master.

The master! Wearing black robe, his face is no longer seen but the master has this unlikely weapon shinning when the master pull it out from his firm cloth. But the master do nothing but to stand. "He's glorifying" the archer murmured. The archer attacked again the creature. The Ibalik's eyes turned fire red from sea blue. "This is different" the master said. He conquer the Ibalik with his sword and strike it against the creature...