Overview

Started by Mr. Cheez-It, October 12, 2005, 09:02:17 PM

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Mr. Cheez-It


(The Glimmersea)

While many surface dwellers regard the Underdark as all the same (one big cave, infested with hungry monsters), the wise adventurer prepares by studying what surface dwellers know about the Realms Below before venturing underground. Knowing what sorts of creatures and dangers lurk at what depths might mean the difference between life and death.

The Underdark is divided into three general areas: the Upperdark, the Middledark, and the Lowerdark.

The Upperdark

The Upperdark extends from the surface to a depth of about 3 miles. Varied races inhabit this region, including chitines, drow, dwarves, giants, all manner of goblinoids, orcs, svirfneblin, and wererats. Scouts from deeper races often venture into the Upperdark in order to trade with (or prey on) the races native to this area.

The Upperdark's main import from the surface is slaves. Slavers from evil-aligned cities in the Upperdark make frequent forays into the light to capture new slaves for us as either labor or food. They also trade for textiles, grains, fruit, and weapons. Their exports include raw ore, refined metals, gems, and native Underdark plants.

Travel in the Upperdark is relatively easy. Multiple paths to a single point usually exist, thanks to millennia of natural processes, volcanic activity, burrowing creatures, and various races cutting trails through the rock. In most places the surrounding earth is composed of rock, but near the surface, tunnels can be hewn out of tightly packed dirt, allowing creatures with burrow speeds that aren't cut through rock to blaze their own paths.

Surviving in the Upperdark

Basic amenities such as light, air, food, and water are less available in the Upperdark than on the surface, but they are common enough.

Luminescent flora and faerzress provide occasional light, though not consistently enough to allow a creature without darkvision to travel without an independent light source. Vents from the surface keep air fresh and moving in passages, so air quality is rarely an issue. Enormous underground lakes spread across hundreds of miles in some regions, and water trickles down from the surface in many others. Many water sources are guarded or fouled, but quite a few are both clean and open for anyone to use. Many different types of wild fungi are edible, and the Underdark equivalent of small game (rats, dire rats, lizards, and giant vermin) can easily be found in the tunnels. Domesticated animals, such as deep rothe, can also be found near most major population centers.

The Middledark

The Middledark lies between 3 and 10 miles beneath the surface of Faerun. Most larger cities of drow and duergar are in the Middledark. Other inhabitants include lone aboleths, cloukers, derro, grimlocks, and kuo-toas. A few mind flayer outposts are scattered throughout this level as well.

Settled communities in the Middledark commonly send trade caravans and raiding parties to the surface, or at least up to Upperdark trading centers such as Menzoberranzan and Ooltul. Visitors from the surface are rare and tend to be viewed as potential slaves or food. Caravan travel brings mostly luxuries; staples must be grown locally.

Travel in the Middledark can be difficult. In many cases, it's simply not possible to go from one place to another because no caves or tunnels lead in the right direction. To overcome this drawback, many of the races that dwell at this depth are prolific portal builders and tunnelers.

Surviving in the Middledark


The Middledark is, at its best, worse than the harshest surface deserts. Wild resources are hard to find, and most of those that do exist have already been placed under guard by someone else.

Glowing fungi and lichens are less common at this depth than they are in the Upperdark. They can be easily cultivated, but most concentrations of them appear in cities, not in the wild. Air tends to be stale, but breathable, though poisonous fumes choke out normal sir in a few areas. In many places, water is scare, and any large supply is well guarded. Creatures living at this depth get most or all of their water from the fluids in other creatures they eat. Food is the most plentiful of the necessities at this depth, but even that becomes an issue at the lower end of the depth range.

The Lowerdark

No place in Toril is as strange and dangerous as the Lowerdark.  This level of the Underdark extends from 10 miles below the surface to unfathomable depths and features a degree of strangeness that would drive some surface dwellers insane.  Few upper-worlders ever descend to the Lowerdark, and few of the Lowerdark's denizens want anything to do with the surface world.  Some of the creatures in the Lowerdark â€" intelligent or otherwise â€" aren't even aware of a surface world; others have heard of it but consider it a mythical place.

Interspecies and interspecies strife is the rule in the Underdark.  Resources are minimal, and weakness invites extermination.  Most of the Lowerdark's denizens are chaotic, evil, or both.  Even the vermin and animals encountered in this area are rarely ordinary â€" many have been transfigured by crossbreeding or magical interference.  Nothing here is normal or simple.

Travel in the Lowerdark is arduous at best.  The term Lower Underdark actually refers to many places, since the great domains of Faerun's Underdark possess fewer and fewer interconnections the deeper one delves.  Only about a third of the lowest sections of the Underdark actually connect to each other.  The rest of the Lowerdark consists of isolated pockets of space reachable only from the Middledark, by water, or by transportation magic.

Typically only one route exists to any given point, and that is what must be used unless the traveler plans to dig one.  Though time consuming and cumbersome, many adventures find it expedient to do just that, so they keep the necessary magic items and spells handy to make their own tunnels as needed.  Fortunately, faerzress is rare at this depth, so teleportation can be used to travel the Lowerdark with a reasonable hope of success, assuming that the traveler has a good sense of the destination.

Surviving the Lowerdark

The Lowerdark is a strange realm warped by severe environmental and magical forces.  The problems that pervade the rest of the Underdark intensify here.  Resources are scarce and control of them is continually contested.  Air does filter down this far, but it is frequently stale and occasionally toxic because of geothermal fumes.  Water is virtually nonexistent, and the little that is present is well guarded.  Food cannot be found in the wild, unless the hunter has no aversion to cannibalism.  (Many creatures at this depth survive by this means.)

Exacerbating these problems still further are numerous areas of wild magic and dead magic.  Though faerzress is rare here, the Weave in the Lowerdark is a snarled, tangled mess.  Yet another magic-complicating feature is a high degree of portal seepage.

The darkness at this depth is do deep that it seems to actively dislike light.  Natural light sources fail with unnerving frequency, and magical light sources draw attackers like flies to rotten fruit.  In some places, the shadows cast in areas of light are unnatural â€" too large or too small for the light sources, or cast in contradictory angles.  Even beings with darkvision see a flickering of dark around the edges of their vision, as if the darkness were trying to drown out any sight at all.

Mr. Cheez-It

Further Information

The information in this section has been provided to give players a basic understanding of the Underdark. Those wishing to further enhance their roleplaying will find additional information in the following sourcebooks:

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Underdark