Underdark¶
"The underdark is littered with Hollows." — What Happened to...? (S327)
The Underdark is the world below Terrun: the caverns, chasms, dwarf-roads and drowned halls that run beneath every continent and connect places that are far apart on the surface. It is the old home of the Dwarves, whose "great dwarven halls of old have been abandoned and in most cases overrun by the foul things that lurk in the Underdark" (S024), and the present home of Goblins1 and Silek, Dark Elves2, Duergar, the Cthul and worse. This page gathers what the sources say of its shape and of the named places within it. The Hollows that infest it are a Cosmology matter; the kingdoms that once ruled it, Kahun'Darahl and Dru'Bazan, have their own pages.
The shape of the deep¶
The Demonlands notes divide the Underdark, "the Endless Caverns below", into three strata (S341, S340):
| Stratum | Character |
|---|---|
| Shallow | "Limestone formation, ancient burrowers, titanic faults, sheer & splits." |
| Deep | "Sleeping titans, ancient burrowers, elemental uplift, tubes and tides." |
| Core | "Near to the core, gravity is strange here. Elemental vents and scars provide most of the structure." |
Veins of exposed Mithis ore make the deep places dangerous in a way the surface is not. "Veins of exposed Mithis ores create Hollows everywhere. Further, there isn't a single object to get rid of to destroy the Hollow, its generated from the entire vein, making these Hollows virtually indestructible. There isn't much you can do about these other than seal them away and keep them contained" (S327). The great dwarven fortresses "which they carved with Mithis-infused stone ... now are the source of powerful Hollows", and in some places the Dwarves are blamed for them (S327). The Rift mirrors the Underdark too: rocks tethered to it are "jagged rock, caves, mushrooms" (S002, S009), and the Sunspire and Tutull clusters of the Rift "seem to be in conjunction with the deep earth and feature some underdark ruins" (S066).
Peoples of the deep¶
The Dwarves have reluctantly stopped living underground; "it is too dangerous", and "their ancient halls are now almost without exception Hollowed" (S327). Of the Dwarven kin only the Duergar, "the Burningeyes", still "make their homes in the deep underdark", trading "with orcs, goblins, dark elves and worse" (S387, S372). The Goblins "are an underdark race that have done surprisingly well", having "taken up witchcraft wholeheartedly and built a mutually beneficial relationship with Devils and their Hollows", so that other races see them "as agents of the Hollows" (S327). The Silek, the demon-bred goblins also called Guhvils, are "the inheritors of many dwarven halls and relics": "most Silek civilizations span regions of the Underdark", and they keep Duergar and dwarven slaves for their metalwork (S025).
The Dark Elves build "deep subterranean cities" (Terus'Moradrim), while the Sic'Moradrim are "renowned bandits, thieves and assassins of the underdark" who "prey upon the other denizens" (S387). The deep gnomes "live in the dark corners of the underdark" and are "extremely stealthy and notoriously vicious"; the night trolls, allergic to sunlight, live there only, and the iron giants, non-elemental descendants of the fire giants, are an underdark people (S387). Mind Flayers threaten the tunnels of the Blue Mountains (S372), and an Elder Brain "controls [a] large area" of the Buried Realms with its thralls (S199). Jorogu, the Demon Goddess of Spiders, is worshipped by Dark Elves and chitines; her Ascendant Argione is "a huge female spider active in the deep underdark below central Numenia", and her fallen daughter Estridaa keeps "a small following of Good-aligned drow, chitines, choldrith and arachne/driders in south central Numenian Underdark" (S021). In Moarte a race of arachne raids the surface from "their holds in the underdark" and has emptied the Bloodfire Chasm mines, which "have now been connected to the Underdark" (S372).
Regions and holds¶
The Buried Realms¶
The Sancturi campaign's descent into the deep (S199, S200) sketched a map of what it called the Buried Realms, a region of warring Hollows and fallen dwarf-holds (S199, S200).
| Place | What it is | Who holds it |
|---|---|---|
| The Rushing Void | "huge underground chasm" | the Cult of the Dragon, with black drakes and a black dragon |
| The Great Magma Sea and the Firelands | sea of magma and the lands about it | fire elementals and fire giants |
| Kam'Darahl | an old dwarfhold; "Darahl means Sunstone/Jewel/Light" | a Hollow of demonic orcs sworn to Asmodean |
| Rhum'Balar, Turu'Golir, Kher'Daghor | dwarfholds | the Hollow of Belphegor "and his Infernal Machines", worked by infernal goblins |
| Tal'Morovix | a Dark Elven city | Belphegor's Hollow |
| Zur'Exhil | a Dark Elven Hollow "centered around Dark Elven Civ." | "twisted elves" of Asmodean |
| (unnamed) | "large area" | the Elder Brain and its thralls; elsewhere the demonic Duergar of Asmodean |
| Bhon'Thir | a dwarven iron strip mine | — |
| Ber'Lodir | an orc Hollow, once a dwarven trading settlement, where Dwarrow engineering was being disrupted | orcs |
The same notes record a dwarven refuge keep, a hermit witch of the deep named Formol with her Witches Manual of the Endless Dark, and "a dwarven madman searching for a passage to the Hidden City of Thurn'Badir, said to be a jewel of the White Towers. Deep in the Buried Realms..." (S200).
Gap
The notes do not say where beneath Numenia the Buried Realms lie, nor how they relate to the Great Dwarven Kingdom or the Blue Mountains.
The Endless Caverns¶
Beneath the Demonlands run the Endless Caverns, the three-layered Underdark described above. The demonic harvesting machine Drazannak, buried under a ruin by Daennelgin, "has a connection to the Underdark, the Endless Caverns below" (S341). The Dwarven Roads that cross the Demonlands underground are "a critical supply route" watched by the containment squads of the Order of Valyr, and the Abandoned Dwarven Garrison on them was the secret laboratory of Nurizak, the Valyr engineer who built Daennelgin and its siblings (S341). Those places are described on the Demonlands page.
Whitefall and Whitestill¶
The Fourth Age campaign that gave the Underdark its chronicle, Escape from the Underdark, began in a dragon's lair with "Drow Temple rock-work" and a stench of death, and climbed through the caverns below the mountains between Dalmar and Dru'Bazan (S328). A large cavern with a lake lay below it, where goblins by firelight were "sacrificing to their nameless tentacle lake monster". The Whitefall River runs through a chasm 150 feet deep and leads to Whitestill lake, where a semi-friendly gnomish settlement protects itself with summoned water elementals and water weirds, and keeps mines and farms enough to be self-sufficient; kuo-toa hold the far side of the lake and its water-warrens. Across the chasm one path climbs through limestone caverns to a fungal nest of fungal zombies and tribal quaggoths; another follows old iron mines to the Cursed Dwarven Hold of Dru'Bazan, ruled below by the quaggoth Ingoh and cursed above, whose dwarven gates open onto a snowbound mountain pass (S328). Under Redallion in Angorath, the cavern beneath the Temple of Khardas "leads to the Underdark", which there "is also filled with twisted abominations" of the Earthblight; a bore hole a mile deep gives onto a small cavern that "fills [a] Dark Elf Town", caverns of corrupted mushrooms and corrupted pigs, and ways that lose the unwary for days (S328).
Beneath Proturas¶
Proturas, "a hidden city located in a large cave (pothole)", is itself a place of the deep, and its hidden roads have been destroyed again and again to keep its enemies out (S002, S009). Below it lies Pro'Turra, "one of the twelve great fortresses of the dwarven kingdom of Kahun'Darahl", collapsed and warded as the tomb of the primal dragon Vixseranyol (S031); a clan-hall of old Pro'Turra opens from a secret door in a Warrens forge (S028). Above the city, a sealed part of the abandoned dwarf-hold hides the hall of the Circle of Eternity (S061); Black Iron Hold, "a converted Dwarven Hold below Proturas", keeps its most powerful and magical prisoners (S051). The Tolassovores who run the Cutters came "from cracks connecting [the Spillwater basin] to deeper waters" and live "in a flooded dwarf-clan hold" below Spillwater, lit by dim blue magical lights (S028). The lair of the White Hand in the Warrens "spills into the Underdark where more powerful minions of Teneb'Urat are gathering: Gorgons, Quetztls, Naga and other Serpentfolk" (S061, S028).
The Tenebrian City¶
From the Lost Mine below the Warrens, where the Tenebrians work slaves in copper seams behind doors of Tenebrian Bronze, an underground lake "stretches off into the void", and "across the lake and further into the underdark is the Tenebrian City" (S065). The mine's shrine holds a polished statue of Teneb'Urat, "a fearsome creature with six arms and a serpentine body" with "the venomous head of a viper", before which failed slaves are fed to the snake god while the others watch. Slaves judged strong and willing are given the Tenebrian transformation, in which "snakes seem to be writhing under [the] skin"; the rest feed the fungus farm (S065).
Gap
The Tenebrian City itself is never reached or described; the sources know only that it lies across the lake.
Beneath Arne'Athosia¶
The Dwarven Gate in the ruins of Anoth-Urulien opens on "a passage to the Underdark" and "dwarven roads which lead to the capitol city of the kingdom of Duer'Gerrum", a city since "overrun with Lizardkin"; the same roads "connect with local parts of the underdark as well, including the ruins of the capitol" of Arne'Athosia, Alyr-Emuien, and "a giant scourged serpent makes his home in these tunnels" (S054). The Shrine of Kae-Ferrel nearby "may or may not have partially collapsed into the Underdark", and the cultists of Teneb'Vari "have created a large underground network in the forbidden zone" that "surrounds and connects several shrines and temples" (S054).
Two chambers of that shrine are named as parts of the deep. The Whispering Chamber was "a place to meditate and communicate with the dead", and "is now an echo-chamber for Teneb'Vari which enhances her Corruption/Suggestions". The Path of the Dead is "a maze symbolizing the transition after death ... and distractions that would lead to failure", in which a ghost is spawned for every traveller who enters; its "failure" tunnels below are the lair of a Scourged giant snake "and can strike many parts of the maze from them" (S054). The maze's door opens only to the blood of the Guardian, the Gatekeeper, the Guide and the Traveller, and its three keys unlock the inner sanctum (S054).
Kilmarn, the cave road and the Wormblood caverns¶
The temple complex of Kilmarn, in the Broken Sea lands, is "one entrance into a vast underground labyrinth" contested by the Brotherhood of the Sun, the Hollowlord Urk'maggo and two other hostile Hollows (S163). Its Halls of Khardas keep "a hidden and sealed passage to the underdark" on the magma side and a sealed "cave road" marked "DANGER! DO NOT OPEN", which winds "through a collection of natural limestone caverns with stalactites/mites, lakes and rivers" where a lesser vampire bat has slept since the age of the Dark Sun (S163). Beyond the Temple of Falling Stones the road opens into a hollowed limestone cavern three hundred feet across and fifty high, lit by "pale green glowing light" from man-sized glowing mushrooms, and descends to a U-shaped lake with "a large single rock with windows", a Dark Elven outpost whose dead still guard "two golden coffers full of jewels" and Hollowed armour (S165).
Eleven days into the same descent the Sancturi campaign's party found the way branching three times (S167). Upward, half a mile on, a much larger limestone cavern held large cave bats and a grell colony, and beyond it the Ancient Dwarven Road and the Minor Hollows. Left, a quarter of a mile on, a collapsed cavern gave onto a carved passage twelve feet high and ten wide, "made by dwarven slaves", leading past yellow sulphur crystals to the Major Hollow with its "sulfurous smell". Down and right, a mile of winding crawlspace reached a waterfall cavern and, beyond it, the long cavern of the brown goblins under their leader Gusziv: the Wormblood Goblin Cavern City (S167). Separately, the Wormblood Hollow with its wormblood cavern, where vulture demons were found feeding on a corpse, lies under the fisherman's wharf of Miralt (S171), and the sea caves near Brusau, fifty feet of climbing through broken rock into a low cavern two hundred feet long, showed the same "indicator of hollowing" (S172).
Gap
The sources do not say whether the goblin city of S167 and the Wormblood Hollow of S171 are the same caverns, nor how far the cave road runs from Kilmarn before the branches.
Gor'Turra and the Great Dwarven Kingdom¶
"A great Hollow" surrounds the ruins of Gor'Turra, where an archdemon keeps his domain and dozens of demons their mortiqueries in the old Hall of Artificers, "once ... filled with industrious dwarves crafting all manner of wondrous objects" and now "an empty and barren place, strewn with rock, dirt and bones" (S031). To its north and east the demon prince Orcus "rules a large kingdom of undead in the underdark" (S372), and the Kalamite Axe of the High King lies "lost somewhere in Kahun'Darahl", in his possession (S182). The sprawling halls of the Great Dwarven Kingdom, taken in the Dragon Wars and never recovered, are described on the Kahun'Darahl page; the tunnels of the Blue Mountains, "under constant threat from Goblins, Uruks, Dark Elves and Mind Flayers" (S429), on that region's page.
History¶
The deep has been a battlefield in every age. In the Goblin Wars of 541–617 MA, in the Age of Magic, "the larger part of this war was fought in the Underdark", and it ended "with the death of Orc warlord Uta-Bek in the Underdark" (S386). In the Second Dragon War "much of the focus of the war turned to the Underdark", the dwarven holds that had been "islands of strength" were overwhelmed, and the Great Dwarven Kingdom was left to goblins, orcs and dark elves (S386, S372). In the Second Rift War the demons of Halath "invaded the Underdark" instead of crossing seas and mountains, overran orc, dark elf and dwarven settlements, and "used the tunnels of the Underdark to move around any obstacle"; they were never cleared "from much of the Underdark" (S386). The dark elves began the War of the Moradrim "from their underground strongholds" and were pushed back into them (S386). The Hollowing of the Fifth Age finished what the wars began, filling the deep with Hollows "destroying the creatures of the deep earth at a stunning rate" (S031) and driving the Dwarves to the surface (S327).
Earlier accounts¶
- What Happened to...? (S327, 2018) and Major Races (S024, 2020) describe a deep abandoned by the Dwarves altogether. Later and Fourth Age material shows dwarves still living in and under the mountains: the Dru'Bazan of the Fourth Age keep under-roads between Kaelten and Duer'allen (S328), and the Fifth Age gazetteer calls Dru'Bazan "a dwarven settlement deep in the underdark" (S066). The pages for those kingdoms follow the newer accounts.
- The Compendium (S372, S384) names the Underdark threats of the Blue Mountains as "Goblins, Uruks and Mind Flayers"; the later compiled overview (S429) adds Dark Elves.
In Play¶
Expect limestone and sulphur, sealed dwarven doors with warnings on them, roads built for dwarves and widened by their slaves, lakes with something in them, and light only where fungus or Hollowed stone gives it. Every great hold has a new master: a Hollow, a cult, a demon, a goblin clan. The Escape from the Underdark, Sancturi and Proturan campaigns each went below; their chronicles tell what they found.