The Underdark is a fictional setting which has appeared in Dungeons & Dragons role-playing campaigns and Dungeons & Dragons-based fiction books, including the Legend of Drizzt series by R. A. Salvatore. It is described as a vast subterranean network of interconnected caverns and tunnels, stretching beneath entire continents and forming an underworld for surface settings. Polygon called it "one of D&Ds most well-known realms".

Use in campaign settings

The Underdark featured prominently in the campaign settings World of Greyhawk

Features

The Underdark is a subterranean realm of enormous size inhabited by many different types of creatures such as drow, mind flayers, and aboleths. It extends far beyond the dungeons created by surface dwellers, and consists of caverns, tunnels and large complexes.

Environment

The fictional Underdark's physical characteristics are based upon conditions in real-world caverns deep underground, except at immense size. Within the context of a game, the Underdark is extremely dangerous, especially to non-native characters and creatures. There are also the usual dangers associated with caverns: claustrophobia, poor air circulation, floor/ceiling collapses and getting lost.

There is no light except for occasional patches of phosphorescent fungus; most Underdark inhabitants either have highly developed senses other than sight or have developed darkvision. Food can be extremely difficult to find, and much of the natural vegetation is poisonous. In addition, potable water is hard to locate.

In the Forgotten Realms setting, the Underdark is permeated with a magical energy the drow call faerzress, which is used as a source of energy by the native plant life and which interferes with scrying and teleportation spells.

Araumycos

In the Forgotten Realms setting, Araumycos (Dwarvish, literally meaning "Great Fungus") is an enormous fungal growth in the Upper Underdark under the continent of Faerûn. It is a single organism living beneath the High Forest between one and three miles under the surface, immune to magic and resistant to psionic energy. Araumycos will sometimes attack intruders with poison, spores, and manifestations that resemble oozes and slimes.

Media

Source books

  • and Icewind Dale II featured journeys through the Underdark. An expansion pack based on the Underdark setting was released for the Neverwinter Nights game series, titled Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark. The tilesets which came with the Hordes of the Underdark expansion pack were used in several persistent worlds, most notably Escape from the Underdark.

Notes

References

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Further reading

  • Pramas, Chris. "Underground Scenarios". Dragon #294. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.
  • Information at the official Forgotten Realms website
  • Psionic Races and Classes of the Realms