Lowerdark

No place on 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 upperworlders

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—intelligent or otherwise—

aren’t even aware of a surface world; others have heard of

it but consider it a mythical place.

Interspecies and intraspecies 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—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 Faerûn’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 adventurers 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,

travel the Lowerdark with a reasonable hope of success, assuming

that the traveler has a good sense of the destination.

Surviving in 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.) The Survival check

DCs for most tasks increase by 10.

Exacerbating these problems still further are numerous areas

of wild magic and dead magic. Though faerzress is rare here, the

magic-complicating feature is a high degree of portal seepage.

The darkness at this depth is so 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—

too large or too small for the light source, 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.

Denizens of the Lowerdark

Why would any creature with intelligence or common sense live in

such a terrible environment? Some races have lived here for generation

upon generation, and the Lowerdark is simply their home.

Other creatures settle here to take advantage of the Lowerdark’s

unique magical properties, rare ores, or shelter from the hated sun.

Still others view a sojourn in the Lowerdark as a temporary solution,

since the dead magic areas and hostile territory may be a

wanted criminal’s most expedient means of avoiding capture.

Of course, not everyone is in the Lowerdark by choice. Some

unfortunates are here because they neglected to research the destinations of the portals through which they ventured. Others

have been exiled here from communities in the Middledark, the

rid of potentially problematic subordinates by sending them on

exploratory or expansionistic raiding parties into the Lowerdark.

A triumphant scout returning from the mission into the depths

might find her unexpected survival fatally inconvenient to the

matron who dispatched her.

Several Middledark races make frequent forays into the Lowerdark.

Some do so because of expansionistic desires, others

because they need the resources, and a scant few because they

have something to prove. Grimlocks and orogs often set a

coming-of-age trial for their young warriors to mark the passage

between adolescence and adulthood. In a typical version of such a

trial, the youth is sent into the Lowerdark, sometimes armed only

with a dagger, and told to return with a trophy demonstrating his

competence and ability to contribute to the community.