What’s below dungeons?

According to fantasy trope, the depths of the earth harbor a vast network of caves. In Dungeon Delver’s Guide (coming to Kickstarter on August 30th), we include a gazetteer of Underland, a primordial cavern realm that is unsettling, unfamiliar—and best avoided by all but the most seasoned adventurers. Standing apart from mere cave adventures, Underland locations are vivid with color, teeming with unfamiliar monsters, and bristling with barbed adventure hooks. 

For us, the two creative cornerstones for Underland are that it is weirder and older than the rest of the world. It is a realm of dreamlike antiquity. One way we tried to accomplish this is by drawing inspiration from pre- and early-20th century fantasy literature. Our Underland owes obvious inspiration to Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, but also to Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, Baum’s Oz books, George Macdonald’s The Princess and the Goblin, and William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land, among others.

The Color of Darkness

Despite being a realm of sunless stone, Underland is not drab. Mushrooms (and mushroom forest, and mushroom creatures) bloom with unhealthy brightness. Walls glow red and green with phosphorescent algae. Colored lights that blink from the darkness may be creatures such as flash jellies, flumphs, and deadly bright orbs.

In some places in Underland, even the stones glow. Twinkling from walls and ceilings are mysterious crystals that harbor psychic energy. Small veins of psychic crystals provide no benefit beyond faint blue illumination. Creatures dwelling near larger deposits can become sensitive to psionic energy, gaining unique powers and vulnerabilities.

Ancient Mysteries

Scattered throughout Underland are vast and inscrutable feats of engineering—huge basalt dams devoid of water, miles-long pillared hallways, clockwork bridges that raise and lower over empty canals, arched chambers containing abandoned cities, and aqueducts threading vast chasms. Some travel still takes place on ancient but well-preserved roads that run throughout Underland. These highways are bracketed for torches and pierced by side tunnels that lead to notoriously deadly mazes filled with cave-ins, death traps, and monster lairs.

These ancient monuments seem to hint at a time when Underland was more populous. One can’t help but wonder who built such marvels—and whether they will ever return.

Here are a couple of Underland’s adventure locations. In the following locales, the notation (DDG) indicates that a monster’s stat block appears in Dungeon Delver’s Guide. Note that Underland journeys are designed for adventurers of at least 8th level!

The Court of Spores

In a dense forest of towering mushrooms, the fungal zombie kingdom known as the Court of Spores makes its home. Overlapping voices echoing from the heart of the forest seem to indicate some sort of settlement there. Travelers who move closer find that the fungi appear to grow with an increasing sense of symmetry. Those who make their way to the center of the Court are assaulted by clouds of spores suffused with confounding, illusory magic. The rare few who resist these spores are eventually confronted by living fungal guards that are eager to take prisoners as offerings for their Queen.

Friends & Foes

1. Giant dreamer’s morel (DDG) with 1d4 violet fungi

2. 1d8 fungal zombies (DDG)

3. 4 veterans with the fungal zombie template (DDG)

4. Queen Narui (an assassin with the fungal zombie template) with 1d6 fungal zombies and 1d6 spell shriekers (DDG)

Adventures 

• Fungal zombies steal the corpses of intelligent creatures throughout Underland. The Court of Spores can access the memories of these corpses, and as a result the Court has one of the most complete collections of forgotten lore in Underland.

• Adventurers with an interest in alchemy might seek out the Court of Spores for rare potion and enchantment ingredients. 

• “My brother died fighting a monster yesterday. I wanted to give him a proper burial, but one of those fungal parasites got him and he headed for the forest. I’d love nothing more than to recover his body and give him his last rites.” 

Midnight Sea

Not every river flows into a sunlit ocean. Some pour into caverns, carve out endless tunnels, and finally drain into a dark and silent sea.

Like other bodies of water, the Midnight Sea is dotted with settlements along its shores. Galleys carry ore from deep dwarf holdings to the cities of shadow elves. Mycelial merchants ply the shipping lanes selling magic and secrets to kingdoms of subterranean merrow. And beneath the waves lurk aboleths and their thralls, preying on all who pass above them.

With no stars visible overhead, sailors navigate by the constellations of lights that twinkle beneath the black water and give the Midnight Sea its name. These “stars” are shining aboleth cities: domes of breathable water that contain the remnants of the aboleths’ prehistoric empire. When an aboleth captures a ship, it examines the sailors one by one to see if any are worthy to serve in its underwater city.

Friends & Foes

1. 1d4 merrow with 2d10 merfolk

2. 4d6 thugs aboard a galley armed with 2 ballistas

3. aboleth fallen ascendant (DDG)

4. aboleth champion (DDG) with 6 aboleth thralls aboard a submarine (chapter 1)

Adventures

• An ally must be rescued from an aboleth city.

• A pirate is making a name for themselves on the Midnight Sea. The pirate’s description matches that of one of the adventurers.

• “I’m looking for a crew. The azer treasure fleet is due to sail across the Midnight Sea in a month’s time. Everyone will be out looking to capture the fleet and make their fortune—but only I know its planned route.”

Special thanks to my fellow Underland architects Morrigan Robbins (Level  Up, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, Wild Beyond the Witchlight) and Peter N Martin (Level Up, MoAR) for all their lethal locales: the haunted city of Grave Exchange, Shadowfeather’s Land of Destiny where fates cross, the grimlocks’ Fault Regulator 7, the elite assassins’ academy the Obsidian Institute, and many more!