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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 2581814" data-attributes="member: 13966">Make your Underdark races, origins, and caverns different in some manner.  Perhaps the Underdark is quite deep beneath the surface, and is the border realm between the Material Plane and the underworld (land of the dead/negative energy plane/abyss/whatever)?  Perhaps the touch of the underworld has tainted the peoples that lived underground, driving some insane, making others delusional about what really caused them to live down there, and making the rest just plane morbid and violent.  The lure of Death's realm has a strange pull on mortals though, and they do not just move up to the surface to escape; the draw of dark powers and terrible secrets makes them stay and practice vile arts.  Whether the Underdark inhabitants were refugees from some ancient disaster, victims in a terrible war who fled underground for lack of any other escape route, or explorers who just became entrapped by the foul whispers of secret lore that came to them in their delving, it doesn't matter.  Some may be willing inhabitants, others may have been forced down, and others might have lived there since they came up from the underworld.  Perhaps some were forced out of the paradise of the underworld for some reason, and linger down in the Underdark as they sulk and try in vain to return to the paradise.Drow are replaced in my Rhunaria homebrew setting with dark elves who were simply created by arcane experimentation on existing elves; the last Elven Mage-King, a true tyrant, experimented on everyone and everything, and at one point he developed a process to alter his most loyal subjects.  These became dark elves, empowered with a strong affinity for arcane magic, including some inherant magical abilities, boosted Intelligence and Charisma, and a goodly boost to spell save DCs, effective caster level (for caster level checks and spell effects) and such.  However, the dark elves were also physically weakened a bit, and somewhat cursed, but they had greater arcane power than anyone else.After the Great Rebellion nearly commited genocide against elves, the dark elves took refuge by hiding deep underground, building elaborate cities in great caverns to await the Mage-King's return and build up their forces to eventually retake the surface world from those upstart humans, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, and goblinoids.  And the various arcanely-created beasts that had rebelled against the Mage-King, such as minotaurs and yuan-ti, and their own creations such as kobolds and lizardfolk.  And the blasted sea elves that had joined in the rebellion just because they had never wanted to be experimented on (they too had been normal elves once before).Rhunarian dark elves maintain most original elven traditions, and also maintain the old elven superiority complex and religious belief that the Spirit King had specifically created elvenkind to rule over the mortal domain.  Rhunarian dark elves have a Persian sort of culture, but with some distinct differences.  As opposed to Drow, the Rhunarian dark elves tend towards Lawful Evil rather than Chaotic Evil, and they are ruled by the greatest mages in their Order of Emirate Magi (rather than by clergy or matriarchs).</blockquote>

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