D&D General Is it dark in your underdark adventures?

[cavetroll]

I've stolen some things from the wonderous Veins of the Earth guide where light is rare and used a as currency to trade between the different races. Luminous bugs or shrooms, lichens, shards of weird artifacts, flickering soul-flame of a dead adventurer, etc are all necessary to venture into the depths.

Oh I like that

 

[DND_Reborn]

Right, thats a great poll which aligns with my thought of giving darkvision to nobody except creatures or races that specifically live underground.

Yeah, WotC went WAY overboard with granting darkvision. Here is some summary info:

Red = races with less than 25% of voters (half of the races with darkvision didn't even receive 25% of the votes!)
Yellow = races with 25-50% voters
Orange = 50-75%
Green = over 75%

FWIW, only Dragonborn did not have darkvision but received enough votes to get over 25%.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Of course, basic torches and cantrips can do the trick sometimes, but the mysterious underdark contains other dangers than the normal darkness. Fumes from torches may choke the characters in tight tunnels, gas pockets are plentiful enough that using fire is not always a a good idea. Howling Caverns where the winds are strong, may snuff normal torches.

Yeah, environmental impacts can cause havoc as well!

 

[steeldragons]

Both. Just depends on where you are.

Closer to the surface, generally, things are darker. The luminescent fungi and glowing crystals and such like one might encounter in the deeper depths and more magical areas of the underworld tend to be some miles down, through the unlit bits. But closer to the surface they are rather rare.

You could, also, easily be down low and not find any naturally occurring or magically enhanced/placed -so, like, around certain species' settlements- that will provide some degree of light. It really is something of a crap shoot, and will change from corridor to cavern to grotto to passageway. And there may be places with lots of light and places with very little...even if the "natural" light source tropes are in the area.

Is there moss everywhere in a given forest? No. No, there isn't.

And yes, you will need to use a light source or have darkvision -or infravision- in those places.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I unintentionally handwave it most of the time because most of the party has darkvision, causing me to forget some characters don't. The only time I've remembered so far is when I had a combat encounter that spanned a long distance and the enemies had superior darkvision to the PCs, letting them attack from range unseen.

 

[LordEntrails]

We used to handwave it, mostly. Characters without darkvision would always have some sort of light source with them. And often we would do the throw the torch in the room / set the lantern down at the start of combat. Now we use FGU with vision and lighting, so players see what their characters see, no light source? Nothing seen on the map. Darkvision? Map is grey.

 

[RuinousPowers]

There is actually a lot of light in the civilized parts of the Underdark in my campaigns. Races still have art and architecture. They use dyes and admire gems. Hundreds of well-lit yards are far better security than 60 or 120 yards of grainy black and white vision (with disadvantage).

 

[Vaalingrade]

Lots of glowing fungus and crystals underground for me because I can't be assed to interact with the lighting rules.

 

[Lanefan]

It's dark down there. Those who dwell there usually like it that way, and are used to it.

Rarely, a shaft of quartz might bring a bit of light down from the surface, or phosphorescent fungi might grow in a space; but things like this are exceptions rather than the norm.

 

[Blue]

The only answer for me is "all of the above".

There are places of eerie natural light; crystals, fungi, slimes. Places of natural darkness. Places that races have lit be it for trade, aesthetic or other reason. Places that still glow witht he eldritch energy once released there. Places that never have tasted light and resent it. Storms of darkness like weather above that even magical lights can not pierce.