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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hexmage-EN" data-source="post: 8309462" data-attributes="member: 79428">By the way, I really want to encourage people interested in embracing D&D's weirder side to check out the 4E Underdark book, which features a wildly different take on the setting that is essentially a transitive a plane. It's also rules light and easily adaptable outside of 4E. I'd go so far as to say that Underdark is probably the best setting book to come out of 4E and goes a long way to flesh-out a unique, alternative take on the Underdark, essentially describing it as a place ruled by a stalking god of torture and influenced in certain regions by the intruding influence of other planes.Examples of locations from the 4E Underdark book:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Anathema - Long ago, this metropolis was known as Erenira, the first and greatest of the drow cities in the Underdark. However, some slight against the Crawling King prompted the god to personally appear and wreak havoc in the city, driving the drow out from their ruined home. In their place came yuan-ti followers of the god known as the Midnight Serpent. Though the yuan-ti worship their own god, they also operate multiple torture dens dedicated to the Crawling King to ensure that they don't eventually suffer the same fate as the drow. Thirteen yuan-ti anathema dwell throughout the city, though only one reigns supreme.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Glimmer - Located in the depths of the Underdark of the Shadowfell, this is the hidden home of a race of Vecna worshipers known as the incunabula. Each incunabulum is supernaturally bonded from birth with a piece of the swaddling clothes of a stillborn child of Nerull, giving them powers related to necromancy and extracting secrets from their targets' minds and souls. No piece of knowledge is too mundane or trivial, and all the lore collected by the incunabula is stored and catalogued by the Lady of Secrets within a grand library of scrolls called the Hollowing. It is believed that by hoarding and analyzing such a vast amount of seemingly unrelated information that a grand, cosmic plan will reveal itself.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Inbharann - Located in the Underdark of the Feywild, Inbharann is the wealthiest of the fomorian kingdoms thanks to its river of cool, liquid gold. The ruler of this kingdom has been prophesied to die by fire within the next 18 months. The children of the king have begun a war against one another to gain status and allies, as it is the tradition of the kingdom for the greatest of the ruler's children to become the successor (complicating matters is that accomplished fomorian heroes and leaders are sometimes adopted into the royal family, creating more contenders for the throne). Deceased rulers of Inbharann watch over the kingdom, in a manner of speaking, as upon death a ruler's evil eye is plucked and supernaturally enlarged to be inset into the face of a watch towers. These towers are dotted throughout the kingdom, the gazing evil eyes searching for intruders to inflict their curse upon.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The King's Highway - An interplanar tunnel that connects the Underdark of the Material Plane, Feywild, and Shadowfell. It was created long ago during a prolonged fit of madness in the god known as the Crawling King, who futilely attempted to escape imprisonment in the Underdark by breaking through the walls of the planes. Unlike most of the Underdark, where living rock can rapidly reshape the environment, the King's Highway is stable and unchanging, with any attempt to create barriers within it cursed to fail. Though this makes it ideal for travel, it also makes it a place where opposing creatures often encounter each other and engage in battle.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ladoga - A small, isolated dwarven mining community. Despite amassing a large amount of gold from the mines the Ladogans are mistrustful of outsiders, preventing the gold from being used in trade. In truth, the gold of Ladoga is cursed and comes from the Nine Hells, the product of an Infernal pact made by the prospector who founded Ladoga and a devil. The advisor to the current chief of Ladoga is a devil in disguise who plans to trick adventurers into carrying the cursed, greed-inspiring gold to the surface world.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Maelbrathyr - An ancient tiefling city that was pulled underground long ago by the Crawling King. An adventuring party made-up of nobles known as the Pride of Maelbrathyr attempted to steal one of the god's slaves, the Ruby Wizard, away from one of his underground torture dens. In retaliation, Crawling King interrupted the celebration held in honor of the return of the Pride of Maelbrathyr and the Ruby WIzard by dragging the entire city down into the Underdark. Though most of the population died in the calamity, the Ruby Wizard himself was captured and taken back into captivity while the heroes of the Pride of Maelbrathyr were cursed with ageless, mutated bodies wracked with constant pain. The Pride of Maelbrathyr are now enemies who each control a section of the ruined city while trying to make certain that they are not assassinated, as the Crawling King promised that death would only bring greater torments within his Soul Abbatoir in the Underdark of the Shadowfell. Despite this grim environment, Maelbrathyr plays host to an event called the Bleak Carnival that draws visitors from throughout the surrounding caverns. The city even has its own unique thieves guild.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Spire Sea - An underground sea where stalactites and stalagmites penetrate the water's surface. One such spire hosts the stronghold of Gar Morra, where dwarves and duergar who practice a heretical version of Moradin's faith have lived for generations following a war against the aboleths. At the center of Gar Morra is the prison of a powerful devil, reverence for whom the accursed residents have incorporated into their heresy. The dwarves and duergar live in the higher reaches of Gar Morra, having long ceded the levels closer to the water to kuo-toa and other remaining servants of the aboleths. The Spire Sea is also the waters that the ghost ship fleet of the Clan Lost sails, having long ago perished in the war against the aboleths but unable to pass on. They rise from the waters to attack non-dwarves, such as the rakshasa-led gang of drow, grimlock, ogre, and oni pirates known as the Spire Spiders.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Xarcorr - A bizarre vault where rock behaves like water, even generating a kind of stone fog at times. Locales include the tumultuous sea of Rock's Roil and its Stone Gyre, the mutant-infested Dripping Jungle, the Toothy Plains of colossal, moving crystals, the levitating latticework of slime called the Warp Web, where aboleths draw upon the Far Realm's essence to perform experiments on natural life forms. The supposed capital city of the aboleths, Zahulaxon, can also be visited, but is in truth an illusion created to hide the true nature of the aboleths' civilization from their enemies.</li> </ul>EDIT: I nearly failed to mention that a later 4E Dragon Magazine article introduced the concept of an intelligent fungal entity called the Carrion King (that may or may not be related to Psilofyr) that permeates the Underdark of the Feywild. This entity can create multiple myconid-like aspects of itself, but in doing so these aspects are almost-entirely separated from their source and can become very unique, in some cases warring against one another. It is primarily concerned with the wellbeing of the myconid race as a whole (meaning that it does not value individual myconid lives, but the perpetuation and growth of the species in aggregate). The Carrion King can also attempt to create an impermanent body to talk to creatures whenever or wherever it wants in the Underdark of the Feywild, but as its thoughts and memories are dispersed throughout the plane's entire Underdark it can be difficult to understand the entity's mouthpiece.</blockquote>

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