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FabulousFizban
2015-07-20, 02:25 PM
Specifically the large population centers that the drow and duergar must have.

My thinking is that their ecology must be based on some form of radiation, either thermal vents or radioactive materials providing heat and energy for subterranean vegetation - vegetation that isn't using photosynthesis( or at least using a modified version of it).

In 3.5, the drow light their cities with large UV emitting crystals, which explains both their darkvision and dark skin. But those same crystals could readily provide the energy source for vegetation, it just has to adapt to absorb the UV.

Your thoughts?

hamishspence
2015-07-20, 02:33 PM
That's not how Darkvision works - a drow can see everything in a totally lightproof room.

That said - "magical radiation" is the usual explanation for fungi surviving in the Underdark.

Telok
2015-07-20, 02:36 PM
Bad writing and aggressive ignorance.

JNAProductions
2015-07-20, 02:49 PM
Mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms.

Flickerdart
2015-07-20, 02:52 PM
In addition to lots and lots of fungus, there are also fish and insects. And probably bats and stuff, because what's a cave without some bats?

As for the energy source that's feeding the lowest life forms that everything else eats, it's probably Lolth's pure hatred.

golentan
2015-07-20, 03:02 PM
Thermotrophic autotroph fungi.

They grow around sulfur vents.

DireSickFish
2015-07-20, 03:08 PM
If you're wondering about drow specifically they have enough magic and trade to supplant some food and also have mushroom and roth farms. The rest of the underdark a lot of creatures are literally magic in origin or food source.

VoxRationis
2015-07-20, 04:16 PM
Thermotrophic autotroph fungi.

They grow around sulfur vents.

That's what I go with in my current setting (technically sessile animals, rather than fungi, but that's really immaterial to this discussion). Of course, in that setting, I play up the limited energy potential of those sources, with the result that most life forms of the deep caves are small and harmless to humans. (Not to mention that the dwarves already developed over most of those geothermal wells anyway.) Mushrooms are never the answer, because mushrooms are heterotrophic decomposers, and fungi that could serve autotrophic functions aren't really mushrooms as we know them. At best, mushrooms can be used for efficient recycling of energy and biomass, but they still involve losses of both resources.

Amphetryon
2015-07-20, 04:25 PM
Adventuring parties from the surface world, mostly.

Keltest
2015-07-20, 04:27 PM
If I remember correctly, there is a form of cow-like animal that lives in the underdark called Rothe that act similar to surface cows. They eat fungi that grow in the underdark and will produce milk and meat, as well as hides and fur.

golentan
2015-07-20, 04:40 PM
That's what I go with in my current setting (technically sessile animals, rather than fungi, but that's really immaterial to this discussion). Of course, in that setting, I play up the limited energy potential of those sources, with the result that most life forms of the deep caves are small and harmless to humans. (Not to mention that the dwarves already developed over most of those geothermal wells anyway.) Mushrooms are never the answer, because mushrooms are heterotrophic decomposers, and fungi that could serve autotrophic functions aren't really mushrooms as we know them. At best, mushrooms can be used for efficient recycling of energy and biomass, but they still involve losses of both resources.

One of the nice things is it also neatly explains drow cities.

Tending the food sources in farms is essential to growing beyond such meager tiny ecosystems, but being based around volcanic vents the farmworkers tend to have high mortality rates and sickly brutish lives from exposure to toxic gas day in and day out. In order to survive, Drow colonies and other underdark sapients raid the surface world for slave labor rather than expose themselves to death. And the more slaves they get, the more food they can grow, and the bigger and more elaborate raids they can prosecute. But the more successful they get, the bigger they grow, the more the biomass of their cities attracts larger predators, and the more they must rush to progress NOW, new weapons, new spells, more children to become warriors, more slaves NOW before the threats of a slave revolt or an avenging kingdom seeking to break their hold of terror over the surface dwellers or some horrible behemoth from the depths destroys their city, scattering survivors to the far corners of the underworld and leaving the majority to starve or be eaten themselves... Every clan has their own walls their own warriors, because when the next disaster hits they can pray it's enough to slay their enemies but not the city, and if they have fortified and held themselves apart the desperate rabble left from the fall of their neighbors are simply another source of slaves for THEIR farms or a source of meat, no threat to their bastions without the capacity to conduct a siege.

NomGarret
2015-07-20, 04:52 PM
If it's not dissimilar from real world caves, plants and bugs which consume bat guano.

golentan
2015-07-20, 05:19 PM
As a side note, slaving also imports biomass which can help with the cultivation of fungi or animals...

I'm really just trying to horrify myself today, aren't I? :smalleek:

Coidzor
2015-07-20, 06:05 PM
That's one of the officialish explanations, yeah, magical radiation (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Faerzress).

In my versions I just had it adapted so that most magical plants/creatures were partially thaumivores and just subsisted partially or wholly on the ambient magic of the world, and the underdark was no exception aside from a handful of areas where chemosynthesis was possible due to geothermal sources.

Mechalich
2015-07-20, 09:27 PM
regardless of the exact solution the underdark essentially relies on the magical radiation explanation to account for increasing primary production a couple orders of magnitude above that of a mundane cavern environment.

Chemosynthesis is the most scientific explanation, you just turbocharge it. Other posibilitjes include photosynthesis based on nonvisual wavelengths that areproduced by the ambient environment, or even something really wierd like planar gates that spew out a slurry of organic molecules.

TheThan
2015-07-20, 09:44 PM
Adventuring parties from the surface world, mostly.

Darn it, someone beat me to it.

Milodiah
2015-07-21, 02:15 AM
Create Food and Water, anyone?

For such an easily accessible spell, it seems pretty ignored in the non-adventuring world...

NowhereMan583
2015-07-21, 02:53 AM
"When times are especially lean, fungal crawlers can even survive without food, subsisting on radiation and heat absorbed through the fungal flutes covering their pale, sickly bellies." (source (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/fungal-crawler))

There you go. Fungal crawlers explicitly live on the famed "magical radiation" (or other types of radiation, I suppose).

That, of course, means that anything willing to eat fungal crawlers can live in the Underdark and have plenty of food. It follows that anything willing to eat things that eat fungal crawlers can live in the Underdark... and so on until you have the vast subterranean civilization with which we are familiar.

In addition, if you work from the fact that the entry describes them as a fusion between insect and a certain breed of fungus, you can also just have that breed of fungus run wild through the Underdark, giving you plenty of food for herbivores.

As a bonus, fungal crawlers are scavengers, so they also make sure calories from elsewhere in the food chain don't go to waste.

Of course, if you're not playing Pathfinder, this doesn't help you. (Though I suppose you could convert fungal crawlers to whatever system.)

Mystral
2015-07-21, 03:38 AM
Self-resetting create food traps.

Sith_Happens
2015-07-21, 08:24 AM
I would assume some combination of mushrooms and kobolds.

Mastikator
2015-07-21, 08:41 AM
Everyone and their dog™ is a high level spell caster in the underdark, so they just magic up some food when they feel hungry.

Or eat each other when they feel cruel because in the underdark Everyone and their dog™ is capital "E" Evil.

Edit-

They can also sustain themselves on angsty writing and grimdarkness.

Cealocanth
2015-07-21, 10:11 AM
Ah, the underdark question. The best explaination I have come up with was very campaign specific, but it worked. In this campaign world, the source of magic was metallurgical in nature, obtained from unholy metals mined from the deepest depths of the world. One such metal was Suthinium (based on elemental fire) which, in a powdered salt form, was an explosive several degrees of magnitude above ordinary gunpowder. While not only useful for clearing out caverns with explosives, it left behind a nutrient rich residue that would encourage the regrowth of life, although that life may turn out to be twisted and horrific due to fluctuating magical energies. In underdark societies, the inhabitants lived primarily on said life, using suthinium residue, underground springs, and magically generated light to farm twisted and corrupted breeds of surface world crops, as well as fungi, fish, insects, etc. As a consequence, however, unprocessed suthinium leeches into the water and food source, inevitably turning any long-time residents of the underdark irreversibly evil.

The Fury
2015-07-22, 03:25 PM
In a friend's campaign from years ago, his version of the Underdark had a common dish of live grubs (heh-heh, "grub.") known as "slorch." I think mushrooms were a typical side. The characters that actually ate slorch during our visit learned that it was surprisingly tasty if one could get past the wriggling.

TheEmerged
2015-07-22, 03:31 PM
This was actually part of the plot for our 4th Ed campaign when it ended - the players were in the Underdark in a drow-controlled region at the behest of their dragon employer when a famine started. The drow had grown overdependent on a magic ritual (4th Edition, remember?) that multiplied real food but consumed it in the process - so when faced by a sudden blight on their small supply of real food, a famine was starting.

Darth Ultron
2015-07-23, 10:43 PM
The thing to keep in mind is that the Underdark is just as an artificial place as the surface. The ''temperate natural forest'' can not support a large population of humans or halflings. But lots of clear, maintained farmland and domesticated animals do allow for large populations.

Just take any surface food crop as an example. Corn is a good one. 1000 years ago there were no massive seas of corn growing from sea to shining sea. But today, we grow and use a huge amount of corn. And it did not happen by chance. Humans did it. Humans wanted more corn, so they grew it artificially.

The Underdark is the same. Take a race like the drow. They have vast fields of mushrooms, just like corn on the surface. Whether small or gigantic, mushroom, shelf, puffball, or stalk, gray, or white, or black, the various sorts of edible fungi are the true basis of underdark society. Fortunately, fungi grow very quickly compared to seasonal plants with small puffballs, shelf fungi, and mushrooms growing to the size of a hand within a day. Huge stalks and mushrooms taller than a man (several edible mushrooms reach 18'-20' at full growth) can develop in less than a month. Of course, such phenomenal growth requires constant care and an adequate supply of all the necessary nutrients required so the city's farmers are continually busy tending their crops. The stalk of tnllimac, an edible mushroom hat tastes somewhat like bread, can be eaten after cleaning it, soaking it in water for an hour, and drying it by a fire. When imergan, a giant mushroom species, is sealed in a cask and left to die, a parasitic fungus consumes it and forms a drinkable fermented liquid (also called nimergan).

Milo v3
2015-07-23, 11:24 PM
Underdark societies are all tippyverses, thus lack the need for ecology.

ShaneMRoth
2015-07-24, 01:42 AM
My assumption is that societies such as the Underdark engage in aggressive amounts of trade.

Saito Takuji
2015-07-24, 04:28 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc0QebQ7sKE

this song explains one method

Kami2awa
2015-07-25, 06:33 PM
They hunt and eat the Maxwell's Demons.

Socksy
2015-07-25, 08:32 PM
Isn't it stated somewhere that Drow society is actually only capable of functioning because of Lolth's will, what with how messed up it is?

xBlackWolfx
2015-07-25, 09:55 PM
There are animals that live in cave systems, but normally they're really tiny, and are normally sustain themselves by eating whatever organic debris flows in from outside.

There are also those caves which use bat guano as a base, but those are dependent on a huge colony of bats who regularly go out to feed themselves, then excrete their nutrients all over the floor.

The only known ecosystem that isn't dependent on the sun, even indirectly, is of course the life found around hydrothermal vents. But these animals must tolerate living in literally boiling water their entire lives, and besides that their source of nutrients is highly unstable, a vent can easily shut off due to whatever is happening below the earth's surface, resulting in the death of everything that relies on that vent. There's also fields of tube worms which feed off of methane gas, which is far more geologically stable, but they don't grow very fast. Really, they're the only thing alive in those fields, well besides tiny microscopic creatures which graze on their gills.

One idea I had for my setting was that the creatures of the underworld don't stay down there perpetually. They only stay down there during the day to avoid exposing themselves to the sun, they always come up to the surface at night to feed. There's very few things that stay down there perpetually, and they all feed on the animals that go up to the surface every night. This results in an interesting scenario where the ecosystem actually changes between day and night, as many predators retreat underground during the day, and come up at night to hunt.

This is inspired by actual deep-sea ecosystems. Very few of the animals stay down there all the time, most do go up at night to find food (or you have things like whales which dive to the abyss to find food interestingly enough). The few animals that do live on the bottom of the ocean all the time feed off of carrion that drifts down from above. Sleeper sharks for instance just drift around trying to find carcasses that somehow made it to the bottom.

And for the record, you can't live off of mushrooms for very long, they simply don't have all the nutrients. An ecosystem with fungi as its base is simply not sustainable. Well, there are leaf cutter ants who nurture a fungal garden that they feed on (yeah, they don't even eat the leaves they cut, they use them as fertilizer for their fungal garden, which is of a species found no where else besides leaf cutter ant nests). Oh, and naked mole rats can sustain themselves indefinitely underground, but they do this by eating roots. And even then they have to spend long lengths of time hibernating since obviously their food doesn't grow back too quickly. And regardless this does require that they stay near the surface.

Envyus
2015-07-27, 06:28 PM
Rothe's which are pretty much underdark cows.

It should pointed out that Underdark Caves are massive. Some big enough to it cities in.

Keltest
2015-07-27, 06:32 PM
Isn't it stated somewhere that Drow society is actually only capable of functioning because of Lolth's will, what with how messed up it is?

Given that Drow society is as messed up as it is at least partly because of lolth's will, that would not surprise me.

As for the underdark, it sustains itself off of the hopes and dreams of the adventurers that go down into its depths.

VoxRationis
2015-07-27, 06:56 PM
Rothe's which are pretty much underdark cows.

It should pointed out that Underdark Caves are massive. Some big enough to it cities in.

So is interstellar space, but good luck finding anything to eat there either. And cattle are quite inefficient, energetically speaking, because they're consuming energy for the entire time they're growing, and you can't eat them for some time. Modern industrial farming, the kind railed against by animal rights activists, is an attempt to increase the caloric efficiency of cattle farming (by lowering their expended energy and reducing the time they spend metabolizing between birth and slaughter), and it's still wildly less efficient than just eating the corn we give to the cattle.
Not to mention the obvious part that you actually have to have something to feed the cattle/rothe, which is really what we're dealing with here.

Envyus
2015-07-27, 07:22 PM
So is interstellar space, but good luck finding anything to eat there either. And cattle are quite inefficient, energetically speaking, because they're consuming energy for the entire time they're growing, and you can't eat them for some time. Modern industrial farming, the kind railed against by animal rights activists, is an attempt to increase the caloric efficiency of cattle farming (by lowering their expended energy and reducing the time they spend metabolizing between birth and slaughter), and it's still wildly less efficient than just eating the corn we give to the cattle.
Not to mention the obvious part that you actually have to have something to feed the cattle/rothe, which is really what we're dealing with here.

Rothe live purely on the Fungus of the Underdark.

The reason I brought up the massive caves of the Underdark is because they are huge and support a fair ammount of life. Like Herds of the fungus eating rothe and the underground lakes have their own fish and the like.

ShaneMRoth
2015-07-27, 07:44 PM
I suspect that the entire population of the Underdark supplements their diet with hearty amounts of cognitive dissonance.

VoxRationis
2015-07-27, 08:05 PM
Rothe live purely on the Fungus of the Underdark.

The reason I brought up the massive caves of the Underdark is because they are huge and support a fair ammount of life. Like Herds of the fungus eating rothe and the underground lakes have their own fish and the like.

But that's a circular argument. What the thread is discussing is not just the population of drow and svirfneblin cities, but that of the entire Underdark ecology. We get that there are rothe and fungi inside these massive caves, but saying that there are doesn't answer the question, which is "what do they eat?" A fungus is little different (except in a few aspects of cellular structure) from an animal's digestive system turned inside out and attached to one or more gonads, and is equally incapable of supporting an ecological system. An organism which is autotrophic (which fixes more ambient energy into a biologically useful form than it releases by catabolism) is not a fungus, or if it is cladistically a fungus (by nature of descent from fungal ancestors), it is sufficiently different from other fungi that its autotrophic nature has to be called out specifically—it is not assumed by the term "fungus."

Also, it's no longer the 1700s, so you don't have to capitalize "herds" or "fungus" unless they're part of a book title. Underdark is a toponym and so is capitalized by that convention.

Lord Torath
2015-07-28, 07:58 AM
But that's a circular argument. What the thread is discussing is not just the population of drow and svirfneblin cities, but that of the entire Underdark ecology. We get that there are rothe and fungi inside these massive caves, but saying that there are doesn't answer the question, which is "what do they eat?" A fungus is little different (except in a few aspects of cellular structure) from an animal's digestive system turned inside out and attached to one or more gonads, and is equally incapable of supporting an ecological system. An organism which is autotrophic (which fixes more ambient energy into a biologically useful form than it releases by catabolism) is not a fungus, or if it is cladistically a fungus (by nature of descent from fungal ancestors), it is sufficiently different from other fungi that its autotrophic nature has to be called out specifically—it is not assumed by the term "fungus."Exactly. On the surface, all life comes from the sun. The sun gives energy to plants and plankton/algae/etc., which pass that energy on as they are consumed by the rest of the food chain. Each step of the chain, though, involves a loss in the usable energy (waste heat). In the Underdark, where is that energy coming from?

If you're looking for a scientifically-plausible answer, you're pretty much out of luck. You could argue that the "magic" radiation in the Vault of the Drow provides energy to the fungus forests in the Vault, but that doesn't address the rest of the Underdark. Geothermal heating could be said to heat the underground rivers/seas to provide the energy for life, which could be another source. Ultimately, though, you're going to need to hand-wave it. Just like we do with breathable air in the Underdark.

Inevitability
2015-07-28, 09:34 AM
I think the drow would at least be partially reliant upon divine magic for their food supply. Create Food and Water is a 3rd level spell, so a single 5th level cleric of Lolth can already provide food for thirty drow (if said drow started with 15 wisdom and increased it when he reached level 4). A cleric who happens to worship a concept (unlikely to exist amongst the drow, but possible in other places) and has taken the Gluttony, Creation, or Feast domain can cast the spell a third time.

A 10th level cleric with 18 wisdom, the Spontaneous Domain variant and the Gluttony domain can already create food for 390 people a day. It isn't hard to imagine there are at least some priests who like to earn some extra money that way.

Nifft
2015-07-31, 03:11 AM
Adventuring parties from the surface world, mostly. This is the best answer.


I suspect that the entire population of the Underdark supplements their diet with hearty amounts of cognitive dissonance. Are they Hooked On Psionics?


I think the drow would at least be partially reliant upon divine magic for their food supply. Magic is always a good answer.

- - -

One thing I considered for a slightly more science-viable underdark was neutrino slime.

It had a structure like chlorophyll, except this stuff was colorless and got energy from neutrinos instead of photons.

It was less efficient than chlorophyll, which is why it was easily out-competed on the surface world, and regular plants dominated the surface -- but in the deep and sunless caverns under the Earth, it was what the strange creatures fed upon.

Obviously this is not actually valid by known science, but to my ears it sounds a little more plausible than "magic radiation".

arixe
2015-08-02, 09:07 AM
This is the best answer.

Are they Hooked On Psionics?

Magic is always a good answer.

- - -

One thing I considered for a slightly more science-viable underdark was neutrino slime.

It had a structure like chlorophyll, except this stuff was colorless and got energy from neutrinos instead of photons.

It was less efficient than chlorophyll, which is why it was easily out-competed on the surface world, and regular plants dominated the surface -- but in the deep and sunless caverns under the Earth, it was what the strange creatures fed upon.

Obviously this is not actually valid by known science, but to my ears it sounds a little more plausible than "magic radiation".

Plants that decompose minerals could be the base of your economy system build up from there.

Callak
2015-08-03, 03:43 PM
The cattle like creatures are called rathe and are the main protein source of most civilizations in the underdark. I say most cause illithid. You know

Psykenthrope
2015-08-03, 05:40 PM
Create Food and Water, anyone?

For such an easily accessible spell, it seems pretty ignored in the non-adventuring world...

Yes, this, thank you.
About the only setting I've seen acknowledge this sort of magic is 2nd edition Dark Sun.
I'm not completely sure how it worked there, but I think either it didn't work, didn't work in certain areas, or the effects would go away after a while, even if you drank the water or ate the food.

The psionic equivalent just made it so you didn't have to eat or drink, but in Dark Sun, when the effect ran out, you'd get hit with the effects of not eating or drinking for all that time. So if you kept the effect up for long enough, you could actually just die when the effect ran out.

ellindsey
2015-08-05, 12:56 PM
Underground 'plants' absorb darkness as a source of energy, just as above-ground plants absorb light. This also explains why underground plants glow (having eaten the local darkness) and why Drow and many other underdark races have dark skin (it's the accumulated darkness building up in their tissues due to their diet).

Spojaz
2015-08-05, 01:49 PM
Underground 'plants' absorb darkness as a source of energy, just as above-ground plants absorb light. This also explains why underground plants glow (having eaten the local darkness) and why Drow and many other underdark races have dark skin (it's the accumulated darkness building up in their tissues due to their diet).

That is friggin' brilliant. I wish I hadn't already bent over backwards to answer this question in my world, or I would be stealing this.

Milo v3
2015-08-05, 06:23 PM
Underground 'plants' absorb darkness as a source of energy, just as above-ground plants absorb light. This also explains why underground plants glow (having eaten the local darkness) and why Drow and many other underdark races have dark skin (it's the accumulated darkness building up in their tissues due to their diet).

That explanation would just cause my PC's to transplant the plants to the plane of shadow....

JNAProductions
2015-08-05, 07:54 PM
And why is that a bad thing? That'd kick butt, and be very interesting.

Milo v3
2015-08-05, 08:04 PM
And why is that a bad thing? That'd kick butt, and be very interesting.

Because it would consume the whole plane of existence.... Destroying a plane of existence is generally considered bad.

JNAProductions
2015-08-05, 08:07 PM
Because it would consume the whole plane of existence.... Destroying a plane of existence is generally considered bad.

...

I don't follow.

When I play as a murderhobo, I play as a goddamn murderhobo!

Milo v3
2015-08-05, 08:13 PM
...

I don't follow.

When I play as a murderhobo, I play as a goddamn murderhobo!

Murderhobos are generally genocidal at most... This is cosmocidal :smalleek:

Nifft
2015-08-05, 08:14 PM
Because it would consume the whole plane of existence.... Destroying a plane of existence is generally considered bad. Nah.

Plants eating sunlight hasn't actually destroyed all sunlight (yet).

There's no reason why plants eating darkness would destroy all darkness (in finite time).

- - -

Obligatory Worldbuilding

This is obviously where the Unseelie shadow fey come from: faerie seeds which sprouted in the dark woods of the Plane of Shadow.

Tvtyrant
2015-08-05, 08:16 PM
In my settings the whole thing revolves around methane vents. Shallow underground swamps full of cold methane are eaten by the bacteria in the bodies of rock covered tube worms, who make up the basis of all life in the Underdark. Hot vents are rarer and attract predators from miles around due to the abundance of life.

Milo v3
2015-08-05, 08:22 PM
Nah.

Plants eating sunlight hasn't actually destroyed all sunlight (yet).

There's no reason why plants eating darkness would destroy all darkness (in finite time).

Except on the plane of shadow, most objects are made from darkness, while plants do not have the option of feeding off light-stuff objects. So these dark-feeding plants would slowly consume all objects that are near them on the plane, including the ground underneath them.

Tvtyrant
2015-08-05, 08:23 PM
Except on the plane of shadow, most objects are made from darkness, while plants do not have the option of feeding off light-stuff objects. So these dark-feeding plants would slowly consume all objects that are near them on the plane, including the ground underneath them.

Or they already did, and then died off due to a persistent blight which is still locked into the very soil of the Elemental Plane of Shadow.

Nifft
2015-08-05, 08:28 PM
Except on the plane of shadow, most objects are made from darkness, while plants do not have the option of feeding off light-stuff objects. So these dark-feeding plants would slowly consume all objects that are near them on the plane, including the ground underneath them.

Except that's entirely wrong.

I mean seriously, you can disprove this with just a quick look at real life.

Plants in real life pull nutrients from the soil ("consume soil"), and break down CO2 for carbon ("consume CO2"). Plants have been around for a while now, and yet soil and CO2 both still exist.

The fact that X consumes Y does not imply that Y will cease to exist.

FabulousFizban
2015-08-05, 08:31 PM
Except on the plane of shadow, most objects are made from darkness, while plants do not have the option of feeding off light-stuff objects. So these dark-feeding plants would slowly consume all objects that are near them on the plane, including the ground underneath them.

Yeeeah, still dont see the problem. Cross breed the shadow eating plants with assassin vines!

JNAProductions
2015-08-05, 08:38 PM
Right. Time to make sentient shambling mounds of dark-eating plants, and make sure they can grow to infinite size (given time and food). Now it's cosmocide time!

Milo v3
2015-08-05, 08:43 PM
Except that's entirely wrong.

I mean seriously, you can disprove this with just a quick look at real life.

Plants in real life pull nutrients from the soil ("consume soil"), and break down CO2 for carbon ("consume CO2"). Plants have been around for a while now, and yet soil and CO2 both still exist.

The fact that X consumes Y does not imply that Y will cease to exist.

Except with phototrophic plants, other things are making new nutrients in the soil or the plants die and other creatures are generating carbon. With these umbratrophic plants, they will consume not the nutrients in the soil, but the soil, not the CO2 but the air (since it is also made from shadow-stuff), the metals, the outsiders made from the plane of shadow, the undead made from the plane of shadow, the plants, suns, stone, magma, water, everything that comes from the plane....

Nifft
2015-08-05, 08:53 PM
Right. Time to make sentient shambling mounds of dark-eating plants, and make sure they can grow to infinite size (given time and food). Now it's cosmocide time!

Umbral Banyan (Manual of the Planes) is a fun place to start.


Except with phototrophic plants, other things are making new nutrients in the soil or the plants die and other creatures are generating carbon. With these umbratrophic plants, they will consume not the nutrients in the soil, but the soil, not the CO2 but the air (since it is also made from shadow-stuff), the metals, the outsiders made from the plane of shadow, the undead made from the plane of shadow, the plants, suns, stone, magma, water, everything that comes from the plane....

"Phototrophic" would mean they explode in a highly luminous disaster?

If you mean phototropic plants, you might notice that they evolved before soil existed.

I'm gonna need some citations for your assertion that Shadow is a limited resource which can be destroyed but is never created.

Honestly, it sounds like you're trying to rain on this guy's idea for no particular reason, and I'm not really a fan of that kind of anti-creative un-spiration.

Amphetryon
2015-08-05, 08:54 PM
Except that's entirely wrong.

I mean seriously, you can disprove this with just a quick look at real life.

Plants in real life pull nutrients from the soil ("consume soil"), and break down CO2 for carbon ("consume CO2"). Plants have been around for a while now, and yet soil and CO2 both still exist.

The fact that X consumes Y does not imply that Y will cease to exist.

Because real life is a great way to explain most of the things that happen in fantasy RPGs.

Sith_Happens
2015-08-06, 02:21 AM
Underground 'plants' absorb darkness as a source of energy, just as above-ground plants absorb light. This also explains why underground plants glow (having eaten the local darkness) and why Drow and many other underdark races have dark skin (it's the accumulated darkness building up in their tissues due to their diet).

http://victorsvillage.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/seal-of-approval.jpg

goto124
2015-08-06, 03:22 AM
https://i.imgflip.com/p5xr5.jpg

LudicSavant
2015-08-06, 07:24 AM
In my most recent setting that uses classic races:

First off, the underdark is a really terrible place to live. Do you have any idea how bloody awful it is to be neighbors with Mind Flayers? It bloody sucks. The drow aren't living there because it's their first option, they're living there because they got exiled there by the other elves who took all the good land for themselves by force.

That said, in my world there are vast underground oceans (think something like Sunless Sea (http://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/)) full of geothermal vents, which drives a rich yet entirely alien aquatic ecosystem which serves as a basis for the less wet Underdark life. This is also part of why the underdark is full of aberrations, since in my setting aberrations are related to deep sea life (anglerfish actually have the aberration type in this world).


The Deep Ones (Procan, Sekolah, etc)
http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2011/156/8/d/water_colossus_by_lappisch-d3i2opq.jpg
http://img15.deviantart.net/b4bb/i/2011/164/1/c/water_colossus_by_farkwhad-d3itl81.png
http://img15.deviantart.net/24bd/i/2011/167/c/6/rift_water_colossus_by_zulusplitter-d3iytim.jpg
http://img05.deviantart.net/3ddf/i/2011/160/b/d/rift_contest_water_colossus_by_onikaizer-d3igrrg.jpg
"Call me king, call me demon. Water forgets the names of the drowned." -Tahm Kench, League of Legends

Domains: There are many Deep Ones with many domains. Common ones include Dragon Below, Windstorm, Weather, Watery Death, Water, Vile Darkness, Metal, Madness, Life, Blackwater, Animal, Cavern, Corruption, Darkness, Chaos, Charm, Gluttony, Knowledge, Shadow, Seafolk, Entropy, and Evil.
Portfolio: Life (especially saltwater life, but all life has water in it), Aberrations (Aboleths, Mind Flayers, etc), Water, Oceans, The Abyss, Salt, Lost Technology, Psionics (especially Wilders), Bioluminescence, The Far Realms, Pressure, Madness
Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e2e3QU4ft0

Knowledge (Religion) DC 10:
In this world, the popular vision of hell is not a place of fire and brimstone, but a deep, dark, wet place of crushing pressure and mad physics populated by luminous alien forms and the looming hulks of Atlantean machinery.... for in this world, magic has let people see the deepest depths of the ocean, and there lies creatures far stranger than any fire-breathing dragon.

This is the Abyss, a place of terrifying contradictions. It is a place where water is all around you, but every drink is poison. It is a place of vast open spaces that exert a crushing claustrophobia. It is an unsheltered place of transparent fluid, yet Pelor's sunlight cannot pierce its depths, which are instead lit by the bright silhouettes of alien bodies. It is a place of poison and darkness, yet life flourishes. It is a place where lakes can exist underwater. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzUEr7uMnXU) No less strange is the bizarre architecture that can be found in some places in the Abyss; cyclopean ruins of towering metal and thick, snaking cables that seem to loop and twist in on themselves, with interiors resembling metallic innards of a behemoth.

In these alien depths lie the Deep Ones, the chaotic font of primordial life and the source of all the world's oceans. It was the struggle of Corellon, Moradin, and Gruumsh to overcome the Deep Ones in the dawn times that made life apart from the poison seas possible.

It is said that being too long at sea drives men to death or madness, and none know the truth of this as well as sailors themselves, who often sacrifice to the terrible Deep Ones in order to keep them appeased and sleepy. Seeking to explore the depths of the ocean is often regarded as madness itself.

All aberrations are born of the Deep Ones. In this world, anglerfish and the like have the Aberration type.

Knowledge (Religion) DC 15:
Long ago, long before the First Civilizations, there was the Creation War, where the gods forged the world as we know it today from the primordial sea and sealed away the lords of the old world, the Deep Ones, in the deepest trenches of the Abyss.

In the beginning, the world was wrapped in thick black clouds. There was no sunlight, and all beings glowed with their own, inner light, as did the volcanic earth itself. Before Moradin, land could not rise above the waves, and the world was wrapped entirely in water. Before Corellon, no life could exist apart from saltwater, and all blood was aberrant. Before Gruumsh, the sea was not subjected to the power of storm and sky, and water obeyed an entirely different kind of physics than it does today, flowing and writhing like the very life it spawned. Indeed, hurricanes are the result of Gruumsh wrestling the sea to keep it from rising up and consuming everything, returning the world to the briny depths from which the gods raised it.

Gruumsh wrapped the earth in sky to hold the sea down, so that Moradin could raise the core of the world and forge the land from it. When Moradin first created land, life could only exist on its shores and beaches, and nothing could survive inland, where all was dry and barren. Pelor's first purpose was to purify the sea with the power of evaporation, allowing fresh water, free of corrupting salt, to rain down upon the land, creating lakes and rivers free of the influence of the Deep Ones. Corellon then created a new kind of blood, foreign to the Deep Ones, and seeds which could use sunlight and the new purified water.

Though the Deep Ones are sealed away, their influence still seeps into the world around them, and their will spreads through their dreams.
The deeper beneath the surface one goes, farther and farther from Pelor's light, the more it resembles the primeval world where the Deep Ones reigned over all. There, some still remember the old ways.

Knowledge: (Religion) DC 20:
Salt contains the crystallized power of the deep ones, and is thus an ingredient in many spells and rituals, as well as a reagent for fueling life itself. Salt is the essence of corruption, and to salt the land is to corrupt it. Salt flats are seen as forsaken, haunted places.

Unfortunately, we cannot live without salt or water. We are dependent upon the essence of the Deep Ones to live, and so it is, some priests say, that we are necessarily impure and imperfect. Others would point out is a testament to our strength that we can overcome a base, animal nature. Some scholars claim that those of the most noble breeding have less connection to the Deep Ones (and more to Corellon) in their blood, and that through good bloodlines the influence of the Deep Ones can gradually be filtered out.

The twisting caverns of the underdark are said to have been carved out by the Deep Ones. A great underwater ocean, the Sunless Sea, can be found in the deeper depths of the underdark, and it is from here that many of the terrible aberrations of the underdark emerge.

Psionics comes from tapping into the power of the dreaming Deep Ones, which is present in all life, for all life comes from water. Bioluminescence is a sign of natural psionic potential, as indeed the first form of bioluminescence developed as a result of psionic displays. Sight developed later to see the psionic displays in a world that was otherwise all but completely dark. "Psionic tattoos" are actually a form of bioluminescence.

Knowledge (Religion) DC 25:
Many aquatic creatures refer to the surface world as "the Lack" and the oceans as "the Plenty." This reflects a certain mindset amongst many aquatic creatures which is perhaps fortunate for us. After all, the Sahuagin are smarter and stronger, on average, than humans... and the oceans still cover most of the world.

Aberrations tend to regard sunlight as alien light (that is, not coming from things on the earth itself, such as its molten core or bioluminescence). They see themselves as the native inhabitants of the world, and some Aboleths still remember the beginning times when all things glowed with their own inner light. To them, we are the soulless aberrations, whose existence is only made possible by wretched artifice.

The bizarre ruins of flowering metal towers deep within the Abyss seem to have some connection with the Deep Ones and the ancient aberrations that preceded the First Civilizations, but their ultimate purpose is unknown. Some Sahuagin nations are actively engaged in investigating these places. Most believe that going anywhere near these places risks disturbing the Deep Ones. Some Aberrations may have some idea of what is going on down there, but if they do they aren't explaining it to us.


In the depths, the energy comes from molten rivers and geothermal vents. These provide heat and gasses, which in turn feed things like chemoautotrophic bacteria and small organisms, which in turn feed fungi and oozes and the like. Think like, say, the Villa Luz caves in Mexico with their ecology based around hot hydrogen sulfide springs.

The drow generally don't build terribly large societies, due to the challenges of agriculture (which is... weird and relatively inadequate, when it's possible at all. It mostly relies on dredging stuff from around thermal vents or the odd Etrian-Odyssey-like underground forest, or impressive feats of engineering). The Houses are essentially glorified tribes unified by a need to stand against the horrors of the deep or raids from the surface. They rely on herding, hunting, gathering, raiding, magical food production, and access to the subterranean seas for fishing and aquaculture. They have some really cool floating gardens. They also often have to protect themselves from the very noxious gasses that allow the underground ecosystems to function.

Early exile societies were seriously carried by a core of clerics of Lolth who were capable of tiding them over with magical food production when the elves who exiled them were sure that they had given them a death sentence. This is why drow society is centered around the Lolth religion so closely, it seriously was the functional rock their society was built upon (contrary to the high elf propaganda view that their society somehow works DESPITE their religious tendencies, rather than BECAUSE of it). Not only did the priests cast magical spells that served fundamental societal functions, but they also espoused a philosophy which bred a people capable of surviving in such a harsh environment. Drow wear their culture's survival in the underdark as a badge of pride.



Lolth, The Hunted
http://pre03.deviantart.net/3095/th/pre/f/2013/007/1/f/lolth_by_agentscarlet-d5qt5do.jpg
Domains: Abyss, Cavern, Chaos, Darkness, Destiny, Destruction, Dream, Drow, Evil, Family, Fate, Knowledge, Luck, Lust, Oracle, Pride, Spider, Trickery
Portfolio: Assassins, ambition, chaos, cunning, darkness, destiny, drow, fate, luck, mothers, post-traumatic growth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_growth), potential, spiders, self-actualization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-actualization), strength
Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iApGYxLTpXo

Knowledge (Religion) DC 10:
Lolth is the patron goddess of the Drow. Tales of her treachery are infamous amongst the high elves. Known as the "Queen of Spiders" or "Queen of the Demonweb Pits," she is reviled for her betrayal of Corellon Larethian, perverse cruelty against her own subjects, and disturbing fixation with spiders.

Formerly the wife of Corellon Larethian, Lolth was corrupted by greed and lust. Not satisfied with her divine rank, she conspired to aid Corellon Larethian's enemy Gruumsh, and steal his power. This led to a great war between the elves, at the end of which Lolth's wicked followers were driven underground.

In art, Lolth is typically depicted as a beautiful drow woman, sometimes with the body of a great spider.

Knowledge (Religion) DC 15:
The Drow tell the story of Lolth rather... differently from the rest of the elves. Formerly a minor goddess and the humble lover of Corellon Larethian, Lolth is said to have realized her own beauty, acquired a sense of self worth, and determined that she and her people were destined for greater things. She came to realize that the ways of the gods of higher divine ranks (almost all men in standard D&D cosmology, and Corellon and Moradin are alone at the highest divine rank, meaning Lolth was basically Hera) were short-sighted, corrupt, and stifling, causing history's problems to endlessly repeat themselves in a cruel drama. Refusing to play second fiddle to Corellon Larethian, whose ways would forever hold the elves back, she left him and instead fell in love with Gruumsh, whose sense of honor she respected. With her guile and wisdom, she managed to secure a greater portfolio for herself.

For this transgression, Corellon Larethian cursed all of her followers, forcing them to flee underground as the other elves turned against them. Ever since, Lolth has sworn vengeance against Corellon Larethian, and promised to restore the drow to their rightful place in the world.

According to her followers, Lolth's philosophy is one of the virtues of ambition, strength, individuality, self-actualization, and realizing your full potential.

The veneration of spiders is based on Lolth's parables. She would often point to the nature of spiders as demonstrations of moral principles, particularly regarding femininity and motherhood. Perhaps the most famous example is the parable of the brood, wherein the new-born spider broods tear each other apart to survive, such that the next generation will be stronger than the last. Another is the parable of the mother, which points to the nature of female spiders to illustrate the strengths of women when we cast off our presumptions.

Knowledge (Religion) DC 20:
Lolth presents a rather novel set of moral principles. She rejects patriarchy, monarchy, chivalry, and other such principles in favor of other notions of honor and virtue. A few examples are as follows:

To a follower of Lolth, there is no concept of "fighting fair." Such notions are invented by the weak-minded to corrupt the cunning. Chivalry states that men may not gang up because nobles are individually better armed, trained, and educated, while peasants are numerous. Chivalry states that poison and assassination is vile, because it deals with the individual who transgresses rather than making war on their minions while they hide within their castles. Chivalry states that fire and swords are honorable, because castles do not burn like cottages, and steel does not slice like linen.

A follower of Lolth would also say that the idea of the strong protecting the weak is a flawed idea, akin to the proverb of the fisherman. To give a man a fish is to feed a man for a day, but to teach a man to fish is to give him the strength to feed a family for a lifetime. To spare the rod is to spoil the child, denying them the strength of discipline. Competence is borne of struggle, and the most saintly character is as worthless as a lifeless stone if it lacks the power to impose itself on the world and thereby better it. Lolth's philosophy speaks volumes about self-realization and self-actualization, and of creating a stronger individual through ambition and trial.

The notion that the weak should not be protected has some limits or exceptions... the duties of an adult is different from the duties of a child, and the sacred duties of a mother are to make their children strong. Also, some trials are so mismatched that they will grant no strength, only destruction.

To a follower of Lolth, strength means more than simply muscle. It means strength of will, strength of character, and strength of mind, as well as pursuing grand dreams and ambitions. Cleverness and guile are respected even more than strength of arm. They often claim that in these respects, women are truly the stronger gender amongst the elves.

One major effect of Lolth's unique philosophy is that drow society seems to be the largest community able to survive with no true central government or monarchy of any kind, though some scholars would note that their society is dwarfed by those of the greater races, considering the drow little more than a loose confederation of tribes (or "houses" as the drow call them).

Lolth is sometimes known as Arachne, Araushnee, or Megwandir in ancient sources. Her connection with spiders goes back to her original role as Corellon's wife and the Weaver of Fate, in which she weaved destiny like a spiderweb. Indeed, it is said that the reason Lolth encourages her followers to cultivate strength is because of the way fate works. She desires to craft the greatest of destinies for her children, but one must be strong enough to seize a grand destiny intended for them.

Drow are not the only worshippers of Lolth, and her philosophy has found traction with many cults, such as that of the human cleric Lareth the Beautiful.

Knowledge (Religion) DC 25:
In ancient times, Lolth was known as the Weaver of Destiny, a patron goddess of luck, fate, and motherhood. Her role was to weave the threads of fate for the elves, to ensure they lived up to their destinies, as well as to protect mothers and promote childbirth.

It was Lolth who urged the lords of the gods to appoint Wee Jas as psychopomp in the Age of Winter, despite Corellon's skepticism that she could fill such a crucial role.

It is said that Lolth was not satisfied with the petty fates she was able to craft, with roadblocks put in her way at every turn, and that this desire to craft a greater destiny for her children (essentially, what she saw as being allowed to do her job properly) was the first seed of her resentment for Corellon Larethian.

It is also sometimes speculated that the reproductive problems of the elves began because of Lolth's schism from Corellon, and that the high infant mortality rate of the elves results from her absence... or perhaps her vengeful curse.

Some give thanks to Lolth when they accomplish great deeds, paying homage to her as the weaver of their grand fate. Some high level adventurers claim that they have received omens from Lolth, telling them of how they may seize their destinies.

There is much speculation of Lolth's role in divine events, as it is uncertain how much influence she currently wields in the pantheon, and her influence as the weaver of fate (now shrouded by her portfolio of darkness and assassins) is nothing if not subtle. Many believe that she is plotting something big... while skeptics say that she is merely hiding from the forces that hunt her.

Knowledge (Religion) DC 30:
A fragment of the apocryphal Leaf Stone claims that Lolth was a goddess of minor stature in early times, one of many lesser deities with small portfolios working under the greater deities such as Corellon Larethian. According to it, dissatisfaction with her role began even earlier than her relationship with Corellon, and indeed it was her dissatisfaction that drove her to seduce him in the first place. Desperate to secure the desiny she longed for for her children, she hoped to steal some of Corellon Larethian's vast divine power. She used her inside position to aid Gruumsh, supporting his ill-fated revolution in which he lost his eye... and indeed making such a fight possible in the first place against the two highest ranked deities. In some ways, Gruumsh holds his failure against Lolth, and their relationship is at best inconsistent and dysfunctional.

Recovered writings of the scholar Esegrius claim that Lolth was actually responsible in part for Joramy and Vecna's ascension to godhood. Why she would do this is unclear.


But all of this still doesn't account for all of the food that modern drow societies consume. What allowed such growth? Where does the rest come from? The answer is simple: Trade. The underdark might be full of horrors, but it's also full of treasures the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else... which is of course why adventurers are always spelunking around down there. The drow Houses that live in the Underdark export marvels of the deep, and import food (as well as other things that are tricky to get ahold of underground). They aren't self-sufficient at their population density, because they don't have to be.

How's that sound?

Username.
2015-08-06, 11:27 PM
I don't. . . I don't understand how this thread has gone on for so long.

The base energy source of the Underdark is Faerzress. It has been said so, officially, since forever.

Someone actually mentioned it on the first page.

Since plenty of immobile, and likely many immobile, macroscopic creatures feed on Faerzress, there's plenty of food in the Underdark for larger animals.

Mr. Mask
2015-08-07, 12:04 AM
What about sources of radiation like uranium feeding some mushrooms?

Username.
2015-08-07, 12:41 AM
Faerzress is literally magical radiation.

That's it's literal defintion.

The wheel is being reinvented here, with more workmen and slower production time.

Mr. Mask
2015-08-07, 01:06 AM
Yes, but I'm interested in whether there are explanations besides magical radiation you could have.

LudicSavant
2015-08-07, 01:45 AM
Yes, but I'm interested in whether there are explanations besides magical radiation you could have.

What do you think of the explanation I gave in my previous post?

Real life sunless ecosystems in caves or the deep sea often spring up around geothermal vents or chemical energy sources (like methane or hydrogen sulfide). This alone is sufficient to support a huge amount of biomass wherever those sources of energy are abundant. Chemosynthesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthesis) is common in such environments, but apparently you don't even need sunlight for photosynthesis, either (http://www.asu.edu/feature/includes/summer05/readmore/photosyn.html). You could throw in things like oozes if you want to say they make such systems even more efficient, but that's hardly necessary. If you want, you could further supplement that with external sources like raids, magical food production, and of course a huge factor that has made so many real life societies flourish in numbers in places that otherwise wouldn't be self-sufficient to handle the needs of such populations: trade.

Depending on how deep your underdark is, there may also be the option of some real life cave ecosystems that produce things like verdant underground forests.

Who needs Maxwell's demons or Faerzess?

golentan
2015-08-07, 01:56 AM
Faerzress is literally magical radiation.

That's it's literal defintion.

The wheel is being reinvented here, with more workmen and slower production time.

In Faerun, sure. Maybe not everyone likes the Forgotten Realms explanation?

Mr. Mask
2015-08-07, 02:54 AM
Ludic: Your posts is one of the most awesome in the thread. Lots of cool details and ideas. Only thing I can think to add is uranium deposits and similar things could create enough radiative energy to sustain some more nutritious mushrooms and slimes.

Gamgee
2015-08-07, 04:29 AM
What do you think of the explanation I gave in my previous post?

Real life sunless ecosystems in caves or the deep sea often spring up around geothermal vents or chemical energy sources (like methane or hydrogen sulfide). This alone is sufficient to support a huge amount of biomass wherever those sources of energy are abundant. Chemosynthesis is common in such environments, but apparently you don't even need sunlight for photosynthesis, either (http://www.asu.edu/feature/includes/summer05/readmore/photosyn.html). You could throw in things like oozes if you want to say they make such systems even more efficient, but that's hardly necessary. If you want, you could further supplement that with external sources like raids, magical food production, and of course a huge factor that has made so many real life societies flourish in numbers in places that otherwise wouldn't be self-sufficient to handle the needs of such populations: trade.

Depending on how deep your underdark is, there may also be the option of some real life cave ecosystems that produce things like verdant underground forests.

Who needs Maxwell's demons or Faerzess?

Indeed. Anyone who can't think of how they would function has a serious limitation of imagination. In real life we've practically found microbes that survive space. As often quoted and misquoted as it is this is pertinent "Life will find a way."

LudicSavant
2015-08-07, 04:45 AM
At least as I understand it, our scientific awareness of deep-dwelling life has been making significant strides in pretty recent history. This is apparently even more true when it comes to things like the odd way mushrooms seem to get along with radiation at sites like Chernobyl, or bacteria making a living in the oceanic crust below thick layers of sediment, apart from hydrothermal vents.

This means that modern writers have more readily available good explanations for such things than writers a few decades ago.

Nifft
2015-08-07, 05:02 AM
Heh, indeed.

Okay, one new idea:

Deep Dark Roots - The "plants" of the Underdark feed on petroleum. They still need access to air, so leaves do exist, but their root systems are generally much more productive and interesting. The other reason Underdark plants still resemble conventional plants is that the seed-spreading strategy of making edible fruit which is carried far by creatures is a good strategy.


Expanding on an idea from above:

Trade Routes - The Underdark is safer than overland travel, for some reason. Maybe dragons or angels, or some kind of horrible angel-dragon hybrids with far too many wings. Whatever. The point is, if you want to get your goods delivered safely, you use the Underdark. Or maybe space is warped underground, and some known routes are both fast and (relatively) safe to travel. This would make the Underdark not entirely unlike the Nevernever from the Dresden Files: some few "safe" roads, not actually safe, but you use them anyway because it beats walking.

goto124
2015-08-07, 06:49 AM
As often quoted and misquoted as it is this is pertinent "Life will find a way."

Isn't it 'Life... uh... finds a way'? :P

Username.
2015-08-07, 12:13 PM
Isn't it 'Life... uh... finds a way'? :P

Not in the novel. :-P


In Faerun, sure. Maybe not everyone likes the Forgotten Realms explanation?

That's some pretty idle speculation you have going on there, especially since all of the explanations so far have been patently worse than magical radiation. Naturally-occurring geothermal vents don't work because they don't work irl (to support Underdark-style ecosystems).

The entire discussion is a massive circular argument. You can't get a naturally-occurring Underdark because if you could, we'd have one. If you change the physical laws of the world to make it possible, that's literally no different that invoking magic. In other words, you're just reinventing Faerzress over, and over, and over again.

As such, if you say that the base energy is chemical, you must note that there's not enough chemical energy in a cave system to sustain Underdark-level ecosystems, so you invent more. . . which is fantastic. . . which is just as fantastic as Faerzress. In another example, geothermal gives you all the energy you need and more, but the life that can absorb that much energy and provide it for the rest of the food chain in a familiar, terrestrial (non-oceanic) manner is totally fantastic . . which is just as fantastic as Faerzress. And so on with alternative energy sources and methods.

The OP asked for the answer to the question. Faerzress is the answer. If you posit an alternative answer, you can, but you can't posit a natural one because, by definition, a natural one can't exist. (And getting an answer less stupid than "magic" is kinda stupid to attempt in the first place because all of your answers will be "magic" -- that's the point.)

If you want a different answer than magical radiation -- while still acknowledging that the answer will a) still be magic and b) will be as silly as any other magical explanation -- you can totally do that, though it's off-topic. The issue there is that, again, all explanations will be equally silly. Faerzress has a stupid name, but at least it figures into other aspects of Underdark society (magic using it can't survive out of the Underdark, hence drow weapons dissolving on the surface to deny PCs overpowered loot because of theme.) If your explanation of magical energy can't cover the various cultures and societies of the Underdark, you're doing less work than the canon material.

This is subjective, but the spiffiest explanations would cover not just the ecosystem and environment, but give you places of high natural resources in order to justify camp- and city-locations, justify darkvision and biological adaptations to the Underdark, and explain why the ecosystem is macroscopic (as opposed to being just bacteria, small fungus, and cave fish). Notably, in that case, geothermal energy as magical energy is stylistically nearly identical to magical radiation. (Just hot red instead of, say, hot pink.)

LudicSavant
2015-08-07, 12:20 PM
You can't get a naturally-occurring Underdark because if you could, we'd have one. That is a transparently terrible argument, because it commits an obvious error. Not all possible ecosystems and environments are represented on earth. In fact, not even a tiny fraction of all possible environments are represented on earth. It's like arguing that because we don't have certain weather conditions here, we can't have them on other planets. Or, even more relevantly, arguing that you can't have a massive interconnected cave system bigger than any that earth does, simply because earth doesn't.

What we can't get is crazy powerful giant monsters that couldn't care less about the square cube law, but that's just as much an issue on the surface as anywhere else.

JNAProductions
2015-08-07, 12:23 PM
Besides, I really liked the darkness eating argument. It's not based on magical radiation, and instead magical (or at least scientifically impossible) plants.

Nifft
2015-08-07, 12:23 PM
That is a transparently fallacious argument. Not all possible ecosystems are represented on earth. It's like arguing that because we don't have certain weather conditions here, we can't have them on other planets.

What we can't get is crazy powerful giant monsters that couldn't care less about the square cube law, but that's just as much an issue on the surface as anywhere else.

Yeah, seriously.

If dragons and dinosaurs and giant eagles are all viable, then clearly there's something different about D&D's ecology from real life.

golentan
2015-08-07, 12:24 PM
Also, to the best of my knowledge, we don't have a massive interconnected cave system with many times the surface of the earth above consistently fed by geothermal power.

If we did, I would be completely unsurprised to find it occupied by various aberrations.

Nifft
2015-08-07, 12:35 PM
Also, to the best of my knowledge, we don't have a massive interconnected cave system with many times the surface of the earth above consistently fed by geothermal power.

If we did, I would be completely unsurprised to find it occupied by various aberrations.

NYC does have a network of subterranean steam tunnels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

I can't say for sure if we do or don't have aberrations, but some taxi drivers are kinda ... off.

LudicSavant
2015-08-07, 12:55 PM
NYC does have a network of subterranean steam tunnels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

Note Golentan said "with many times the surface of the earth above consistently fed by geothermal power." Earth doesn't have cave systems of the scope the Underdark is said to have, let alone ones fed consistently by geothermal or chemical power.

But yeah, there are some pretty huge cave systems on earth. Some apparently even have their own weather systems. (http://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2014/08/18-first-ever-images-of-cave-so-massive.html) Many are thriving with life fed largely by energy sources other than the sun. Some even have verdant underground forests (though these can only go so deep, as far as I know).

Also notable, huge cave systems tend to be rather thoroughly flooded. If you had one of the scope of the Underdark, I'd expect to find large aquatic environments as well. And aquatic environments on earth have no problem supporting a massive amount of biomass without much help from the sun.

This isn't to say that Umber Hulks aren't fantastic, of course. But that's just as true for surface-dwelling entries of the Monster Manual.

golentan
2015-08-07, 12:57 PM
NYC does have a network of subterranean steam tunnels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

I can't say for sure if we do or don't have aberrations, but some taxi drivers are kinda ... off.

Not counting man made tunnels, I think that the largest cave system of the world is only about 600 km of tunnels if you stretched them end to end. And it DOES have its own ecosystem, complete with crickets and salamanders plus some aquatic life (fish and shrimp).

It doesn't have any sort of geothermal vents, I don't think.

Now, give city steam tunnels a couple hundred thousand years to develop an ecosystem and we might see something super interesting happen...

PersonMan
2015-08-07, 02:50 PM
stuff

This makes sense if you're only looking at it as a question to be answered, but in my opinion a bunch of discussion of possibilities and why they do/don't work (especially given some of the world info that's been posted here, which is really cool and is there more somewhere?) are more interesting than 'it's magical radiation with a funky name from Forgotten Realms. That's literally it. No point in saying anything else'.

LudicSavant
2015-08-07, 04:01 PM
(especially given some of the world info that's been posted here, which is really cool and is there more somewhere?)

Which world info are you referring to?

kopout
2015-08-07, 09:41 PM
Not counting man made tunnels, I think that the largest cave system of the world is only about 600 km of tunnels if you stretched them end to end. And it DOES have its own ecosystem, complete with crickets and salamanders plus some aquatic life (fish and shrimp).

It doesn't have any sort of geothermal vents, I don't think.

Now, give city steam tunnels a couple hundred thousand years to develop an ecosystem and we might see something super interesting happen...

There is already a species of mosquito that has adapted to live in subway tunnels.

Sith_Happens
2015-08-08, 02:55 AM
But yeah, there are some pretty huge cave systems on earth. Some apparently even have their own weather systems. (http://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2014/08/18-first-ever-images-of-cave-so-massive.html) Many are thriving with life fed largely by energy sources other than the sun. Some even have verdant underground forests (though these can only go so deep, as far as I know).

That link really made me want to play Minecraft.

Nifft
2015-08-08, 06:20 PM
There is already a species of mosquito that has adapted to live in subway tunnels.

At last, we know the true origin of the Illithid.

FrancisBean
2015-08-20, 02:17 PM
Plants that decompose minerals could be the base of your economy system build up from there.

Science doesn't like the idea, but we've already got the D&D precedent: the Rust Monster. I rather like the notion that there's a plant version. Of course, once it gets into your gold mine, you've got a big problem....

In the world I'm in-progress on building, Underdark life at the bottom of the food chain subsists on emanations from out-planar vortices, just like the surface world. (The sun is a portal to the plane of fire, or the plane of radiance, or the positive energy plane, or what have you.)

hiryuu
2015-08-20, 02:41 PM
Science doesn't like the idea, but we've already got the D&D precedent: the Rust Monster. I rather like the notion that there's a plant version. Of course, once it gets into your gold mine, you've got a big problem....

In the world I'm in-progress on building, Underdark life at the bottom of the food chain subsists on emanations from out-planar vortices, just like the surface world. (The sun is a portal to the plane of fire, or the plane of radiance, or the positive energy plane, or what have you.)

Geothermal vents are heat and mineral based ecosystems. There are enclosed cave systems in which methane-fixing bacteria and heavy metals make up the majority of the ecosystem base. Science loves the idea.

FrancisBean
2015-08-20, 04:05 PM
Geothermal vents are heat and mineral based ecosystems. There are enclosed cave systems in which methane-fixing bacteria and heavy metals make up the majority of the ecosystem base. Science loves the idea.

Nono... Science doesn't love the idea of something which feeds directly off of minerals, converting them to organic energy. (Note my quote box -- responding to someone who suggested exactly that.) It just doesn't work, from an energy-in, energy-out perspective. Geothermal vents are heat energy input to the system. Methane is a ready-to-metabolize hydrocarbon. Neither is strictly based on just consuming minerals.

But! D&D has the Rust Monster, which does work by directly metabolizing minerals. If there's a Rust Monster, then there's presumably a mechanism to break down minerals and get a positive energy flow. And if there's a mechanism, then presumably there are other organisms which can exploit it. Hence, why not add a plant which utilizes the same mechanism?

It Sat Rap
2015-08-20, 05:31 PM
That's a very good question! Other people already gave some more or not reasonable answers, but now I got another question: How much food needs a wyrm, a neothelid, or a collosal millipede? If we consider that food requirement is proportionate with size, these creatures need a lot of food! And most of them live in caves, too. But even if they leave the cave for a hunt, the food required would be huge! Some of them might be able to create food via magic, but surely not a millipede!

hiryuu
2015-08-20, 06:51 PM
Nono... Science doesn't love the idea of something which feeds directly off of minerals, converting them to organic energy. (Note my quote box -- responding to someone who suggested exactly that.) It just doesn't work, from an energy-in, energy-out perspective. Geothermal vents are heat energy input to the system. Methane is a ready-to-metabolize hydrocarbon. Neither is strictly based on just consuming minerals.

Yeah, 'cuz we don't have any examples of that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayalon_Cave), that's crazy talk. I mean, bioleaching isn't real at all (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioleaching). >_>

Heat input is perfectly fine, that's a moving goalpost. Do you not know the chemicals coming out of a hydrothermal vent are mineral?

Don't say "science doesn't like something" and then expect to be unquestioned about it, especially if it's demonstrably wrong, then start moving the goals. Science has been perfectly okay with mineral-based ecosystems since the NINETEEN SEVENTIES.


But! D&D has the Rust Monster, which does work by directly metabolizing minerals. If there's a Rust Monster, then there's presumably a mechanism to break down minerals and get a positive energy flow. And if there's a mechanism, then presumably there are other organisms which can exploit it. Hence, why not add a plant which utilizes the same mechanism?

Plant, fungus, protist - D&D has these things, too. The mineral oozes, which are eaten by burburs and other critters, who are then eaten by other things. At least through 1e and as far as the mid-90s, the monster manuals had entire underground ecosystems (since Gygax loved his dungeon-based ecology), and they made them work, at least pseudoscientifically.


That's a very good question! Other people already gave some more or not reasonable answers, but now I got another question: How much food needs a wyrm, a neothelid, or a collosal millipede? If we consider that food requirement is proportionate with size, these creatures need a lot of food! And most of them live in caves, too. But even if they leave the cave for a hunt, the food required would be huge! Some of them might be able to create food via magic, but surely not a millipede!

Let's talk about Illithids, this'll be fun. According to The Illithiad (shush, bear with me), a mind flayer needs one brain of a month to stay alive - that's bare minimum - and it needs to be from an intelligent creature with the ability to reason (no using Int 4 critters, the mind flayer needs meat). Smart and clever brains taste better. We are told they keep slaves for this, or make raids.

This means one mind flayer, at minimum, needs to kill 12 people a year. Now, since the brains have to be adult brains, they need a maturation period of 16-17 years or more. That means the minimum brain input a mind flayer needs to get to a given brain is about 150 brains. That's a lot of raiding or slave raising. Illithiad also says there's ~100 or more illithids in a given city or town run by them, on top of what the elder brain eats (we'll ignore it for a moment). That's 15,000 brains over the course of 16 years, which may not seem like much, but that's the bare minimum - it's like forcing your entire population to live on unseasoned instant ramen for a decade and a half. In order for your population to maintain that level of consumption, you should probably have about ten times that - you need breeders and educators (you want your brains smart, they need to be tasty) and then you need to keep up their maintenance - feeding them and pumping away their waste is a big job. You also need to house them, can't keep them in cages, it makes for horrible food.

Basically what this means is that you might have a small group of illithids in charge of a huge city-cult devoted to them and devoted to producing smart, intelligent members of the populace who might even petition to be eaten, on top of the rabble-rousers and troublemakers (this is probably why the ancient Gith had high enough numbers to stage a coup and win). Welcome to the city of mind flayers, where health care is free, education is robust and fun, but hey, don't break the law.

Milo v3
2015-08-20, 07:34 PM
Let's talk about Illithids, this'll be fun. According to The Illithiad (shush, bear with me), a mind flayer needs one brain of a month to stay alive - that's bare minimum - and it needs to be from an intelligent creature with the ability to reason (no using Int 4 critters, the mind flayer needs meat). Smart and clever brains taste better. We are told they keep slaves for this, or make raids.

This means one mind flayer, at minimum, needs to kill 12 people a year. Now, since the brains have to be adult brains, they need a maturation period of 16-17 years or more. That means the minimum brain input a mind flayer needs to get to a given brain is about 150 brains. That's a lot of raiding or slave raising. Illithiad also says there's ~100 or more illithids in a given city or town run by them, on top of what the elder brain eats (we'll ignore it for a moment). That's 15,000 brains over the course of 16 years, which may not seem like much, but that's the bare minimum - it's like forcing your entire population to live on unseasoned instant ramen for a decade and a half. In order for your population to maintain that level of consumption, you should probably have about ten times that - you need breeders and educators (you want your brains smart, they need to be tasty) and then you need to keep up their maintenance - feeding them and pumping away their waste is a big job. You also need to house them, can't keep them in cages, it makes for horrible food.

Basically what this means is that you might have a small group of illithids in charge of a huge city-cult devoted to them and devoted to producing smart, intelligent members of the populace who might even petition to be eaten, on top of the rabble-rousers and troublemakers (this is probably why the ancient Gith had high enough numbers to stage a coup and win). Welcome to the city of mind flayers, where health care is free, education is robust and fun, but hey, don't break the law.

This is actually the reason why mindflayers always counted as LN in my games rather than evil.

FrancisBean
2015-08-20, 08:14 PM
Yeah, 'cuz we don't have any examples of that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayalon_Cave), that's crazy talk. I mean, bioleaching isn't real at all (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioleaching). >_>

Heat input is perfectly fine, that's a moving goalpost. Do you not know the chemicals coming out of a hydrothermal vent are mineral?

Don't say "science doesn't like something" and then expect to be unquestioned about it, especially if it's demonstrably wrong, then start moving the goals. Science has been perfectly okay with mineral-based ecosystems since the NINETEEN SEVENTIES.


I've never seen the Ayalon Cave system before. Neat! Thanks, I appreciate the reference. Color me convinced.

As for moving the goalposts, that's not what I was trying to do. I was clarifying my point, which happened to be incorrect. I'm happy to be questioned -- or corrected about it.

hiryuu
2015-08-20, 08:33 PM
I've never seen the Ayalon Cave system before. Neat! Thanks, I appreciate the reference. Color me convinced.

As for moving the goalposts, that's not what I was trying to do. I was clarifying my point, which happened to be incorrect. I'm happy to be questioned -- or corrected about it.

These things happen. For the longest damn time I thought the Cambrian explosion was pre-Cambrian, I even argued with my intro to paleo prof about it for hours.

There are also several species bacteria that feed exclusively on nuclear waste. Give 'em a few million years and something cool might pop out. I've had professors who were really excited by the prospect of rogue planets with entire ecosystems on them, and Lead isotopes were their favorite contender for an energy base.

But this is D&D, right? What about an ecosystem that uses arcane magic as its base source? You could have arcanovores that don't have mouths, just huge gill flaps that open up and absorb ambient arcane energy, or creatures that feed on specific schools - things that shoot out dispel beams to ruin modes of locomotion or have abjuration spray that forces creatures into traps and the like.

Nifft
2015-08-20, 08:56 PM
But this is D&D, right? What about an ecosystem that uses arcane magic as its base source? You could have arcanovores that don't have mouths, just huge gill flaps that open up and absorb ambient arcane energy, or creatures that feed on specific schools - things that shoot out dispel beams to ruin modes of locomation or have abjuration srpay that forces creatures into traps and the like.

Obviously this is how a Beholder's anti-magic eye works. It's not just negating magic, it's gathering valuable Vitamin A(rcane).

Hmm, but now what if they fed on Divine magic? So you've got the corpses of gods and titans buried since the cataclysmic beginning of the world, and various things have evolved to feast on the necrotizing godflesh.

SouthpawSoldier
2015-08-20, 09:03 PM
Obviously this is how a Beholder's anti-magic eye works. It's not just negating magic, it's gathering valuable Vitamin A(rcane).

Can I sig this? I love it.

Really wish I had something new to contribute to this discussion. Been following it avidly.

hiryuu
2015-08-20, 09:31 PM
Obviously this is how a Beholder's anti-magic eye works. It's not just negating magic, it's gathering valuable Vitamin A(rcane).

Hmm, but now what if they fed on Divine magic? So you've got the corpses of gods and titans buried since the cataclysmic beginning of the world, and various things have evolved to feast on the necrotizing godflesh.

Clearly neothelids are god-maggots!

Milo v3
2015-08-20, 09:39 PM
Clearly neothelids are god-maggots!

So Neothelids are Norse Dwarves??? Suddenly the duergar make much more sense.

Nifft
2015-08-21, 03:48 AM
Can I sig this? I love it. Of course.


Clearly neothelids are god-maggots! That's awesome.

Mr. Mask
2015-08-21, 05:36 AM
Interestingly, the illithid cities would probably be made up of orcs, goblins, or other intelligent but fast growing races. A city of learned goblins and orcs.

Of course, what the lore seems to imply is raiding and trading for the necessary meal. That Ilithids are a parasite society, they need other successful societies nearby to sustain themselves.

VoxRationis
2015-08-21, 01:21 PM
Yeah, 'cuz we don't have any examples of that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayalon_Cave), that's crazy talk. I mean, bioleaching isn't real at all (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioleaching). >_>

Heat input is perfectly fine, that's a moving goalpost. Do you not know the chemicals coming out of a hydrothermal vent are mineral?

Don't say "science doesn't like something" and then expect to be unquestioned about it, especially if it's demonstrably wrong, then start moving the goals. Science has been perfectly okay with mineral-based ecosystems since the NINETEEN SEVENTIES.



Plant, fungus, protist - D&D has these things, too. The mineral oozes, which are eaten by burburs and other critters, who are then eaten by other things. At least through 1e and as far as the mid-90s, the monster manuals had entire underground ecosystems (since Gygax loved his dungeon-based ecology), and they made them work, at least pseudoscientifically.



Let's talk about Illithids, this'll be fun. According to The Illithiad (shush, bear with me), a mind flayer needs one brain of a month to stay alive - that's bare minimum - and it needs to be from an intelligent creature with the ability to reason (no using Int 4 critters, the mind flayer needs meat). Smart and clever brains taste better. We are told they keep slaves for this, or make raids.

This means one mind flayer, at minimum, needs to kill 12 people a year. Now, since the brains have to be adult brains, they need a maturation period of 16-17 years or more. That means the minimum brain input a mind flayer needs to get to a given brain is about 150 brains. That's a lot of raiding or slave raising. Illithiad also says there's ~100 or more illithids in a given city or town run by them, on top of what the elder brain eats (we'll ignore it for a moment). That's 15,000 brains over the course of 16 years, which may not seem like much, but that's the bare minimum - it's like forcing your entire population to live on unseasoned instant ramen for a decade and a half. In order for your population to maintain that level of consumption, you should probably have about ten times that - you need breeders and educators (you want your brains smart, they need to be tasty) and then you need to keep up their maintenance - feeding them and pumping away their waste is a big job. You also need to house them, can't keep them in cages, it makes for horrible food.

Basically what this means is that you might have a small group of illithids in charge of a huge city-cult devoted to them and devoted to producing smart, intelligent members of the populace who might even petition to be eaten, on top of the rabble-rousers and troublemakers (this is probably why the ancient Gith had high enough numbers to stage a coup and win). Welcome to the city of mind flayers, where health care is free, education is robust and fun, but hey, don't break the law.

This is why I myself dislike mind flayers in my settings. A race that feeds on sentient beings as a staple part of its diet is bad enough—vampires can get away with it to some extent because they're rarely in the kind of numbers where they build their own cities or anything, and often are portrayed as sleeping or lying dormant for long periods of time, but mind flayers don't do that, and are explicitly referred to as building their own societies. A diet like that is bound to attract significant amounts of negative attention over time, and eventually force will be mustered against the mind flayers in amounts they can't really deal with—by necessity, they will be severely outnumbered, and it's only a matter of time before psionic-resistance magic or just well-leveled strike forces get used to spearhead the assault. Furthermore, mind flayers can't really farm well, because the very thing they need to eat is the greatest asset of their prey, as well as the sort of asset that breeds rebellion and sabotage. Good, neutral, and self-interested evil parties will all be lining up to crusade against such horrific concepts, anyway, so farming wouldn't necessarily reduce external attacks by a lot, anyway.

hiryuu
2015-08-21, 03:37 PM
This is why I myself dislike mind flayers in my settings. A race that feeds on sentient beings as a staple part of its diet is bad enough—vampires can get away with it to some extent because they're rarely in the kind of numbers where they build their own cities or anything, and often are portrayed as sleeping or lying dormant for long periods of time, but mind flayers don't do that, and are explicitly referred to as building their own societies. A diet like that is bound to attract significant amounts of negative attention over time, and eventually force will be mustered against the mind flayers in amounts they can't really deal with—by necessity, they will be severely outnumbered, and it's only a matter of time before psionic-resistance magic or just well-leveled strike forces get used to spearhead the assault. Furthermore, mind flayers can't really farm well, because the very thing they need to eat is the greatest asset of their prey, as well as the sort of asset that breeds rebellion and sabotage. Good, neutral, and self-interested evil parties will all be lining up to crusade against such horrific concepts, anyway, so farming wouldn't necessarily reduce external attacks by a lot, anyway.

It's true, but if you couch it as religion, you can get a group of people to do alomst anything.

Also, extra point for vampiric victory, their method of feeding doesn't neccessitate auto-death.

FabulousFizban
2015-08-21, 06:09 PM
Yeah, 'cuz we don't have any examples of that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayalon_Cave), that's crazy talk. I mean, bioleaching isn't real at all (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioleaching). >_>

[/I].

yeah, but the base of that cave system is sulfur, and sulfur can be an organic compound. Minerals can be organic compounds, they just need carbon.

hiryuu
2015-08-21, 10:13 PM
yeah, but the base of that cave system is sulfur, and sulfur can be an organic compound. Minerals can be organic compounds, they just need carbon.

Not just any Sulfur - sulfide(2−). The bacteria fix it into an organic compound, which are eaten by shrimp.

Malifice
2015-08-22, 02:04 AM
Specifically the large population centers that the drow and duergar must have.

My thinking is that their ecology must be based on some form of radiation, either thermal vents or radioactive materials providing heat and energy for subterranean vegetation - vegetation that isn't using photosynthesis( or at least using a modified version of it).

In 3.5, the drow light their cities with large UV emitting crystals, which explains both their darkvision and dark skin. But those same crystals could readily provide the energy source for vegetation, it just has to adapt to absorb the UV.

Your thoughts?

Fungus that survives on 'underdark energy' and a special type of underdark cattle that eats the fungus is the general staple. Also fish.

The Drow rely on and supplement this diet with magic (they have a ton of clerics so creating food and water isnt a big thing).

Illithids are at the top of the food chain eating their brains.

Centik
2015-08-22, 04:11 AM
My second Legend of Drizzt reference in a week... weird. Any who, I slightly remember that the Duergar, or Grey Dwarves, would bring shipments of some sort of crustaceans (can't remember if they were Underdark specific) and fruits to Menzoberranzan. The city also has a huge island that houses their cattle-esque creatures, Rothe, that provide meat, cheese and milk. The Svirfneblin, or Deep Gnomes, mostly eat mushrooms and other vegetables.

Malifice
2015-08-22, 04:56 AM
My second Legend of Drizzt reference in a week... weird. Any who, I slightly remember that the Duergar, or Grey Dwarves, would bring shipments of some sort of crustaceans (can't remember if they were Underdark specific) and fruits to Menzoberranzan. The city also has a huge island that houses their cattle-esque creatures, Rothe, that provide meat, cheese and milk. The Svirfneblin, or Deep Gnomes, mostly eat mushrooms and other vegetables.

And the illithids eat.. the deep gnomes, duergar and drow.

Centik
2015-08-22, 05:32 AM
And the illithids eat.. the deep gnomes, duergar and drow.

♫"It's the circle of life! And it moves us alllllll.....!"♫

chrisstpeter
2015-08-23, 01:17 PM
That's what I go with in my current setting (technically sessile animals, rather than fungi, but that's really immaterial to this discussion). Of course, in that setting, I play up the limited energy potential of those sources, with the result that most life forms of the deep caves are small and harmless to humans. (Not to mention that the dwarves already developed over most of those geothermal wells anyway.) Mushrooms are never the answer, because mushrooms are heterotrophic decomposers, and fungi that could serve autotrophic functions aren't really mushrooms as we know them. At best, mushrooms can be used for efficient recycling of energy and biomass, but they still involve losses of both resources.

Good point on the mushrooms. Without an outside source, the total energy would eventually be too low to support the underdark... I would think that if you're not taking the magical nature of many underdark creatures into account, the energy would have to trickle down from the surface. The sun gives the surface energy, and there could be intermediate life forms that "ferry" that energy down. Animals that range to the surface for food but live in caves get eaten by other creatures that have a slightly deeper range, which get eaten by creatures at a deeper range yet and so forth. Possibly some sort of plant like life that converts miniscule amounts of heat energy could live in the upper levels of the UD. Other than that I'd have to go with energy coming from vents, magma chambers, radiation sources, etc. Plus adventuring parties, or slaves and thralls brought from the surface would add to the food chain.

Solaris
2015-08-23, 07:44 PM
Exactly. On the surface, all life comes from the sun. The sun gives energy to plants and plankton/algae/etc., which pass that energy on as they are consumed by the rest of the food chain. Each step of the chain, though, involves a loss in the usable energy (waste heat). In the Underdark, where is that energy coming from?

If you're looking for a scientifically-plausible answer, you're pretty much out of luck. You could argue that the "magic" radiation in the Vault of the Drow provides energy to the fungus forests in the Vault, but that doesn't address the rest of the Underdark. Geothermal heating could be said to heat the underground rivers/seas to provide the energy for life, which could be another source. Ultimately, though, you're going to need to hand-wave it. Just like we do with breathable air in the Underdark.

I hand-wave it with a type of lichen whose algal component uses "magic radiation" instead of light, although the majority of the chemical processes are similar. This lichen has spread and diversified throughout much of the Underdark, including underwater. This resolves the issues of inadequate oxygen. The fungal component decomposes minerals and eats away at the rock, converting much of the material not physiologically useful into "magic radiation", thus explaining where this radiation comes from and how the caverns got to be so darned big and numerous. The energies of this radiation filter up to the surface, as well, helping to explain the overly-active and seemingly predator-heavy ecosystems you find in a Monster Manual; much like the warmer climate of Mesozoic Earth, the Monster Manual ecosystem has more energy to work with. I imagine magical beasts in particular are good at absorbing it, which may explain why certain creatures are magical beasts rather than animals and how they got their supernatural powers. Dragons, aberrations, and fey are naturally and obviously very good at it, perhaps even more magic-based in their metabolisms than mundane-based.

Drow and the like don't do agriculture the way we think of it, at least not to survive. They make use of create food and water and similar spells (plus traps, which I don't doubt are a kobold specialty), along with trade, at any levels above subsistence. Others in this thread have dealt with that so thoroughly I'm not only going to not go over it again, I'm taking notes for my own settings.

Bulldog Psion
2015-08-24, 08:14 AM
I still like the idea of darkness-absorbing plants or mushrooms. :smallbiggrin: Make it so darkness is a thing, and not just the absence of light, and you're good to go.

Plus it gives you the opportunity to have some really weird, unearthly vegetation or fungal forms, because after all, something that absorbs darkness is probably going to be bizarre. :smallsmile:

Lord Torath
2015-08-24, 08:26 AM
I still like the idea of darkness-absorbing plants or mushrooms. :smallbiggrin: Make it so darkness is a thing, and not just the absence of light, and you're good to go.

Plus it gives you the opportunity to have some really weird, unearthly vegetation or fungal forms, because after all, something that absorbs darkness is probably going to be bizarre. :smallsmile:Won't these darkness-eating plants always be surrounded by light? If they eat the darkness from the area around them, then that area will be filled with light, yes?

goto124
2015-08-24, 09:04 AM
But what happens if a light-eating creature is in the vicinity of a darkness-eating mushroom?

LudicSavant
2015-08-24, 09:17 AM
Make it so darkness is a thing, and not just the absence of light, and you're good to go.

If light and darkness are both things, then what's the absence of light and darkness? Where does darkness go when you light a lantern, anyways? What happens when darkness-eating and light-eating things are together? From whence comes darkness anyways, if it's not created by the absence of light?

Answers to questions like those could have fun implications.

As is, you just moved back the "where does the energy for the ecosystem come from" question one extra step. We would still need to know what's putting all the darkness in there, if it's not the absence of light.


But what happens if a light-eating creature is in the vicinity of a darkness-eating mushroom?

Ninja'd :smallsmile:

Nifft
2015-08-24, 09:38 AM
Won't these darkness-eating plants always be surrounded by light? If they eat the darkness from the area around them, then that area will be filled with light, yes?

Do you think that light-eating plants always surrounded by darkness?

VoxRationis
2015-08-24, 10:14 AM
Do you think that light-eating plants always surrounded by darkness?

Comparatively, yes. Not total darkness, but the ambient light is much reduced (and confined to certain frequencies as well). Compare gazing out the window at trees and bushes to staring out over an ocean or rocky flats.

Nifft
2015-08-24, 10:48 AM
Comparatively, yes. Not total darkness, but the ambient light is much reduced (and confined to certain frequencies as well). Compare gazing out the window at trees and bushes to staring out over an ocean or rocky flats.

Are you trying to say that the trees and bushes cast shadows, just like a rock or giraffe would?

Or are you saying that plants create darkness around themselves?

Because one of those is irrelevant, and the other is absurd.

VoxRationis
2015-08-24, 01:24 PM
Are you trying to say that the trees and bushes cast shadows, just like a rock or giraffe would?

Or are you saying that plants create darkness around themselves?

Because one of those is irrelevant, and the other is absurd.

They do not create an aura of darkness, in the fashion of D&D magic, no. But in addition to casting shadows by way of intercepting the light (that is, it's darker under the tree), it also absorbs a significant amount of the light, instead of reflecting it (that is, it is also somewhat darker, particularly in reds and blues, over the tree).

Nifft
2015-08-24, 01:28 PM
They do not create an aura of darkness, in the fashion of D&D magic, no. But in addition to casting shadows by way of intercepting the light (that is, it's darker under the tree), it also absorbs a significant amount of the light, instead of reflecting it (that is, it is also somewhat darker, particularly in reds and blues, over the tree).

The thing is -- purely from a visual perspective -- the area under a tree is going to be brighter than the area under a rock, or the area under an elephant.

Even though plants "eat light", they also let a lot more light through their foliage than rocks or elephants do -- in spite of the fact that neither rocks nor elephants "eat" light, both of those entities do absorb light (generally in the form of heat).

So, the trees which "eat light" would be disproportionately cool, since they absorb some radiation without converting it into mean kinetic energy.

Thus, by analogy, these underdark plants might be disproportionately warm. Which is actually kinda neat, since underground is usually rather cold.

Tvtyrant
2015-08-24, 01:49 PM
This is why I myself dislike mind flayers in my settings. A race that feeds on sentient beings as a staple part of its diet is bad enough—vampires can get away with it to some extent because they're rarely in the kind of numbers where they build their own cities or anything, and often are portrayed as sleeping or lying dormant for long periods of time, but mind flayers don't do that, and are explicitly referred to as building their own societies. A diet like that is bound to attract significant amounts of negative attention over time, and eventually force will be mustered against the mind flayers in amounts they can't really deal with—by necessity, they will be severely outnumbered, and it's only a matter of time before psionic-resistance magic or just well-leveled strike forces get used to spearhead the assault. Furthermore, mind flayers can't really farm well, because the very thing they need to eat is the greatest asset of their prey, as well as the sort of asset that breeds rebellion and sabotage. Good, neutral, and self-interested evil parties will all be lining up to crusade against such horrific concepts, anyway, so farming wouldn't necessarily reduce external attacks by a lot, anyway.

This is why I think they work best in E6. They are functionally as potent as a fully leveled wizard, and are specifically good at fighting hordes by turning the front row. The only groups really fit to fight them are maxed level adventurers who are resistant to their mental assaults, so instead of armies committing suicide by funneling into the underdark after them strike teams try to root them out when they are found.

Inevitability
2015-09-10, 12:11 PM
Maybe a bit late, but I just read this (emphasis mine):


Phosphorescent Fungus (No CR)
This strange underground fungus grows in clumps that look almost like stunted shrubbery. Drow elves cultivate it for food and light. It gives off a soft violet glow that illuminates underground caverns and passages as well as a candle does. Rare patches of fungus illuminate as well as a torch does.