Cultures of Underdark Races

MerakSpielman

First Post
Drow I got pleanty of.
I need idea seeds for Svirfneblin, Derro, Duergar, Illithid, Kobold and Beholder.

These races are all going to have complex societies with strong elements of trade, magic, warfare, and art.

I'm starting (in a few months) a campaign based in my world's version of the Underdark. I need to develop the cultures of these races (and yes, I'm treating Beholder as a race. They only have one real city, but lots of outposts. They breed so slowly they haven't taken over yet). I was wondering if any of you have any thoughts on the society of these races?

I DON'T want my Underdark to be a crude spin-off of the FR Underdark.

Do any of you have any web links or suggestions?
 

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Duergar: Take the Dwarf, and amplify everything negative about the race by about ten, and remove the better aspects. They're viciously greedy, and want to hoard the riches of the Underdark for themselves. But rather then just mine the earth for Gold, they attack those who have Gold and take it.

I'd build their civilisation around a heavy romanized center: A Heavily Militarized Civilisation with a might, Evil Empire. Think Large, stone structures, gladiatorial games, large military legions, slave labor and lots of decadence.

Derro: The Derro, according to the Monster Manual, are Chaotic Evil, degenerate and bery evil human-dwarf halfbreeds. They're incredibly cruel, enjoy taking slaves and torturing surface dwellers, especially humans. They're also usually sorcerors and other Arcane spellcasters.

I'd make Derro the end result of some wizard's unholy experiment in breeding a new servitor race, having long-since rebelled and run amok, overrunning the wizard's old compound, forging a chaotic society build as a twisted reflection of the arcane experiments once done on the Derro themselves.

Illithids: Alien creatures that have little in common with mammal-based races. But they have a highly organized, intellectual society based on enslaving other races and consuming humanoid brains. There's little need to expand greatly upon that if you want to keep them as villains: Just keep them as mysterious, alien foes.

Svirfneblin: The Deep Gnomes are a lot like normal Gnomes, except they've developped in a very hostile underground domain. Hence, they've become very defensive, somewhat paranoid and much more aggressive then your average surface Gnome.
 

Seeds?

I agree with the other posters. Unless you want to kill yourself agonizing over details and reinventing the wheel, you should base your cultures on existing or historical real world cultures. Don't worry at all about being accurate; just go with gross generalities and stereotypes and run with it.

Also, remember that Cha represents self-awareness. So, high Cha races will tend to be selfish, low Cha races will tend to be more communist.

Svirfneblin: Vietnamese, as depicted in movies like Platoon. Sneaky, fight with guerilla tactics. Untrustworthy, willing to sacrifice individual soldiers for the greater good. (6 Cha).

Derro: Cold-war Russian communist, as depicted in Bond films. Cold, brutal, don't value individuals or freedom.

Duergar: Old-school conquistador Spanish, complete with Inquisition, greed, and genocidal urges. These guys would take great pride in Duergar culture, but not so much pride in themselves as individuals. Think of your typical goofball sports superfan who paints his body and says "We won last night's game" instead of "The Yankees won last night's game"--it's all about the race, not about the individual.

Illithid: Instead of the lazy, cowardly creatures in FR, I'd depict these things as truly alien. Reject human motivations like wealth and political power, and come up with something more unusual. Like... maybe the feed not only on brain, but also the emotions fear, agony, and despair. So, they plot to increase the world's output of these emotions, while protecting their own existence. They view the intelligent races as we view an individual crop plant: the plant contributes to the world's supply of oxygen and food, and that's great, but the value of an individual stalk of corn is zero.

Kobold: Voodoo tribal culture. Fear-based culture; it's all about appeasing or hiding from whatever it is that threatens you.

Beholder: Another alien culture. Beholders don't wear clothes or use tools, they don't manufacture anything. They can tunnel with Disintegrate and move stuff with Telekinesis. But they have high Wis, Int, and Cha--they're very aware creatures. Maybe you could run with the function of their main eye. Make Beholders have a hatred for magic, and a passion for destroying magic items. They jockey for personal reputation and social power, earning social cred by destroying magic items and those who wield them. I'd definitely portray Beholders as haughty. They'd view other races as you and I view ants: sure, ants are alive, and can react to stimuli and use tools and build structures and communicate with each other, but they're not really intelligent. I think Beholders would view the other race's reliance on magic as a gross weakness, and would delight in showing the other races how pitiful they are once their little toys are rendered harmless under the Beholder's gaze.

-z
 


actually, if you want to do this the easy way.. go get yourself a copy of Races of the Underground by ICE. It has a culture for a lot of underground groups.
 


Re: Seeds?

Zaruthustran said:


Also, remember that Cha represents self-awareness. So, high Cha races will tend to be selfish, low Cha races will tend to be more communist.

I liked all your comments but this one in particular stood out as facinating. While there are a few exceptions this is actually remarkably consistent. (if not with comunnism nessessarily then certainy with a sort of communalism where the individual has difficulty seperating themselves from the group.

I'm stealing this for my game. I just don't know how.
 

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