The Sprawl

Beneath Karthica and Avea lies a secret and dangerous world that few surface dwellers ever learn of. The Sprawl is a seemingly endless network of chasms, tunnels and caves tens of thousands of miles long. It is believed to have been tunneled out by purple worms and their genetic relatives, but has since become home to a great number of other inhabitants.   The Drow, or 'dark elves', make their home here, and rule their subterranean empire from their great city of Ath Shar. The Dwarves connect their overworld strongholds through the Sprawl and consider any of the passages between any two strongholds to be part of their Greater Realm. The shunned offshoots of the Dwarves, the Duergar, make their realm in the dangerous depths of the Sprawl. The insane Derro can be found sparesly in the ghettos of both Drow and Duergar settlements. Finally, the Realm of the Dead lurks deeper still, where the Emperor of the Dead rules over an undead society given life and thought by perverse means.   Outside of the empires that make their home in the darkness of the Sprawl, numerous monsters and other denizens are found in the caverns below. Troglodytes, Quaggoths, Ratfolk and Kobolds are all common threats. Monsters found in the dark are numerous and typically horrible.