I really appreciate being able to put my headphones in at work and absorbing myself in a different reality while my hands absentmindedly get me through the day. So thank you
It was. I love Jorphdan's channel. I love your channel too lol. Both of your channel's are my go to place when I need my fix for Forgotten Realms lore.
I love the underdark region. It's so fascinating. I really think that you should do a series on the races, be they above, below, north, west and east of... do all the s.o.b's. Stay amazing and thanks for another great video.
My 1st campaign as a DM was Out of the Abyss and it was awesome. Unfortunately we stopped playing after characters reached surface because of busy life but it was nice experience. It is sad that I found this channel too late.
Submitted for consideration as a geologic reason why the surface doesn't collapse on the underdark: Any geologic scan will show that what lies beneath our feet isn't always uniform. Fissures in hard, igneous rock fill with sediment to form sandstone or siltstone. Volcanic vents bring igneous rock (and diamonds) up into sedimentary rocks. In both cases the softer, sedimentary rock is more easily tunnelled through, leaving the harder, denser, igneous rock to support the surface like pillars and struts.
Hmmm, sorry dude but that isn't how it works. Unfortunately, your points are either incorrect, or make no sense. I have a Geology degree btw. If it helps, it IS possible for massive cave chambers and passages to form in sedimentary rock. Look up... Sarawak chamber Miao room Son Doong cave Deer cave Krubera cave New Athos cave Mammoth cave Etc, etc...
I'll be running out of the abyss soon as my first DM experience. I want it to be heavily lore based and your video's have helped me grasp the underdark quite well, so thank you! Do you have any more tips?
To those of you who enjoy D&D PC games, Neverwinter Nights has an expansion called: "Hordes of The Underdark" which of course takes place in the Underdark, It's awesome, go play it.
I think that the underdark has to be held up with magic because there would be no way that this whole system wouldn't cave in on itself. If this was real there wouldn't be wells, the water table would be screwed up. I am honestly surprised that an elf wizard just doesn't find a drow city and bring the roof down on top of it. Just a few key explosives in the right places and just squash the bad guys.
thanks for this, very informative! my players just got to the underdark, and that's a place i really didn't know much about. this helps my worldbuilding a lot!
Finished a campaign last week that took place largely in the underdark. The party after just meeting get lost and stuck underground having to work together to escape and survive. Was awesome same as this video!
Na it was a homebrew thing. Basically it was my way of forcing the party to get togethter and work together. So they started of in a tavern where a dwarf contractor came by and asked each of them to sign a contract in which they would guard a caravan as it moved to a vein of silver newly discovered in the underdark. On the way underground though the caravan is ambushed by umber hulks (party is level 3 so got no chance). Cavern caves in and leaves the party alone with only one way to go, deeper.
I don't have a problem with 4th Edition lore. Im fact, 4th Edition is my favorite RPG. BUT Everything you said about Torog and the King's Highway is specific to the default 4th Edition setting (Nerath/Nentir Vale). There is nothing textual to suggest that Torog exists in the Forgotten Realms. You might as well have told us about Eberron's Khyber for all the relevance to the Realms it has.
Good video, but I have a clarification. The Forgotten Realms weren't the base campaign setting for 4e, so Torog creating the Underdark wouldn't apply to Toril, even when playing a 4th edition campaign set there. He is pretty much exclusive to the Points of Light/Nentir Vale/Dawn War setting that was the default in 4e, and Critical Role's Exandria which refers to him just as the Crawling King when mentioned in a non-licensed product.
The existence of Zurkhwood is such a great solution to a problem I had in a campaign I tried to DM in when I first got into D&D. Basically Faerun had experienced a 200 year eclipse, and my ass just immediately started asking questions about how the fuck did they manage to feed everyone when magic was gone for abt 30 yrs of total darkness (death of mystra), with only the stars for light. Knowing of the Zurkhwood woulda helped a lot with that setting building, because the restrictions of doing this in a pre-established setting made me really anxious about "doing it wrong"
Excellent overview. Wanted to point out that along with the sinkhole issue, there being little water makes no sense either. I don't think WotC did much research on this aspect.
I think with Out of the Abyss most get too familiar with the drow My fighter definitely has issues with drow after the whole captured into slavery thing
Ah yes the Underdark. The place that takes three sessions to enter, four sessions to explore and another three sessions to leave, The place that after so much sweaty level grinding parties never want to go back to.
The Forgotten Realms in general is Ed Greenwood's creation, I believe. How much Bob contributed to the development of the Underdark is not something I could define, or authors in general for realmslore.
It was the product of the primordial energies that shaped Toril's Underdark, according to the 3.5e book "Underdark". It was later proposed that the Faerzress was created by the high elves to prevent the drow from coming out, but that doesn't make sense because the drow do come out, and the Underdark and the Faerzress predate even the arrival of the high elves on Toril (-24k DR), let alone the -10k DR year that was suggested.
I'm playing a Duergar in one game and our current quest is to help a gnome build a weapon he has hypothesized will kill a Far Realm entity that is drawing near to our world. The next component of our device is a corpse of an aberrant creature such as an Aboleth, a Mind Flayer, or a Beholder. So guess where we're headed next!
Go to the underdark at lvl 20 with artifacts and epic boons. Find a drow village and be like hey how's it's going, they can't do anything to you cause you radiate OP energy
Hello. I'm from Brazil, so I don't get if there's a meaning behind "the 'ph' is silent" besides beying a cool catch frase. Could someone explain it to me? By the way, hooray Underdark
Just a catch phrase. I wanted a name that stood out. Realizing how confusing it is now I might not have gone with it. But I'm kind of stuck with it now 😁
Jorphdan not confusing at all, I think it sounds neat. Loving your channel. I mainly DM the Forgotten Realms and there are so many sources. It's nice to have everything compiled in one place so you can get the creative juices flowing
@@Alernategem "ph" isn't silent in English, it has an "f" sound. Telephone. Photograph. Cipher. Perhaps you're thinking "gh" as in drought, though, or thought.
Aldo think you should make the UNderdark a longer mini series. So as well as th deep dark do more locations, special places of interestet etc! The underdark is very cool
Drizzt is super loved. I get asked often for videos on Elminster and Drizzt but I stay away because of how attached people are to those characters and books. I don't think I could do a video justice and I get the feeling I'd upset more people than entertain.
I could see that happening. Those characters have a very long history spread across so many books that it would be hard to do it justice in a 6-7 minute video. This channel is fucking awesome btw
A weakness is they treat the Underdark as like one continent. They should treat it more like it has its own separate regions and cultures rather the. Monoculture.
I am surprised that a god could kill a primordial? The primordials must be different to the once we have in our mythology or the god that killed the primordial was very powerful, more than other gods.
given 4e has separate lore from the other editions, I think he might not be stuck in the underdark, heck far as I know the "lord of the underdark" has not been mentioned by name or otherwise in 5e, least not yet
I think I watched ALL your videos in one week. Can you please upload 10 videos per day? So I can keep watching you frequently. Haha. Thank you so much.
I personally have no problem with 4th edition, it was just different and people hated it because of that. If 4th edition were released as something other than D&D I’m sure it would have been highly acclaimed for being different.
Once per rest abilities were used before 4E, just not often. Simply put, 4E came out way too quickly after 3.5 which people had bought a ton of books for, sporting drastic changes that nobody was asking for, and to top it off, it felt rough/unpolished. The game got better as time went on but most people had either decided not to give it a chance or tried it early and wrote it off. Meanwhile, Pathfinder was essentially D&D 3.75 -mostly 3.5 compatible, and was publishing new content. The sad thing is WoTC was rushing to capitalize on the booming MMO market but if they had waited 2 more years before releasing and really polished up the game, MMO popularity was even greater in 2010 than in 2008. It probably never would have gotten the stigma it ended up with and the edition would have performed much better. In the meantime they could sell more 3.5 books and crush their competition from Pathfinder, which would have been perceived as a knockoff, and wouldn't be nearly as popular when competing with actual 3.5 content.
A note about cave-ins across Faerun - I always interpreted the Underdark as its own plane of existence, so it's not like I could just dig down in my backyard and end up in the underdark, I'd have to have a place where the barrier between the planes are weak
i dont know anything about Dnd. im just watching these videos because i want to read the Drizzt novels and learn about the world they take place in . so could somebody tell what the hell these editions are.
Why people hate the underdark? I mean its pretty interesting but i don't play D&D to know but i find its lore very interesting. Grettings from venezuela
Great video as always. Although I'm curious about all the hate 4e gets lore-wise . The game itself played like a tabletop MMO, but that shouldn't discount the lore in it right?
The Lore changed though from AD&D and 3.5, a lot. Keeping some gods creating new ones, creating the feywild and the Shadowfell and working that into the lore. It just frustrated people who grew up with and were attached to the Forgotten Realms, or I should say D&D in general. That being said the lore isn't bad, and I personally find it interesting :)
I really enjoyed Torog's lore and there is more to it than what is mentioned here, though he hit the biggest points. The 4E book "underdark" goes into a lot of detail about "The King's Highway", Torog's torture dens, and a few other ways he impacts the underdark.
Finally someone mention a single drow city apart from Menzoberranzan.
0:20 races fight over the underdark to make the yummiest grilled sandwiches.
Your channel is a hidden gem. Glad I found it! I love getting more insight into how weird creatures and places like this actually function.
Thanks! Glad to help :D
I really appreciate being able to put my headphones in at work and absorbing myself in a different reality while my hands absentmindedly get me through the day.
So thank you
Happy to help!
Thank you so much. I'm working on a underdark campaign. This has helped me alot.
Excellent overview!
It was. I love Jorphdan's channel. I love your channel too lol. Both of your channel's are my go to place when I need my fix for Forgotten Realms lore.
#Andrew Vincent totally agree...also Faerun History, another great lore channel
Hell yeah! That's one of the best forgotten realms lore channels too.
I love the underdark region. It's so fascinating. I really think that you should do a series on the races, be they above, below, north, west and east of... do all the s.o.b's. Stay amazing and thanks for another great video.
My 1st campaign as a DM was Out of the Abyss and it was awesome. Unfortunately we stopped playing after characters reached surface because of busy life but it was nice experience. It is sad that I found this channel too late.
Just in time! My campaign enters the underdark tomorrow.
woot!
Mine is entering in the next arc! The next videos will be very useful.
Welcome to the abyss!
Mezzoborenzan?
Another great video. I find the Forgotten Realms becoming more and more interesting with every topic you cover.
Exactly what I love to hear :) Thanks!
"Blindingstone" 😂😂😂
Submitted for consideration as a geologic reason why the surface doesn't collapse on the underdark:
Any geologic scan will show that what lies beneath our feet isn't always uniform. Fissures in hard, igneous rock fill with sediment to form sandstone or siltstone. Volcanic vents bring igneous rock (and diamonds) up into sedimentary rocks.
In both cases the softer, sedimentary rock is more easily tunnelled through, leaving the harder, denser, igneous rock to support the surface like pillars and struts.
Also.... isn't the underdark, deeper than the average mine, and mines cause sinkhole... I'm from an area with loads of mines.
also...magic?
Hmmm, sorry dude but that isn't how it works. Unfortunately, your points are either incorrect, or make no sense. I have a Geology degree btw.
If it helps, it IS possible for massive cave chambers and passages to form in sedimentary rock. Look up...
Sarawak chamber
Miao room
Son Doong cave
Deer cave
Krubera cave
New Athos cave
Mammoth cave
Etc, etc...
Gollum lived in the upperdark.
I have come seeking inspiration my friends! Writing Underdark adventures for a mini game set in Melee Mag’ther, Menzobaranzan
My party is headed to the Underdark and as a DM this is a fantastic starting point. Thank you :)
I've been listening to your videos for the last few days. You've done a wonderful job.
That's nice of you to say! Thank you!
Me: *Hears about how there are evil creatures in the underdark*
Me: *Rip And Tear Intensifies*
technically, 15% of drow population is not neutral evil or lawful evil
More on the Deep Dark please!
Such weird stuff
misomiso I agree, episode on the deep underdark
I like how you put up a photo of vantablack when mentioning dark rock. Supposedly the stuff really does what darkrock does.
I'll be running out of the abyss soon as my first DM experience. I want it to be heavily lore based and your video's have helped me grasp the underdark quite well, so thank you! Do you have any more tips?
Sure this might help! th-cam.com/video/J33-o3E_cQA/w-d-xo.html
FINALLY A FULL FLEDGED UNDERDARK LORE VIDEO. TY SO MACH JORDANPH.
I almost thought you where gonna call him " drizzit "
(Obscure reference to the drizzt prequals)
To those of you who enjoy D&D PC games, Neverwinter Nights has an expansion called: "Hordes of The Underdark" which of course takes place in the Underdark, It's awesome, go play it.
I think that the underdark has to be held up with magic because there would be no way that this whole system wouldn't cave in on itself. If this was real there wouldn't be wells, the water table would be screwed up.
I am honestly surprised that an elf wizard just doesn't find a drow city and bring the roof down on top of it. Just a few key explosives in the right places and just squash the bad guys.
thanks for this, very informative! my players just got to the underdark, and that's a place i really didn't know much about. this helps my worldbuilding a lot!
The FFXI map with the Altepa Desert zone earned you a sub.
so many years of FFXI
Finished a campaign last week that took place largely in the underdark. The party after just meeting get lost and stuck underground having to work together to escape and survive. Was awesome same as this video!
sounds epic :D
you playing the out of the abyss module? we are on that as well.
Na it was a homebrew thing. Basically it was my way of forcing the party to get togethter and work together. So they started of in a tavern where a dwarf contractor came by and asked each of them to sign a contract in which they would guard a caravan as it moved to a vein of silver newly discovered in the underdark. On the way underground though the caravan is ambushed by umber hulks (party is level 3 so got no chance). Cavern caves in and leaves the party alone with only one way to go, deeper.
I don't have a problem with 4th Edition lore. Im fact, 4th Edition is my favorite RPG.
BUT
Everything you said about Torog and the King's Highway is specific to the default 4th Edition setting (Nerath/Nentir Vale). There is nothing textual to suggest that Torog exists in the Forgotten Realms. You might as well have told us about Eberron's Khyber for all the relevance to the Realms it has.
Good video, but I have a clarification. The Forgotten Realms weren't the base campaign setting for 4e, so Torog creating the Underdark wouldn't apply to Toril, even when playing a 4th edition campaign set there. He is pretty much exclusive to the Points of Light/Nentir Vale/Dawn War setting that was the default in 4e, and Critical Role's Exandria which refers to him just as the Crawling King when mentioned in a non-licensed product.
Good treatment of a beloved topic.
i know that 4e were hated cause the general changes, but the mythology of underdark is just awesome : D
The existence of Zurkhwood is such a great solution to a problem I had in a campaign I tried to DM in when I first got into D&D. Basically Faerun had experienced a 200 year eclipse, and my ass just immediately started asking questions about how the fuck did they manage to feed everyone when magic was gone for abt 30 yrs of total darkness (death of mystra), with only the stars for light. Knowing of the Zurkhwood woulda helped a lot with that setting building, because the restrictions of doing this in a pre-established setting made me really anxious about "doing it wrong"
Excellent overview. Wanted to point out that along with the sinkhole issue, there being little water makes no sense either. I don't think WotC did much research on this aspect.
Do you know where you got the art from for the picture at 2:44?
The drow, uses a 2dimention transfiguration spell to go through cracks
Enjoy this series. Look forward to races of the underdark. Will you do one on the feywild one day?
I did a feywild video but did you mean raced of the feywild?
So the drow live in the upperdark and middledark?
Great video as always.
Absolutely love your videos!!!
Is there a possibility you could take a look at the Feywild Underdark and the Shadowfell Underdark? Is there even lore for those?
Not sure how much info is out there. But I'll take a look!
I think with Out of the Abyss most get too familiar with the drow
My fighter definitely has issues with drow after the whole captured into slavery thing
The Torog stuff happened in the material plane, not on Toril necessarily. The old lore is that the tunnels are the result of purple worm activity.
Ah yes the Underdark. The place that takes three sessions to enter, four sessions to explore and another three sessions to leave, The place that after so much sweaty level grinding parties never want to go back to.
I have been into fantasy for 30 years and I think salvatore's universe is a piece of work equal to the genius of the Lord of the rings
The Forgotten Realms in general is Ed Greenwood's creation, I believe. How much Bob contributed to the development of the Underdark is not something I could define, or authors in general for realmslore.
I'd love to know how the Faerzerness was created
It was the product of the primordial energies that shaped Toril's Underdark, according to the 3.5e book "Underdark". It was later proposed that the Faerzress was created by the high elves to prevent the drow from coming out, but that doesn't make sense because the drow do come out, and the Underdark and the Faerzress predate even the arrival of the high elves on Toril (-24k DR), let alone the -10k DR year that was suggested.
I'm playing a Duergar in one game and our current quest is to help a gnome build a weapon he has hypothesized will kill a Far Realm entity that is drawing near to our world. The next component of our device is a corpse of an aberrant creature such as an Aboleth, a Mind Flayer, or a Beholder. So guess where we're headed next!
Go to the underdark at lvl 20 with artifacts and epic boons. Find a drow village and be like hey how's it's going, they can't do anything to you cause you radiate OP energy
4:00 colony ship spotted
The Underdark is the very first place in the Forgotten Realms I as introduced to yup Drizzt
You know this is the only video that turns up on a search on Sshamath? I think you should do a video on that just to fully corner the market on it!
Hello. I'm from Brazil, so I don't get if there's a meaning behind "the 'ph' is silent" besides beying a cool catch frase. Could someone explain it to me? By the way, hooray Underdark
Just a catch phrase. I wanted a name that stood out. Realizing how confusing it is now I might not have gone with it. But I'm kind of stuck with it now 😁
Jorphdan not confusing at all, I think it sounds neat. Loving your channel. I mainly DM the Forgotten Realms and there are so many sources. It's nice to have everything compiled in one place so you can get the creative juices flowing
In English a ph is silent so his name is still Jordan but it’s spelt jorphdan
@@Alernategem Actually ph is normally pronounced "f" or "fuh". Thus why it could be confusing.
@@Alernategem "ph" isn't silent in English, it has an "f" sound. Telephone. Photograph. Cipher. Perhaps you're thinking "gh" as in drought, though, or thought.
I am not surprised people hate 4th edition lore, seeing as how it is the best lore.
Does anyone know where too get a stalagtite dungeon map like the one at 3:40?
That is from the adventure "Out of the Abyss" for 5e D&D
@@Jorphdan thanks!^^ appreciate it!
I wish Faerzress lore video. Example wtf is that Faerzress thinning event described in a few books?
I am oddly fascinated with the Underdark.
the "ELDER BRAIN" ?? how much cooler can mind flayers get?
Please make videos about each species in the Underdark.
Aldo think you should make the UNderdark a longer mini series.
So as well as th deep dark do more locations, special places of interestet etc!
The underdark is very cool
YES, You mentioned Sshamath :)
Rachel Dobbs The Faern City
Can you do a Drizzt video? I was really surprised there was no video summarising him on TH-cam at all.
Thanks for this video, it's awesome.
Drizzt is super loved. I get asked often for videos on Elminster and Drizzt but I stay away because of how attached people are to those characters and books. I don't think I could do a video justice and I get the feeling I'd upset more people than entertain.
I could see that happening. Those characters have a very long history spread across so many books that it would be hard to do it justice in a 6-7 minute video. This channel is fucking awesome btw
Drizzt is annoying edgelord
@Plu111 Prodakszyns from Lloth perspective certainly
Wut? Drizzt is another edgy rebel character
A weakness is they treat the Underdark as like one continent. They should treat it more like it has its own separate regions and cultures rather the. Monoculture.
Thanks you so much for this video I just started dming out of the abyss this helps so much
That was awesome!
I am surprised that a god could kill a primordial?
The primordials must be different to the once we have in our mythology or the god that killed the primordial was very powerful, more than other gods.
What’s your mythology?
In 4E lore before Torog was cursed he was a greater Deity, so he would have been one of the most powerful.
Now imagine the skaven existing in the underdark
Just in time for my party to get lost in it!
i know this video is a couple years old but if anyone sees this comment or Jorphdan.. where is the artwork from at 2:47? its really cool by the way
I already found it lol oh well atleast i got it, for anyone curious its wallpaper flare with a search of bioluminescence
I wouldn't want to live in a stalactite. I'd be worried about it falling.
[svirf-NEB-lin] but also, no need to re-upload/re-record (remembering Bhaal) 😊
Awesome video
Could you possibly do an Episode on Cormyr
Perfect, just starting OotA
Deep Imaskari ftw ^_^
I don’t get how Toril can exist with there basically being a planet wide hollow shell.
given 4e has separate lore from the other editions, I think he might not be stuck in the underdark, heck far as I know the "lord of the underdark" has not been mentioned by name or otherwise in 5e, least not yet
Wish : Connect the Ocean with the Underdark, drowning everyone. Gain a big bunch of EP. Drow DONE!
Is The Forgotten Realms/Faerun the planets most campaigns take place on? on? like a fantasy earth?
I made my own
Ateria
The plane of existence is called esper
Good job.
Could you make armor or weapons out of the dark rock
Can you make a video about Velsharoom?
Sshamath also has important female wizards, it's more about Mages replacing Clerics
But where exactly is the Underdark? Is it in one specific world, or can you enter it inside of every crystal sphere?
Could you do a Video on Pelor at some point in the future? He’s my favorite god that I actually made my first character a paladin of
I think I watched ALL your videos in one week. Can you please upload 10 videos per day? So I can keep watching you frequently. Haha. Thank you so much.
Tall order :) I might faint
Thanks for watching!
I personally have no problem with 4th edition, it was just different and people hated it because of that. If 4th edition were released as something other than D&D I’m sure it would have been highly acclaimed for being different.
What did people hate about it?
@@alexlyahovsky8054 the cooldown aspect of the abilities was the no go for me. But 5e kind of kept some minor logic of it with the rest system
Once per rest abilities were used before 4E, just not often.
Simply put, 4E came out way too quickly after 3.5 which people had bought a ton of books for, sporting drastic changes that nobody was asking for, and to top it off, it felt rough/unpolished. The game got better as time went on but most people had either decided not to give it a chance or tried it early and wrote it off. Meanwhile, Pathfinder was essentially D&D 3.75 -mostly 3.5 compatible, and was publishing new content.
The sad thing is WoTC was rushing to capitalize on the booming MMO market but if they had waited 2 more years before releasing and really polished up the game, MMO popularity was even greater in 2010 than in 2008. It probably never would have gotten the stigma it ended up with and the edition would have performed much better. In the meantime they could sell more 3.5 books and crush their competition from Pathfinder, which would have been perceived as a knockoff, and wouldn't be nearly as popular when competing with actual 3.5 content.
The underdark do do doooo!
So... Do the deep gnomes workship togarg then?
Tieflings like me have darkvision.
A note about cave-ins across Faerun - I always interpreted the Underdark as its own plane of existence, so it's not like I could just dig down in my backyard and end up in the underdark, I'd have to have a place where the barrier between the planes are weak
Thats deep
Can you make a video about Deep Dwarves :)
i dont know anything about Dnd. im just watching these videos because i want to read the Drizzt novels and learn about the world they take place in . so could somebody tell what the hell these editions are.
Are there giant bat's? Who would use them?
Why people hate the underdark? I mean its pretty interesting but i don't play D&D to know but i find its lore very interesting. Grettings from venezuela
Great video as always. Although I'm curious about all the hate 4e gets lore-wise .
The game itself played like a tabletop MMO, but that shouldn't discount the lore in it right?
The Lore changed though from AD&D and 3.5, a lot. Keeping some gods creating new ones, creating the feywild and the Shadowfell and working that into the lore. It just frustrated people who grew up with and were attached to the Forgotten Realms, or I should say D&D in general.
That being said the lore isn't bad, and I personally find it interesting :)
I really enjoyed Torog's lore and there is more to it than what is mentioned here, though he hit the biggest points. The 4E book "underdark" goes into a lot of detail about "The King's Highway", Torog's torture dens, and a few other ways he impacts the underdark.
Bro what is that song?
Isnt skullport in the underdark?
Yep! Well underneath Waterdeep I believe
Could somebody recommend to me some worthwhile d&d games? Played all baldurs and neverwinters, craving for more.
Hekk. I very much like 3.5 edition, and the general favorite is 5 edition. You can find the player’s handbook for both online for free in pdf form.
i thought drow rhymed with crow
Can you make in-depth vid in this??