The idea of a special "world beneath the world", a dark, mysterious place isolated from the surface world of the player characters and filled with natural wonders and ancient evils, was first introduced to D&D players and DMs as the D-Series of modules (D1 Descend into the Depths of the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and D3 Vault of the Drow) first published in 1978, and later reprinted in 1986 as the GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders supermodule. This new subterranean world was based in the World of Greyhawk. Since then, much has been written about this "underdark" realm, both set in specific worlds (such as the Forgotten Realms) and as generic writings, as numerous adventure modules, magazine articles, and hardcover rulebooks for every edition of D&D since. The popularity of the setting even spawned a series of highly popular novels by R.A. Salvatore about Drizzt, a drow ranger from the Forgotten Realms.

This section of my website will strive to present material about Greyhawk's underdark, sometimes referred to as "DeepOerth". The material here could also be easily adapted by DMs to fit into any campaign world they choose to use.

The Dark City of Erelhei-Cinlu

The Ancient City of Khor

A Regional Survey of Greyhawk's Underdark

Dragonsfoot Collaborative Project: Mapping the Depths of the Earth

This is a Dragonsfoot community project discussed at the Collaborative Project: Mapping the Depths of the Earth forum (originally proposed by PapersAndPaychecks in May 2005, and kicked off by Gnarley Bones, in July 2006) to detail all of the remaining areas on the map provided in D1 Descend into the Depths of the Earth, and that were not described in the original D-series modules. The last compilation of the project, edited by Iain_IF in 2008, can be downloaded as the "Encyclopedia Subterranica" here. Check back for updated versions as the project proceeds. Eventually, a finalized document will be available here and on the Dragonsfoot website. As time passed, it became clear that a continually updated compilation volume was not tenable for a variety of reasons, though updates of individual encounter areas could be accomplished, so I created this page. Below is a new index map of the area. DM's can click on an encounter area on the map (or the chart below) to view a PDF of the single encounter description, if a completed one is available. Hovering over the encounter areas with your mouse in the index map below will bring up pop-up text with the name of the encounter. For the incomplete encounters, check the compilation volume where some can be found, others were never released. I will continue to attempt to get those out, if I have materials from the original authors, or I can get in contact with them.

For a high-resolution (1500x2166) version of the index map suitable for printing, please click here.

The collaborative project is indeed a massive undertaking, consisting of contributions from 20 different authors. The current state of the project is summarized below. Completed encounter areas are available as part of the compilation volume, and will become available as separate files accessed off the index map above (by clicking on each corresponding map location) and from the chart below, as the individual PDFs are being created. Other encounter areas will become available as the authors complete them. Check back to see how things are going.

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