Races - Part Five

Quaggoths

Quaggoths, also known as deepbears, are powerful, neutral humanoids resembling bears with long, shaggy, white hair covering their entire bodies. Although many quaggoths are enslaved by the Drow as guards and spider handlers, free roaming bands of nomadic hunters still exist. Quaggoth tribes are most common in the far northern reaches of the upper Underdark. Some sages claim that quaggoths were once a semi-civilised race that dominated the Underdark through conquest and ritual sacrifice until the Drow, duergar, and other interloper races broke their power. Others speculate they had some sort of surface civilisation but were driven underground by surface-dwelling dwarves and elves.

Ropers

Ropers resemble pillar-shaped rock outcroppings with a single yellow eye, a carnivorous maw ringed with sharp teeth, and small bumps covering their bodies. Each bump can shoot out strong, sticky strands. Although most ropers hunt alone throughout the Underdark, clusters of ropers have been seen in certain caverns along well-travelled tunnels in the northern and central reaches of the Upper Underdark.

Roper relatives include storopers, which have a stonier, less flexible exterior and tentacles that are always extended at least twenty feet; ghauropers, giant ropers with magical powers believed to serve the dark power Ghaunadaur; and urophions, ilithid-roper crossbreeds.

Sharn

Sharn are curious, chaotic neutral creatures who appear as glossy black teardrops of amorphous flesh, studded with many tiny eyes and surrounded by a nimbus of purple light. Some sharn are powerful spellcasters, and all can create miniature ethereal windows through which they can extend one of their three tri-handed arms or one of their three fanged maws. Sharn dwell with other members of their large families or clans throughout the upper reaches of the Underdark, particularly in the Northdark. This mysterious, whimsical, spell-casting race is sometimes encountered in the great dungeon of Undermountain. Some believe the sharn to have imprisoned the phaerimm in the Buried Realms beneath the Great Sand Sea, where they constantly guard against the efforts of the phaerimm to shatter their magical prison.

Shield Dwarves

Lawful good shield dwarves are the prototypical dwarves. Found primarily in the western and northern reaches of the upper Underdark, they have long since emigrated from the ancient caverns of Shanatar in the south-west. The number of lost shield dwarf holds far outstrips the number of extent today. Shield dwarves have solid alliances with other good aligned races, particularly the svirfneblin. Relationships with the duergar are uniformly hostile and often break out into open conflict. Derro relations are even worse. Shield dwarves deeply hate aboleth, Drow, illithids, kua-toa, and other slaving races. They trade with them only reluctantly.

Skulks

Skulks are a cowardly, chaotic evil race of humanoids with the chameleon-like ability to blend into any background. Skulks resemble completely hairless humans. They are elf-like in stature, with graceful limbs, soft facial features, and pink eyes, but their ears are not pointed. Skulks are fairly common in the upper and middle reaches of the Underdark beneath Calimshan, Ththyr, the Land of the Lions, and the Lake of Steam. They are believed to be the descendants of human slaves in the Drow City of Guallidurth who were led to freedom by an avatar of Ibrandul, the Skulking God, and then transformed into their current state.

Svirfneblin

The svirfneblin, also known as Deep Gnomes, are deep-dwelling neutral good gnomes. Svirfneblin are slightly smaller than their rock gnome cousins, but their thin, wiry, gnarled frames are just as strong. Svirfneblin have rock-coloured skin ranging in hue from medium brown to brownish grey, and their eyes are grey. Male svirfneblin are completely bald, while female deep gnomes have stringy grey hair. Deep gnomes radiate ‘nondetection’, have superior infravision, and posses natural detection abilities regarding stonework. Svirfneblin have some amount of magic resistance. Many elite deep gnomes have skills with illusions, while others can summon earth elementals to serve them.