Category:The Dark Delvers

This section contains Homebrew non-canon info, created by fans

“Oh yea of little knowing. Unrivaled is Her power. And great are our dark resources. Yet you fear imprisonment between walls of stone. From the deep I shall call a creature of fire, earth, and whistling bone. And if you so much as flinch before it, I shall add your soul to those already forever bitten by its flames.”

- Grandoch Khardoon, Vomited Up From the Bowels of The Earth, unfinished, anonymous manuscript

"We did not lack for speed. The Loathsome Consort had seen to that by limiting our baggage to little more than what his strange, bipedal porting creatures could manage. They were tireless, strong, frightful. A great secret indeed had been stolen from Her for with them we could push deep and seize greater knowledge still. But only in returning did we understand their full value. For the dead that they had left behind, slain by the spores that they exuded, and transformed into rich beds of mushrooms, alone kept us alive, as the Loathsome Consort had intended."

- Unknown, Vomited Up From the Bowels of The Earth, unfinished, anonymous manuscript^[1]

Description

This section contains canon info from officially published sources

The Dark Delvers are accomplished cavers and pioneering speleologists from across the Core. Aberration lore, ooze lore and aberrant biology, far from being obscure trivia, constitute vital survival knowledge for members of this secret society. The Dark Delvers are united by the belief that the secrets to great power lie hidden deep beneath the surface. They aim, in particular, to steal this knowledge from an entity known as the Hated Mother. The group is led by the Loathsome Consort.

The Abyss of the Hated Mother is the headquarters of the Dark Delvers. It is a cave hidden beneath the northern flank of Mount Nirka. Currently, the site lies squarely within Darkon, whereas it once nearly abutted the frontier of Arak. It was, and perhaps still is, ideally situated to study temporal fugues and alterations of time generally. Were this not dangerous enough, its passages run deep and might well breach those of the hidden kingdom of the shadow fey, at least if anything remains of that realm in the wake of the Great Upheaval of 740 BC.

Subsequent to the Great Upheaval, Mount Nyid has become a favourite haunt of the Dark Delvers. The organisation has even managed to negotiate a constructive relationship with Ebb, the shadow dragon who now lairs there and whom they mistook briefly for their Hated Mother. Perhaps she finds them amusing. Or perhaps they are as children to her and she is feeling motherly.

In addition to their many firsts as cavers and speleologists, the Dark Delvers were the discoverers of the shadow cloaker.

References

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

		Forbidden Lore:Cryptic Allegiances Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume II
		Forbidden Lore:Cryptic Allegiances - pp5-7 Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume II - p22
		Forbidden Lore:Cryptic Allegiances - pp5-7 Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume II - p22
		Dark Delvers, The Dark Delvers