All Are Welcome
The Underdark is a coalition of many civilizations throughout the universe. These individual species and cultures are all united to stop humanity’s violent conquest of space and the destructive harvesting of the planets’ resources. The coalition is made up of many species, and we hope to add to this list as others join in our fight. When will you join this list, and the struggle?
The Three Founding Members of the Underdark:
Slag:
Slag comes from a world of ice and ore.
He grew up on a planet enveloped in snow and ice. The conditions on the surface were so harsh that nothing could exist there. His people survived in the crushing darkness, building cities within the planetary crust, fueled by the planet's thermal heat. They were shaped by the environment: yellow, light-sensitive eyes tuned for the gloom and skin like cured leather from years of hauling ore through sub-zero caverns
Their lifeblood was Hextranite—a miraculous metal, lighter than iron and hard as diamond. They used it to build their world.
When Vortex Corporation arrived, they didn't lead with rifles; they led with lies. They offered "The Sun"—pressurized surface suits and prefab hab-domes that promised an end to overcrowding underground. The price was simple: access to the Hextranite veins.
The moment the gates opened, the "diplomats" were replaced by dropships. Vortex’s war-tech turned the mines into slaughterhouses. Slag’s people were fierce, but you can’t fight orbital strikes with mining picks. The survivors were given a choice: Indentured servitude in deep-space mines, or a shallow grave.
Slag chose a third option: Violence. He didn't just walk out; he tore his way through a corporate blockade, intending to let the surface's absolute zero claim him.
But Something in the blizzard—a voice in his head that he had never heard before—kept him moving. Something guided him to a departing ore freighter, hiding in the very Hextranite his kin died to protect.
Once off planet, Slag drifted to the fringes, that same voice eventually leading him to the Underdark. He isn't just a miner anymore; he’s a specialized instrument of corporate destruction. His mining background and seething hatred of corporate deception made him a perfect choice to lead the Underdark’s campaign on Kepler.
Slag has one goal: To ensure that what happened to his world never happens again and to make Vortex pay for every gram of ore they stole in blood.
Grimlynn X:
Grimlynn X [real name redacted from all known records] had a normal corpo human civilian life. Slowly climbing up the ladder one rung at a time. She enjoyed the Machiavellian machinations of the external and internal schemes or the corporations. "Loyalty", "family", and "lifting each other up" were always stated mottos in the corporate world. We all know that's just part of the machinations. It's a prison, a song bird cage. One lined with safety, bonuses, healthcare, security. But, still, a cage.
Always, something felt "off". Each internal memo that contradicted the public press releases was a cut. Hostile acquisition, mergers, takeovers, up-ending lives for profit. Secret closed-door deals that gutted communities. Intentional wars to distract from another profit. A pang of guilt here, a compassion leak there, a stab of integrity laced with the poison of a conscious seeped into her AI-laced circuitry.
After every memorandum and report generated, the grease in the cog that she was... slowly turned to sand.
And something noticed.
Nobody blatantly reached out. No secure messages that self-destructed, no honey pots, and no clandestine meet-ups in a Faraday cage happened. With every subtle event of sabotage she endevoured to cause - to any corporation, even her own - a gift was given. Extra credits here, doors opened there. And one day, the door of her corporate cage was freely opened. Now she find herself on the sandy planet of Kepler - so much sand for the cogs of the corporate wheels.
Shrike:
Members of the Underdark:
Tapsy Moonburrow:
Tapsy is a Capralisk from the planet Heliovere. She is a Sun-Awakener and Clan Cycle Resonance Keeper. Capralisk are humanoid reptilian beings with forked tongues, large lagomorph-like ears, and spiral ram-like horns. They have highly light-sensitive eyes and dermal membranes. Taypsy’s skin, like all Capralisks’, secretes a naturally occurring psychoactive compound called Thalessh, which regulates communal synchronization and neurochemical bonding amongst her people.
Capralisks are a primarily subterranean species, only emerging during the sunlight months of their planetary cycle. She has extreme sensitivity to light, sound, and atmospheric pressure shifts. And, due to her subterranean nature, she can interpret vibrational codes transmitted through stone. Additionally, she enters long-term suspended animation states tied to her planetary cycles.
Capralisk culture is slow, quiet, and non-urgent. Lifespans are long due to cyclical dormancy states. Society is organized around burrow-clans, ecological balance, and synchronized emergence during sunlight periods. Time is viewed as abundant and sacred. Fire was historically unknown, and its introduction by outsiders led to heat-seeking overuse, deforestation, and planetary ecological decline.
Tapsy has travelled to Kepler seeking financial resources to support her clan survival due to ecological destabilization and declining bioluminescent algae growth on Heliovere. One option under consideration is the collection and exportation of Thalessh, the Capralisk skin secretion. She is also on Kepler, exploring legal pathways for the classification of Capralisk as a protected species to prevent biological harvesting and exploitation.
The Underdark has reached out to Tapsy and the Capralisk, offering to aid in protecting them from unregulated biotech corporations seeking rights to harvest or commercialize Capralisk biological compounds.