Heart of Darkling - Lair of the Netherfolk
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dysonlogosDescription
**Heart of Darkling – Lair of the Netherfolk**
The Darkling River works its way through the underdark beneath the grey hills to depths unknown. This is the eighteenth mapped location (and 31st map total) along the Darkling River and the Darkling Lake beyond.
This little fort and bridge sit at the confluence of a small tributary with the Darkling. Both the bridge and fortification are old and of excellent workmanship, dating back to when this area was part of the extended underground kingdom controlled by the citadel of Kuln. The buildings here are more recent, not cut from the stone but made of carefully stacked stone slabs, and they definitely don’t show the signs of the fine workmanship that went into the bridge and fortification. The fortification is useful strategically to monitor traffic along the Darkling on the approach to Darklingtown, but the passages that connect here are troublesome, as the twisting caves and passages connect to all levels of the local underdark and have been overrun by many factions and unorganized monsters since the fall of Kuln.
The last picket assembled here by the Darklingtown militia was overrun a few months ago and hasn’t been replaced. The beasts that attacked and consumed the militia then departed, and in the last few days, a clan of netherfolk has moved in, although they are quite paranoid about the return of whatever creatures were here before. They’ve tried to secure the door to the east, adding multiple bars across it to keep it closed, but they have only started collecting the hardware to build a barricade to block the west passage – in the meantime, they have secured the double doors at the end of the bridge and remain on the east side of the river.
At some point, the militia will likely send a team up to find out what happened here, and they are likely to blame the netherfolk for the slaughter of their friends. The neterhfolk, in turn, are recently displaced from a much larger community of their kin that was raided and hunted by both drow and mind flayers.
*The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 10,200 x 13,200 pixels (34 x 44 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10′ squares that fit with the furnishings shown) – so resizing it to either 2,380 x 3,080 or 4,760 x 6,160, respectively.*
[**https://dysonlogos.blog/2026/04/17/heart-of-darkling-lair-of-the-netherfolk/**](https://dysonlogos.blog/2026/04/17/heart-of-darkling-lair-of-the-netherfolk/)
The Darkling River works its way through the underdark beneath the grey hills to depths unknown. This is the eighteenth mapped location (and 31st map total) along the Darkling River and the Darkling Lake beyond.
This little fort and bridge sit at the confluence of a small tributary with the Darkling. Both the bridge and fortification are old and of excellent workmanship, dating back to when this area was part of the extended underground kingdom controlled by the citadel of Kuln. The buildings here are more recent, not cut from the stone but made of carefully stacked stone slabs, and they definitely don’t show the signs of the fine workmanship that went into the bridge and fortification. The fortification is useful strategically to monitor traffic along the Darkling on the approach to Darklingtown, but the passages that connect here are troublesome, as the twisting caves and passages connect to all levels of the local underdark and have been overrun by many factions and unorganized monsters since the fall of Kuln.
The last picket assembled here by the Darklingtown militia was overrun a few months ago and hasn’t been replaced. The beasts that attacked and consumed the militia then departed, and in the last few days, a clan of netherfolk has moved in, although they are quite paranoid about the return of whatever creatures were here before. They’ve tried to secure the door to the east, adding multiple bars across it to keep it closed, but they have only started collecting the hardware to build a barricade to block the west passage – in the meantime, they have secured the double doors at the end of the bridge and remain on the east side of the river.
At some point, the militia will likely send a team up to find out what happened here, and they are likely to blame the netherfolk for the slaughter of their friends. The neterhfolk, in turn, are recently displaced from a much larger community of their kin that was raided and hunted by both drow and mind flayers.
*The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 10,200 x 13,200 pixels (34 x 44 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10′ squares that fit with the furnishings shown) – so resizing it to either 2,380 x 3,080 or 4,760 x 6,160, respectively.*
[**https://dysonlogos.blog/2026/04/17/heart-of-darkling-lair-of-the-netherfolk/**](https://dysonlogos.blog/2026/04/17/heart-of-darkling-lair-of-the-netherfolk/)