The Forsaken

Far below the surface of Kelbonnar’s Material Plane, in one of the most inhospitable and remote regions of the Deep Underdark reside the Forsaken, a mixed species group of humanoids who have carved out a living for themselves in an inhospitable region called the Sulphurous Sands.

Naming Traditions

Family names

The Forsaken have no family names as they regard themselves as part of a single collective, in which everyone is everyone’s brother or sister. Their origins as a slave population have given the Forsaken such a strong collective identity that they have eschewed the traditional familial units that are common across the rest of Kelbonnar, as they view the growth of individual units with which people identify within the collective, as being a threat to the safety and security of the collective as a whole.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

A mirror of their diverse species, racial and ethnic origins, the Forsaken speak a curious and unique dialect that is made up of words and phrases that are taken from all manner of different languages, but which is primarily based around a central mix of Undercommon and the dialect of Elven used by the Drow. It is thought that their language grew up out of a need for their ancestors to establish a way of communicating with their former Drow masters along with a variety of different peoples, who were gathered together in the slave quarters of Kar-Dun.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

As a people who were once reviled and enslaved, the Forsaken make a point of welcoming and helping any one who comes in peace to their remote homeland in the Deep Underdark and will provide them with food, shelter and often a guide to lead them out of the treacherous terrain of the Sulphurous Sands. The only exceptions to this custom are Drow, who are hated by the Forsaken, who still regard them as the enslavers of their ancestors, who should therefore not be trusted due to the decades of servitude and brutality they subjected them to.

Religious Values

Whilst the ancestors of the Forsaken, who were enslaved by the Drow of Kar-Dun would have had a diverse range of religious beliefs and values, since the exile of the people to the Sulphurous Sands, the Forsaken have taken on a new religious ideal and system, based on their surroundings. They regard the lake of sulphuric acid at the heart of their inhospitable home as being sacred, for it provides them with sustenance and medicine in the form of Yellow Bread Algae and they pay their respects to the lake itself by committing their bodies to it when they die, to continue the cycle of life.
Anyone who would dare to try and purify or alter the lake would be regarded as a hostile creature instantaneously if their actions were observed by one of the Forsaken, even if their intended actions had good intentions.

History

The history of the Forsaken does not make for happy reading. Once they were a slave population enthralled to the Drow city of Kar-Dun. However, when several slaves began to promote discontent amongst their fellows and tried to stage a revolt so that they could escape, the Drow came down hard on them and decided that for their own security, their entire slave populace should be replaced, lest the cancer of revolution persist amongst those not purged.
To this end, the Drow drove their slaves from their city in the Middle Underdark, far below the ground into the Deep Underdark, where they abandoned them in the most inhospitable place they could find, the Sulphurous Sands, fully expecting them to die a slow agonising death from starvation or dehydration.
Instead, however, the Forsaken endured, working out how to survive in the what seemed at first glance like a wasteland and carving out a life for themselves that, yes may be difficult and full of hardships, but which most importantly is free.

Coming of Age Rites

All members of the Forsaken undergo a brutal coming of age rite known as Submersion.

Funerary and Memorial customs

As the lives of the Forsaken revolves around and relies so heavily on the lake of sulphuric acid at the centre of the Sulphurous Sands and the Yellow Bread Algae that grows there, the Forsaken view the lake as a sacred location to them and when they die, they willingly give up their bodies to the lake. On death, the bodies of the deceased are submerged within the waters of the lake, where their bodies are dissolved in the acid. Though this, the Forsaken believe that they will go on to nourish the Yellow Bread Algae which in turn nourishes their people.

Common Taboos

As resources in the Sulphurous Sands are so scarce, it is deemed as taboo amongst the Forsaken to refuse a gift of food or water as they regard such a refusal as a turning down of the very substances that are necessary for existence and they therefore deem the person offered the gift to be foolish or unwise. However, it is completely acceptable for someone being offered a gift of food or water to take the offering and extend their own gift in return.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

The Forsaken deliberately undergo a process of scarification through their coming of age rite, Submersion and they view the scars and marks left on an individual after this process as being truly beautiful. The reason for this is that the ancestors of the Forsaken, when they were force marched and abandoned to die in the Sulphurous Sands by the Drow of Kar-Dun, were covered in scars and injuries inflicted upon them by lives held in slavery. Therefore, to honour the sacrifice and suffering of their ancestors, the Forsaken scar their own bodies, also seeing in this act a testament to their strength of body, mind and spirit.

Gender Ideals

The Forsaken have no specific gender roles or ideals, all are expected to work for the benefit and overall good of the collective.

Encompassed species

• Yellow Bread Algae

Related Locations

• The Sulphurous Sands