Deep Roads

The Deep Roads are a grand network of enormous underground tunnels that once belonged to the dwarven empire, spanning the length and breadth of Thedas.

Background

The Deep Roads once linked the thaigs with one another and to the surface. These subterranean highways were works of unparalleled artisan achievement, with centuries of planning and engineering demonstrated in the geometry of their walls. Statues, usually depicting a Paragon, watched over passing travelers, and channels carried a flow of magma that kept the Deep Roads lit and warm.
During the First Blight, the dwarves were forced to close the entrances to the Deep Roads, abandoning them to the darkspawn. The entrances still exist, but all are sealed by octagonal steel doors decorated with geometric patterns that may form words or patterns. At the height of the dwarven empire, the Deep Roads were busy with constant travelers and merchants, not only from the thaigs, but from the surface. If a citizen of the Tevinter Imperium at its height were to see the Deep Roads today, they would be shocked at the silence and decay that now reigns within.
This once-proud creation is now the source of much lament for what the dwarves have lost. Today, only three thaigs remain inhabited: Kal-Sharok, deep beneath the Hunterhorn Mountains - Orzammar beneath the Frostback Mountains - and the recently recovered Kal'Hirol beneath the Arling of Amaranthine.
How much of the network is still open is unknown, as is how much of the Deep Roads the darkspawn have corrupted.

Orzammar

The entrance at the dwarven city of Orzammar is also sealed, and no one is allowed to pass, though the gate is opened on occasion for one of the following reasons:

• People who have been granted access, or authorized expeditions.
  
  
• Regular operations conducted by Orzammar's army.
  
  
• Grey Wardens who head to their Calling.
  
  
• New members of the Legion of the Dead who venture into the Deep Roads, where they spend their last days fighting the darkspawn in hopes of redemption.
  
  
• Criminals punished with exile to the Deep Roads, which is considered to be certain death and one of the most severe punishments.

Travel

Travel within the Deep Roads is difficult. Many of the caverns leading down have been partially filled in with rock and earth, either on purpose to keep what is down there from getting to the surface, or through neglect and the passage of time. Many smaller tunnels intersect with the Roads themselves, making navigation even more difficult, but sometimes allowing blockages or other obstacles to be avoided. There is air available even in the deepest portions, as the dwarven craftsmen that built the roads created an intricate duct system to supply it. Natural light however does not reach the Roads so molten rock, channels of magma, slow-burning torches that have been burning for centuries, and other forms of technological illumination are used to provide light. The intersections have dwarven runes carved into walls, which may indicate directions. Along the network of passages are abandoned way-stations and forts, as well as the empty ruins of thaigs lost to the darkspawn.
In the more ancient parts of the Deep Roads, the walls and floor are covered with a substance of oil and filth - a visible indication of the taint, spread even to the rock itself, by the darkspawn that now inhabit the Roads.

Fauna & Flora

After the dwarves lost control of the Deep Roads, some of the wildlife from the underground caverns and tunnels now lives into the Deep Roads and lost thaigs. However it is not numerous due to the presence of darkspawn and because of the darkspawn taint which affects their fertility as well as turning some of them into ghouls. These are the known animal species:

• Bronto
• Deepstalker
• Glowing slime
• Nug
• Rat
• Spider

Type

Underground / Subterranean

Location under

Thedas

Included Locations

• Gundaar
• Hormak