Underdark ambience for D&D
Seven layers, two of them loops, and drums at the edge of hearing. The recipe for a cave that something else is already using.
The Underdark is a cave with two loops instead of one and something at the edge of hearing. A vast dark bed, a river at 20% pushed far off, drips nearby, chittering further out, and drums about every two minutes at very far. The drums are the page: they are the one sound down there that somebody meant to make.
What it sounds like
Run a plain cave recipe in the Underdark and it feels too clean. The point of the place is that it is enormous and populated, and a cave gives you enormous and empty.
This one fixes that twice over. First with a second loop — an underground river at 20%, pushed far — which does something a single bed cannot: it puts a fixed landmark somewhere off in the dark, so the space has a direction to it. Then with the drums. Every two minutes, as far away as the app will put anything, at a volume you could argue about.
Drums are not geology. They are the only sound in the environment that something chose to make, and they cannot be reached, investigated or fought. That is what separates this from a cave: the dark goes on past the torchlight, and it is in use.
The recipe, dial by dial
This is the environment as it ships. Every layer is the same kind of thing — one sound from the library and a set of dials — so there is nothing special about which slot a sound sits in. The names are only names.
| Layer | Sound | How often | Wander | Volume | Distance | Reverb | Echo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vast dark | Underdark | loop | — | 60% | close | medium | off |
| Drips | Cave drips (varied) | every ~7.0 s | 70% | 50% | nearby | large | 3-4 |
| Chittering | Chittering | every ~30 s | 70% | 50% | far | large | 1 bounce |
| Distant drums | Distant drums | rare, every ~120 s | 70% | 50% | very far | large | 1 bounce |
| Underground river | Mountain stream | loop | — | 20% | far | off | off |
| Rockfall | Rockfall | every ~100 s | 70% | 50% | far | large | 1 bounce |
| Something huge shifts (off) | Boulder | rare, every ~150 s | 70% | 50% | very far | large | 2 bounces |
Master volume 80%. Every number above is read out of the environment that ships in the app, and printed in the words the app prints beside each slider.
- Vast dark — The bed at 60%, and the only loop in these fifteen pages carrying reverb of its own. The room is bigger than the recording.
Underdark - Drips — Every seven seconds, nearby, with a large room and three or four bounces. Ordinary cave business, so the far layers have something mundane to be measured against.
Cave drips (varied) - Chittering — Every thirty seconds, far. Alive, numerous, and not coming closer.
Chittering - Distant drums — About every two minutes, very far. The layer with intent, and the reason this is not just a big cave.
Distant drums - Underground river — A second loop at 20%, pushed far. A landmark in the dark; it gives the space a direction.
Mountain stream - Rockfall — Every hundred seconds or so. The ceiling is not stable and nobody is maintaining it.
Rockfall - Something huge shifts — Off, and rare when you turn it on. Save it for one moment in a session.
Boulder
What each dial does is covered once, properly, in Environments & layers.
Boards to load with it
The environment is the place; boards are the things that happen in it. These three ship built in and suit this one:
Load them, then press + New scene and the environment and the boards come back together next week in one tap. Scenes covers that.
Make it yours
A worked tunnel
Abandoned Mine and Goblin Warren both ship built in. Either answers the question of who dug this, which is sometimes a question you want answered.
Far too deep
Push every layer out one step and halve every volume. Quiet and distant frightens more than loud and close, and it costs nothing.
They are being followed
Turn Something huge shifts on and leave it at very far. It fires about once every two and a half minutes, which is slow enough that the first one will be dismissed and the second will not.
None of this is destructive: the built-in environments cannot be overwritten. Change what you like, and press Save a copy as… when it sounds right.
The recordings
Every sound this environment uses, and who recorded it. Most of the library is public domain; the Creative Commons Attribution recordings are credited here because that is what the licence asks for. The full list is on Sounds & licensing.
- Underdark — Enchanted cave by xkeril (CC0)
- Cave drips (varied) — Cavern Drips, Stones and Deep Rumbles — by GLORB by bassimat (CC0)
- Cave drips (varied) — Water drips in the cave HQ.wav by tosha73 (CC-BY 4.0)
- Cave drips (varied) — Ambience INT water drip dropping cave grotto spooky (quinta da regaleira portugal).flac by corkob (CC0)
- Cave drips (varied) — Ambience INT water drip dropping cave grotto spooky (quinta da regaleira portugal).flac by corkob / tosha73 (CC-BY 4.0)
- Cave drips (varied) — Dripping water by Electroviolence (CC0)
- Chittering — Insect Animal Growl Chitter by SecureSubset (CC0)
- Distant drums — Drum_End7.wav by DneproMan (CC0)
- Distant drums — drumming.wav by deleted_user_958643 (CC0)
- Distant drums — Tribal Drum is Cool.wav by Teaganbear (CC0)
- Mountain stream — Brook 2.wav by straget (CC0)
- Rockfall — Bricks/Stones/Rocks/Gravel Falling by iwanPlays (CC0)
- Rockfall — Rocks.wav by adamgryu (CC0)
- Rockfall — Falling Rock.wav by spookymodem (CC0)
- Rockfall — Rock Tumble 2.wav by _stubb (CC0)
- Boulder — Stones Falling (pitched down) by iwanPlays (CC0)
- Boulder — sandfall5.wav (pitched down) by Wagna (CC0)
- Boulder — Gravel Stone Dirt Debris Falling Small 1 12 (pitched down) by Sheyvan (CC0)
- Boulder — R09-79-Fall on Gravel.wav (pitched down) by craigsmith (CC0)
Related
Open Underdark in Thaumaturgy — it is free, there is nothing to install, and nothing to sign up for.
Updated 24 October 2026