D&D's newest playtest goes deeper into the Underdark

Wizards of the Coast has published Unearthed Arcana 2026: Underdark Options 2, the latest playtest packet for Dungeons & Dragons, and it is a big one. The document carries three new subclasses and five new species, all built around the lightless caverns and strange civilisations that sit beneath the surface world.

Which subclasses are in Underdark Options 2?

The packet adds a Freedom Domain for Clerics, a Circle of Spores for Druids and Faerzress Sorcery for Sorcerers. The Freedom Domain is magic of liberation and movement, with domain spells including Expeditious Retreat, Jump, Knock and Misty Step at level 3 and a Channel Divinity option, Invoke Liberty, that lets allies shed the frightened, grappled, paralysed or restrained conditions. The other two draw directly on Underdark lore: circle spores are fungal, while faerzress is the magical radiation that fills the deep caverns.

Who are the five new species?

The species list is Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa and Myconid. The deep imaskari are descendants of the human empire of Imaskar who fled into the Underdark, sealed themselves away and were warped by the synthetic sunlight they built to survive, leaving glowing crystals protruding from their skin. They resist radiant damage, gain heroic inspiration after a long rest and can project an Aura of Unlight from level 3 that either shields allies, blinds enemies or turns damage radiant.

Driders are the Spider Queen's cursed hunters — a drow head and torso on the body of a giant spider — with a 30-foot walking speed, darkvision out to 120 feet and spells befitting a servant of Lolth. They live around 750 years. Myconids are classified as Plants rather than humanoids, which matters mechanically, and they bring 30-foot telepathy and Rapport Spores to the table. Their lifespans are short: perhaps 25 years before they return to the soil to feed the next generation of their circle.

Kuo-toa are fishlike, scale-covered humanoids whose skin shifts colour with strong emotion and whose empires collapsed long before anyone thought to write it down. Illithidkin are the byproduct of mind flayer experiments: bipedal hybrids with purple skin, wriggling tentacles and a fledgling psionic aptitude that gives them an invisible mage hand.

Is any of this official D&D yet?

No. Unearthed Arcana is explicitly playtest material: the options are experimental, in draft form, and not part of the game until Wizards decides otherwise. The document states that it uses the rules in the 2024 Player's Handbook, that the options may end up stronger or weaker than existing ones, and that a survey on D&D Beyond will decide whether any of it survives into a published book. It also carries a content warning for body horror and mind control imagery.

Our opinion

Unearthed Arcana is at its best when it hands players something they could not previously build, and this packet does that twice over: a cleric who specialises in breaking chains is a genuinely new fantasy for the class, and letting players be a drider — traditionally a monster you fight, not a character you roll — is the sort of choice that makes a table memorable. The worry is balance. Faerzress Sorcery and a radiant-resistant species both lean into the same buffed-spellcaster space, and playtest feedback has a habit of turning the flavourful, slightly broken option into something blander by publication. Our hope is that Wizards keeps the strange parts and tunes the numbers, because Underdark Options 2 is far more interesting than another round of martial polish.