A DM friend needs an idea for a group of creatures in his Dark Sun campaign.

“They’d need to be humaniod, clannish, elemental related, subterranean & inclined to worship / follow a half-drake”

Right now he’s thinking about going with half-earth or fire tareks or magera. Do you guys have any ideas?

Anything wrong with dwarves?

That was my 1st suggestion, but he pointed out that dwarves aren’t really an underground race on Athas. They don’t get stonecunning & none of the Dark Sun source books mention them living underground.

Dwarves would still be the right answer. There is no reason why there might still be a tribe of underground mining classic dwarves. This would be just as strange to find as a completely alien race, and frankly more interesting.

If you don’t go dwarf, then go with the rat people.

He doesn’t want to use dwarves nor tari. Tari are too small for whatever it is he has planned.

I think the best bet would be hej-kin. They are subterranean, very into elemental earth, and clannish. Not sure about them worshipping a half-drake but why not.

Other choices besides the tarek or magera already mentioned:
yuan-ti
belgoi
scrabs (not really humanoid but could work)

How about an offshoot of subterranean gith? The half-drake could even be a gith itself.

You could also use a group of 1st generation dray that left Kragmorta for whatever reason.

The first generation dray have my vote. Even a group of them with a 2nd generation or two to keep them in place.