I consider using Dark Creepers and Dark Stalkers as a race of Aberration-God cultists, that happened to find their gods in the Underworld and change over time (same for derro, cave giants, and grimlocks).
But there seems to be very little background fluff for them, except for what was already in their Fiend Folio entry thirty years ago.
The live underground, hate light, and sometimes come up to the surface at night. And that seems to be it. What do they want? How do they interact with other races? What do they do? Even for bugbears and ettercaps I have some idea why PCs would encounter them and what would likely happen in that case. With the Dark Ones, I really don't have any clue.
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Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen any fluff regarding the Dark Ones. Even "Into the Darklands" doesn't say much beyond the fact that they're around and they're bad. Either way, you're safe doing whatever you want with them. If one of your players tries to contradict you, throw a D20 at his head.*
*Edit: I'm officially kidding and therefore accept no moral or legal responsibility for injuries inflicted. Also, make sure that the lid on your coffee is secure. And call your mother, she'd love to hear from you once in a while.
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I'm used to seeing tons of overused "even if Group/Entity-X knows Secret-Y, they're not talking" in Pathfinder, so it surprised me when the Bestiary said their origin was unknown, yet looking back at Into the Darklands revealed it. It makes me a little nervous, actually; now I'm wondering if the 3.5 campaign setting also has information that didn't make it into Inner Sea World Guide.
I haven't seen much info on them, so I think this is mostly going to be a game of reverse-engineering. You know where they come from; you know a few places where they are. I haven't seen them do much, although I know that beneath an opening to Nar-Voth in Nidal, they run an effective slave market.
I think I see them as a quiet, proud and greedy people. They are the survivors of Lost Azlant, after all; they haven't fallen from grace through inbreeding like the Morlocks, and they haven't become dancing puppets like the Gillmen. They fled the horrors of Earthfall, confronted the dangers of the Darklands and survived. Mostly on their own.
I think the Dark Folk are probably the most capable of retaining Azlanti culture and hoards than any of the other scions. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think there's fully intact historical cities down there. More likely, some Azlanti survivors were able to carry an armload of stuff as they fled into the caves, and some of that stuff might have even survived their first predations by the Darklands residents. Some of that stuff might even have survived being bargained away for their lives, and so there may be cultural relics and strange magic items hidden in the Dark Folk strongholds as they meet in the gloaming and pass on warped versions of their shared history through rare whispers.
Perhaps it's this reason that the Dark Folk are such a mystery, even to GMs. The nature of Dark Folk is an iteration of Azlanti history, and revealing the Dark Folk reveals far too much of Azlant. Those are secrets they're keeping back for now.
What I recall of Azlant was that it was raised by the strange blessings of the aboleths, who made mankind great, and when mankind became too proud they revoked their sanction. Thassilon, the successor culture, was started when Xin separated on the notion that the Azlanti should work with the other races to become even greater; even good Aroden, the last Azlanti, was a bit of a human supremacist that believed humans were destined to inherit the world. What we can take away from this is that the Azlant, and presumably the Dark Folk, were steeped in a history of slavery and raised in a culture where some creatures simply live with greater entitlements than others. The relationship between Dark Stalkers and Dark Creepers seems to exemplify this within their own race -- even the Dark Creepers wouldn't have it any other way.
Still, I have to wonder if there isn't some pact or some shadow-related magical power that has infused the Dark Folk. Why photosynthesis? Have they bent a knee to some ancient Azlant enemy, or sworn themselves to something they found in the Darklands? Have they discovered some magical shadow-secret that affects them today in more than just physiology? I'd love to see an article with some answers and even more questions sometime.
This link may add additional tidbits:
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Dark_folk
You are talking about Golarion, yes?
I am. I was not exposed to Dark Folk before reading about them in Pathfinder's Bestiary, and later I read about their Azlant origin in "Into the Darklands" which was written when Golarion was just a campaign setting for D&D 3.5 and didn't have its own ruleset
My post is mostly theorizing, but it's logical enough for me to build plots out of if necessary.
So I guess it's pretty much true what lots of people are saying. There is no fluff to these creatures.
Weird. Because they are still cool.
I have the Dark Ones in my homebrew. They are kin to the Fetchlings, and the legend lore goes like this:
Long ago there was a wicked fey queen that was locked up in a cell in the Shadow Plane, accessible only by a magic mirror. The mirror was stolen from the First World and placed in the material plane where the queen found a way to send darkness into this dungeon. Over time she lured humans to her service and twisted them with the darkness, enslaving them.
Some of these became fetchlings; creatures tainted by the Shadow but not fully enshrouded by it. These beings pass freely between the material and the Shadow where they act as go betweens. Some over time have rebelled and are now scattered.
The Dark Ones however gave themselves completely to the Mad Queen and her power. These folk have the favor of the Queen and act as her hands and eyes. Because the fey despot is mad with vanity these creatures have lost all manner of beauty and humanity, enveloping themselves in dark and concealing clothing to hid their visages from light and life.
Now the Fetchlings still have vestiges of free will and it would seem that these creatures then are superior to the Dark Folk. That's why I've given significant class levels to the Stalkers and Slayers as well as tinkering with an oracle-type variant as a divine companion to the Slayers. In keeping with a more fey-themed game I've avoided a necromantic bent with these creatures, making them instead infused with powers of enchantment and compulsion. These creatures, which I call Dark Whisperers, are the interrogators and mouthpieces of the Queen.
The overall plot in my game is that the Queen can only leave her mirror to possess the body of a mortal or fey whom she deems "Fairest of them all." These creatures must be found, groomed and prepared to receive her, and because she's so powerful the vessels don't last long, so she needs a steady supply of them. Finally the fey queen can't leave the underground, for fear her sisters might detect her, so she instead uses her minions to just endlessly build out new rooms, chambers and diversions in her ever-expanding "kingdom."
So the megadungeon has taken on sort of a demi-plane status. The Fetchlings then can leave and return, as well as some other minions. When they leave and DON'T return she sends off others to retrieve them for punishment. The Dark Folk are her adoring worshippers, her favored subjects and her grunt soldiers. They sometimes accompany Fetchlings into the mortal world to acquire women for the Queen, foster breeding programs or just otherwise gather resources. They also keep their patron in material things; jewelry, fine dresses, and elaborate halls of opulence and decadence.
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Well, this is the issue of Wayfinder coming with darklands as a theme. Hopefully a bunch of other people noticed the lack or Dark Ones fluff.
That said, darklands threats would be an excellent topic for a Monsters Revisited book. Drow, ropers, morlocks, dark ones, duergar, svifneblin, aboleths, and more.
I remember reading something about them in the shadow fay entrys. Something about them being the remnents of adventurers who fought the shadow fay destroying the world plan that ended with a big explosion and the shadow fay curse.
I like the idea of humans and maybe gnomes or halflings being trapped in the Underworld and somehow being mutated. And especially the dark stalkers appear a lot more sophisticated than morlocks, skum, or cave giants. Having a society that is not reduced to savagery, but also not mostly normal "colonists" like drow and duergar could make for some interesting situations. While drow and duergar are arguably mutated to have developed magical and psionic powers, they are still elves and dwarves. But the Dark Ones appear to be something far more different, closer to grimlocks and derro.
One idea I had is to make dark stalker psions and use them like the Big Sisters from Bioshock 2. Very thin humanoids covered in tight black wraps, that are very fast but also amazingly tough. Never talking and appearing seemingly from nowhere from a ledge near the ceiling or a crack in the wall, then making a short very powerful attack and disappearing as quickly as they came. Having one or two of them jumping over chasms to poison sneak attack the party, shot some fireballs or telekinet thrusts, and then disappearing behind a corner would make for great reappearing boss fights. And they can do all that stuff while throwing darkness and fog spells at will. With a bunch of class levels added to them, they probably can make really terrifying enemies.
Or you could do similar things with a whole gang of dark creepers.
Dot.
Dragon conpendium volume 1
Shadow fay tried to drag the realms into the shadow realm. The backlash cursed the shadow fay and the adventurers. Still bad blood.
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Been running a Dark Stalker in Kaer Maga like the merchant from Resident Evil 4. :)
The Dark Folk are infuriatingly enigmatic, largely because they're such a blank slate. I hope when they do get explored further, they can retain that mystique(and avoid getting turned into villains like the Dark Slayer seemed to push!).