Recently I've been working on developing a setting that is near and dear to my heart, underground (not my heart, the setting is underground). Subterranean passages have been a favorite stomping ground for the adventurous sort since the early days of the genre. Journey to the Center of the Earth took us on a wild adventure into the depths and RA Salvatore built a career on a character who sprang from the abyssal deeps. Unfortunately, I like to build within the realm of reason (though I still love magic), so much of my predecessors' work is not useful to me (in a professional sense. I still enjoy reading them). The question now becomes, "How can you evolve a culture that spends most/all of its life underground?"
One variety of cave is formed by groundwater dissolving carbonate or
sulfate rocks. Consequently, water is a common element in these
environs. Cave systems may run for miles and some include massive dramatic chambers. They have long been havens for creatures looking for shelter, but few live solely within their confines. Much like island environments (The Galapagos Islands, Madagascar), many cave systems have evolved unique ecologies and denizens.
Many types of creatures have come to live in the cold dark. Certain types of fish, beetles, spiders, salamanders, and more have all come to call the netherworld home. Many have lost the bright colors of the outside world. Their eyes have frequently become simply photo-receptors, when they retain them at all. This has led to a preponderance of antennae and other feeling searching reaching methods. Some of these creatures have even evolved bioluminesence (including some millipedes) for some reason or other. Much like creatures of the deep ocean, cave dwellers can be startlingly different from surface species. There is a wide variety of creatures who have adapted to this challenging terrain, but one thing of note that they all have in common is that they are all small.
You may have noticed is that there are no mammals that live entirely beneath the earth. Sure, bears may hibernate in caves and there are plenty of creatures who den in holes in the ground, but they require trips to the surface to survive. Additionally, many of the creatures we think of as subterranean (termites, worms, moles) live in the dirt, not the rock. The primary reason for all of this is the need for energy (calories). Most of the foodstuffs that we bigger animals enjoy need the sunshine to grow or eat the things that eat the things needing sunshine to grow. Consequently, to make it possible to live underground, we need to figure out a food source.
The difficulty of establishing a food source within rock is unlocking the nutrients that organisms need to survive. Most seem to live in and around the water, since it can carry biologic material from the surface as well as dissolved minerals from the rock. You can see the problem. There is simply not enough caloric volume in these sources to support higher order creatures. So, to enable a culture to develop in the depths, we have to do some finagling.
Introducing a group of rational creatures to this environment can change everything. Because these creatures could not have originally evolved in the depths, we can assume that they brought some of their skills and knowledge of the surface world with them as they adapted to their new environment. Would they be farmers? Hunters? Herdsmen? How would they alter this new world to suit their needs? An intelligent species could certainly change the rules of underground existence, but it would have to begin in a calculated manner. However, once we start messing with things, all kinds of unexpected consequences can develop. That is where the fun starts.
One more important question you should ask when devising this environment, "Why would a group of rational creatures choose to move underground?"
Australia - http://www.livescience.com/7902-850-blind-pale-creatures-discovered-underground.html
Australia w/pics - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/photogalleries/new-species-underground-creatures-missions/
Termites - http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/termites/formosan_termite.htm
Amazing Photographer's Blog - http://anotheca.com/wordpress/2009/05/18/subterranean-wildlife/
Geology of Caves - http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/usgsnps/cave/cave.html
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