Hi Joe. You can make Oak pretty dark if you are talking about dyes and stains. Think of the dark craftsman style furniture, though that may be to reddish for what you have in mind. Lots of it is quite dark and their are ways to get it dark without the nasty fuming that they did in factories.

The only wood that I have used that turns dark easily is Walnut. The color of kiln dried walnut is not very nice on its own. It has a purplish or greyish tint. While experimenting, I discovered that plain BLO turns it a dark chocolate brown. I then tried Watco Danish Oil and it turned the Walnut a very similar chocolate color — maybe it has BLO in it? I also tried Walnut Watco, which has something called asphaltum as a colorant I believe. It did not seem to have much extra effect on the pieces I tried. You can actually buy asphaltum in some paint stores and it is an ingredient in some home made mixes for craftsmen furniture. So I went with plain Watco Danish Oil. To give you an idea, I will attach a few pics of a chest I made with Walnut. Oh, the walnut was a very nice wood to work with using handtools!

I am sure others have some experience with darker woods or making woods dark.