Adel’s Mythic Underworld

“And lo, the heavens did strike down the humans and the elves and the dwarves for their treachery, and scoured them from the World. The skies rained lightning upon their monuments and struck them down, and issued tempests and storms and all manner of wrath. The land swallowed their cities and icons, twisting them to unknown shape, healing the scars they represented on its surface. The oceans rose and swept away their fleets and coastal nations, denying them escape from their punishment. Finally liquid flames burst from the highest mountains and inundated the land, cleansing flames. Yet, the flames did not penetrate deep enough. For the world has left us monuments to the hubris of the past, partially hidden, desecrated places that can never heal, to show us the folly of the ancients, and the reasons why they no longer exist, and the boundaries we have.”

– Lydia Peregrine, “Adel’s Ancient Past”

What Lies Beneath

The surface of Adel and its Nations are quite peaceful, safe and flourishing for the most part. Most people have no fear of wandering their beautiful countryside or the area around their villages. Yet, something is never quite right. All across Adel are small reminders of the ancient past. Henges and decrepit temples, small outlines of ancient buildings in the deep forest, unearthed caches of bones and treasures, offshore structures marking some long-since past movement of tides, strange devices erected in the midst of the desert, watching the skies. All of these are but tiny marks of those left behind. Below Adel lay real and powerful monuments to the death of the old world. Once, these may have been great fortifications or beautiful monuments. Now, they are known as the Arch-Dungeons, seven enormous, shifting, inhospitable areas that stretch deep below the land. Each Nation has its own Arch-Dungeon, and Noshiki and Abyss Isle carry the final two. It has never been proven, but they may be linked.

The cleansing Cataclysm was the world’s way of ridding itself of the torments that its former inhabitants had wrought upon it. However, some wounds ran too deep to heal. Each of these utterly profane places exists now because they will exist forever. The Arch-Dungeons are indestructible holds of corruption, each representing the perversion of one of Adel’s seven elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water, or the “tangible elements;” Impetus, Essentia and Placidus, known as the “intangible elements” of Life or animation, Essence or the soul, and Stillness or death. Each dungeon has its own origin and it corrupts a certain element.

Each of the Arch-Dungeons changed with time, or perhaps even entirely at random. Mapping them has been extremely difficult thus far, though very few have even attempted it. Those who have attempted it and lived to tell the tale confirm that each dungeon does seem to shift slightly over the years, with rooms and tunnels collapsing or reconnecting to different areas. The scale of these dungeons is so massive that only segments of them have ever been explored. These segments and their characteristics have been recorded and named where possible, and each is a dungeon in its own right. They have a variety of exits and entrances, and it has been recorded that entrances and exits seem to naturally retreat and reappear in different places. Your average sleepy village could find itself unknowingly connected to one of these horrible places, by the whim of the stars and the earth.

Like any dungeon, there are various motivations for its exploration. Monsters not only spawn in these dungeons, but they enter them from outside and “claim them” – problematic when the dungeons subsequently connect themselves to the outskirts of villages and towns, as they are wont to do. People have been kidnapped and thrown into certain dungeons to silence them – and become subsequently lost and in need of rescue. During the Intolerable War, the dungeons were used as shortcuts to launch surprise attacks deep into enemy territory, by taking advantage of the dungeon’s numerous entrances and exits. This strategy, however, took a great toll in the fighting strength of those who entered – if they even managed to exit. Likewise, because of their tangled layouts, the dungeons can be used by foolhardy fugitives to escape authority. But most importantly the dungeons each contain treasures and histories unknown that draw the lust of many desperate would-be adventurers and scholars.

The Arch-Dungeons can be said to be the most dangerous places in Adel, next to the Noshiki wasteland. They are intermittently populated both by people and monsters from the outside world with some kind of stake in hiding within them, and by demons, corrupted spirits that spontaneously arise from the malign influence of the Arch-Dungeons.

Below is a brief introduction to each dungeon.

The Hellmouth

Origin: Human.
Composition: Partly cavernous, partly fortified.
Corrupts: Earth.
Location: Andaliel.

Description: Holes big enough for a mammoth to fit through mark the entrances to the Hellmouth, a conglomerate of fortress ruins and caverns blended together beneath the land of Andaliel. Once one falls into a Hellmouth entrance, one cannot use the same entrance to escape – a portion of the dungeon must be braved and an exit found. The Hellmouth corrupts the Earth, and anything from golems to elementals to twisted animals of the underground skulk within it, forever unable to escape the shifting expanse. Portions of the dungeon have from time to time made good hideouts for muk goblins as well.

The Wraithwood

Origin: Elf.
Composition: Wooded, forested.
Corrupts: Impetus.
Location: Emderuer.

Description: A great tree turned upside down and buried within the ground in Emderuer, the Wraithwood is a series of caverns that, upon closer inspection of the walls, are encased in wood. Vast, strange forests within the hollowed-out primeval trunk, along with remnants of elven architecture. The Wraithwood corrupts Impetus, breeding odd, deformed life such as slimes and aberrations within its confines, mutant plants and miasma-spewing fungi giving the underground forest an alien appearance. Surviving elves are said to be on the prowl within the wraithwood as well, seeking after their lost history.

The Necropolis

Origin: Human Liches
Composition: Contrived, fortified city-structure.
Corrupts: Placidus
Location: Vedaria

Description: The ancient capitals of the Humans are smashed together into a massive tomb below the sands of Vedaria. Within the Necropolis lie ancient machinery, desecrated technology and the formidable holds of past kings and queens of the long-extinct human race. The Necropolis corrupts Placidus, and anything that remains within it for too long and without proper protections will join the army of the dead that forever guards the holds, eternally at war with their own environment.

The Abyss Isle

Origin: Dwarf.
Composition: Volcanic.
Corrupts: Fire.
Location: Abyss Isle.

Description: Off the coast of Vedaria is the Abyss Isle, an island with a shield volcano that predates any other geologic monument currently on the surface of Adel. Within the Abyss Isle are a series of volcanic tunnels said to be able to bridge the gap between the true Hell of the World of Adel, the Ashura’s plane of Septinum, and the surface. Indeed, the Ashura are ever exploring the Abyss Isle, and have often found themselves quite capable of using it to enact both commerce and aggression with the Adelians. The Abyss Isle is the most– well, one would not say “safe” but perhaps “charted” of the dungeons. It corrupts Fire, and it is a fairly predictable dungeon. Most of the danger tends to come from the fickle moods of the Ashura spirits that have claimed it.

The Castle Stonestorm

Origin: Elf Mages.
Composition: Fortified structure.
Corrupts: Air
Location: Periterim.

Description: Hovering over Periterim, and sometimes the borders of Andaliel and Vedaria, the Castle Stonestorm is a floating fortress high in the sky, the exhausts of its ancient turbines generating storms and monsoons wherever it is present. The Castle Stonestorm was once a fortress of elven mages, and housed their experiments with turbine, clockwork and other forms of powered automatons and weaponry. Stonestorm corrupts the wind, sucking in air through its frame and generating energy from various windwills and rotors, and spitting out smoke and ash.

The Pampa Sea

Origin: Dwarf Engineers.
Composition: Flooded underground, cavernous aquifer.
Corrupts: Water.
Location: Sargasso.

Description: The massive aquifer beneath Sargasso leads directly into the Pampa Sea, a series of partially mechanized caverns and flooded underground containing lost cities, ancient dwarven water-driving technology, hulking water monsters, and connections to every significant body of water in Sargasso. The water drawn out of the Pampa is purified through the grace of the water spirits that Sargasso is allied with. But deep beneath the surface, the Pampa’s corruption of Water creates an inhospitable environment.

The Mount Oblivion

Origin: Dragons
Composition: Varies – fortress, cavern, hidden city.
Corrupts: Essentia
Location: Noshiki

Description: The mountains of Noshiki are one enormous, befouled complex once belonging to ancient draconic overlords. Many Dragons still live in the Mount Oblivion (and in other Arch-Dungeons as well), and hoard great wealth in its numerous areas. Many hidden cities collapsed into the mount during the cataclysm, or so the story goes. The Mount Oblivion is perhaps the most evil, dangerous place in all of Adel. Not only does it lie in the middle of the vast wasteland of Noshiki, its corruption of Essence has bred unspeakable demonic horrors within its confines, and has confusing effects on the use of any kind of magic.

In upcoming articles, I’ll discuss each Arch-Dungeon, its origin and power and some of the named areas and the historical or folkloric delves that have been undertaken within these places.