From the Heavens, to the Far Deep

The World of Araea

From the irradiated wastelands of the surface to the unknown darkness of the Far Deep, the world of Araea is one of extremes. Against all odds, life has taken root beneath the ground in vast caverns and labyrinthine tunnels. The din of civilization echo in polluted and crowded pockets. The bold and the desperate brave the unexplored dark in search of glory and gold. Even after centuries of crawling through the dark, much of Araea remains shrouded in mystery... And peril.
Araea is a bleak and dangerous world, full of terror and wonder in equal measure. Mankind is not the master of this world, but children fumbling in the dark.

Welcome to Araea.

by Jama Jurabaev

The Surface

The Surface is the land beneath the uncaring stars. It is a world of jagged mountains and wind-swept deserts, of irradiated wastelands pocketed by star-strikes and storms that rage across continents. It is a land where only the bold or crazed seek their fortune.
The Surface of Araea is a barren place. Water is scarce except in the form of massive glaciers. There are no oceans, only rivers and small lakes or toxic swamps. The most common terrain across the Surface is rocky and desolate. Much of the surface is lethally irradiated, making travel dangerous. Travelers frequently wear charms said to ward of the Blight, typically with poor results. Canyons or sinkholes sometimes break into the tunnels and caverns of the Outer Shell, allowing sunlight to bleed into the dark. These places are links to the surface, allowing the bold to explore the forbidden lands above or life to bloom in these sheltered, sunlit gardens.

Blight
Radiation is a constant hazard on the surface. Entire continents of the planets are shrouded by lethal storms and even the most benign lands of the Surface are still tainted with poison. Called "Blight" by the denizens of Araea, it is a poorly understood and frequently fatal phenomenon.
Read more about Blight

Despite the dangers, the Surface is not empty. Rare pockets of life thrive along the edges of the glaciers or in unrecognizable forms in the cosmic-blasted mountain peaks and irradiated valleys. Nomadic tribes of exiles and mutants eke out a terrible existence in the wastes, while strange lights in the night herald the arrival of strangers from beyond the stars. Towers of white stone have been sighted deep in the blighted wastes where no one could or should survive.
Few human structures grace the surface world. Those that do belong either to prospectors, explorers, or star-crazed cults. Greed drives them here, even among all the dangers of the Surface, and they gather in hunting camps or desperate settlements. No matter what walls they raise or lands they claim to own, humanity are only visitors here, at the mercy of the Surface's true masters.

by Jorge Jacinto

The Surface is a cold place, with temperatures frequently plunging below freezing all year. Temperatures reach their highest point in the Season of Fire, for a brief temperate climate accompanied by sweeps of heightened radiation and blight-storms. They drop to their lowest in the Season of Dark, when much of the surface becomes encased in ice and darkness.

The Howling Plains
A great stretch of the equator is dominated by a great, flat plain that may in some unimaginable distant past been the bottom of an ocean long since worn down by meteoric barrage and eroding winds. The storms are near-constant now, giving the plains their name. Particularly dangerous are the irradiated dust-storms, with winds that can flay the flesh from bone.

The Outer Shell

Just beneath the skin of the world, the Outer Shell goes only a few miles deep below the surface. Halfway between the true depths and the dangerous Surface, it has neither the riches nor unique ecosystem of the Inner Shell nor the blight-riddled host of terrors of the Surface. The caverns here are smaller than those deeper down, with tunnels winding for many miles between them. Like the surface, water is scarce and usually comes in the form of trickling streams or rivers from glaciers that lie above. Those who settle here do so near one of these precious sources of freshwater, sometimes forced to venture to the Above in search of ice.

by Tom Gaineor (Unsplash)

Other dangers make the Outer Shell a daunting place to live. Earthquakes, meteorite impacts or sudden sinkholes all threaten to crush settlements or cut them off from vital resources. Shifting patterns of radiation cause the Blight to sometimes creeps down into the tunnels or pollute their streams. Still, there are opportunities here for the daring. Most business ventures in the Outer Shell are for the rare resources that can only be found on the Surface. Danger does little to discourage these sorts of enterprises, no matter how many fail.

The Inner Shell

Deep into the dark and far from the sun, the Inner Shell is the most populated region of Araea. A vast subterranean world, the Inner Shell is home to caverns that stretch for miles, tunnels large enough to fit giants, mushrooms as tall as men, rivers of magma, and subterranean oceans. At the highest points of the Inner Shell, the caverns taper off, and the tunnels become smaller as they approach and merge with the Outer Shell. The opposite is true as the Inner Shell meets the Far Deep, where the caverns grow monumental in size and ever more alien.

The Abyss
While the Inner Shell is home to countless underground lakes and rivers, the Abyss dwarfs them all. An underground ocean of titanic scope and depth, the Abyss is a world unto itself and there is life in the inky black waters.

by Marvin Herbring

Different layers of ore and rock create a rich tapestry of color and texture, painted with lichen and bioluminescent fungi that ooze pools of light in the vast darkness. Quartz and crystal, sometimes growing to enormous proportions, create great and tangled spires, while dying magma vents leave behind vaults of obsidian.
Temperature and climate vary greatly between the stretch of the Inner Shell from cold, wet, and unpleasant to unbearably hot, with everything in between. Blight is rare in the depths, though not unknown, but the pollution from cities and human filth more than make up for it.
Cities and villages have grown to fill the space in the forking, twisting tunnels and the large caverns. These settlements are sprawling, disjointed things, separated by chasm or connected through labyrinthine tunnels. But for all their size and industry, civilization remains very much a flickering light, surrounded by a vast unknown dark.

Bio-Caves by Josh Eiten

The Far Deep

Beyond the Inner Shell and following miles of shafts or ancient magma tubes, deep into the world lies the Far Deep. It is an alien world, where titanic cthonic worms to the much-feared mind-hunting Shrikes stalk nameless lands. The caverns and tunnels of the Far Deep are the largest and most expansive, with bottomless chasms and hollow sprawls mingling with rivers of black ice and fire.
For every truth, there are ten legends about the true nature of the Far Deep and what it contains; from the birthplace of the world to a paradise to those who can push past it. Like the Surface, the Far Deep draws explorers, prospectors, and adventurers with enough coming back with wealth and glory to perpetuate the cycle.

by Piotr Dura

The World At A Glance

The Surface

Sometimes called the Above, it is the world beyond the caverns and tunnels. The Surface is an inhospitable place, with few places for frail humans to survive. But the blighted lands are not devoid of life, home to terrifying beasts like the Mahu'ca.

The Outer Shell

Nestled close to the Surface, the Outer Shell lies just below the skin of the world with open wounds often connecting the two.

The Inner Shell

Miles beneath the earth and far removed from sunlight, life in Araea has taken root and infest every nook and cranny it can.
Survival is a daily struggle. No matter where, from sprawling city-state to isolated village, there is never enough for everyone.

The Far Deep

Below even the Inner Shell's most distant tunnels, the Far Deep begins. It lies at the very deepest places known, vast and terrible. It is a place of myth and legend - as well as death.

For all the years that humanity has spent in the deeps, most of the world remains shrouded in darkness. Civilization is a small spot on a blank map, surrounded by "here be dragons"

Blight-Tracker

One of the most feared hazards of the Surface is the radiation that taints the land or spreads far and wide through furious dust-storms - the people of Araea known it as Blight. It is poorly understood, surrounded by superstition.

by Jens Jonsson

Blight-Trackers have spent their lives mapping where the land is tainted and learned how the dangers shift. They make maps from magnetic sand, study patterns and have through trial and murderous error gained a rudimentary understanding of Blight. This knowledge makes them an invaluable addition to any expedition that seeks to brave the Surface and they know it well when negotiating.
Read more about the Blight-Trackers

Star-Chasing
Rarely has mortal danger done much to deter the greedy and there is no better example than the business of Star-Chasing.
Star-Chasers seek the sites of meteoric impacts to harvest the fallen celestial. Often, they're left with little more than ice, rock, or meteoric iron, but sometimes they get lucky. Some rare few come home with Starsteel and their fortunes are assured.
Read more about Star-Chaser

Life in the Deep

It isn't easy to survive in the underworld, where food and light are always scarce. Underground lakes and rivers hold herds of blind fish that feed off the detritus of others and are in turn hunted. Lichen and fungi support floating jellyfish and insects in every variety of prey and are preyed upon in an endless cycle. Every corpse is food, and nothing goes to waste.
As the caverns widen and grow larger, so does the life they support, while bioluminescent flora, magma vents, and glowing crystals provide both light and heat to all the things that dwell below. The greater the depths, the grander the caverns.

Cities in the Deep

The Inner Shell is home to the largest centers of population in Araea in the form of powerful city-states. Only at these depths are there enough resources to sustain a larger population - and even then, just barely. Food and water are constantly in short supply. In a year of bad harvest, even the wealthy go hungry and the poor face even worse fates.
Cities in Araea sprawl in all directions. They are noisy and chaotic: with no seasons, no day or night, there is always movement and life. Mushrooms must be harvested, metals mined, and caverns expanded. There is rarely time for rest.

by Ubisoft - NWN

Mharaji
The greatest and most powerful of all city-states is Mharaji. Thousands of souls share the city, ranging from wealthy nobles to impoverished squatters. The city straddles a gorge that leads directly into the Far Deep, a fact that nearly saw the city destroyed in its past. Mharaji's size and wealth make it almost ungovernable, and it is a patchwork of local powers.
Read more about Mharaji

Deep Roads

The Inner Shell is not always a continuous whole. Tunnels crack and shift, entire caverns collapse or flood, the path from one point to another may no longer be as easy as it once was. City-states live and die at the whim of uncertain stone.
Travel is never a straight line and travelers are sometimes forced to go through the Far Deep to reach another part of the Inner Shell. The bold, desperate, or foolish occasionally take a route through the Far Deep to gambit to save time.

Beyond these mortal realm lie stranger places still. The Labyrinth worms its way beneath the skein of the world, a space between all spaces, with the Dark City at its heart.
On the Surface, the stars intrude on Araea's soil and celestial visitors remake the land to their liking. In those forbidden zones, another worlds is forced on Araea.
In the far-flung corners of the dark, explorers find tunnels that lead them to impossible places or through impossible journeys. Halls of spirits, monolithic dens of ancient monsters, ruins where none should be, doorways that take them halfway across the world with one step.
Everywhere, there is mystery and wonder. To those who dare, glory awaits within the darkness.

Bio-Caves by Josh Eiten