Karstiver

Us dwarves and our fucking caves, hey?

— cheery dwarf

Karstivers, often casually referred to as graveworms or cavespoilers, are cave explorers and divers employed largely through Gildómar to traverse, map, and uncover the vast cavern systems beneath the surface of Iskaldhal. It is an extremely perilous profession and one that carries little glory, but nonetheless has brought Gildómar significant wealth and territory over the years.

Discovery by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Iskaldhal's subterranean reaches are broken down into many layers, with the lowest reaches - what would be termed the Underdark and below, were it elsewhere - being unreachable due to defences supposedly laid by the Goldendwelt and whatever mystery threats they seek to avoid releasing.
What remains is an immense network of cave systems. Many are flooded, many have been collapsed, and many new caves are being born as mines and magic continue to bend the planet.
This is where the karstivers come in. They are sent out, well-equipped and well-trained, to investigate mysteries on Gildómar's current cavern maps and to ensure the completeness and truthfulness of said maps over time.
Karstivers are the first living folk to be sent to areas of known cavern collapses once any rescue efforts are done and the dust is settled, and the first to set foot in many caves previously untouched by mortal life.

Rarely, karstiver discoveries will result in Gildómar seeking new territory. No strict rules govern ownership of the subterrane, not as clearly as they do on land - when karstivers discover particularly promising cave systems, often with rare resources, they often return to Gildómar with a complex diplomatic discussion in tow. Naturally, the more important discoveries are quietly hidden on a need-to-know basis to ensure the resources can be secured before political issues prevent the nation from doing so.

Career

Qualifications

It ain't for everyone. Pity that it's gonna be for them anyway.

— grim-faced dwarf

Karstivers deal with extreme conditions and extreme danger on a near-daily basis during their missions, and must spend their downtime keeping up their training. To become a karstiver and live, one must be a skilled warrior, a strong swimmer with diving experience (which is a rarity for most Gildóns), and must have strong rock-climbing skills.

They must also have good vision capable of handling total darkness, and must have a near-encyclopaedic understanding of cave fauna and flora in order to be able to survive for long months underground.
Naturally, there are very few applicants who meet these criteria immediately. Most who become karstivers do so either to avoid fighting in Gildómar's many wars or to atone for a crime; serving the nation by becoming a karstiver is a very common sentence for lesser criminals or those who have performed the better part of their sentence with good behaviour.
There are few who apply for the role outside of these two circumstances due to the social reputation of karstivers as filthy thrillseekers with a death wish. Those that do... do tend to fit that description, actually.
No karstiver is sent into dangerous cavern situations without first learning these skills, but training is not free of risk.

Exploring the Depths by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

The danger ramps up as they are taken into more dangerous areas by their trainers. It is estimated that approximately half of all karstivers either die or quit during training. Those that remain are generally committed for a minimum of four years of service.

Operations

Workplace

...it's the fockin' caves. Slimy, stinky, wet holes full o' monsters and shite. Like yer ma's! Haa!

— karstiver on their workplace

Dangers & Hazards

Check the ceilings fer clinging bastards and weak rocks, check the air tae see if it's breathing air, check the floor fer weakness, check the walls... ye get the idea.

— karstiver

All the mundane dangers of surface caverns are amplified tenfold for karstivers. Flooded caves provide a directionless, lightless environment with no certain exit, and near-certain death if one loses track of the entrance or encounters difficulty when swimming - as these caves are often populated by horrific aberrations and underground beasts that delight in new sources of food.

Unseen Threats by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

This is on top of the standard risks of narrow passages that can easily trap a dwarf even with their smaller stature, unstable surfaces and walls, and dangerous, unbreathable substances that can kill with ease.
It is the unstable breathing situation that is often of most concern to karstivers. Monsters can be killed. Rocks and earth can largely be predicted, and being trapped at least offers a glimmer of hope that an ally will be able to get one free
Areas where oxygen suddenly disappears or is displaced are invisible and near-undetectable killers.
The mining industry has developed a few tools for detecting these issues, stemming from the use of birds and other creatures to detect lack of oxygen, and those are employed well by karstivers - but these things require fuel. As karstiver expeditions can last for months, they may well run out of fuel to detect issues in the air or water, and it may prove their doom.

Cave divers and miners closer to the surface also have little to worry about in the name of mysterious liquids. Lower down, it may not be water that tunnels are flooded with, or the water may be heavily contaminated with some of the rarer ores lying far beneath the earth. Karstivers have documented tunnels flooded with black oil-like substances that are acidic in nature, for instance, and others that caused terrible mental disability after only a few minutes of exposure. There are few tools to handle these: information is often the only thing that helps.

The danger presented by monsters cannot be overstated, despite the casual approach many karstivers take to their presence.
Subterranean creatures are some of the most dangerous creatures known to naturally inhabit the Material Plane, and ancient wars and experiments have seen the depths flooded with demons, aberrations, and worse.
Twisted monstrosities regularly prowl the depths in search of food or worse. Despite the sheer danger of cavern exploration on its own, monsters and other living threats are statistically the largest threat to karstiver lives.
If threats are significant enough, karstivers have been known to abandon the mission as best as possible in hope of warning the closest nearby civilisation of the threat. Polyhedra, as a subterranean nation, notably worked to rescue karstivers from an awoken vemerak after receiving warning of the abomination's presence, despite being at war with Gildómar during the incident.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Karstiver by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Alternative Names

Cavespoilers, graveworms

Type

Research / Scientific

Demand

Significant

Used By

• Gildómar

Related Vehicles

• Iceflows

Societal Perception

Karstivers are not a well-liked group in the general Gildón populace. Their employment is an expensive endeavour, and is funded entirely by the state - private companies of karstivers do not exist, for obvious reasons.
That their ranks are made up of draft-dodgers, thrill-seekers, and criminal scum doesn't help.
All of the expense used for these dregs of society, as many think of them, is wasted in their inevitable demise, often without any benefit to Gildómar if they die early in their career. What discoveries can a corpse make, after all?
Those few karstivers who have brought back amazing news are considered separately to those of their general profession; they can receive statuses similar to war heroes, even. It is this rare prestige that drives the rest of the karstivers on.

We wouldnae have the Iceflows without the karstivers mappin' out all the routes.
..And the help of the other nations, aye, but mostly the karstivers.

— elderly dwarven architect

Flooded Caverns by Hanhula (via Midjourney)