The Great Below

"Shallows-Dwellers will never understand. You know of the The Ancients , their cities and shiney trinkets and ruins. Underneath that though? Gem-filled caverns of every color, cities built atop towers of glowing fungus, and dark oceans that have never seen the light. And thats just the stuff that won't rot your precious mind-organ. There are Understars , Sentient Hurricanes and Corpse-God-Titans too, that is if the tunnels don't collapse on you first. Never an end to the wonders down in the Great Below."
-Jakaloups, Traveling Merchant.

Welcome to The Great Below

Pack your spelunking gear, oil your lamp and gather your courage before your decent. The journey will be perilous but your rewards will be comensurate, if you survive that is. Enter The Great Below. A vast world underneath the surface, where after a catastrophic disaster has befallen the surface, life continues deep below. In order to survive however, nothing that exists undeaneath has remained unchanged. Encounter wonerous peoples and societies bathed in the glow of subterrianian stars. Discover exotic lifeforms that populate even stanger ecosystems that preform their delicate dance in smothering darkness. Embark on a jouney to solve mysteries older than the stones in grim techno-magical ruins that hold as many dangers as treasures. All this and much much more, if you will be bold enough to sieze it in The Great Below.

A World Underneath

The Great Below is a world quite different from our own and possibly from other worlds yet encountered. Here are a few highlights about this increadible place.

• The World Below: Most of The Great Below takes place, where else but underground. The Surface is an irradiated inhospitable wasteland were most cannot survive this harsh and oppressive enviroment. Most life has moved out of the light and under the surface.
• A World After: The settining takes place after a calamitous event has befallen the world. The magically gifted and technolgically advanced civilization now refered to as The Ancients has vanished, leaving behind dusty ruins and hyper-advanced Magitech throughout the world.
• Strange New World: The world of The Great Below is alien and mysterious. Far below the surface, bioluminessent fungi light crystalin tunnels, nameless things swim in oceans that have never seen light and anceiont artifical intelligences lay entombed, waiting to be freed. In such a bizzar place, equally exotic civilizations have arisen to inhabit it.
• Magic and Technology: The Great Below is a fantastical place with magic all around. Two types of supernatural powers can be wielded in the underdark. Will you summon the unpredictable forces of The Weird or depend on the more reliable but mysterious Magitech?
  
  

 

Where to Start?

Just as a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so to does your journey through the Great Below begin with a single article. But where to start? Here a a few suggestions to dip your toes and give you context

• The Weird gives you an overview of the strange and wild magic that pervades the world below.
• Flora and Fauna is a primer on the life below the surface, how it evolved and some ceatures you might encounter durring your travels.
• Societies and Civilization is a guide to what cultures and developed societies are like down below as well as a few of the settled peoples.

Perhaps you enjoy just getting a feel for the terrian by surveying a map. Take a look.