The Deeps

“The dark places of the world hold many creatures, some of which only the D’shunn dare to brave; the venomous lava crabs, the flesh-eating mushrooms, the lightning serpents. Of course, most people only remember the spiders, but they’re dangerous enough that none of the rest are likely to get too offended.”

• Heward’s Revised Bestiary (1918 A.T.)

Deep beneath the surface of the world, great caverns hold mysteries, secrets, and monsters. While many a brave and bold adventurer has explored caves found near the surface of the world, exploring the depths tends to be more foolhardy than brave – although the D’shunn, accustomed to many of the perils of the depths, and possessing excellent night vision, are more inclined to take chances than most.

In Ariel, Dwarven holds tend to be either built on the surface (sometimes into the side of a mountain), or underground, but the lowest dwarven strongholds only just touch the top of the Deeps. Down below, D’shunn and other peoples better adapted to the ever-present night make their home, although even the most daring D’shunn caverns do not seek to plumb the true depths of their subterranean homes.

Reaching the Deeps

Whether the entire region known in Ariel as ‘The Deeps’ is contiguous, or if there are just areas where caverns run deep enough to qualify is hotly debated among D’shunn cartographers. Certainly, the three biggest D’shunn caverns on Ariel seem to be accessible from one another without ever setting a foot above ground. Across the ocean, Malkin scouts report that there are similarly deep caverns beneath the Dark Forest, but whether the caverns beneath the world are deep enough to safely travel below the East Ocean is unknown – surely, none have done so.

On Ariel, there are only a few known locations where the Deeps can be accessed, with others appearing through chasms discovered in caves and mines. Descent – apart from a few well-maintained locations, where work is put into keeping a reliable pathway safe and clear of monsters – is usually perilous, with creatures native to the Deeps jealously guarding their territory.

The Upper Reaches

The area most explored by those from the surface world, and perhaps most familiar to those who think of the Deeps. This is the depth to which most Dwarven Holds descend, and has aggressive but generally manageable local threats. Even the Upper Reaches are comparatively deep; mines and caves will often be the means of ingress, and explorers report strange magical fields, as they encounter nodes churning the natural flow of magic from the other side.

Creatures found in the Upper Reaches are often similar to some creatures found in surface caves, but generally larger. It is here that many giant spiders, dire moles, and other burrowing creatures will often nest, and many have adopted traits that help them to survive in this environment, whether it be bioluminescence, a hide capable of repelling powerful blows, or claws capable of cutting through stone. Elementals of earth and water are common in these places, as – unfortunately – are light shy creatures like Nighthaunts.

The Middle Depths

There are some that argue that the Middle Depths deserve to be broken down into multiple layers themselves, and cogently so, but they will not receive that delineation here. Instead, it is enough to say for now that the Middle Depths contain the caverns of the D’shunn most famous in Ariel, of Felhaven, Mythostar, and Serozarran. Some D’shunn who travel off of the Deep Roads have reported finding a lost city, well overgrown with fungi and teeming with monsters, that resembles gnomish construction. Others speak of a great Labyrinth of Stone, peopled by minotaurs white as bone, who speak a tongue not heard upon the surface in over two thousand years. Many consider such stories to be tall tales, for little evidence is retrieved verifying such legends.

Real enough wonders and monsters exist to populate the Middle Depths that many have scant patience for such stories. In some regards, the Middle Depths are beautiful; vast caverns of stone, some wet as a rainforest, some dry as a desert, heated by deep geothermal vents, and illuminated by glowing fungi and insects that dot the sky like stars. In places where D’shunn make their homes, magical lighting is not uncommon, for while they can see quite well in the dark, fine detail work is still benefited by having some light.

Here reside the flesh-eating mushrooms and lightning serpents, and creatures more terrible still. It is said that when Kazzok turned his wrath upon the D’shunn, he filled the Middle Reaches with terrors from the night, and from beyond the curtain. Infernals are not uncommon in the Middle Reaches, of many unusual shapes and sizes. Too, there are great insects; the Bullwark Beetle is said to have pincers that can sever a human’s torso with a single blow, and a carapace that can only be pierced from directly behind the beast. The magical field surrounding the shell of the flail snail repels all magic, and the Lethe Moss is a carnivorous plant that encourages slumber upon itself from which sleepers never awake. The undead too walk the Middle Reaches, survivors of slain necromancers, or simply unfortunates reanimated by the potent magics of the realm.

Nevertheless, adventurers from the surface sometimes find their way down to the Middle Depths. Apart from treating with the D’Shunn, some of the vast fungal ecoscape of the Depths contain rare materials or components, useful in the creation of strange artifice, or working of powerful magics. Still others seek archaeological finds – among the ruins nestled in the darkest parts of the Depths are said to be the lost Hall of Understone, the throne of the Dwarven Emperor, said to be filled only when all dwarves must go to war as one.

The Pits

The Pits are as near as any mortal has come to the base of the world and its underside. If there is a perdition for those that trespass upon the will of the gods, surely, it must have been modelled after these depths, at which no mortal can long survive. Some of the deep Pits are as cold as the most frozen winter, while others, with active magma flows, are so hot that even with alchemies and spells, most mortals last only a few scant hours before they must withdraw or perish. It is thought that the great magma pits feed all of the volcanoes of the world, although such a claim is impossible to verify or disprove.

While veins of precious metals and gemstones are often found in such places, they are all but impossible to extract; the punishing heat and cold spells certain doom for any being susceptible to either. More precious still – and the object of most descents into the pits – are vents of pure Aether, the physical form of raw and unrefined magic, which pools at the base of the world. While expeditions can capture a bare breath of it, some still deem such excursions worthy of the danger – and the inevitable body count.

Such creatures as can survive here are all but unrecognizable extremophiles, and powerful creatures of raw elemental fury. It is said that Rajinfernice Elemental Prince of Fire lairs here when not summoned elsewhere in the world, and that it is here that she holds court – condemning those fire elementals who have displeased her to the Ice Pits. Other creatures that reside here are resilient to the extreme – the Furnace Beetle, eight foot at the shoulder, is said to have a carapace made of natural steel, and hunts fae that feed upon the aether vents.

Authored by: Andrew Dunlop
Fantasy Alive Lore Team 2026
Copyright © Endless Adventures Ontario