Post by Prince Polaris on Dec 23, 2015 9:45:15 GMT -5
The underworld is a massive underground network of huge caverns, ponymade tunnels, and other formations that can be traveled. It's filled with abandoned cities and other strange enigmas, and many many traps and creatures who live off of the random banished pony who wanders their way. It is a desolate and dangerous place, yet some still live there, hidden in the ruins of the old cities and wandering the old train networks.
Who or what Lives there [PONY]:
The Underworlders: Three small towns of pale ponies in ThreeTown cavern, who live relatively normal lives in their softly-glowing houses. They are assigned a job when they turn 15 due to their talent, and ponies who rebel against their system are Banished, to the deeps. Due to a festival each year where all of the underworlders meet together and mate for a few days, the towns are very fertile. The ponies live on average 100 years, and it's generally accorded to their mushrooms as to why.
The Lords of the Light: These ponies are the Underworld's "government". They rule the Underworlders and decide whether ponies are to be banished or not, and every year after the mating festival they take three ponies from each town to train in their army, a feared army of ponies who take care of any dangers that may head towards the three towns, reportedly. Their, and their army's, weapon of choice is a weapon that resembles an oversized flintlock, which fires a powerful blast of enchanted fire and buckshot at the same time. They wear thick black overcoats and usually have Underworld dogs with them. They live in the Garrison, their own city. (In the underworld, one would do well to remember "Not to head towards the light")
The Banished: These ponies are a large force of banished Underworlders, who live in a blocked-off portion of Fallingrock town. They have a reasonable arsenal of Light guns, but they also make their own guns, called "potshots". The ponies have explored and taken records of most of the Underworld, and are content to live in FallingRock, free from the Garrison's iron fist.
Underworld Dogs: These beasts look similar to what would happen if one combined a wolf with a doberman. Having sleek black coats and large, powerful bodies, combined with a powerful sense of smell, these dogs work along with the Light to capture rouge underworlders, and reportedly, fight off threats to the three towns.
Silver Rock Slime: This substance is a strange liquid, with the color and texture of freshly-poured and smoothed concrete, that turns into a silver liquid whenever a living being touches it, trapping it. Then, it spikes needle-like structures into the creature, and replaces its blood with its silver liquid, preserving it while somehow keeping the creature alive. However, the liquid is said to burn like fire, and ponies trapped in silverrock slime are usually either located by their screams, or found decades or centuries later, too pain-shocked to talk for weeks. This substance has gathered in abandoned tunnels and structures, and is found by its telltale smooth surface.
The Dragons of Darkness: These creatures inhabit the ruined husks of one of the underworld's largest cities, DarkRock. In its heyday, the city was filled with a population of strange ponies, who celebrated dark magic. Nearly everybody in the town used it, within scrict guidelines set by its small government to keep ponies from finding about the magic's deadly secret. However, one of the town's mayors became power-hungry, and managed to wipe out the city's guard with hidden spells kept secret for generations. As he prepared to take over the town, his magic rebelled and connected throughout the city, murdering all of the ponies within minutes. Then, the magic used their bodies to reform them into demonic part pony, part crystal, part magic monsters, who all sleep dormant within the city, except for random excursions outside if one or more of them decide to get up and do something. If disturbed, the entire city can be roused within minutes, forming an army that could easily wipe away whoever dares disturb their cavern.
Who or what lives there [FANTASY]:
Elves: The elves are who live in ThreeTown, a skinny, powerful race with an average lifespan of about three centuries. They are often rather condescending of the other races in the underworld, and are the only ones other than dragons who can use magic. Formerly, they lived in Greenwall, and they are who brought the Mindvine into existance.
Dwarves: Dwarves are who lived in Crystal cavern and Fallingrock/Fallingwaters, with the more traditional rock-loving dwarves in Crystal City while the more modern masonry dwarves lived in fallingrock.
Dragons: These multi-form creatures lived in Inferno cavern and DarkRock. The darkrock dragons were mostly all black, with all of the other colors of dragons living in inferno cavern. They are rumored to come from Infinity city along with the dwarves, elves, and fairies. Dragons assume an Elvish form when they want, and can easily change over to their normal self and use magic. Dragons come in literally all shapes and sizes, with a car-sized dragon being most popular, and rare ones being bigger than a house. All dragons have wings, with rare ones having feathers, and not all kinds can fly. Due to there being different races of dragons, a compromize was reached ages before even recorded history, as each dragon tribe was assigned a special crown that would heighten the powers of whoever they selected to be their leader. The Ice dragons, Fire dragons, Earthen dragons, water dragons Feathered Angel dragons, and the magic dragons, even flight dragons, underground they may be- all races had their own hidden throne room where they carried out important business.
Fairies: None of this race live in the underworld, other than a few rarities who are unbothered by being underground, and those few are often found in greenwall.
Humans: The humans live almost soley in Soaring Cavern, and ran the train lines even though the train lines were originally built and run by dragons.
Different Cities and Places of note in the Underworld:
The Darklands: This refers to the land under ThreeTown cavern, including Crystal Cavern, FallingRock, DarkRock, and FallingWaters and
Centria: Centria is a Smallish cavern, which would have been normally ignored except that it sits in the center of the underworld cities. Therefore, when it was discovered, a large trainstation was quickly built within it, called the MainStation. The MainStation is a large circular train station, with a massive turntable in the very center. The turntable allows trains from any cavern to be quickly routed to other ones, or put into the railayard or a siding.
Soaring Cavern and the Twin Towns: Soaring cavern is the biggest cavern in the underworld. The cavern has two massive shelves on opposite ends of it, where two small towns reside One shelf was high in the air, and the other was low enough to be close to the sea in the center. In the center, a rift seperates the two towns, with an ocean at the very bottom. The gap between them is just under ten miles wide, and is riddled with massive stalagtites and stalagmites. The ponies in the Twin towns, one named Seatown and one named Skytown, traded and traveled between each other in special ways. The ponies of Seatown had a large fleet of massive steamships, which they used to explore the ocean, fight off squids, and travel to Skytown. There was a large docking system at the skytown side of the cavern, and special air-tube elevators to whisk them up into the city. Meanwhile, the ponies of Skytown were much more Air-orientated, having massive Zeppelins similar to the 1930s-era ones aboveground. Having a special, enchanted crystal superstructure and gas from the gas fields, a small cavern near Soaring cavern that leaks large amounts of helium, these massive airships traveled the hanging maze of soaring cavern's skies from town to town. Soaring cavern was the most technological city in the underworld, and it was on the way to cracking the puzzle to electric lighting when the heart failed and their war broke out.
Greenwall Town: This town is in the center of a cavern overflowing with special plants not requiring sunlight, and is named for the mossy green walls of greenwall cavern. The cavern has a massive waterfall on one side, most of which continues to fall down into a large hole at one end of the cavern. However, a few small streams do collect off of its spray, and run down into the town to feed its plantlife. This town was once the vegetable home of the underworld, growing fields and fields of special veggies unlike those on the surface. The MindVine was the town's most valuable asset, a sentient plant who, through the power of the light magic, healed hurt ponies and even helped in ways that would often baffle the townsponies. However, the vine turned horor as the heart failed, trapping every resident of the town in their tracks as it siphoned out their blood for its own sap, keeping them alive with a technique it stole from silverrock slime. They were never removed, spending the decades in silence as months passed by as if days. All of the cavern's other plants slowly died out, leaving the mindvine and its prisoners the only things living in greenwall.
Crystal City: Crystal City is a large city tunneled and built out of a huge assortment of quartz crystals, millions of years old. Most of the crystals standing straight upwards or horizontally are hollowed out to make buildings, the others carved into stairways and other things. The cavern under the city is full of water, the underground ocean commonly called "The Glowing Sea". The glowing sea owns its name because its water glows a bright blue, harboring special chemicals very similar to the ones that make up eternal fire. Crystal City was never lit by the fire lanterns or electricity, nor normal fire- it was lit by the sea. Water from the sea was pumped up into the city through special glass pipes, lighting the entire city with its blue glow. The only disadvantage was that the entire city was lit in a blue glow, which disorted the vision of all the ponies living there. The ponies in Crystal City all ate mainly a diet of special crystals, grown in caverns along the sides of the main cavern. The crystals were grown much like rock candy, but of course contained the essential nutrients for the crystal city ponies to live. The ponies were experts at growing different flavors of crystals, and the crystals were also heavily enchanted to be as soft as needed. Crystal city was also home to quite a number of dragons, and is thought to be the place Dragonponies first appeared.
The Garrison: The garrison is the only Place in the underworld to have reasonably modern equipment, and the only place with Electricity. It's lit by old-fashioned flourescant lighting, powered by multiple steam-fired generators. In the event of battle, the city can attack by using either a row of old Gatling guns, four large longrange cannons, or four powerful tesla towers, which operate by firing towards metal towers set up at various locations in the cavern. From there, the towers electrocute everything near them made of metal, hopefully killing ponies that would be holding guns or swords. The ponies in the garrison come from ThreeTown, and eat the same food as them.
ThreeTown Cavern's three towns: These three little towns are where the Underworlders live, the final remnant of UnderWorld life. The ponies live a relatively normal life apart from the Light's interventions, and gain their cutie marks just as Ponies would aboveground, but of course they relate to what they can do under the earth instead of on top of it. For example, someone may possess a talent for creating beautiful and intricate Everflame lanterns, something unknown of Topside. These ponies farm large fields of different types of mushrooms, some located within the 'triangle' made by the towns and others located outside. The towns have have slowly expanded nearly to the point of joining together and becoming a city, as the three towns form a triangle, seperated by less than half a mile from each other. Each town is about half as big as Ponyville, and all three of them share the same style: Old-fashioned brick buildings that appear similar to 1800s construction.
Infinity City: Infinity city is the oldest city in the underworld, and the Train lines do not lead to it. In order to get there, one would have to take a carrige, on a weeklong journey stemming from a tunnel in DarkRock's cavern. Infinity city itself is a city spanning centuries, older than any other city above or below Equestria. It is built in a gigantic crack in the earth, shaped much like a V. The buildings in the city are older the lower they are, with the oldest at the very bottom. The ponies there ate normal plants like they did above, using mirrors to shine sunlight to them from above. However, In a disaster worse than the great war, water tracing back to an ocean broke through and flooded Infinity city, killing about a million ponies. Half of the rift filled with water before it stopped, and the remaining Ponies quickly began to build more buildings, towers, and more on top of the old. The walls of the rift were eventually completely covered with pony-made structures. The ponies in Infinity City were the ponies who built the Heart of the earth, and the same ponies who eventually left Infinity city to found the other cities of the underworld. Infinity City itself was eventually forgotten and abandoned completely, due to portions of the city collapsing as the older buildings underwater gave out. The city became a sort of legend, a place told of in stories and noted in footnotes in old books. The ponies from infinity city are the ponies who built the heart of the earth, and who fanned out into the many caverns of the underworld to found villages, which became towns, and then cities.
DarkRock: DarkRock city is the city closest to the Heart of the earth, the tunnel to the heart splits off from the entrance tunnel to Darkrock cavern. DarkRock is a city built into the side of a special cavern, one that possesses a nearly vertical wall on one side. In its heyday, the city was packed full of ponies who used almost soley dark magic. They all followed strict rules to using the magic, and had special crystals for storing, or forcefully taking, the magic. The city itself was piled up against one of darkrock cavern's walls, a sprawling metropolis of crystalline houses. At the center, the city's town hall was made of brick, but all of the other buildings were constructed out of telltale dark magic crystals, who the more experienced darkrock ponies were able to form. The citizens of darkrock tended to herds of livestock, living primarily on meat, something their magic allowed them to eat. These ponies also kept the Heart of the Earth running, and records seem to hint at Darkrock being the first underworld city, after the disaster of Infinity City. However, one mayor of the city wasn't happy with the usual magic. He slowly gathered a chest of dark magic crystals, the ones enchanted to hold magic like batteries. One night, he went to the chest and draw onto all of the magic, bathing himself in their power. Very quickly, the magic overpowered the stallion, and from him, ripped through the entire town of darkrock, overpowering everypony there as the magic took over, killing about half of the city's citizens and mutating the others into DarkDragons. Only one pony escaped, being the colt who made his way to the Heart of the Earth.
Fallingrock town: FallingRock is a special case in the underworld, a smallish town designed around the Steam line running through its cavern. The ponies of Fallingrock are the ones who built Centria, and they tended to the Tracks which exteneded all over the underworld. The ponies there lived in brick houses, and their culture was a strict one, based on principles where equality was important above all. They solved problems as a township, not having any leaders and simply generally agreeing on things.
FallingWaters: FallingWaters is a small town, set in a massive crevice in the earth. On either side of the town, massive waterfalls pounded down into the deep endlessly, a sight many ponies would go to fallingwaters to see. Large waterwheels and channels allowed FallingWaters to power an extensive waterworks system, which was what supplied FallingRock with water. The ponies were simply FallingRock residents, who wanted to move to FallingWaters for a change of scenery. However, when the Heart failed, the water flowed to a stop, forcing all of the ponies of FallingWaters to evacuate to FallingRock, where they were caught up unfairly in the great war.
Inferno City: Inferno city is rather secluded from the other cities of the underworld, but is the largest other than Infinity City. Inferno city is not set in a cavern, but rather a huge gap between two tectonic plates, like a pocket of air between two sheets of paper. The city is designed with different ranks in mind, having walls within walls. The first area is the largest, for the common ponies. The next layer was for merchants and bankers, and the third and tallest layer was for Inferno's army and its rich. The city could easily be used as a large fortress, because the ponies in the center had the advantage over the entire city. Inferno city was a city dripping in Oil, as it came from multiple oil pockets all around it. Ponies there had gas-burning steam engines and more, and plenty of oil lanterns instead of any Everflame. A complicated system of trams ran through the city, powered by the city's gas-steam engines. It also Inferno City fell when the Heart of the earth came to a stop. The heart could no longer protect the city from a pocket of oil directly above it, and all it took was a small tremor for it to fall. The roof broke open and soaked the entire city in oil, which quickly ignited the moment it fell onto an open fire. The oil caught fire almost right away, and roasted everypony within Inferno City within a matter of minutes. The fire spread to the entire cavern, burning away every drop of oil within and coating the large pocket in a soft ash, which has lied undisturbed for centuries.
The Earth's Heart: The earth's heart is a massive Steam-Powered machine, running deep within the Earth. The steam section of the Machine is continously fed by the earth itself, rather than anyone working on it. It's centuries old, stretching back to the beginning of the sisters' rule. The heat to power the machine comes from neverending lava flows, and the water enters it from multiple underground rivers. At the heart of the machine is a massive, deep black crystal, with a large gear carved onto the center of it. The crystal is what keeps the machine running, its power keeps the machine operational and repairs any damage done to it. It can function without the crystal, but only for a small while, because the massive machine requires intensive care to keep from breaking down. Every year, the most powerful magic users from DarkRock would descend to the crystal and pour their magic into it, nearly to the point of death. The machine itself is connected to a special device, that does not exist anywhere else in Equestria. The device is a magic generator, that generates a kind of artificial magic named "Light Magic". The light magic produced by the machine is what keeps the underworld in check, preventing earthquakes and keeping caverns intact. It also used to protect the cities and ponies of the underworld, even producing a white sun in every cavern that lit them up. It powered all of the massive steam engines that ran the tracks of the underworld, and would often heal the injuries of any injured underworlder. However, the Earth's heart didn't have much time left. When DarkRock fell, one lone stallion managed to get to the machine, and poured his entire life force into its gem. However, even his life could not run the Heart forever, and the Underworld's hidden suns all slowly faded away into darkness. The rivers ran dry, the steamtrains lost their magic power, and the chaos threw the underworld into turmoil. After the Great War, King Cavern, the King of ThreeTown cavern, took a small force of ponies to DarkRock, hoping to find answers to the disappearence of their sun, and what had happened to the cities below them. They were nearly killed by the Still-forming DarkDragons, but Cavern and one guard escaped with the knowledge of where the Heart of the Earth was. They returned to ThreeTown, gathered a few ponies who could operate dark magic, and then ventured down to the heart. The machine hadn't been dead long enough to corrode very much, therefore after the ponies all poured most of their life force into it, it clanked and clattered to life. However, King Cavern protested a little against the machine and the dark magic, saying that it was unnatural. After a heated argument, his second-in-command, Prince Flame, threw him off of a catwalk, into the massive cogs of the heart of the earth. Then, Flame took over, and formed the organization known as the Lords of the Light, the guardians of the Heart of the Earth. However, years of corruption and betrayal after Flame's eventual death and Cavernas‘ takeover in 1828 turned the organization into a merciless army, ruling the underworld with an iron hoof. They kept the Heart running, but only barely, not allowing it enough power to bring back the suns of the Underworld because they wished to keep the underworld dark, keeping everyone else in darkness.
“Ghost Town“, formerly named “Limestone Town“, currently named "Gemstone Town" is a small town between Crystal cavern and centria, where a town had grown up around a small deposit of a rare gem. Ghost Town
Important Events:
The Great War: No, not world war one, this one was a few Miles down. After the Earth's Heart shuddered to a stop, the citizens of Crystal City, Inferno City, and FallingRock all blamed the other two cities for the disaster. Crystal City and Inferno City both snuck down to FallingRock in the dead of night, made easy because there was no sun to turn dark anymore. The two cities brutally attacked and murdered everyone in FallingRock, but then turned on each other. A small force of ponies from Crystal City were left at the end, and they started the tiny group that later became to be called the Banished, after taking in refugees from ThreeTown.
The soaring cavern war: After the great war ended, supplies from the other cities didn't make it in to soaring cavern anymore, obviously. It didn't take long for the ponies in Sky and Seatown to both fall into riots from the loss of food. The heart of the earth shuddering to a stop allowed the pollution from their steamships to kill all life in their ocean, and after the tunnel back to centria collapsed, both towns attacked each other for food with their ships and Zeppelins. Very few ponies survived, and died before they were able to dig the tunnel back out. The last living Soaring Cavern pony died with a mere 2 feet between them and freedom on the other side of the rubble.
Canervas' Takeover: After Prince Flame’s death, the Garrison chose a new leader, one different than the others. His name was Cavernas, and he was a special case within ThreeTown. One day in 1828, Cavernas appeared in threetown, a stronger dark magic user than anyone else there. He was assumed to be a rare, natural expert at dark magic, as he was tied to the magic, soon learning that it was the thing keeping him alive when he eventually realized that he was not aging like the ponies around him. Cavernas took his place as leader of the garrison, and launched an expidition to the Heart of the Earth a year after taking his position. There, Cavernas revealed a number of dark magic crystals he had, and murdered the ponies who had come with him. Throwing their bodies into the lava, he then turned to the Heart. With a powerful curse, Cavernas twisted and manipulated the Light magic generators to bend them to his will, cursing them to obey him at all costs and produce dark magic, making him more powerful than all but the equestrian Sisters. Then, with the power of the heart behind him, Cavernas returned to threetown and comfortably buried himself deep within the Garrison, plotting an elaborate Surfaceworld takeover while he let his underlings handle the pesky Threetown ponies. And though it is unproven, many ponies ponder the possibility that he is the son of king cavern himself, brought out of hiding after flame had finally died of old age. [Author’s note: If one would look at a certain other document, they might form a connection between somepony who went missing in 1828 and Cavernas]
Items unique to the Underworld:
Fighting:
Flintlocks: These weapons have been made the same for centuries in the garrison, a variation of the traditional surfaceworld ones.
Black Acid: This acid is specially crafted by the lords of the light for use in combat and other situations. It can melt through nearly anything, bones being the only thing it is unable to dissolve.
Crystal Magic Traps: These crystals are specially crafted crystals, much like the magic-storing ones made in darkrock.
Potshots: These guns are essentially small cannons, which can be loaded with pretty much anything and fired by tapping the end of it with something hard, either a rock or another potshot.
Normal/Other items:
EverFlame: Everflame is a strange fire, made when combining Crystal Cavern water with Oil. When set alight, the firey liquid will continue burning indefinately, as long as it is within a vacumn.
Crystal Cavern water: This water glows a bright blue, harboring special chemicals very similar to the ones that make up everflame.
Clockwork Suits: The ponies in Soaring cavern had a special technology. With the help of ponies from DarkRock, ponies in Skytown created special, delicate metal suits, with intricate clockwork to give them a nearly-full range of motion. They were powered by dark magic gems, much like the one keeping the heart of the earth in order. Despite a few protests from Seatown about the magic, Skytown scientists and Darkrock scientists took a volunteer pony, a paralyzed mare in the skytown hospital. With her agreement, the team of scientists ripped her soul from her body and bound it to the suit, cursing her soul to the machine. After a few minutes, it started to quietly click and move, the empty eyes glowing a soft red as she became linked fully to the machine. Unable to talk, the mare used Mindtalk like before to communicate, and returned to a mostly-normal life under supervision from the scientific team. When Soaring cavern fell to war, the mare begged someone to fully charge her suit, then left for centria, and nopony knows if she even made it, only that she was the last pony out before the tunnel was blocked up.
MindVine: This plant is made up of normal-looking vines, that can grow rapidly. In a day, a good infestation of them can cover a house. They have run rampant in Greenwall, covering the city. This vine is special because it is partially sentient, and very friendly to ponies. If someone gets hurt, the vine slowly wraps around them, placing them in a cocoon. Then, the pony falls asleep as the vines channel light magic into them, healing them. The time it takes depends on the wound, a broken leg for example would take about an hour. The ponies of greenwall let the MindVine curl through their town, but it kept its distance in order to keep them safe from tripping over it or accidently getting shut into their own house by a vine over the door. The vine also helped ponies in strange ways, but nothing that took any amount of time. For example, it would firmly wrap around a house that was close to collapse. When the heart of the earth fell, the entire mindvine network went limp. It didn't move or respond to anypony, and it was thought to be dead. However, after all the ponies went to bed, the vine came 'back to life' and set to work. Turning a slightly darker green, the vine slithered into the homes of every pony it could reach, and grabbed them as it ripped their sides open and grew vines into them, siphoning out their blood and replacing it with sap. The sap kept the ponies alive, but slowed them down, as everyone captured listlessly gave up on escape. Not one pony escaped the plant's hunt, as it captured everyone in the city, taking it over in the process. The reason for all of it was that the plant, wanting to save ponies, decided that the only way it could was to keep them all alive itself, forcefully. Its light magic was gone, and it followed its only instinct, Keep the ponies alive. And alive they stayed, in a stasis much like Silverrock slime, minus the intense firey pain. This is because the MindVine plant came onto a pony trapped in Silverrock slime, and adapted its special properties in order to have something that would keep the ponies of Greenwall alive, forever. Any attempts to remove a trapped greenwall pony results in being either literally thrown out of the cavern by the vine, or trapped in its eternal grip like the others. Even then, taking a pony out of the mindvine just leaves them helpless without any blood to speak of unless one has a store of it to pump into them, and plenty of magic to help the process.