The Listening Dark

[Wensleydale]

We all know what is likely to happen, but nevermind.

The Listening Dark

Beneath the surface of a parched, dead world, life clings to existence. From the edge of the Great Abyss to the mysterious Wasteland, vast caverns and tunnel-complexes form a twilight country, a land rich with resources and teeming with life - albeit life which is not generally of a friendly disposition. The rusting deposits of long-dead civilisations lie forgotten, crumbling in the midst of giant mushroom forests, strange, snuffling figures shamble from cave to cave in the mists of the Steamlands. In the upper caverns there are great city-states, ruled over by Thinking Peoples: the enigmatic Talasht, the reptilian Sistu, the inscrutable Kannee and the pale, decaying Speaking Dead. These cosmopolitan points of light attract others, less inclined to the construction of cities: Klikliks, Ghouls, Bakka-een and the omnipresent Pale People are all to be found in abundance here, alongside more exotic travellers from far-off lands - if they are wise, with a gun prominently displayed on their hip. In the wilderness, full of life, beauty, and danger, a more wild sort of person lives: the endless Tungi tribes, the outcasts of society, surviving on what they can catch before it catches them and occasionally making more civilised money acting as guides and interpreters for expeditions into the lower darkness. Few things are certain in this umbral land - other than one: the Dark is always listening, and whispering, and you would be wisest not to heed its advice.

Themes

The Listening Dark is, as you have probably already guessed, an Underdark setting - but not of the usual sort. This world has no habitable surface - what exists up there is harsh, unending desert, and if the shock from the brightness of the sun did not kill you, the endless heat and lack of water certainly would. The world beneath, however, remains tremendously habitable - that is for those species which can cope without the sun. Despite the danger posed by the many forms of native wildlife, many peoples have adapted to this home - indeed, many of them have always lived here. There are inspirations from both traditional fantasy settings and from the Wild West.

• Gunslingers. The vast majority of characters in this setting are likely to fit into this archetype one way or another. Gunslingers earn a living as mercenaries - either within a company, in which case they typically act as the core of a city-state's military forces in a given war, or individually, in which case they are more likely to earn a living as caravan guards, explorers, or in some other similarly violent occupation. Mass production is not present and is effectively prevented by vested interests; guns are individually made and are a relatively new technology.
• Ancient and Arcane Technologies. There are many things left over from the caverns' more glorious past, often hidden away in great troves in forgotten tombs and crumbling temples deep within the lower caverns. These range from curiosities and artworks to things with much more potency... things which many an interested individual would literally kill to acquire.
• Things From Beyond. There are things older than cities, older, perhaps, than the caverns themselves; things which are whispered about in dark corners of marketplaces and which inspire wild scribblings on the walls of sanatoriums. These are things best left undisturbed in the deepest caverns, things which only the most unwise of men would meddle with.
• Dubious morality. Slavery is a given in the society of the great cities, although slavery as the modern Western mind typically pictures it - i.e. lines of naked workers, picking cotton and in a powerless and generally miserable state - is not necessarily the image that it is best to draw on: many slaves rise to positions of considerable authority. Many societies here practise cannibalism, or at the very least prey on other sentient species - they are the least likely to be poisonous, after all.
• The Occult and Terrible. Mages are barely tolerated by society. They draw on forces which are beyond the experience of any wise man, and only survive due to their usefulness - until the near-inevitable madness takes them and they end up confined to a sanatorium. Many mages are slaves, forced into their profession In contrast, necromancers - those who speak with the dead and bind spirits to themselves - are, although perhaps looked at askance, far more widely accepted. The Speaking Dead are a common phenomenon: a powerful religio-political entity in the upper caverns whose purposes and ways are unclear but who have been readily welcomed into the cosmopolitan markets of other cities.

• Vast panoramas. Everybody loves a broad, beautiful view, and the Dark is full of them - albeit tinged with unpiercable shadows and full of things which would like to kill you.
• Points of light. The cities are safe enough - or at least have their own, unique dangers. Outside, the wilderness is filled with wildlife, both sentient and otherwise, which will happily hunt you and kill you and eat you alive.
  
• The Dark listens. And it could drive you mad, the great, yearning, claustrophobic emptiness of it, with its half-caught whispers always in your head.

[Wensleydale]

The Tungi

The word 'Tungi' (from Undé túŋ, 'wild', 'mad') refers to a large and diverse group of different societies characterised by nomadic or semi-nomadic wilderness lifestyles outside major settlements. Despite their general classification and dismissal as 'Tungi' by city-dwellers, they are in no way a monolithic group, and many individuals called Tungi would balk tremendously at being given the same name as others.

Upper Tribes

The tribes of the Upper Caverns, or 'societies' as they generally prefer to be called, are multi-ethnic (and indeed multi-special) by origin and consist of a mixture of the descendants of outcasts from the cities (typically criminals) and people who have for one reason or another voluntarily chosen the Tungi life. There are a few of these societies in the Upper Caverns, and they provide large numbers of mercenaries and guides for expeditions and caravans. Among these societies, it is generally considered a mark of great personal courage to descend far into the Lower Caverns; young men are encouraged to do so as part of a coming-of-age ceremony in many groups. Generally societies are ruled over by the strongest member and are quite egalitarian; choices are largely made in council rather than by autocratic decree, and the position of leader is usually an unofficial recognition of an individual's strength and proficiency rather than an official position with its own inherent authority. Linguistically, the Upper Tribes are a mixture; each tribe has its own pidgin (or creole where the tribe has been established long enough) used for internal communication, drawing from a wide variety of languages and reflecting the diverse backgrounds of their members.

The societies are occasionally a problem for travellers: although individuals are unlikely to face anything more serious than a payment for passing through a given society's caverns, caravans are often too juicy a target for them to resist and attacks on traders are not uncommon. To attempt to avert this, a practice of paying societies off has taken hold amongst the merchants of many cities. Some societies are also given to raiding small settlements or the outskirts of larger cities, although there are few cities without walls and forces of guards large enough to make this a risk not worth taking. About fourteen years ago, however, the Black Blood Society successfully raided Puttulangu, which sits on the edge of the Rift, by climbing up the Rift from a lower cavern and attacking from the city's blind side; as a result, cities have become considerably more defensive and some have taken to actively hunting down local societies. In addition to this considerable source of income, many tribespeople work as guides or mercenaries, and in day-to-day life, the tribes hunt local game.

Lower Tribes

The Lower Tribes are considerably less similar to one another than the Upper Tribes. Some are simply societies which have been forced down, for one reason or another, further into the caverns; or indeed similar groups which have been formed by outcasts from the smaller settlements down here. If life in the Upper Caverns is hard, life in the Lower Caverns is next to impossible: the deeper one goes, the more poisonous or murderous the local wildlife. Despite superficial similarities the lifestyle of these groups is considerably different from that of their higher brethren, and depends primarily on raiding, extremely dangerous hunting, and oftentimes cannibalism. Other, less diverse groups also exist down here, sometimes with more sinister purposes. Ghouls - sentient humanoid carrion-eaters - form small packs, raiding graveyards and sites of battles and occasionally, when driven to it, killing in order to feed. A nomadic group of cultists who worship an entity known as the Mouth Below wander, begging and stealing from more civilised folk and occasionally kidnapping new members. All of the Lower Tribes are an active threat to anyone attempting to travel through the wilderness: should they detect you, it will most likely be your end. Many members of the Upper Tribes call those below 'dark-lovers' or 'listeners-to-the-dark' - the implication being that these people have been too long and too deep in the wilderness for their sanity to remain intact.

[Ghostman]

I could see this growing into an exciting setting, given some detailing of the cities and the tribes.

Gunslingers. The vast majority of characters in this setting are likely to fit into this archetype one way or another. Gunslingers earn a living as mercenaries - either within a company, in which case they typically act as the core of a city-state's military forces in a given war, or individually, in which case they are more likely to earn a living as caravan guards, explorers, or in some other similarly violent occupation. Mass production is not present and is effectively prevented by vested interests; guns are individually made and are a relatively new technology.

If firearms are a recent invention and mass production isn't possible, how can there be so many gunslingers? It seems that there wouldn't be enough guns to go around.

Vast panoramas. Everybody loves a broad, beautiful view, and the Dark is full of them - albeit tinged with unpiercable shadows and full of things which would like to kill you.

What sources of light are there that let you actually see those views? Phosphorescent fungi? Holes in the cavern ceiling letting in beams of sunlight? Magical faerie-lights?

[Magnus Pym]

The concept is cool. I think you should continue :)

I kind of wondered the same thing as Ghostman, as well.

Are the cities made from remnants of older, now ruined and engulfed cities? Or does the people have an authentic architecture?
Are there any great water sources, like lakes and rivers and perhaps even an ocean? I think this question brings up; how vast is the inhabitable world?

[Wensleydale]

If firearms are a recent invention and mass production isn't possible, how can there be so many gunslingers? It seems that there wouldn't be enough guns to go around.

This is a good point, and one that I swear I'd covered in the original post - initially, although obviously it got lost somewhere in between typing and posting, there was a sentence there explaining that they might not specifically carry a gun but the archetype is there. That said, lack of mass production is not necessarily a barrier to wide distribution - guns are probably a prestige symbol, and knowledge of how to construct them - at least comparatively rubbish ones - is widespread amongst craftspeople, so acquiring one isn't THAT difficult.

What sources of light are there that let you actually see those views? Phosphorescent fungi? Holes in the cavern ceiling letting in beams of sunlight? Magical faerie-lights?

Phosphorescent fungi, largely. Most of the species present here don't need light, although the Pale People (read: humans) obviously do.

Are the cities made from remnants of older, now ruined and engulfed cities? Or does the people have an authentic architecture?

A mixture of both. Most older cities, and some newer cities, are built on ancient remains which probably predate most of the species that now inhabit them. Modern architecture is a mix of pragmatism - build from what you can find - and imitation of the styles of the ruins, which means lots of gothic archways and sharp, flat walls with no curves.

Are there any great water sources, like lakes and rivers and perhaps even an ocean?

Yes, there is a vast underground lake, the source of many rivers (some of them dammed by enterprising folk): this marks one of the effective borders of the world, although it is occasionally crossed and trade has been conducted with people from caverns on the other side. At the bottom of the Rift (a great crack, the rim of which is home to a number of cities and effectively marks the border of the 'civilised' territory of the Upper Caverns since the Rift is frequently used for downward travel) is another great body of water. Bad things live in the world's water - some of them sentient.

I think this question brings up; how vast is the inhabitable world?

This is unclear. How far down it is possible to go, nobody knows. The Upper Caverns are quite well-defined: they cover a comparatively small area, although they are not all contiguous and some of them can only be reached by venturing into the Lower Caverns.

[Kindling]

I love this so far, I've always liked the idea of an Underdark done "right" and that looks like that's exactly what this will be!

My one question so far is to do with the guns, as well I'm afraid. When you say they're new technology, does that mean they're like early real-world firearms? Or have the gunsmiths of the Listening Dark sort of skipped a few chapters in the book of gun-tech?
One image that might be cool is of seeing the glowing points of readied matchlocks stark against the shadows of the cavern. . . although I guess that would make the guns a lot less practical as it basically eliminates stealth as an option, and it might be a problem trying to operate those kinds of muskets and so on in some of the smaller spaces one might find in the caves and tunnels.

[Wensleydale]

Everybody loves guns! Well, by relatively new I meant 'last hundred years or so'; this isn't radically new technology and other similar stuff (for clearing rockslides and so on) probably existed before then. We're probably talking early flintlock level here. In the Upper Caverns, they're a status symbol, and are probably comparatively widely used in duels and so on - and there's the space for deploying musketry. Once you get further down, you usually want to avoid detection, and there's often not the space for muskets to be of use, so anyone wise prefers quieter weapons - small crossbows are probably the weapon of choice. Down here, pistols become a last-ditch weapon or more usually a prestige symbol.

[Xathan]

I just wanted to add that I think this setting has a ton of awesome potential.

Beyond that, one question I have is about underdark layout here: are we talking about classic "huge series of connected caves", more of a "One giant vast cavern with pillars" or something in between, or something I haven't thought of? How bright is the light provided by the fungi - and if minimal, do races all have some variation on darkvision/low light vision or more exotic senses? How long have races been forced to live down here?

Those are off the top of my head, look forward to more.

[Steerpike]

Looks awesome!  Creepy and weird.

Are Klikklik insectile?  Why are the Pale People omnipresent?

Is Arx Fatalis a conscious influence on this?