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The Deeping (of the Steel Realms)
Underneath the realms is a network named by the Orrish as “the black mother’s veins” – a place of vertigo and confusion, a vast ecology of twisted creatures in a sunless world connected by strange portals, tunnels and home to all manner of evil minded and foul tempered denizens – The Deeping of the Steel Realms manifestation. It is one of the Underlands of the Steel Realms.
Rumors and Whispers: It is spoken of only in whispers and academic circles, and is based on a known greater phenomenon of The Deepening. It is a place under the land of connected caverns, tunnels, rivers, and byways which stretches under the entire continent. It is unknown how far east and under the mountains it may go. Parents use it to frighten children, in legends and history it is spoken of and referred to by many names, but always it is attached to evil deeds, evil places and evil outcomes. Some say it is a refuge of the gods of darkness, but their minions suffer the same effects, swallowed by its endless hunger.
The manifestation of the cosmic presence of The Deepening/The Deeping and its effects have had a massive detrimental impact. It is believed that its sheltering of species and creatures that would normally have been hunted to extinction or killed is directly responsible for the lack of technological growth and several massive setbacks of the development of the Steel Realms. It is said to run from The Cosheus Abyssal in the south to the Beyne River in the north. It is inhabited by Piglem, a Nurthlings, The Lightless, evil men, fey elves, renegade Ducateon and Orrish.
Cultures, if any, are localized. The strong rule the weak by violence, terror and a willing depravity from which stem their shadow-tales in the lighted world above.
Sustenance is lichen, cave mana, raids on the lands above, domesticated blind goats, cannibalism, and even normal crops in the more remote places where those on the surface will not detect them.
Where water passes through the shadow and gets in from the surface somehow, the infamous Deepwort is known to grow and feed.
About/Chronicle
Common Knowledge / Easy Difficulty
Most Recent History
Commonly Understood Origins
The earliest corruption which is thought to be the origins of The Deeping in the realms is the Valley of Sighs. Because several minor and demigods died there, as well as the wounding of the demiurge of the world spirit of Helca, it was less a single powerful god and more the lingering essence of several lesser divinities. The prolonged orgy of terror and violence were the catalyst.
Commonly Understood Development
The Orrish and Nurth have nurtured it.
General knowledge…
- Key Places
- Key Entities: As a tale that mothers use to scare their children and keep them out of dangerous places, it is the place under the earth where lost children wander to.
- The ‘Bogeyman’ – who steals the children and enslaves them.
- The ‘Riflings’ – covered by lice and worms and seek the loving embrace of the living, but give them disease and turn them into one of themselves so that they forever have to live in underground places.
- The hungry ‘Rakfors’ – blind creatures with great jaws that track by smell and devour the living.
- Key Concepts
Uncommon Knowledge / Average Difficulty
Djubahthi: This is the man (human in all legends) who is given credit to originally discovering The Deeping in the Steel Realms. It is said he was the only living being that could see the force at work, and even that he mastered the force and was able to channel and contain its effect. Many myths and legends exist around
this figure of which virtually nothing of fact is known.
The Orrish are known to risk its use to traverse great distances. Rumors say that the echoes of their war drums and battle horns can be heard distantly at times. This causes uncontrolled shakes and a chattering of teeth so hard that it can break them.
Rare Knowledge / Very Hard Difficulty
Origins: It is said some parts have always been there. Black waters stolen from the Entrophy under the Tolkisson mountains, this corruption stemmed from the Godswar of the Steel Realms in the first yeas of the modern age – the time of The Crossing. Like a wound that infects, when the abyssal formed, the balefire from Sun Stealer caused The Deeping to erupt all over, a series of sucking wounds in which all his endless hate flowed, dissolving rock and mineral and spilling into valleys and ravines on the surface.
Caverns of Nailutchi Gnash: This legendary place is the supposed home of the Nurth-King. No one knows exactly where it is, or what the “king” presides over… just that no one has returned and it has foiled all attempts to locate it.
Hungerdouse: The Orrish fortress of Hungerdouse lies in the southeast Saelish of Dunstrand somewhere – lost to memory and sealed up. From the time of CY 7620, the earliest reckonings of Orrish using the name, the fortress spent 800 years as one of the most feared names in the central heartlands.
Obscure Knowledge / Near-Impossible Difficulty
The true origins of The Deeping in the Steel Realms are the death of hundreds of the True Celestine (Celestials) and the corrupting influence of a massive vein of Entrophy that runs under the Tolkisson mountain range, all the way down to under the Black Fens and out into the desert lands of the fallen south of Synedcia.
The infamous Corpsebolt the Crazed, of the Red Fiend Adventuring Band that assaulted Hungerdouse and Arkkan the Necromancer of the Brine Moors are one and the same.