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honourablejester · 3 years

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Setting Notes: Osh Derrinalina

Right. So a while back I made a post about a fantasy setting I’d like to see, specifically a wonderous subterranean setting that was not grimdark. This paragraph, particularly:

Show me a dwarven city at the height of its power and prosperity, the roof of its cavern glowing in the light of its tiered suns. Show me ghostly spider people that act as the benign sages and weavers and oracles. Show me a subterranean Venice on the shores of a ghostly, lightless ocean, where bioluminescent mermaids come to trade. Show me a vast crystal cavern and the earth spirits that call it home. Show me the breath-takingly huge cavern sprawling outwards down an incline, an impossibly huge city carved tier on tier into its walls.

And I figured, you know what? I could take a crack at that myself. So. A few weeks later, have some twelve thousand words of setting notes on Osh Derrinalina, the Land of the Lightless Sea, a vast cavern miles beneath the world containing a ghostly subterranean sea, and all the cities and settlements that surround it.

I’m imagining this primarily as a D&D setting, a wonderous little pocket of an Underdark, so I’m putting in a few notes geared towards that. Heh. Particularly strong influences here will be Jules Verne’s ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ (and maybe a bit of ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’), C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Silver Chair’, and Failbetter Games’ ‘Sunless Sea’. Maybe a little bit of Clive Barker’s ‘Abarat’ as well. Plus a bunch of other things, as usual.

Contents:

Osh Derrinalina, the Land of the Lightless Sea

Entrances to Osh Derrinalina

The Peoples of the Lightless Sea

Landmarks and Settlements

Osh Derrinalina, The Land of the Lightless Sea

Far, far beneath the surface of the world, some six and a half miles down, lies the vast, lightless saltwaters of Derrinalina. Immense, its black surface stretching at least eighty miles long, running north and south, and some forty miles across, east and west, the subterranean sea of Derrinalina lies at the heart of a colossal cavern of rich black stone, unto which several smaller caverns and cave systems spill and emerge. This is Osh Derrinalina, the Land of the Lightless Sea.

For those who call it home, the great cavern of Osh Derrinalina is broadly considered in three parts: the Roof, the Rim, and the Depths. The Roof is the network of high tunnels, stalactites and pendular cities that weave across the vast arch of the cavern’s ceiling, shedding crystalline light onto the black surface below. The Rim are the cities, shelves and caverns that ring Derrinalina’s coasts, climbing the great walls of the cavern. And the Depths, naturally, are those cities and territories and vast abyssal trenches that stretch beneath the mirrored surface of the Lightless Sea.

Each of these places are inhabited by their own unique collection of races and species. There are some who call the Rim more home, or the Roof, or the Depths. There are cities and settlements and outposts the length, breadth and height of the cavern. But all who live here, all who judge their up and their down by the black surface of the Lightless Sea, are called the Children of Derrinalina. She is her own world, the Lightless Sea. She is her own sovereign territory, a proud nation state cradled deep at the bottom of the world.

The cavern of Osh Derrinalina is also somewhat divided into north and south, civilisation and wilderness. There is a point, around Tchorit, where the cavern narrows and shallows considerably, although it also heightens as well. This is the dividing line, the barrier between the northern and southern ends of the cavern. It has become more than just a physical barrier over time. The characters of the two ends of Osh Derrinalina have diverged also.

In the south, there is civilisation. All of the three main entrances into the world of Osh Derrinalina emerge into or above the southern end of the cavern, and most of the main settlements of the Rim and the Roof especially lie in the Lightless Sea’s southern reaches. The southern cavern is also more illuminated, generally speaking, especially since the arrival of the Star Builders and their shining cities on the ceiling, though still nothing a surface dweller would call ‘bright’. It is a starlit realm, full of community and trade.

The north, by contrast, is far blacker and maintains much of its original lightless character, and there are few formal settlements here. Rachinilea is arguably the most northerly of the true settlements of Osh Derrinalina, unless one were to count Yiirinrath, the citadel of the dragon. Many do, as Silrithantus is an intelligent being and has made many of his opinions known. But the north, excepting his keep, is generally regarded as the wilderness of Osh Derrinalina. Perhaps it is because of the Lathellin and all its dangers and noise. Perhaps it is because of Silrithantus, or the other titanic beings rumoured to traverse the darker northern sea. Perhaps all of the above. Whatever the reason, though, there is much of the northern cavern of the Lightless Sea that remains unexplored.

Entrance into Osh Derrinalina

Osh Derrinalina is deep, and strange, and her own little world, but she is not isolated. The Land of the Lightless Sea has many neighbours, and many paths to bring them to her.

There are three roads in particular that most pass to reach the shores of the Lightless Sea. One, a series of caves and passages carved and smoothed over aeons, winds for miles upon miles down from the surface of the world at a shallow angle, and emerges into the southern edge of the cavern of Osh Derrinalina, near the great Fungal Shelf and the Trade City of Ysea. Another, the dwarven road, runs through the great cavern city of Durgendelf, a neighbouring city state, and emerges out into the great dwarven fortress of Durgenrath, perched high on a cliff of the southeastern cavern wall, some five hundred feet above the surface of Derrinalina. The last, and much more difficult and treacherous road, does not descend to Derrinalina at all, but runs above her, a network of dangerous passages and pitfalls that snakes across the cavern roof, made safe only in places by the efforts of the Star Builders, the gnome inhabitants of Derrinalina’s great ceiling.

These are not the only roads to Osh Derrinalina, however, only the most passable. There are others, perhaps countless others. Derrinalina herself covers over three thousand square miles, and that is merely her surface. The walls, roof, and in particular the depths of the cavern floor are riddled with smaller entrances. Some that lead nowhere, and others … that lead places more dangerous. Her deepest trenches are rumoured to descend to unfathomable depths, to strange places beneath and perhaps beyond the world, and not even the Hadal merfolk know most of them. In the shadowed northern reaches of the cavern, far beyond the guiding lights of Tchorit and the other Star cities of the ceiling, there are passages in the cavern’s walls and ceiling that are rumoured to touch upon strange, shadowy realms. And, of course, far more mundanely, there are the thousands of smaller caves, smugglers’ passages, and entrances to unknown and unexplored cave systems that touch, somewhere along her eighty miles of length and forty miles of width, unto Derrinalina.

And, too, there is always the Lathellin. The Pillar of Thunder. Derrinalina lies beneath a surface sea, a great ocean at the top of the world. The waters of that sea, and perhaps all the rest of the world, weave their way through the miles of stone, through the net of caverns and passages, to a great reservoir called the Limelthul, the Well of Salt, above Derrinalina’s northern roof. And from there, through a waterfall so thunderous and immense that it has no equal in the world, the salt of the surface world plunges nearly half a mile into the depths of Derrinalina. She is the black basin at the bottom of the world. The Sea that remembers all seas that have come before and above her.

Passage through the Limelthul and the Lathellin might be possible. The Hadal merfolk may have come through that route originally, though they themselves emphatically do not hold with such views. Perhaps other aquatic beings too, those that were not born beneath the surface or emerged from the great trenches in the depths. Such a passage would be perilous in the extreme, however. The Lathellin is far from gentle, and it would take a very sturdy being indeed to survive the plunge.

The Peoples of the Lightless Sea:

The Elder Children

Hadal Merfolk

The First Children of Derrinalina, the Hadali are a truly ancient submarine people of the Lightless Sea, the oldest inhabitants of Osh Derrinalina. In form, they are ink-black, translucent, bioluminescent merfolk, well adapted to living in the pitch-black depths of the Lightless Sea. Though they can breathe air if they have to, they distinctly prefer not to, and they do not speak surface tongues well. In the port city of Ysea, a trade language of hand signs and clicks was developed aeons ago to aid communication between the Weavers and Hadali, and it is still a commonly used language in Derrinalina. The Hadali worship Derrinalina itself as a living Mother Sea, and the strange behaviour of its waters in their defence cannot be denied. They are most commonly seen in their own city of Muarra and in the trading complexes of Ysea, though some are seen in the lower ports of Durgenrath and, much less commonly, Tchorit as well.

(D&D note: slightly tweaked merfolk (with illumination and sunlight sensitivity) would probably work for Hadali. Tritons with similar tweaks would work for Rachinilean Hadali who have been granted legs by the Ghostly Isle (see the section for Rachinilea for explanation))

Ineian Weavers

The oldest of the surface-dwelling peoples of Osh Derrinalina, the Ineian Weavers are an ancient race of semi-humanoid spider people. They are long-lived as well as ancient, with the oldest of them known to live almost a millennium. They may have come to Osh Derrinalina via the southern passage many thousands of years ago, and live primarily in Ysea and a handful of other colonies in the walls of the cavern. They are ghostly pale, translucent and faintly bioluminescent half-spiders, and their luminous silk is one of the most sought-after materials in all of Osh Derrinalina, both as cloth and as construction material.

The Weavers are named for their most beloved deity, the spider goddess Ineia, goddess of community, communication and weaving, and their society is strongly structured around her ideals. As a result of this, the Weavers are the foundation of much of the society of the Lightless Sea, serving as priests, oracles, arbiters, judges and spokespeople for many of the other peoples of Osh Derrinalina. Many place names in the Lightless Sea come from their tongue, and worship or at least respect for Ineia beyond the Weavers themselves is similar common because of this. They are found all across the southern cavern of the Lightless Sea, though nowhere so much as Ysea.

(D&D note: I’m picturing something not too dissimilar from a bioluminescent drider here, at least physically speaking, albeit more slender and delicate-looking. Picture maybe a cross between a drider and the crystal spider from ‘Krull’, if anyone besides me has seen that movie. Completely different origins, lore and probably stats, however, as the Weavers are their own innate species)

Patient Ones

The Patient Ones are the fungal folk of the Lochantan shelf. Their origins in Osh Derrinalina are a little murkier than those of the Weavers, but they have been here almost as long as the Fungal Forest itself, and possibly developed out of it. They are living, conscious fungi that can walk and move and speak, though their language is a little … unusual to say the least. They are gardeners, caretakers and stewards of the Fungal Forest before all else, and devote much of their attention to its protection and propagation, but they are also well-known traders across much of southern Osh Derrinalina. They are commonly seen in Ysea, Tchorit and Durgenrath, and in recent centuries have also developed a powerful direct relationship with Durgendelf, being similarly known as growers. Much of the food, fertiliser and medicine in Osh Derrinalina comes from them. They don’t particularly mind this, however, viewing it as simply an extension of the life of the Fungal Forest.

(D&D note: basically myconids, with some lore tweaks)

Joy Singers

The Joy Singers are the other main inhabitants of the Lochantu, and they are deeply curious beings. Floating, transparent, jellyfish-like beings, the Joy Singers are telepathic and do not speak at all. Like the Patient Ones, they have been part of the Fungal Forest for as long as there has been a Fungal Forest, but their origins within it are somewhat more mysterious than their myconid neighbours. They are incredibly friendly beings, however, and they are drawn to those who will respond in kind, and repulsed by those who mean harm. Along with the Weavers, the Joy Singers have served Osh Derrinalina as arbiters and guides for centuries, reassuring many people of the fundamental good will of those they encounter, and leading them along the safest paths.

(D&D note: Joy Singers are flumphs, because flumphs are awesome)

Palerin

The Palerin are the people of Rachinilea. Originally a tribe of goblins, they have become … slightly altered by the Ghostly Isle in the thousands of years since then. The Palerin are pale, chalky white, and some of their elders verge on the translucence of some of the other ancient Children of Derrinalina. Their lifespans are eccentric, guided by the whims of Rachinilea, and while some live only a few decades, others can live for several centuries. Almost all of them are painted and sometimes tattooed with girrish, the phosphorescent fungal daub of Rachinilea’s Pit, and there is considerable artistry and ritual attached to these marks. The Palerin are quite a lively people, however, despite Rachinilea’s dour reputation, and they produce as many traders, sailors, musicians and artisans as they do priests and oracles. Nor are they wholly bound to Rachinilea itself, and many travel the length and breadth of the Lightless Sea, though almost all of them return to Rachinilea in death. Even if they are already dead, and there is no one to bring their remains …

(D&D note: again, basically just goblins/goblinoids, with a few particular quirks. I’d call Palerin a goblin subrace, essentially)

Silrithantus

Silrithantus is the great shadow dragon of Derrinalina’s northern sea. An ancient part of the fabric of Osh Derrinalina, he has guarded and flown the northern waters for millennia. Yiirinrath, his lair and keep among the stalactites, was built by the dragon himself of magic and stone, and is home to many libraries and curiosities. Silrithantus is a patient, curious, intelligent being, and maintains strong friendships with Rachinilea in particular. He is also touched, most likely by Rachinilea, and carries some of the essence of darkness and death within his being and his magic. He is deeply unfond of stronger light sources, and has not taken things like the construction of the Constellation well, though diplomacy prevailed upon him to allow it. To a point.

(D&D note: Silrithantus is a (very) ancient brass shadow dragon)

The Younger Children

The Starfolk

The Starfolk were originally a tribe of elves from the surface or just below it, who were driven deeper and deeper into the stone by their enemies. They came to Osh Derrinalina as a close-knit band of grey-skinned, silver-haired refugees some fifteen hundred years ago, along the southern road. Records from before the Great Flight are fairly few and slim, based mostly on the memories of those who survived to reach the Lightless Sea, but the Starfolk do remember that they were once people of the surface, of the sky and stars, though that a long, long time ago. When they reached Ysea, and the promise of food and shelter if they could only bargain for it, they speak of the silver light of the silken bridges as an echo of that long-lost starlight. It was that, they say, that gave them true hope of building a life on the Lightless Sea.

As a consequence, many Starfolk also worship Ineia, revere her and give thanks to her for what she has allowed and helped them to build down here. They also worship a pantheon of their own deities, however, in particular one they call Surenine, the Lady of Shadows, who helped them evade and run from their enemies during the Great Flight. Ysea is their first city, though they live all across the cavern of Osh Derrinalina.

(D&D note: drow, essentially, though again with far different lore)

Durgen Dwarves

Despite the depths to which they have delved with Durgendelf, their own cavern city-state, the Durgen are actually a clan of surface dwarves, or at least they were originally. The Durgen histories say that they were originally mountain dwarves from a coastal mountain range. Their reasons for digging so deep are only speculated on, but it is possible that, as the Palerin heard Rachinilea’s call, so the Durgen might have heard Derrinalina’s. Certainly Durgenrath produces enough sailors to suggest a hint of sea-longing in the clan. It is not what they are most known for, however. The Durgen are primarily builders and growers. They specialise in the artificial growth of plants underground, and the creation, through magic and artifice, of objects that can produce true sunlight. No other dwarven clan can match them in this regard, and very few other races either. The Durgen have developed a great friendship with the Patient Ones during their time in Osh Derrinalina, though the wanderlust and adventurous nature of Durgenrath mean that they’ve also connected quite strongly with everybody else as well.

(D&D note: almost purely mountain dwarves. There’s potential to add some Duergar traits to them, particularly families who’ve lived primarily in Durgenrath, but Durgendelf’s artificial suns mean traits like sunlight sensitivity haven’t really developed in the Durgen, despite living more than six miles down in the stone)

Star Builders

The Star Builders are a tough, hardy, and somewhat pugnacious clan of gnomes who broke through into Osh Derrinalina less than a millennium ago, and built the Constellation, a network of hanging crystal settlements on the cavern roof. They tend to be somewhat close-mouthed regarding their own history, so little is known about them or how long they have wandered beneath the surface of the world. What is known is that they did come from the surface originally, and that sometime in that wandering, they came across the cavern of Sim-Siinelan, the home of the elemental Crystalfolk, and founded a deep and abiding alliance with them. The Siinelans taught them the art of growing luminous crystals, and it has become the basis for much of their architecture and culture. The Star Builders, more than any other race in Osh Derrinalina, prize light, though it must be said that the light of the Siinelan crystals is much paler and more muted than the sunlight of the surface or Durgendelf. They also prize knowledge, creation and experimentation, and do view some of the other people of Osh Derrinalina as a little bit hidebound and superstitious. As a consequence, they tend to have much more delicate and contentious relationships with the rest of the cavern.

(D&D note: a mix of rock and deep gnomes. I suspect sunlight sensitivity is an issue for them, after so long underground, and that it troubles them deeply)

Siinelan Crystalfolk

The Siinelan crystalfolk are crystalline elementals from the mysterious cavern of Sim-Siinelan. They are faintly luminous, usually blue- or purplish in colouring, although other hues are possible, and due to their unique language and culture tend to be much more clannish and reticent than almost any other people in Osh Derrinalina. They are found primarily in Tchorit, hold themselves somewhat separate from the Lightless Sea even still, and mostly deal with others through their allies the Star Builders rather than directly. Those who do live here, though, are deeply loyal to the maintenance and upkeep of the Constellation, and some are curious enough to wish to engage a little bit more with the people of the Lightless Sea. Their communication is difficult to replicate, sounding like crystalline chiming, and Joy Singers tend to have the most success in communicating with them, outside of the Star Builders, who have bridged the gap with artifice and magic.

(D&D note: crystal golems, but elementals instead of constructs, as the Siinelans are born/formed, not made by any outside force)

Landmarks and Settlements of Osh Derrinalina:

The Rim

The Southern Passage

The southern passage lies at the southmost tip of Osh Derrinalina’s cavern, and is the safest and possibly the oldest of the cavern’s natural entrances. A vast series of connected caves, caverns and passages wind their way upward from Osh Derrinalina at a shallow angle, travelling miles vertically and horizontally through other subterranean realms, until eventually they reach the surface.

The southern passage is not, however, a well-known or dedicated road. It is a natural route, a series of caves and passages, and how much anyone on the surface or even in the surrounding subterranean territories has historically been aware that along this path lies the Lightless Sea is … questionable. The Starfolk came by chance all those centuries ago, driven deeper and further along the road by a series of mishaps. Others like them have come to Osh Derrinalina by the southern route as well. Perhaps the Weavers came by this passage originally, aeons ago. But few take the southern passage knowing what lies at the end of it. Most, by this route, come by chance.

At least they did, once upon a time. Efforts have been made to map and explore the southern passage in recent centuries, by those who discovered the Lightless Sea by other means. The Durgen dwarves, the gnomes of Tchorit. The Starfolk, as well, have made efforts to retrace their steps at least some of the way, to shore up and make the lower reaches of the passage a little safer and more pleasant. Word has spread, some little bit, though finding the exact route through the passage from the surface is still very much an exercise in chance and danger. The Durgenroad is a far more reliable route. But more and more now try for the southern passage, and more and more are succeeding, emerging safely onto the southern shelf of Osh Derrinalina, and the nearby shining promises of Ysea and Lochantu.

Ysea, the City of Starlight

An ancient jewel of the Lightless Sea, Ysea is the great trading port of southern Osh Derrinalina, nestled where the southern shelf of the cavern runs down to Derrinalina’s black shores. A city of black canals and dark, delicately carved towers and bridges, the faintly glimmering strands of spider silk strung between them, only Tchorit and Durgendelf could possibly be her equal in architecture, and none can match her for trade. Ysea is the oldest and most well-regarded Rim settlement in the Lightless Sea. Everyone who is anyone in Osh Derrinalina comes to buy and sell here.

Originally, thousands of years ago, Ysea was the much smaller home of the Ineian Weavers, the venerable spiders of Derrinalina. The black stalactites that later became the origins of Ysea’s towers were their settlement, carved with homes and strung together with paths and balconies of their wonderous luminous silks. Fed and formed by a black stream that ran down from the cavern walls and out into the Lightless Sea, Ysea was ever and always a trade city. The Weavers value community and communication above all else, guided by the principles of their deity Ineia. Even in those earliest days, there were rudimentary docks of silk and fungal slabs where the Hadal merfolk came to trade, and those slabs were brought by Patient Ones, myconid traders from the Fungal Shelf. Ysea has never not been the trading hub of southern Derrinalina.

But it was only with the arrival of the Starfolk, a tribe of refugee elves from somewhere far along the southern road, that Ysea began to grow into what it has become today. The Starfolk had been driven from the surface world and along the southern road by mishap after mishap, across centuries. By the time they reached Osh Derrinalina, and Ysea, some fifteen hundred years ago, they were hardened and desperate. They needed all that Ysea offered. Shelter. Cloth. Medicine. And food, most desperately of all. The fruits of the Fungal Forest and the black depths of Derrinalina. Ysea was where all of it was bought and bartered. All they need do was find a way to buy it … or to take it.

There were many ways those first early days of fearful trade and coexistence could have gone. The Starfolk historians have written proof of all their ancestors’ fears, all the dark things they were afraid might be asked of them. And the Weavers, too, were not unconscious of the potential threat of this armed and desperate tribe of people. But eventually, through patience, desperation and willingness, and the aid of the Joy Singers, the two peoples came to agreement. The Starfolk would help defend and expand Ysea, and the Weavers would shelter, clothe and guide them in the ways of Osh Derrinalina until they could better do so themselves.

That was centuries ago, and the alliance has not faltered since. Ysea has grown, the home now of not only Weavers and Starfolk, but many other races as well. Joy Singers, Patient Ones, Hadali, even Palerin, Durgen and Star Builders, all no longer merely trade within Ysea’s towers and docks and luminous balconies, but live there too. And have helped build it, all of it, over the centuries. They have worked together to carve great and beautiful towers into the massive stalactites, mined the black stone of Osh Derrinalina to build others to match them, woven and strung the shining silks between the towers, brought stone and metal and fungus and silk out across and beneath the waters to build the great docks, canals and underwater trading complexes.

She is a city of her people, Ysea, built by all their hands. She is the beating heart of Derrinalina’s southern shore, a true trade city, run by a Council of her peoples. Anything you seek in southern Osh Derrinalina, Ysea is the place to find it. Clothiers, farmers, craftspeople, oracles, priests, musicians, architects, hunters, fishers, scholars, mapmakers, explorers, sailors, and shipmasters. Whatever it might be, Ysea is widely known to be the first, if not quite only, place to go to find it.

Lochantu, the Fungal Shelf

The great fungal forests of Lochantu cover most of the southern rim of Osh Derrinalina. Stretching from the mouth of the cavern, where the southern road turns east towards Ysea, and running west and north all along the rising southwestern rim of the cavern, the great Fungal Shelf covers some hundred square miles of Osh Derrinalina, the largest open space in the cavern that is not covered by the Lightless Sea. The shelf is five to ten miles across, and stretches along and eventually above some fifty miles of Derrinalina’s southwestern coast. The ceiling of the cavern also rises much higher in the interior of the shelf, making it almost feel like its own smaller sub cavern opening onto the vaster space of Osh Derrinalina. Finally, at a point some sixty miles diagonally across the waters from Ysea, the climbing curve of the shelf and its sub cavern abuts the walls of Osh Derrinalina once more, some three hundred feet above the sea, and is brought to a halt.

To use a surface term, Lochantu is largely considered the ‘breadbasket’ of Osh Derrinalina, or rather one of two of them, along with Muarra in the Depths. The fungal forests are the source of a huge portion of the food, fibres, building material and fertiliser of the Lightless Sea. The sub cavern is home to a species of giant bat, with a high cave in the ceiling of the sub cavern that extends much closer to the surface of the world which houses their nesting site. One of the most famous, or perhaps infamous, landmarks in Lochantu is the utterly vast stinking mound of bat guano underneath this high cave, which is the source of almost all fertiliser in Osh Derrinalina. It’s also a significant source of meat, as many thousands of insect and grub species also call the mound home.

Bat meat, however, the act of killing one of the Great Bats themselves, is fervently prohibited in Osh Derrinalina, as they are considered sacred animals by the Patient Ones, Weavers and Starfolk. In Lochantu and Ysea, the punishment for killing one of the Great Bats, outside of extremely unusual circumstances, is death, and eating bat meat outside of holy days and ritual is also sternly punished.

Lochantu is the home of the Patient Ones, the fungal myconid people of Osh Derrinalina, and it is also one of the primary homes of the Joy Singers, the beautiful psychic jellies that call many places in the cavern home. No one knows when or where either of these peoples came from, if anywhere. They have been part of the Land of the Lightless Sea for as long as the Weavers have, if not longer.

The Patient Ones are the caretakers of the fungal forests, their homes and settlements spread out in an arcane network through the fungi, and they are called ‘farmers’ by many around the Lightless Sea. The many and varied fungi of Lochantu are carefully and methodically harvested by them, so as not to damage the forest as a whole, and are used as everything from foodstuffs to fibre for clothing, to slab material for construction, to medicinal and magical ingredients, across the length and breadth of the Lightless Sea.

The paths of the Fungal Forest are ever-changing, and it is often extremely difficult for strangers and visitors to navigate. While the spore paths of the Patient Ones, drifting lines of bioluminescent spores that drift in the air where the myconids have passed, may help, they also criss-cross the entire forest, and do not lead anywhere in particular. Those unfamiliar with Lochantu are better advised to wait at the trade points of the southern road, and hope that a Joy Singer might discern their need and offer to guide them through. The Joy Singers will not come for those with ill-intent, however. Those who would seek to harm Lochantu or its inhabitants must manage for themselves.

Durgenrath, the Dwarven Fort

Some thirty miles up the southeastern coast of Derrinalina from Ysea, on a vast promontory of rock jutting out from the cavern wall, stands Durgenrath, the proud dwarven fort and the guardian of the tunnel road eastwards towards the great cavern city of Durgendelf.

A series of docks and a port occupy the base of the great black cliff, as the cavern walls around Durgenrath are utterly impassable, and the fort can only be reached by sea, or by the cable elevator or cave fliers from Tchorit and Koribit on the cavern ceiling. Another elevator descends to sea level, carved back into the stone of the cliff, and a great cut staircase climbs the exterior, wending its way up several hundred feet of black stone to the gatehouse at the top, the fort at the mouth of the Durgenroad, and the town perched curiously between them.

The Durgenrath is the extension of the dwarven city of Durgendelf into Osh Derrinalina. At its back, some forty feet high and wide, is the great entrance to the Durgenroad, the carved tunnel that leads to Durgendelf and the network of dwarven roads beyond it, linking dwarven cities and settlements throughout the stone.

Durgenrath is, at its heart, a gateway and trading hub. It occupies a strange middle ground in Osh Derrinalina, being not wholly of the Lightless Sea, but not wholly apart from it either. It is an extension of the Durgendelf, but it is also a trading port of the Lightless Sea. The dwarves who live in Durgenrath develop a slightly different outlook and character to those who dwell in Durgendelf, the Citadel of the Suns, for Derrinalina cannot help but lay some small claim upon them. Dwarven sailors and adventurers are drawn from the surface world and the other dwarven cities by tales of the mysteries of the Lightless Sea. While some of the more traditional and loyal hold firm to their cities, others feel the call of Derrinalina much more strongly.

This ‘divide’, as much as it is a true division, is present physically as well as spiritually in Durgenrath. The fort, which defends the entrance to the Durgenroad, and the area of the high town around it, tends to be much more solidly loyal to the cities in general and Durgendelf in particular, and predominantly, if not quite exclusively, inhabited by Durgen dwarves. The port, the gatehouse defending the stairs and elevators, and the area of low town abutting onto it, is a much more mixed environment, entertaining sailors, adventurers, and all the Children of Osh Derrinalina. While there is some tension, however, and passage along the Durgenroad is monitored, there is no true hostility between the various inhabitants and visitors to Durgenrath. It is, above all else, a trading town.

Durgendelf, the Citadel of the Suns

The great dwarven city of Durgendelf, the Citadel of the Suns, occupies its own vast cavern some six or so miles east along the Durgenroad from Durgenrath. Its cavern is some five miles by eight, and doesn’t lie quite so deep in the world as the Lightless Sea. The city is not, and never has been, considered a part of Osh Derrinalina itself, but it is without doubt the Lightless Sea’s closest and dearest neighbour.

The cavern of the Durgendelf was discovered by the Durgen clan of dwarves close to two thousand years ago, and they did not waste time in building the start of what would become one of the most magnificent dwarven cities in the world in its confines. At this time, there was no passage to Osh Derrinalina. There was a small set of caves and impossibly tiny passages wending in mostly the right direction, but the dwarves did not yet have knowledge of or any real passage to the Lightless Sea. It would take another five hundred years of mining and exploring before they would break through onto the great promontory that would become Durgenrath, at close to the same time that the Starfolk, travelling a much different passage in the south of the cavern, came to Ysea. It would take longer for the dwarves and the Children of Osh Derrinalina to discover each other, navigating the dark of the Lightless Sea without the Constellation’s lights to guide them, but eventually contact was made. And with it, trade, and intermingling, and discovery.

Durgendelf is a wholly dwarven city, but no less wonderous than any other. In fact, the Durgen would soundly argue that is far more wonderous than most. The city’s byname, the Citadel of the Suns, comes from the six great artificial suns that hang in tiers from the roof of the cavern, impossible wonders of artifice and magic that bright warm, golden light to the whole of the Durgendelf. These suns famously brighten and then later dim in sequence, bring a simulated day and night to the cavern, and the hours are set by which suns are bright and which are dark. There is a rhythm to life in Durgendelf that is not echoed anywhere else.

These artificial suns also allow surface plants to grow in Durgendelf as they do nowhere else in Osh Derrinalina. The Citadel of the Suns is famous not only for its night and day, but also for its gardens, farms, and even small ‘forests’ of surface trees. The Durgen, perhaps strangely among dwarves, are renowned as growers of things. Metalworkers, miners and artificers, yes, craftsmen, but also farmers and gardeners. There is a strangely powerful trade and curiosity between the growers of Durgendelf and the Patient Ones of Lochantu, and the myconid gardeners are a surprisingly common sight in the city.

For all that Durgendelf is a nation unto itself, an independent city state and purely dwarven in nature, it is perhaps the primary entrance into Osh Derrinalina as well. The southern road is long and dangerous, stretching through unknown caverns and caves. The Durgenroad, by contrast, was carefully and deliberately built, and connects to many other dwarven cities and nations. Many people, dwarven or surface dwellers or otherwise, enter Osh Derrinalina via the Durgenroad and the great clifftop fort of Durgenrath.

Rachinilea, the Ghostly Isle

Beyond Tchorit, just into the darker northeastern waters of the cavern, lies the island of Rachinilea, known as the Ghostly Isle, or the Island of Bones. It has a strange history, Rachinilea, and a strange nature. Rachinilea is the island of the dead. Osh Derrinalina’s necropolis isle.

There are many traditions of death in Osh Derrinalina. The Patient Ones return themselves to their forest. The Hadali commend their fallen to the Fathomless Delve. The Weavers and Starfolk carve their own necropoli, the beautiful bone catacombs carved back into the walls of the cavern behind the towers of Ysea, as do the dwarves of Durgendelf in slightly different fashion. The Star Builders burn their dead in their great furnaces. But sometimes, somewhere in the Lightless Sea, in Ysea or Tchorit or Durgendelf, a person will feel the call of Rachinilea instead. They will request of their kin or neighbours that their remains be brought to the Ghostly Isle.

There is a Pit, in Rachinilea. It is the heart of the island, a small, round chasm, almost like a dry well, in the precise centre of the isle. It is a dark, shadowed fall, an airy plunge into nothingness. No one knows how deep it goes, or what, or where, might be at the bottom of it. But it calls to people. All across the Lightless Sea, no matter their name or nature, there are people who know instinctively that their remains will belong to Rachinilea upon their death. To the Pit or to the island. One way or another, their bones will make the journey home.

It is not only the dead who call Rachinilea their home, however. There are those who live and eat and thrive on the Ghostly Isle. The Palerin, first and foremost. Rachinilea’s own. Once, a very long time ago, they were a tribe of goblins, wandering the stone. They weren’t Derrinalina’s, not yet, had never seen the majesty of the Lightless Sea. But Rachinilea called to them. The island wished for a people of its own. And the Palerin, feeling its call keenly, answered. No one knows the passage they took. The Durgenroad was not yet carved. The Weavers never saw them arrive. But they came, and the Island welcomed them.

Rachinilea is the Island of the Dead, an island of pilgrimage and funeral procession, but it is a living island as well. The port of Loshmal perches on the island’s southern shore, stretching out over the black water on white, rickety posts. They are not bones, despite rumour, but wood. True wood, from a type of pale, red-leaved tree that grows only in Rachinilea, though no one quite knows how. That is not to say that the Palerin do not regularly build with bone. They often do, and quite masterfully. Many of the remains that come to the island are used so, for it is understood that Rachinilea shares readily with its people, all that are not called to the Pit itself. There are many who visit the island not only for funerals, but to see the ossuary-homes of the Palerin and marvel at their artistry.

At the centre of the island, around the Pit itself, is the temple-town of Ruchanti. Here is where the Palerin shamans live, as well as other priests and oracles of all races who have felt Rachinilea’s call. There are many Weavers here, and even Hadali, for Rachinilea has the power to grant them legs and breath, when it borrows them graciously from Derrinalina’s depths.

There is no fire on Rachinilea. It is a commandment of the island, that no flame touch upon it. For light, when they want or need it, the Palerin favour a glowing, phosphorescent daub, called girrish, which is made from a type of fungus that can only be harvested from the rim of the Pit. This is often worn as a body adornment, and there are rules and artistry attached to using it as such. There is a famous festival and dance on Rachinilea involving the girrish, and many across the Lightless Sea make the effort to attend and even participate in it. Many who have experienced the girrish dance describe a sensation of transcendence, a feeling that the daub and the ritual had opened their minds and allowed them to feel the call of Rachinilea and Derrinalina as never before or since. Even those who do not belong to the Ghostly Isle, whose bones will never rest in its embrace, are said to feel the empty, gentle touch of the island during the Girrish Festival.

The Roof

The Constellation

Among the most recent and perhaps controversial settlements in Osh Derrinalina is the Constellation, the great network of pendular settlements and outposts of the Star Builders, the gnomes of Osh Derrinalina’s ceiling. They are newcomers as far as the Lightless Sea is concerned, breaking through into the cavern’s great roof less than a thousand years ago, and their coming was contentious, to say the least. For the Star Builders, more than any other people, sought to bring light to the Lightless Sea. They, like the Starfolk of Ysea, remembered the light of the surface world, and unlike the Starfolk, or even the Durgen, content to keep their Suns in Durgendelf, the Star Builders wished to bring at least an echo of that crystalline starlight to Osh Derrinalina.

A part of that impetus might have been their alliance with the strange crystalline creatures of Sim-Siine, a race of people never encountered in Osh Derrinalina before, and rarely encountered outside of it. The home of these crystalline elementals is mysterious, a secret closely and violently guarded by both themselves and their allies, but it is believed to lie not too far from Osh Derrinalina. Somewhere above it, among the perilous network of tiny and often flooded passages that lead upwards towards that surface sea.

No one outside of the Star Builders and the Siinelans themselves know how the two peoples came to meet, what circumstance led to the gnomes perhaps breaching the cavern of Sim-Siine as later they breached the cavern of Osh Derrinalina, but the Star Builders speak of it as the most important and auspicious event in their history. The Siinelans, for whatever reasons of their own, became their friends, taught them the art of crystal growing, and gave them a means to bring light to the dim, noisome depths in which they now found themselves. Their crystals shine with a gentle, blue-white, ghostly light, closer to starlight than Durgendelf’s Suns.

And the Star Builders sought to bring that light to more than just themselves.

The Constellation is their great work. When they broke through into Osh Derrinalina and witnessed the vast majesty of her black, lightless sea for the first time, they felt in their hearts that here was home. Even the most devoted to light are not immune to Derrinalina’s call. They sought to give her a set of stars, a constellation to brighten her ‘sky’, built of metal and stone and the blue crystals of Sim-Siine. The Siinelans, no more immune than their allies, sought to help them.

The network of shining settlements that is the Constellation spreads out across almost all of the southern cavern of Osh Derrinalina, extending out from Tchorit, the first and greatest city of the Star Builders. The trading outpost of Koribit descends near Durgenrath, reaching down an elevator to her sister-city, and another outpost, called Tsililit, lies on the ceiling about a mile away from the uppermost end of the Lochantan shelf. The network of metal and silken gantries that connect the outposts, called star paths, and the less well-known network of caves and passages connecting them above Osh Derrinalina’s roof, are also considered part of the Constellation. If there are no easy routes between the settlements, the Star Builders use fliers instead. No one in all of Osh Derrinalina is as adept in the art of flying magics or creating flying artefacts as the Builders.

This building and expansion of the Constellation did not go uncontested among the other peoples of Osh Derrinalina, however. Ghostly as the light of their cities are, far less intrusive than something like Durgendelf’s Suns, the Constellation is still a great disruption to the Lightless Sea. While the Weavers and Starfolk were cautiously accepting, and later quite willing to trade with and help the Builders, even with the construction of the Constellation itself, others were not so welcoming.

The Hadali, in particular, disdain if not quite despise the Star Builders. Their response might have been more violent, but Derrinalina herself intervened on her Children’s behalf. The depths of the Lightless Sea cannot be pierced by the Constellation’s light. It does not breach her surface. Whether that is a result of some magical property of the crystals or the water, as the Star Builders believe, or the Sea herself refusing it entry, as the Hadali do, the fact remains that the light of the Constellation is only apparent above the surface of the water.

And in the northern reaches of Derrinalina’s cavern, the great dragon Silrithantus made no bones of his vast disapproval of their ventures. The Constellation does not extend into the northern cavern. There are no star cities beyond Tchorit. Even Rachinilea is a little beyond their grasp. Silrithantus’ great lair, the massive black stalactite of Yiirinrath, stands guard over the north. And the Lathellin, too, prevents the Builders from easily expanding northwards. The roof of Osh Derrinalina around that vast, violent downpour is treacherous in the extreme.

Tchorit, the Great Star

As Ysea is the jewel of the Rim, so is Tchorit the jewel of the Roof. Or rather, the star of the Roof. The Great and Guiding Star, the beacon of light that all who sail the Lightless Sea are guided by. Tchorit is the great crystal city of the Star Builders, the greatest, brightest and most massive star of the Constellation. It hangs down from the great ceiling of the cavern at its highest and possibly most central point, only a little bit west of the centre of Derrinalina. It has become the mark between north and south, the philosophical centre of the cavern. Built almost exclusively of metal and a strange blueish crystal that shines with a gentle light, the Great Star has become the central landmark of Derrinalina, visible in some form from almost everywhere in the southern reaches of the vast cavern, and a shining guardian of the boundary into the shadowed north.

Tchorit was, at one point, a massive stalactite that hung down from the cavern ceiling. Almost nothing of that original, natural structure remains, having been removed and replaced by the crystal, but the matching stalagmite beneath it, rising above the surface of Derrinalina, does remain. This ‘island’ in the Lightless Sea serves as the foundation of Timorri, Tchorit’s port, where sailors from the Lightless Sea can dock and trade within the port, or take the Great Elevator upwards into the crystalline depths of Tchorit itself.

For all its incredible beauty, Tchorit is primarily a working, industrial city, on a scale that matches Durgendelf itself. Tchorit is the hub of transportation and manufacturing for the entire Constellation. Metals, crystals, machinery, glass, glasshouses, certain types of surface plants, all are manufactured or brought to Derrinalina via Tchorit and the Constellation. The bridges, gantries and elevators that allow access across the Roof, and to Durgendelf, are built and maintained by Tchorian architects. The Great Star is a hive of industry, artistry, magic and experimentation, of factories, guild halls, homes and community spaces. Though it has its quieter spaces as well, temples, gardens and the crystal halls, in general Tchorit is easily the loudest and busiest place in all of Osh Derrinalina, even counting the markets of Ysea.

The Star Builders are the builders and inhabitants of Tchorit. More than half of the city’s inhabitants are gnomes. Most of the rest are Durgen or Starfolk, with only a few Weaver architects, and some few Palerin or Joy Singers among the throngs. There are a few water elevators to allow Hadali access, but the merfolk almost never enter Tchorit, preferring to trade through Timorri instead.

And, of course, there are the Siinelans, the crystalfolk allies of the Star Builders. Tchorit, more than any other settlement in the Constellation, is their home in Osh Derrinalina. The upper passages of Tchorit, the extension of the city upwards into the stone, hold vast galleries and gardens of crystal where the Siinelans live and work. Somewhere up there is the rumoured passage to Sim-Siine, their home cavern, the original route by which they and the Star Builders travelled to the Lightless Sea, but almost no one has ever seen it outside of those two peoples.

Yiirinrath, the Dragon’s Keep

Yiirinrath is the home of Silrithantus, the ancient shadow dragon of northern Osh Derrinalina. It is his fortress keep, a hanging citadel of magic and black stone carved from the stalactites some twenty miles west and slightly north of the Lathellin, nestled blackly back into the lightless shadows of the cavern ceiling. Along with the Pillar, Yiirinrath forms the last extension of civilisation into the wild north of the cavern. Few save the dragon himself have successfully explored into the darkness beyond it, though many regularly try. As such, the dragon has become something of a waykeeper, his fortress the last bastion of knowledge before the beckoning of the unknown.

Silrithantus himself is an ancient denizen of the Lightless Sea, having been here for a long, long time. His age is unknown, for he doesn’t like to discuss it, or possibly doesn’t remember it, but he came to Osh Derrinalina before any of the Starfolk, Durgen or Star Builders. It’s possible that he arrived around the same time that the Palerin came to Rachinilea. Perhaps exactly the same time. The Ghostly Isle is one of the few places in the Lightless Sea that the dragon not only acknowledges, but is deeply friendly and respectful towards. The dragon is counted as an honorary priest of Ruchanti, and makes a pilgrimage of his own to the Island of Bones every few years or so to consult and converse with the Palerin, Weaver and Hadali oracles there.

By the same token, pilgrims or travellers from Rachinilea, marking by girrish and guided by an oracle, are welcomed warmly at Yiirinrath as well. Though the fortress is not accessible save by flight, Silrithantus will gladly bear such visitors upwards into his home. The dragon delights in conversation and news, both of Osh Derrinalina and the world beyond it, for he rarely ventures into the more luminescent reaches of the southern cavern anymore. The arrival of the Star Builders was a deep blow to him, and save that the Weavers and Palerin intervened, they might have much more fatally borne his wrath over the years. Relations between them and the dragon are still deeply strained.

He does welcome most other Children of the Lightless Sea, however, and strangers to the cavern who are vouched for by the oracles. Most explorers determined to seek the northern shore are advised to journey to Rachinilea first, and from there to seek approval and guidance to Yiirinrath. An offering for the dragon isn’t mandatory, but it is quite strongly suggested. Silrithantus is known to favour books, texts, curiosities, small devices, and anything rarely found in Osh Derrinalina. The Durgen, in particular, and many of their works, fascinate him deeply. And he, in his turn, the libraries and collections of his home in Yiirinrath, are of considerable interest to the dwarves as well.

Be advised, however, that Silrithantus is still a dragon, and Yiirinrath is still a dragon’s keep. More than that, Silrithantus bears some of the mark of Rachinilea, the touch of the bottomless Pit. To anger the dragon, to trespass on his hospitality and his keep, is to surely embrace death, and in such a way that Rachinilea will neither welcome nor keep you afterwards.

Lathellin & Limelthul, the Pillar of Thunder

The Lathellin, the Pillar of Thunder, is an incomprehensibly huge waterfall in the northern reaches of Osh Derrinalina, some fifteen miles north of Rachinilea. Fed by the massive reservoir of the Limelthul above the cavern roof, a rush of water descends at an angle through the last few hundred feet of stone to burst out through a thirty-foot diameter opening and plunge more than two thousand feet straight down into the black water of Derrinalina below. The roar of this massive fall of water can be heard all across the northern cavern, although it is oddly muted in the Ghostly Isle, and the raw force of the plunging water has gouged out an enormous hollow in the cavern floor below. The Limeldulle, the pool beneath the Lathellin, is one of the deepest parts of the Lightless Sea. Derrinalina, lying as she does so far beneath the earth, doesn’t really have tides, but she does have currents, and many of them are shaped and caused by the Pillar of Thunder.

The Lathellin holds a strange place in the spoken history of Osh Derrinalina. It has been there for as long as the Weavers and Patient Ones remember, and the newer inhabitants, particularly the Durgen and the Star Builders, theorise that it is perhaps the origin of Derrinalina, that the Lightless Sea was formed when these surface waters seeped down and found and covered the cavern floor. The Hadali, however, are adamant that Derrinalina is far older than the Lathellin or the Limelthul, that she has always been here, and that she merely called up to the seas above her to join her in the stone. As the Hadal merfolk are almost certainly the oldest inhabitants of Osh Derrinalina, here before even the Weavers, many in the cavern are more inclined to believe them, but the debate does continue, between the Hadali and the Builders most adamantly.

The Star Builders of the Constellation have also begun to fear for the area of Derrinalina’s roof around the Lathellin. The vast torrent has long prevented them from extending their settlements northward (well, alongside Silrithantus), the great forces of the water making the area all around the Pillar treacherous in the extreme, but for the last few centuries their scholars have also begun to fear that it is making the ceiling of the cavern very fragile. With all the great weight of the Limelthul sitting so close above the ceiling, with only a few hundred feet of stone to separate them, and that pierced by the plunge of the Lathellin, the gnomes fear that a catastrophic deluge may be in Osh Derrinalina’s future, where the stone separation collapses and all the waters of the Well of Salt thunder downwards at once into the embrace of the Lightless Sea.

Curiously, there has been little alarm among the other peoples of the cavern for this dark prospect. While such a disaster would not affect the Builders overmuch, nor the Hadali or even the Durgen, given the height of Durgenrath’s cliff, Ysea, Rachinilea, and the lower reaches of Lochantu would be deeply at risk. Despite this, neither the Weavers, Palerin nor Patient Ones seem overly concerned by the Lathellin’s threat. A philosophical acceptance, one might think, but the ancient races of Osh Derrinalina do seem truly unconcerned.

The Depths

Muarra, the Hadal City

The largest, deepest and oldest city in all of Osh Derrinalina, Muarra is the home of the Hadali, Derrinalina’s Hadal merfolk. Cradled at the heart of the southern cavern, in the bowl where Lochantu’s shelf runs deep beneath the waves, the city spreads across some fifty square miles of the cavern’s floor. It is massive, and it is ancient. Nothing in Osh Derrinalina predates Muarra, save the raw features of the cavern itself, and not even all of those. The Hadali who live in Muarra’s watery confines are known and regarded as the First People of Osh Derrinalina. When all others arrived, even the Weavers, the Hadali were there to welcome them. They are the first Children of Derrinalina, and those she holds closest to her heart.

Muarra cannot be seen from above the surface of Derrinalina. Perhaps some glimmers of the city, if Derrinalina feels friendly towards a potential visitor, but to any who bear the Hadali ill-will, the waters above Muarra are as opaque as black volcanic glass. The Hadali worship Derrinalina as a living entity, their Mother Sea, and it would appear that Derrinalina returns the devotion in kind. The properties of the waters in the vicinity of their greatest city are … unusual, to say the least.

Muarra is not cut off from the other peoples of Osh Derrinalina, however. Far from it. The great underwater metropolis maintains strong relations with many of the other settlements of the Lightless Sea, most prominently Ysea, and those relations are not all one way. Traders and visitors to Muarra, seeking all the fish, food and products of the depths, do not merely meet Hadali traders along the shore. Many have gained Derrinalina’s favour and permission enough to venture below the waters to Muarra itself. From thousands of years ago, when Weaver traders wove luminous webs full of air and allowed themselves to be towed beneath the waves, all the way to today, where there are several established trade routes, including one great elevator that runs from the cliff under Durgenrath, Muarra no more lives in isolation than the rest of Osh Derrinalina.

The city that visitors witness is ancient and strange. The heart of Muarra is unfathomably ancient, possibly as old as Derrinalina itself, and the city has been built out in almost concentric rings around that heart. To swim over Muarra towards its centre is to swim back in time, witnessing the size and architecture shift gradually back through aeons. And grow stranger, at least to surface eyes. At the edges, the most recent parts of Muarra have been built with some concession to above-water sensibilities, to allow visitors and traders to feel a little more at ease. They are lighter and more spacious. But towards the centre, and therefore further back in time, no such concessions have been made. At its very heart, Muarra is black and ponderous and serene. The city of a people of a subterranean sea, as vast and lightless as Derrinalina herself. The home of her first children, born within her watery womb.

For the Hadali very much do not believe in the Star Builder’s theory, that Derrinalina was born from the Lathellin and descending surface waters. They do not believe that they themselves were born in some surface sea and only brought here. Derrinalina is their mother, and they were born in her lightless depths, cradled safe at the bottom of the world. Their ink-dark, translucent bodies and the strange red glimmers of their hunting lights are gifts from Derrinalina alone, and no other force.

And as ancient as Muarra is, as far back in time the city visibly goes, into the perfect lightless depths … a great many who witness it are inclined to agree with them.

Tzichanea, the Fathomless Delve

The floor of Osh Derrinalina’s great cavern is as vast and pitted as the ceiling, if not much, much more so. It is largely divided into two basins, in the north and south of the cavern, with the cliffs and stalagmites where the cavern narrows around Tchorit providing a natural barrier between them. The northern basin is carved by the Lathellin, a cliff falling away beneath the waters from Timorri and Rachinilea, and rumoured to keep plunging far into the shadowed depths of the northern cavern, if not beyond. But the southern basin, despite being shallower where the Lochantan shelf runs beneath the waves and cradles Muarra, does not lack for vast and terrible cracks and chasms either.

Tzichanea, the Fathomless Delve, is by far the deepest, darkest and most mysterious of these. A thin crack in the cavern floor that runs from almost the base of Ysea’s towers and around the north eastern rim of Muarra, the Fathomless Delve is … well. Fathomless. It has no end, at least not that any living being has seen. The great chasm yawns beneath Derrinalina, a slit of black water descending ever downwards, and where it ends, no one knows. The only thing as deep in Osh Derrinalina might be the Pit of Rachinilea, and that … is not the only thing the Fathomless Delve has in common with the Ghostly Isle.

Tzichanea is where the Hadali return their dead to Derrinalina. They believe that Derrinalina did not descend from the surface, but emerge from the depths. The Fathomless Delve is where the Mother Sea welled upwards to embrace the Land of the Lightless Sea. By returning their dead to Tzichanea, they are returned to Derrinalina’s embrace, joined once more with the Mother Sea and written forever in her memory. The surface seas, they believe, descend through the Lathellin for the same reason, to be remembered by the Mother Sea in their turn. All who answer Derrinalina’s call perhaps do so in their own way. But only the Hadali may be returned through the Fathomless Delve.

Literally, not only ritually. Tzichanea contains an up-current, a driving force of warm, black water pouring upwards from the Delve. Almost everything given into the Fathomless Delve simply floats back upwards. Except the Hadali. Those, their remains, Tzichanea accepts.

Tzichanea is easily the most sacred place in all of Osh Derrinalina to the Hadali. No one is permitted to disturb or explore the Fathomless Delve. Only in a very, very rare instance does Derrinalina call anyone not of her first children to the Delve, and she would never leave them unaware of it. The price for trespass in the Fathomless Delve is not death. It is left to Derrinalina to decide, and the Mother Sea has many more and worse punishments at her command. It is said that the most cursed creatures to roam the Lightless Sea are those who trespassed on Tzichanea.

The relationship with Tzichanea and Rachinilea is also complicated. Rachinilea does call to the Hadali also. There are those of them who have left the Mother Sea’s embrace to dwell on the Ghostly Isle, and still others who are called to give their remains to the Pit. This is understood not as a theft, but as an exchange. What Rachinilea grants to Derrinalina in return is not known, but she does not disdain or despise those who answer the Ghostly Island’s call, and nor do her people. The Isle is as ancient in its way as Derrinalina. The Pit travels as deep as the Delve. It is a sacrifice, but not a shame, to answer Rachinilea’s call.

Limeldulle, the Plunge Pool

The Limeldulle is the great plunge pool carved into the floor of Derrinalina’s northern basin by the Lathellin. The monstrous force of the Pillar’s waters have gouged away the stone beneath the fall, deeper and deeper across the aeons. North of Tchorit and Rachinilea, the floor of the cavern begins to descend already, but then, abruptly, one encounters the vast, turbulent hollow of the Limeldulle, plunging before and beneath them. Full of currents, maelstroms and whirlpools, the Limeldulle is where all the waters of the surface struggle to find acceptance in Derrinalina’s black embrace. As much as the Lathellin makes traversing the northern ceiling of Osh Derrinalina difficult, so too does the Limeldulle make crossing the northern basin a dangerous exercise.

Strangely, however, the Limeldulle is much gentler on its northern side than its southern. Where the waters of the Lathellin encountered a relatively shallow descent from Rachinilea and Timorri to the south, and so were forced to hammer away a hollow for themselves, to the north they found only a continuous existing descent. The waters of the northern basin run deep, such that many wonder just how distant might be the northern shore, or if perhaps there is a northern shore. Perhaps the whole cavern simply descends beneath Derrinalina’s surface to the north, and continues to delve into the stone wholly submerged. Perhaps the waters of the Lathellin, and all the rest of Derrinalina, simply pour over the northern lip of the Limeldulle and continue endlessly downwards, pulling unlucky or incautious beings along with them.

And there are many beings for them to pull. There are said to be many strange creatures in the Limeldulle and the northern basin. Surface creatures, perhaps, from those surface seas, who somehow managed to survive the miles of stone and cavern, and the two-thousand-foot plunge of the Lathellin. Or older things, perhaps, things of Derrinalina herself, ancient things that traversed the southern basin from Tzichanea and made their way into the northern one over aeons. Disdaining, perhaps, the increasingly occupied southern cavern. Those who have explored the northern cavern, either above or below the surface, speak of many strange and often deadly creatures within the turbulent waters of the Limeldulle and beyond.

Zarathea, the Wandering Isle

And there is one such creature spoken of more than any other. An ancient legend of Osh Derrinalina, a creature and location spoken of by several of the surviving explorers of the northern waters over the centuries. Zarathea, the Wandering Isle. Zarathea, the great and monstrous dragon turtle.

There will be a rock, the story goes. Sailing north into the darkness. In a different place every time. In the pitch-black gloom of northern Osh Derrinalina, there will be a strange, glimmering outcrop of rock, rising just above the water. Only faint, the barest hint of a silver light. Seams, traversing a dark mound of stone. Gradually, as light-starved eyes grasp desperately for this hint of illumination, there will be … a suggestion. Of a great, white shape beneath the waters. Hazy, through Derrinalina’s blackness. A pale, distant underside, to a dark rocky island in the deeps.

You can land on that rock. You can bring your vessel alongside and clamber up onto the rough, domed surface of the Wandering Isle. There are plants there, growing up from the faintly glowing seams. Strange … fungi. And trees. Like the trees of Rachinilea, pale, skeletal shrubs of true wood. Algae, as well. Growing things without name. The rock feels like an island. A strange, glimmering island in the darkness. A place to rest, perhaps, for a little time.

But the longer you stay, the more a feeling of uneasiness grows. A feeling of attention, of being watched or observed. Perceived, by something … very ancient.

The Wandering Isle is not a bad place to rest. If you keep it short, if you only want a little time to feel something solid beneath your feet once more. But should you outstay your welcome. Or, so very much worse, if you attempt to interfere with the island. Pull the plants, dig at the glowing seams. Bring any form of light or fire onto the Isle. Then, very suddenly, that hazy suggestion of paleness beneath the island will surge upwards, a titanic upheaval as the rock bucks beneath you, and you will come face to pale, crusted face with one of the strangest and most mysterious titans of the Lightless Sea. A great, blind, colourless dragon turtle. Zarathea.

Zarathea does not resemble any surface dragon turtle. Not anymore, or perhaps not ever. It is ghostly white, as pale as bone or milk glass, leathery and ancient. It might almost feel like a dragon turtle corpse, bleached and mummified remains hung beneath the black, titanic shell, save that intelligence and vitality are clearly still present. Zarathea moves, and thinks, and feels. It endlessly swims the northern waters of the Lightless Sea.

And, perhaps because it seems to favour the waters near the northwestern shore of the cavern, north of Yiirinrath, it is often encountered. Enough that explorers have begun to be a little bit more cautious docking with the Wandering Isle. And enough that some have begun to seek it out.

Almost nothing is known of Zarathea. Where it comes from. How long it has been there. Whether it is male or female. Whether it might speak. Even Silrithantus knows nothing of it, despite their nearness, and the dragon would dearly like to. Perhaps Zarathea fell through the Lathellin when it was young, one of the few creatures sturdy enough to survive the experience, and has been growing slowly in the northern waters ever since. Perhaps, like the Hadali, Zarathea is wholly a creature of Derrinalina, and has always been here. No one knows. Those who encountered it across the centuries often did not survive, realising what they stood upon only after they had fatally angered it. And even those that did survive, through luck or caution, did not find the ancient titan particularly inclined towards conversation.

But many hope to yet. Zarathea is a much-storied feature of the northern waters of Osh Derrinalina. There are many who wish to seek it out and learn all its history and nature. If it can speak. If it can remember. If it truly lives, or if, like Silrithantus, it bears some mark of Rachinilea or perhaps Tzichanea. The dragon himself is not least of this. Any who pass by Yiirinrath with intent to explore the northern waters might be importuned to search for Zarathea as well.

Not that many need encouragement. In Durgenrath, particularly, among the dwarven sailors and explorers, Zarathea seems to hold a particular allure all its own. It is a rite of passage among all sailors of the Lightless Sea to seek the Wandering Isle at least once.

And it is a mark of a true sailor, a true Child of Derrinalina, to find it and survive.

Conclusion:

This is Osh Derrinalina, the Land of the Lightless Sea. Whether you are born a Child of the Lightless Sea, in Osh Derrinalina or Durgendelf, or you have come from further afield, making your way through the Durgenroad, or the miles of caves of the Southern Passage, or some other, more obscure route, Derrinalina welcomes you, and invites you to explore.

#long post #fantasy #d&d #worldbuilding #homebrew setting #subterranean setting #VERY long post #i got caught up #dwarves #spider people #goblins #dragons #underground oceans #bioluminescent mermaids #osh derrinalina

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