Geography (Lunagros Supplement)

The Deathfields

The place where most adventures in this setting begin, the Deathfields are a hellscape of flesh and tunnels therein, burying ancient secrets and knowledge.

All who enter the Lunagros or are brought back enter this place. Seemingly, at one point, it was an empty field. Now, those under the influence of the Moon are locked in an eternal battle, with others caught in the crosshairs. The bodies are constantly falling, and with nobody to clean them, they stack into a morbid biome of their own.

Even the Corrupted will not enter this place of their own will, leaving only the toughest or most desperate creatures to survive here.

While the conditions are brutal, sentient life sustains itself here, and the Deathfields have had the most long-running and deep culture in the Lunagros.

Those on the surface are doomed to near-constant violent death, so all civilization takes place underground, in tunnels. The life of a tunnel-dweller is harrowing. Constant manual labor is required from every single person in the settlement in order to try to break out of the area or link up with another tunnel. The only sources of food or water are what the gods themselves give, and human flesh. The god's gifts are mainly weapons only, as violence is their largest priority, and so it is extremely difficult to find clean supplies. Rainwater and fresh corpses are the two staples of existence. Sickness is common from the rot that constantly plagues these settlements, and so are injuries. With the occasional scavenging monster or possessed human always at a risk of showing up, that inside must sleep in shifts nearby to their weapons. Finally, if any corpses fall into the entrance to the tunnel, ventilation will be cut off and residents must risk their lives to avoid suffocation.

Millions of years ago, before mortality was realized and long before the gods were revealed, most people's perspectives of the world were different.

Hope was much lower, the Moon's influence was extremely powerful, and tunnels were few and far between. Two tunnels were linked by coincidence, and formed the largest human settlement of the time, with 50 people. Irin Plo, their leader, had learned a way to lock the moon's influence out of their minds and began teaching the methods to others. They dug out an underground monastery, made up of three main chambers. It was deep below where the corpses had already decomposed, and there were only bones. The settlement used blood to write on parchment made from skin, which was kept in a sterile and dry box and was able to be found by modern archaeologists. The monastery reached 2000 members at its prime, before the main air tunnel collapsed from phenomena known as "Corpsequakes", and all inside suffocated and were scattered across the Fields.

However, their ideas lived as they came back again and again, and after thousands of underdeveloped and unsuccessful tunnels pockmarking the field another successful civilization was formed. Strategies for procuring food, quickly growing numbers as the network grew and more came to it, engineering was focused upon so the tunnel was made to be much more stable than its predecessors, and sanitation improved. Tons upon tons of flesh could be dragged into the tunnels, at the bottom of which massive "pots" of boiling water would be kept. The meat was boiled, and then a small amount of salt would be added. Puddles of rain would be intentionally evaporated to leave some salt behind, in order to procure this salt. Much of the society was dedicated to simply keeping its residents alive.

Meanwhile, digging continued. Living space needed to be constantly expanded and kept free from the disease-ridden rot. This led to one extremely large tunnel at 80 meters deep. Houses would be built into smaller sub-tunnels. After the early days of the tunnels, the size and stability of houses would depend on wealth. Most houses had two to three rooms: One for sleeping, one for cooking and eating, and wealthier families would have one for rare amenities obtained from the surface or depths or tools of more rare jobs such as blacksmithing. These generally housed groups of 5-10 people each, which were called "Families" despite holding no relation to one another.

Daily work was always difficult, and disease and oxygen were constant threats. However, the tunnels always held steady and the quality of life was higher than that in the previous settlements. The largest threat was likely the wildlife. Weapons were rare and usually reserved for the wealthy. Arrows were expensive but were able to be carved from bone successfully. This made bows, specifically recurves, the most common manufactured weapons. Corpsewyrms, The Corrupted, and undead creatures would cause crises on a regular basis. This was somewhat mitigated by a rotating guard, which would be one of the occasional duties of the citizenry.

Surface commodities became heavily traded, as those looking to make a fortune in the tunnels created many networks leading up above. Scavenging becamae a risky, but very well paid job, leading to thousands made reckless by their newfound immortality bringing back down valuable items. While human flesh and rainwater continued to be staples, bread and grains became available to the upper class. With more workers willing to go to the surface, walls were able to be constructed and somewhat maintained around areas for the collection of rainwater. Food production was streamlined, and learning became more widespread.

Further down, under the main residential tunnels, a massive temple and library were carved out. Parchment from skin and tablets to carve into were produced, and the society's entire knowledge and worldview were recorded in a single grand library. The temple was deep under the bones, and would be a place to philosophize on the bizarre state that humanity was in. This would begin to form the religious movement of the Irinians, who followed Irin's teachings in hope of personally finding a way to achieve mortality or transcend to another world. The temple had no one to maintain or permanently stay in it, instead of being a common destination for all residents.

With sturdy tunnels, constant population growth, and sustainability, the society struggled from the lack of a centralized government. There were constant small schisms in the society, leading to the Oerminnon actually being a collection of tiny nations, each living with only slight differences in the same place. It became a system of small "States", where sections of the tunnel would have governments of their own. Despite this, life managed to continue as usual.

After some of the founders permanently died, there was a massive panic, and the economy slowed massively as people were less likely to risk their life for large amounts of money. What happened after death was a topic discussed often, and some scholars began searching for the mortality they now knew existed.

Eventually, a miracle happened. The tunnel had broken through the Lunagros, and ended up at the base of the Greater Woods. Scouting parties located water, there were massive lumber supplies, and, best of all, there was plenty of food. Aberrations created by the Moon were edible,and there were massive fields of rice on the wetlands near the Sea of Hope. Smaller states immediately split off in all directions, however, they continued to be somewhat unified to the overall Oerminnon society. Agricultural towns were built with lumber and stone reserves, and advancement grew. There was a religious schism, as some believed that they had ascended to another world and others believed that they were in the same world. These split into the Blissful and Irinians respectively. Some nomadic tribes formed, and left the banks of the Sea,