Once again,
we are proposing an underground city. Why? Because they are an iconic fantasy setting. Go out on the internet and there are a bunch of
people who will tell you it cannot be done.
They have some valid points, so let’s address them. (Warning!
We hate when people tell us we can’t do something. It is simply a challenge to prove them wrong!)
The first
argument is that the air will go bad. We
have often used Mammoth Cave in Kentucky (USA) as an example that we can build our
cavern system from. Sure, it is the biggest
in our world (probably), but it is real.
Mammoth Cave has visitors in it every day, and none of them have ever suffocated. Why? Because
it has more than one entrance and the air moves through the cave.
Sidetrack: We love caves and have explored them, visited
them, even slept in them. Rarely has claustrophobia
been an issue. One time, one of our people
was in a cave where the passage became pretty narrow. A young boy got nervous and stopped, causing a
bit of a “log jam”. When the number of people
in the tight tunnel caused the breeze to stop, that’s when others started getting
nervous. Did any of them feel the breeze
before? No. But they felt when it stopped.
OK, back
to the main point. Let’s assume that you
did need to add ventilation. One of our major
magitech devices (check out All
About Magitech) is the dwarven enchantment perpetual motion. The most important usage of the perpetual motion
devices is the exhaust fans from the dwarven mines. There are multiple entrances to their underground
city. There are forges set up beneath one
of the major shafts going up, and the heat of the forges (and the smoke) rise out
of the shaft, creating motion in the air and drawing it in from other entrances. Additionally, there are two main shafts that have
perpetual motion fans blowing air out, creating these minor vacuums that then draw
it in. With or without magic, we think the
air thing is not an issue.
The skeptics
then say that the people in the underground city would need drinking water. These folks have probably not been to limestone
caves, because the caves are carved by water, and the formations are formed by water. Is this all the best drinking water? Maybe, maybe not, but getting water in is not
the problem!
If there
is a water problem, it is getting the water out! Since many caves (at least limestone caves) have
underground rivers, the problem is instead flooding. Anyone who has done a cave tour has probably hit
that spot in the tour when the guides point their flashlights at the wall and show
you how the cave you are standing in was underwater during the latest flood. Solving for that is an issue! but it is certainly
possible to build your city in caves that have more caves beneath them to hopefully
serve as a runoff.
Related is the issue of waste. Again, getting water in is not the problem, but
instead getting stuff out. Depending on the
number of people and the number of underground rivers, this can be solved. Take water from the river over there, and the
downstream throw your waste into the river.
You might be polluting it for people in the next major dungeon over, but
that’s not today’s problem.
Depending
on the strength of the river, all sorts of garbage might be disposed of in this
manner, but as you will see soon, you might not actually want to dispose of the
waste.
How do you
feed people in an underground city? Mushroom
gardens, right? OK, here’s the problem. Mushrooms need something to grow in - typically
something like mulch or decaying plant material. While mushrooms can grow out of the sun, they
cannot grow where there is no food for them.
What can
you use? Well, some of the waste might work. Disgusting, yes, but it might be practical. If you’re doing that you might not want to eat
fresh mushrooms, but only mushroom soups, because you are going to want to boil
those things after what they’ve been growing in. Another means to explain the mushroom farms is
to have someone on the surface shoveling “mulch” down a shaft. This could be an easy way to supply the mushrooms
with what they need to grow. After the mulch
has served its purpose, it is replaced with new mulch and the old stuff goes in
the river or into the campfires.
We think
the actual answer is that you would only be living beneath the surface if there
was something worthwhile down here. Assuming
that, there would need to be trade with the above ground world. Food comes down and gold or gems go up. This will usually work! Coal or gravel won’t fund an underground city,
but precious metals and precious stones will.
Next issue
- There’s no Vitamin D. OK, assuming it is
a fantasy city, dwarves and dark elves probably don’t need sunlight to get Vitamin
D. They also don’t suffer from any of the
psychological impacts of never seeing the sun.
Maybe they need to eat a lot of fish or eggs to supply their vitamins, but
this doesn’t seem unreasonable. If there
are some salmon who swim through the underground rivers to get to where they are
going, then maybe they catch their own, but this is starting to feel a little far-fetched. (More far-fetched than an underground city of
dwarves? OK, maybe not.)
OK, that’s
air to breath, water to drink, food to eat.
Those are some pretty major issues you need to plan for, but that doesn’t
make the underground city all that different from an above ground one.
Cost! Why would anyone build an underground city when
they could just live on the surface? Well,
we answered that one already - there is something down here they want badly enough. They want it so bad that they were willing to
go through the expense of building the city underground. So, it must be valuable.
Why couldn’t
they live above ground and work below? Well,
we don’t know. That is something you may
need to answer for yourself. We believe that
it is too far to travel. Depending on how
long it takes to get to the work site, it may not be feasible to spend hours getting
to the digging site only to work an hour and then spend hours going home.
Let’s ignore
“culture” as a question and mention why else:
Maybe it’s dangerous out there. Maybe
dragons fly overhead and breath fire on above ground villages. This will have an impact on those friendly farmers
above ground who were trading with the underground city, but that might still be
surmountable.
What if the
above ground world is dangerous to you? What
if you’re a vampire? What if simply stepping
out into the sun could kill you? Now, you
have to go below. OK, maybe you could live
in a stone house, but that isn’t as safe to you as living below ground where the
sun cannot accidentally get to you. Nothing
else changes. You still need to trade in
order to receive your food, but your reasoning for being below ground is different. But not fully. If you know you must live below ground - why not
live below ground where there is a valuable resource?
There is
more to this concept of the cost of building underground. What do you do with all the rubble? This isn’t really an issue, because we know from
Earth that major mines will often need to dump huge amounts of unwanted stone outside
of the mine. This might be an argument against
hugely long tunnels linking continents, because then it takes far too long to transport
the stone out of the tunnel, but for “mines” this is not a new problem, but instead
one that has been solved by man long ago.
Still, you might want to have a massive gravel pile outside the mine to tell
folks you thought about this. It might even
look like an ant hill, depending on who’s doing the digging.
Last one - Light. How do you see? OK, of all the FRPG reasons not to have an underground
city, this is the lamest! Doesn’t every race
but humans have some manner of see in the dark ability, at least they seem to in
that main die-20 game with all the editions!
There are many ways to address lighting an underground city. There could be luminescent fungi, only slightly
science fiction. Use of torches, candles,
and lamps can be done. It might require a
bit more discussion of exhausting the bad air, but not much. It also requires more trade than just the food. Magical illuminations are expensive, but they
assumedly last forever. A couple of generations
underground and the city could easily be lit by these. Does your game have a continuous light spell? Maybe in addition to the other civil servants,
there is a spell caster (or several) who wander the city putting up these eternal
light spells.
We think
all of this is pretty “low magic” for such a fantastical setting. We haven’t even suggested using purple worms to
dig the tunnels or elemental gnomes yet.
While it is true that living underground has its costs, it only seems like
you have to put a short period of thought into handling the logistical issues and
then get started. But in explaining away
these logistical issues, you are not only developing the city and its culture, but
you might be figuring out what the next mission is, as the city might need some
adventurers for help!
Does
this kind of content interest you? If so,
we hope you will consider joining us in our Small Bites project or the full title
of How to Build Your Fantasy World in Small Bites! We continue to build our community of game masters
and world builders, and we would love to have you join us!
This post
was written as part of The Depths of the World aka All About A Highest FantasyCampaign, the latest in our Small Bites editions. Each Small Bites book looks deeply at one
subject, a character archetype, a race/monster, a style of questing, or some other
role-playing/world building subject. This
one is a fully detailed campaign including extensive exploration of the “tunnel
world” far below the surface. But it is
never “just” a campaign! It contains
world building, game mastering, and a host of other stuff!
We hope we’re getting you interested. If you want to see the World Walker edition for
FREE!! click the link above. The free World Walker edition contains 33 pages of content, while the full Game Masters’ edition
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