Morisis

**Religions** | Various Minor Entities

Far beneath the industrious lands of Morisia’s surface lies an incredible webwork of tunnels, caverns, and underground rivers that make up the subterranean land of Morisis. The tunnels were originally carved thousands of years prior by great stone-eating beasts known as Domnul’piatra, prehistoric great worms of unfathomable size, though it has widely become accepted that the worms have been extinct for over a millenia.

Not much is known about the massive, varied cultures and biomes residing beneath Morisia’s surface, with the tunnels often becoming the subject of fairy tales used to scare children into behaving. Most recently, the Cassian Federation has made efforts into sending expeditions into Morisis and charting the depths for potential trading partners and new materials to work with, though progress has been slow.

# Geography

Historians theorize that the stone corridors spanning the lands beneath Morisia were formed by the Domnul’piatra and their unique biology. They would consume stone, before milking it of nutrients and expelling the liquid rock around them, where it would solidify and form the tunnels and caverns known today. Over thousands of years of their absence, the rocks had naturally settled and eroded into the more natural-looking rock formations that make it up today, but every so often, large swaths of rock that appears to have been poured into place can be found. Because of its massive, interlacing tunnels and woven caverns, it becomes nearly impossible to map out the entirety of the depths on paper, and as such local guides are preferred when braving them. Many are often baffled by the sheer scope of variety of the biomes beneath Morisia’s surface, including stone beaches, massive forests of mushrooms, and even localized caustic rainstorms thanks to some of the natural hot springs steaming into immense caverns to condense and form sulfuric clouds.

Many natural water sources can be found within Morisis, from natural hot springs to trickling brooks to underground rivers, to impossibly sized lakes. And where there is water, there is life! Morisis houses an array of exotic plants, fungi, and animals wholly unknown to the world above, from the giant Stoneweaver Spider, presumed to be a descendant of the late Domnul’piatra and capable of creating stone webbings to trap prey, to the Kwok’tala, a carnivorous fungi capable of uprooting itself and slowly pursuing its prey by scent for miles without rest.

And if the strange and dangerous flora and fauna wasn’t enough, the lands of Morisis are suffused with a strange, extraplanar energy that even its denizens are unable to fully comprehend. It is commonly accepted that ‘Neagrapa’, or water that has become completely opaque due to an unknown contaminant, is home to strange, enigmatic creatures from beyond Morisia itself. While the water itself is safe to drink, long-time exposure to it causes rapid evolution in a species, adapting them to their subterranean environment with incredible speed. Neagrapa is attributed to the unique creation of many of Morisis’ subterranean races, such as the Drow, Duergar, Svirfneblin, Mongrelmen, and many more.

# Inhabitants

The denizens of Morisis are a hardy bunch, well-accustomed to their subterranean home and the perils within. The more civilized races speak Limba, a universal, complex language known on the surface as Undercommon, with over 20 known alphabets and sub-dialects.

## Cercrang

The most welcoming community to outsiders within Morisis certainly belongs to the drow of Cercrang, a massive commune of peaceful folk residing within the underground forest of the same name. Thanks to its natural walls formed by the fossilized exoskeleton of an ancient Domnul’piatra, the forest is well-guarded from invaders and predators, and the microbiome of psychedelic, bioluminescent plants and animals makes for an exotic, breathtaking sight to behold.

The inhabitants of the massive hidden forest are the Bescna Drow. Despite their community thriving on a wellspring of Neagrapa, the drow are a peace-loving cheerful lot, who have taken to trading with the surface with little reservations as they incorporate many of the technological commodities of the Cassian Federation into their community to enhance their lives.

Many of the Bescna Drow worship abstract concepts and symbols of freedom and love, mostly pertaining to a peculiar artifact in the center of their village known as the ‘Moonwell’. A naturally-filling well of crisp black water, it constantly glows with a soft, gentle light with similar properties to the full moon. Those that spend enough time around the Moonwell are reported to have strange, lucid dreams based around their hidden desires. Extended exposure to the Moonwell can cause waking hallucinations (more so than normal for the hallucinogenic-imbibing drow) and possibly even falling into a comatose slumber for years at a time.

## Adancime

With no true ‘ancestral home’ to call their own, these wandering tribes of Duergar rove the tunnels of Morisis in bands of anywhere from a few dozen to well over hundreds, in search of food, water, and in some cases with the more warlike tribes, plunder. The tribes rarely work between themselves without a common cause, such as a mutual enemy or a universal spiritual leader. One should always be cautious when spotting a lone Duergar in the depths, lest they report it to their Adancime and return with greater numbers.

The Adancime are famous for having domesticated the Stoneweaver Spiders to use as mounts, trapsetters, and molding webbing for temporary shelters when the tribes settle down, only to leave such structures behind when the hunts become less successful. The rituals, songs, and methods used to tame the otherwise ferocious vermin are a closely-guarded secret.

## Lumea Copac

Little is known of the great Svirfneblin city of Lumea Copac, even amongst other Morisis denizens. Formed in and around the impossibly sized petrified tree known as Copacilor, which is held suspended by rusted chains over a great lake of Neagrapa, the Svirvneblin are a secretive bunch, choosing to keep to their own to worship the strange entities that lurk within with sacrifices and prayer. They often clash with the roving Adancime tribes that stray too close to their territories, leading to historically bad blood between the two races and a convenient source of bodies to offer to the creatures of the lake below.