Underside

As an unwholesome imitation of Topside, Underside is a shallow bowl ringed with mountains, a handful of which extend into the middle. In the center of Underside is the Iron Tower. The Iron Tower rises miles into the sky, ascending above the clouds to menace the distant Worldedge Mountains. From above, Underside is hardly impressive; a roiling soup of curdled clouds act as a lid on the otherwise muted landscape, pierced only by the Iron Tower. Below the cloud cover reveals a wasted landscape full of ruins, monsters, and the occasional settlement of the enigmatic Asphodeans.

The soil and stone, clearly once rich in iron, is saturated with seemingly endless rust. The mountains and fields are dominated by the material, with a few major exceptions. There is a desert made purely of unsoiled iron, the dunes made of large broken slabs of the stuff forming small shelters. While it may seem desolate, the cover provided by the dunes are surprisingly useful for hiding from the predators of the landscape. There is a sea like the sky; curdled, stinking, and oozing. The tides form trenches and visible twirls in the viscous fluid. There is a strikingly alive forest that, upon closer inspection, is composed entirely of fungi, adjacent to a marsh soaked in endless blood. Both of these spaces are overwhelmingly full of fauna and flora. There is a swath of rot that ever so gently claims ever more real estate from the generic rust around it. Any creature that enders this patch of decay is never seen again. Each of these locations are noted as exceptionally dangerous, even compared to the ruined wastes that the monsters rule.

While the Asphodeans have been accepted as a mortal race by the denizens of Topside, the same is not true for the other creatures living here. Uniformly any creature born of Underside that is not considered a "mortal" by the standards of Topside are referred to as "Underkin". This broad category actually encompasses four groups:

* The Iron Bound: Prone to measured dispositions and ridged codes of conduct, the Ironbound are centralized to the Iron Tower and the will of Maghyros. The most powerful Iron Bound are known collectively as The Servants.
* The Rustants: Unpredictable and destructive, the Rustants wander the wastelands killing, eating, and being eaten. The most powerful beings outside of the Iron Tower are often categorized as The Anarchs.
* The Underkin: Unaffiliated with the Iron Tower, and less "mindlessly destructive" than the Rustants, generic Underkin are adjacent to the mortal races in their temperament. They come in a myriad of shapes and sizes, and often have their own bizarre cultures.
* Vitiants: As a dark mirror to the Auspects, the Vitiants are powerful spiritual creatures that counteract the will of the gods. The Vitiants live in a city built from the vivisected dragon Nardagog, who's location is unknown. There are 4 types of Vitiants: Azure, Umber, Violet, and Viridian.
	+ Azure: The Azure Vitiant are beings of temptation, manipulation, and scapegoating; they are spirits of malicious lies, propaganda and corruption, and have been known to offer mortals deals in return for a misbegotten gain that will only end in ruin.
	+ Umber: The Umber Vitiants are beings of sloth, atrophy, and apathy; they are spirits of corrosion, loss of production, surrender and capitulation, passivity and inaction, and are blamed as the cause of rust.
	+ Violet: The Violet Vitiants are most associated with Maghyros, and are likely his creations - they represent tyranny, abuse of authority, and violent power; they are the agents who take lost souls and enslave them for the Ironbound.  The other Vitiants do not have any rigid allegiances to any Anarchs or Ironbound, but are much more mercenary, or else acting on their own impulses.
	+ Viridian: The Viridian Vitiants are beings of poison, both bodily and mental, being blamed for madness, hallucinations, fear, depression, paranoia, heresy, obsession, and jealousy; there is some evidence that they predate Maghyros, for the oldest term for a nightmare in the Prophet’s Tongue is a “green dream”.