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The world is known by many names among the races. Dwarves call it Tanukta. Elves call it Mara (a proto-utopia) or Yenmara when referring to its future perfect state. Halflings, and the other races have their own names, but most generally just use the human name of "Cavernia".

Two thousand years ago, a cross-racial movement empowered by elven magic commenced to speed the world towards (utopia).  The magics unleashed an unexpected backlash of magic-consuming energy.  Now the surface is an ashen, desolate place, dotted with burning and smoking craters (see Ashen Environment).  The very sky itself is alight with fires and explosions, and an acidic rain can kill in very short time.  Most refer to the collective effects as "Magic-burned", a process that erodes the subtle, natural, magical component of all things.  Only the most durable and adaptive monsters can live here, but at a significant cost to their form and their sanity.  Everything in the surface environment is constantly exposed to the corrosive nature of the magic-burn.  Most races can not exist on the surface more than a few hours. Their physical body would be cons umed. Legends say the process is excruciatingly painful, where victims experience a horrible burning of the flesh and die coughing and bleeding. It is perpetually dark on the surface, briefly lit by the eerie, roiling, burning sky. Ash, the by-product of the magic-burn, constantly falls upon the land.  Lakes and rivers chocked with ash turned into thick mud, and the oceans turned poisonous.

As the catastrophe unfolded and the magic-burn swept across the globe, those with connections to their dieties made divinations concerning survival.  The solution was nearly universal and all humanoid races quickly moved underground to escape the caustic effects of the failed elven magics.  The previously far-reaching support for the elven efforts to bring about utopia now turned to outright denouncement and finger pointing.  While most of the races simply fought to escape the surface world, the elves fought for thier very lives.  Fairly or unfairly, they became the scapegoat for all that had befallen the world, and many elves died at the hands of angry survivors.

Beneath the ugly, despoiled magic-burned surface the new world begins.  The rough, natural passages closest to the surface are called the Sunderlands. The Sunderlands stretch upwards and downwards for several miles. Like the surface, the Sunderlands can have long term negative effects on creatures, as evidenced by the Karzon races diminished mental capacity.  The upper regions of the Sunderlands are littered with ash, cinders and the debris of the magic-burn above (see Ashen Environment).  Thick flows of acidic mud wander through natural caverns.

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Glossary

Cavernia Explorer's Society - All subscribers to this site.

Cavernia Explorer's Guide - The compiled rules in downloadable document format (PDF, DOC, ODF, etc)