Deephome

Notable Locations

The Polished Ways

Main arteries with mirror-smooth walls, designed to carry tap-code and the Stone’s hum. Way-markers are tiny inlaid rubies; pinch one and a glow points to the nearest cistern or muster.  

Ruby Cathedral

A broad vault crowned by a stalagmite altar studded with small rubies. Here the clergy listen to the Stone and renew elemental compacts; star rubies mark elder ranks.  

Fungal Mirror Lake

A black, still basin whose ceiling blooms with phosphorescent stars. The Festival of the Star reflects a remembered night sky upon its surface.  

Ember Veins

Warm galleries where elemental fire runs thin through stone; forges and crystal-kilns line these halls. Pick-work is timed to the Stone Choir’s beat.  

Wardens’ Muster

Also known as Webspinners’ Hall, these are training tunnels with hinged floors, blind corners, and smoke-lantern drills, built for anti-drow tactics and rapid ambush redeployments.  

Gem-Quiet Market

Barter court for tools, maps, salves, illusions, and rubies; no haggling above a whisper, no metal striking stone—breach the quiet, and stalls turn their backs.  

Root-Echo Galleries

Subtle, slanted rifts where living roots vein the rock; on Moonshift nights they thin toward the Feywild/Arvandor verges.  

The Polished Stone

A waist-high, world-old boulder burnished to a flawless sheen. Place both palms; the Stone hums and an elemental listens.  

Stalact Choir

A ringing hall where tapped picks become chord and measure; the miners time their cuts to the music to keep roofs whole.  

Star-Fungus Vault

Garden of mapped constellations tended by the Smoothed; each cluster sings a different night from remembered skies.  

The Ember Baths

Shallow, iron-rimmed pools warmed by the earth, used to ease wounds and scrub stone-dust from lungs.  

Travel and Access

Facet Shafts: Eight great shafts drop from hill-foot to deep rings; each guarded by code-locks of carved sigils and tap-plates known to the Smoothed.  

Ore-Vein Doors

At marked seams, a prayer and a pinch of dust open short passages to Great Mountain breadth for parley and supply, closed by the same dust cast back.  

Root-Ways

During Moonshift Eve (of Sehaine), the Root-Echo Galleries bow toward a lanterned fey verge; dryad-oaths keep crossings civilized.  

Stone Threads

Old lava tubes rise to the Midrun Skyspikes and down into Shurrock’s test-pits; supply lines to Bytopia’s proving ground are strong and honest.  

Sealed Sancta

Rare mirrored niches reflect safe Underdark refuges on Theras for evacuation and rescue—opened only by triple-sign from clergy, wardens, and an elemental ally.  

Inhabitants

Petitioners of the Deep

Deep Gnomes miners, wardens, illusionists, and stone-singers, reborn with callused hands and steady breath. They gain a knack for navigating tight spaces and reading stone.  

The Smoothed and Earthbloods

Callarduran’s clergy, quiet teachers and tunnel-chaplains, who keep codes, compacts, and drills; they prize patient minds more than loud valor.  

Wardens of the Webspinners

A compact order of fighters and clerics trained to counter drow doctrine; their chapterhouse anchors the Muster.  

Elemental Allies

Xorn negotiators, galeb duhr elders, and bound-but-respected earth elementals who answer the Polished Stone’s hum.  

Good-hearted Deep Fey

Korreds, gloam-dryads, and stone sprites pass on festival nights, trading songs for safe waymarks.

Stone Hum

Before strain becomes break, walls sing in the bones. Those who heed it never stand twice beneath a bad roof.  

Spider-Silence

Enchantments and conjurations modeled on spiders feel dulled in warded halls; real webs gather dust and slump quickly.  

Breath of the Deepearth

Sudden pressure shifts gust through tunnels; a lantern’s flame leans the way the wind wishes you to go.  

False Echo

Strangers who shout find their own words thrown back from odd angles; hand-sign and tap-code travel true.  

Ruby Gleam

Malice overheard near the Cathedral shines in a stone’s red sheen, enough warning for wardens to arrive before harm is done.  

Smoothstep

Travel magic that slows falls, softens footing, or respects stone carries a little farther in Deephome; climbers feel holds under hand even in dim light.  

Cloakwork

Glamers and figments woven for cover, misdirection, or mercy are steadier; illusions bent to swindle kin fray at the edges and whistle faintly.  

Stone’s Preference

Protection, rescue, and repair magics set truer; spells that would collapse tunnels or enslave earth-born minds strain or quietly fail.  

Appointment Patrol

Way-walks keyed to named watch-routes and times arrive with uncommon precision; casual jaunts drift into maintenance alcoves until you rethink your plan.