“Like any good legend, it’s rooted in some deep, lost history that we remember through it seeming so apart from today that it seems near fantastical. Imagine, the first pokemorph coming underground, and seeing what little was available from the rock. Then, after tirelessly looking for a strong water supply, finding the cavern that would later become The First City. The legends giving their guidance to those that would become the Noble families. The great construction of the Resevoir Dam and Power System, something that we are hard pressed to do today, done in a mere handful of hours…” -Introduction to Legends of the Underground, Canal City Library
The History of the Underground #
As commonly known, the history of The Underground is mostly through the history of The First City, Canal City, itself. But there is more to The Underground then a single city, and more to the history then simply a whole city springing forth from the ground, fully formed and filled with pokemorphs from all walks of life. Canal City itself is going on five-hundred years of age, so there’s many key events that have formed since then.
The Beginning: When the Sky Cried #
The origin of The Underground is a legend that is so old that hardly anyone remembers it. There once was a place called the surface - a cavern without limit, where a single bright sunstone would travel from edge to edge bringing day and night with its movement. Grass types were all the brightest of green, and the Flying types could soar for hours without their wings getting tired. Food was plentiful, and the technology that existed bordered on the fantastical.
Then, the top of the surface cavern turned red, and began to cry black tears. The tears would cause sickness, and eat the flesh on contact. The Original Pokemorphs, seeing what was happening, sequestored eggs and ran far from their homes, looking for a place to be safe from the crying surface, eventually wandering through the tunnels lower and lower, and lower still. The caves small, treacherous, and water and supplies were running out, when a great cavern was found, flooded with pure, clear water free of the tears of the surface. This cavern, was the one that was chosen.
Work was swift, the river was dug back and the great Canal City Dam was built. The water was split evenly across the ground into the three great canals, to allow it to run through the cavern and leave behind the rich, fertile lands to grow food. The canals were further refined into the side canals that make up the rest of the city waterways, and the materials dug out became the basis for the Noble Estates that would be built alongside the new resevoir. The lush land and moonstone ceiling was soon populated by Mushrooms of varying types, to use for building, eating, and decorating.
As the First City was Built, the Original Pokemorphs saw that it was good. The eggs that they had brought with them were hatched, and the first of the nobles were brought into the new world.
The Loss of Providence #
The First City, at it’s beginning, were all nobles from noble houses. However, as time went on, some of the nobles began to lose their connection to their own inner power, and in doing so, began to lose their nobility. This was a great adjustment, a long period where some of the noble houses fell, and their blood diluted from a lack of care - they would become the rest of the pokemorphs. Seeing this, the remaining Nobles sequestered themselves away in order to preserve the great knowledge and works that only pure blood could properly decode, working to preseve the pure Type lines.
This was known as the loss of Providence.
It is also known as when Canal City, as a city, truly began to take shape.
What was gained from the loss of providence was also a freedom from the Noble Calling of preserving what came before - allowing the city to begin to prosper and grow. New buildings were made under the watchful eye of the Nobility - ensuring safety and that the buildings would last as pokemorphs had. Farming began to be taken over by pokemorphs as a regular occupation, and trades began to spring up. The farther away from the Noble influence pokemorphs expanded within Canal City, the more that the underground began to become a home.
The Age of Exploration #
With pokemorphs now exploring their home, responsible for but no longer shacked by their noble origins, the Canal City Cavern was explored. New caves were found, that lead to other caverns. This was the great Age of Exploration from which much of the maps of The Underground originate. In some caverns, pokemorphs decided to create a new home and be their own people, removed completely from the nobility. In return they received great freedom. In others, unique ores were located that nobles had been asking for information on. When the explorers reported them, they recevied great wealth. In this way did the age of exploration further diversify those that lived in The Underground.
As cave exploration became an everyday thing, and pokemorphs began to be comfortable in their exploration, two things happened near simultaneously: The first feral pokemon, and the first mystery dungeon.
Paradise Under Fire #
The pokemon hadn’t been mentioned prior in the historical record - it was only as explorations went farther and farther did they get found. Ancient strains of proginators of pokemorphs, without the ability to talk or negotiate and often quite territorial, provided the first major conflict in The Underground. They were powerful - more powerful the pokemorphs with the same Moves and Types, and ranged from new nuisances to incredible challenges. The nobles, when told, were able to bring forth from their ancient records equipment to help - armor and small bladed weapons to help augment claws and hide, and traps and snares to capture or delay.
It was about the same time that Mystery Dungeons were found - and the first Ancient Artifacts.
And the first artifact that was found, when removed from the Mystery Dungeon, killed it’s finder. It took three nobles in special equipment that no one had seen before to safely recover the artifact and sequestor it where it could do no harm. Some small artifacts were fine - but anything truly ancient could not be handled by someone outside of the nobility - as they could be extremely dangerous.
The Strain of Power, Basalt City #
As centuries rolled by, and Canal City grew, the infrastructure of the Original Pokemorphs began to reach the limits of its design. Electricity was helping keep a lot of the city going, and was used by Nobility in their sequestering and safe keeping of Ancient Artifacts. A cavern lined with Magma Tubes and Magma Rivers seemed like a good alternative, and after a brief discussion, a Noble-led expedition was sent using some of their rare technology to assist.
This was the start of the second great city, Basalt City. Officially under the rule of Canal City, but acting as a semi-independant city state on its own, it’s original purpose was to take advantage of the great magma to generate more electricity to feed the increasing demand in Canal City. Great cables were made and laid for this effort, and additional passageways were carved out of the connecting caves to allow for a more direct line between the two.
Between the two cities was also placed a rare radio repeater, to link information between them.
The first Rebellion #
The next major act in the history of The Underground, is known in Canal City as “The Rebellion”, whereas Scrap-Town would call it “The Fight for Independance”. While the build up isn’t something that was written down, the current historical consensus is that the disagreement came about due to the Noble’s policy with Ancient Artifacts, when one could have saved someone’s life, but was refused to be brought out because it was dangerous. This flared up into a grievances of Nobles not caring for the rest of the people, and enough pokemorphs joined up to protest this that it became a bit of a topic.
But the nobles, in either their leniancy or lack of care, didn’t respond to any of this.
Right up until the Mushroom farms were lit on fire.
Threatening the food source of the underground turned what had been a fairly benign vocal rebellion into one involving force. The Canal City guards were dispatched, and a brief, but rather stark fight ensued. The rebellion’s end was swift, adn the dissenters left Canal City under the call of Banishment, to never return. The “Rogues” as they were later known, dissapeared into a side tunnel and into the shadows of history for some time after that.
The Civil War of the Nobles #
Peace afterwards was somewhat short lived. The growing dissent that formed the rogues wasn’t the only issue cropping up. The nobles had become more isolated from the rest of Canal City, and this was beginning to strain some of the relationships with Canal City’s closest neighbor: Basalt City. The two cities, both led by ancient nobles, had been in a somewhat subservient relationship this whole time - Canal City was the Original City, and Basalt City was the offshoot city.
However, Canal City needed Basalt City’s power generation facilities, just as much as Basalt City relied on Canal City’s food. The nobles of Basalt City though, no longer had a say in the way things were run, or how laws were made. They should be equal, but they were not. Basalt City made this known - but they were not listened to.
The war started from an attack within Canal City, and rapidly escalated. Basalt City had the initial advantage, but Canal City pulled out the stops on advanced weaponry that the Nobles had been keeping. In the vast mushroom fields where range was suddenly important, what started with steel-equipped bows moved towards firearms and repeating rifles. For Canal City, it was defensive, but to both sides it ended up a bloody mess where a great amount of the population of both cities was impacted. Small water channels ran red with blood intead of water.
Canal City initially started to push their advantage and after finally beginning the push to Basalt City, the Basalt City cut power to Canal City.
With the week or so of quiet that this act caused, and stock was taken of the lives lost, the two city’s nobles had a quiet meeting in a neutral cavern, and it was decided that Basalt City would be provided its independence of law as long as the Power was kept flowing. Canal City would pay for the power with regular, promised food deliveries, and the two sides would end in a treaty of understanding between the two powers.
This is also the first, and only, time firearms made a significant impact, and it was decided that such things weren’t needed - especially since only the Canal City Cavern was large enough where their range gave them such superiority.
The Modern Age #
The Modern Age is defined by the three major Cities. Canal City, the First City, remains the breadbasket to the underground and the holder of ancient secrets by the nobility. Basalt City lives symbiotically but independantly as a “Free” city that has a treaty to exchange power for food, and is otherwise their own master. Scrap Town, made by the Rogues’ failed rebellion, stands on its own as the only major city free of any Nobility, and masters of their own destiny.