A collection of brief information covering the major aspects of the game’s theme, essentially well-known to any ‘morph that is still holding onto their sense of self and sanity.
Pokemorphs #
Pokemorphs are genetically engineering amalgrams of pokemon and human lineage. While their history has long since been covered by the sands of time, they are the dominant intelligent life underground. Standing between 4’ and 9’ in height, Pokemorphs are bipedal versions of their base pokemon, with the ability to speak, hands with dextrous fingers and thumbs, and attitude.
Pokemorphs do not breed true - except for Shiny Versions - and so the offspring of two pokemorphs may not match either parent (although this is rare and sometimes leads to rumors of cheating!). Pokemorph evolution has more to do with their state of mind, including family traditions. Everstones are fairly popular as accessories to prevent unwanted changes.
They do tend to wear clothing for both modesty and fashion, as well as enjoy many ways of enhancing their self-image including fur dyes, body paint, and tattooes.
More information can be found in Pokemorph Details.
Death from unnatural causes isn’t unknown to pokemorphs, who have some of the same issues with mortality as ancient humans. Outside of a Mystery Dungeon, it is a part of the natural order of things that heavy injury can lead to a lack of physical function. When reduced to 0HP a pokemorph ‘faints’. Additional damage up to half of the maximum HP will result in death. However, pokemorphs do not enter a “Bleed Out” state, and instead automatically stabilize. Once fainted, a pokemorph must recover naturally on their own, at a rate of 1HP per day, or 5HP per day if cared for in a hospice. Pokemorph healing moves that can remove the FAINTED status can redce this time to a single day, as can the exceedingly rare REVIVE medicine.
The Underground #
The Underground is the collective name given to the large caves, tunnels, small caves, and the rest of the navigable area deep below the surface. Outside of larger caves that sport moonstones in the ceiling to provide a dim, but appreciated day/night cycle, the caves are dark, lit only via biolumencent mushrooms and the light created by both pokemorphs and their feral bethren. This makes any cave that does not have sunstones in the ceiling a hazard to traverse, and the only types that can do so without bringing their own light are DARK types. Of course, others can still use their sense of hearing or touch to make their way through, if unsteadily.
Moonstones, when activated by electricity, lose their natural day/night cycle and instead function like a bulb - emitting brighter light when powered and no light when not. This has allowed moonstones to function as bulbs as long as some elecriticy or ELECTRIC type is available to power them.
Rather then leafy green plants, almost all vegetation underground is based on mushrooms, alge and lichens. Mushrooms with heavy, wood-like structures are used in place of natural wood, and mushrooms also take the place of various ingrediants for cooking based on flavor profiles and texture. Generally, mushrooms only need access to dirt and water to grow, nutrients are oddly plentiful in soil created from the undeground’s floor layer. Lichen and Alge function as the main source of breathable, clean air, and it isn’t unknown for Lichens to be carried around as a good luck charm because of this.
Sunstones are much rarer to find then moonstones that seem to naturally occur in the rooftops of caves and coverns. Sunstones appear to be a dim version of a moonstone at first glance, but when stimulated emit a bright, broad spectrum light and a bit of heat - making them ideal for GRASS types or large flood lights. They are however, much more delicate then moonstones and susceptible to shattering under rough handling so they are normally relagated to fixed locations and quite coveted.
Feral Pokemon do roam about, away from areas that have been ’tamed’ and built up, like wild beasts without their characteristic intelligence that they once had. Whether due to a reversion in their mental state or simply social isolation matters little when one wants to make you dinner. It should be noted that feral pokemon are actually quite a bit more powerful then pokemorphs, who have been diluted somewhat in their ancient merger with humanity. Feral Pokemon can prove to be quite the challenge on a one vs one battle, and since they generally move in packs can be a real danger.
The Underground also has a unique resource available - mystery dungeons. These ’temporary’ caves can defy time and space, leading to strange miniature worlds that can be used as places to get resources, ancient artifacts, or a heavy beating.
Food and Technology #
Food is mushroom, mostly. Canal City, with it’s vast moonstone collection on the ceiling, is one of the very few places where non-mushroom plants can be easily grown, providing a small, but exquisite addition of taste to the noble’s dinner tables. Leafy greans, vegetables and fruits are incredibly rare, even in this bread basket of a city state, and the flavors distilled from them can fetch a pretty high price. Plant based seasonings are also rare, but available more often as the risk of losing control of the crop is greatly diminished.
Someone, somewhere, has in fact managed to set up a way to form alcohol from Mushrooms.
In terms of technology, Canal City is the most advanced in terms of overall development, sporting a roughly 1910’s european level of technology including some basic use of electricity, running water through both gravity-fed aquaducts and pumping infrastucture, working sanitation, and there’s even the latest advancement of an elevator being shown as a technological marval. Power is produced via hydroelectic and geothermal means, although the latter is mostly imported via long cable from Basalt City.
Scrap Town, while lacking the understanding of what they possess, is a hodgepodge of technological scavenging taken from Mystery Dungeons and the oddly vertical cave system that earned the moniker. While more advanced technology is available, very few understand it, and those that can repair it are fewer still, leading to a lot of broken scrap when something fails to function after a time. This a little more post-modern of the mid-2010s America.
Oil is unavailable, but Mushrooms have been able to bring up the slack for some oil-based materials such as plastic. The dominant fossil fuel entering mainstream use is old fashioned coal.
Main Settlements #
There are three primary settlements in the game, with a number of smaller locations strewn between them.
Canal City #
“The Original City”, “The Bread Basket”, “The City of Legends”. Canal City is called many things depending on who you ask, and is both the oldest current city and the original place where pokemorphs once came to the underground. It is a fairly strict class-based heirachy with nobles at the top determining laws, a mercantil and judicator class that handle city affairs and trading, a working and trade class, and an underclass of dispossessed workers. Canal City is also the main source of water and food for all three main settlements, making money on the sale of these vital goods either above or below board.
It is also the largest cave in the underground, with Canal City proper taking up only a fraction of the cave’s space - providing amble space for fields for food growing or quite ‘countryside’-esque relaxing walks.
More information on Canal City can be found in the Canal City Details.
Scrap Town #
Scrap Town was where the failed rebellion against the Canal City Nobility ended up, after searching through a suitable place to set up shop in the underground. A much smaller cave in terms of floor acreage, the city makes up for it with extreme verticality. The upper roof is simiarly lined with Sunstones, but the height of the buildings that make up the city prevent even that dim light from reaching the ground level in most places.
The entire city is built out of the remains of some ancient building structures, made of concrete and steel, with wires and pipes still embedded in intact walls and more recently, run slap shod as expansions. One of the city’s strengths lies in a mysterious but fully independent electrical power supply that allows for artifacts and ancient techology to proliferate widely, even if no one can explain how it works or what to do if it ever breaks.
Socially, Scrap Town can be best likened to a Pirate City - both individual strength and the size of one’s gang provides for safety and security in the heirarchy here, and the only place to try to escape from this would be the underground tunnels where those that cannot compete or are not of worth to the gang leadership live.
Basalt City #
Basalt City started as an offshoot colonization project from Canal City, originally financed by nobles that were looking to expand their influence. What they found, was a large cavern with easy access to underground magma rivers and enough high temperature metals in the walls to harness this heat energy to create geothermal power plants. Since then, Basalt City has slowly grown into it’s own independance while still having extremely tight relationships with the Canal City Nobility.
As industry has taken root in Canal City, Basalt City found a new use for the magma flows to sequestor pollution, and gets paid a tidy sum from both Canal City and Scrap Town in terms of getting rid of the worst kind of garbage they can’t figure out how to handle on their own. This has had a particular effect in concentrating the poisonous polluting effects in the city, making the whole cavern toxic outside of carefully filtered and maintained thoroughfares and buildings.
This also makes Basalt City a prime location for cladenstine meetings, as any surprise would have to breach the environmental protection after dealing with passive poison that has accumulated.
Mystery Dungeons #
Caves that lead to strange and wonderous labyrinths that defy time and space, Mystery Dungeons are the great frontier for treasure hunters, history seekers, and adventurers from all walks of life. The geometries inside can be very maze like and the entire dungeon may shift around as often as every two weeks. Rare Mystery Dungeons link to bits of the world Before with ancient technology and settings from the time before pokemorphs providing strange insight into history and the chance to score some rare, technologically advanced, artifacts.
That being said, Mystery Dungeons are not the same as exploring a new cavern. Just being inside of a Mystery Dungeon saps the energy of those that are within it, causing explorers to go hungrier faster, and to go through their supplies faster. Communication outside of a Mystery Dungeon also isn’t possible - what happens inside a Mystery Dungeon stays inside. The only real exception to this is Guild Badges are able to send out an alert signal to The Guild when the person wearing it enters a FAINTED status. Teleportation likewise doesn’t work to bridge the barrier of the Mystery Dungeon, although it works within the Dungeon’s confines. It is an endless source of debate as to how they function.
Dungens themselves come in three major variaties. A “Stable” dungeon has a fixed location that it appears in, and even if it closes will re-appear after some times - possibly as a different dungeon but in the same location. A “Passing” dungeon has a random location that it forms in, lasts until it gets completed or a certain amount of time passes, then simply vanishes. This is the most common kind of Mystery Dungeon. Finally a “Static” dungeon is a rare find. It lasts longer then a “Passing” dungeon but the interior doesn’t shift - making them a good source of materials while they list. “Static” dungeons are also unique in that the interior of a Static dungeon is well, static, even if it re-opens elsewhere. Whatever was looted remains looted, any changes remain, but anything built or brought in by pokemorphs is removed as if it didn’t exist in the first place.
Feral Pokemon exist within Mystery Dungeons but they are deranged and violent, and sometimes far strogner then they are in the underground. Some ancient human remains can also be found within, although pokemorph remains are never present.
Mystery Dungeons can be escaped by either backtracking out to the entrance, or by finding the ’exit’, generally after some kind of challenge, which will wrap a passageway back to the entrance directly.
Both items and money that is used in the underground can be looted from dunegeons. Stable dungeons ‘refresh’ loot when their interiors shift. Mystery dungeons can also contain ancient artifacts such as TMs, wands and orbs amongst such things as ancient plants and berries. Generally, any technology removed from a Mystery Dungeon is automatically considered a Human Artifact and falls under the usual taboos for using such.
Mystery Dungeons are one of the few places where, oddly, a pokemorph can’t actually die in. Upon hitting a FAINTED status the pokemorph has until the next dungeon shift, or two weeks, to be rescued (if anyone is notifed to look). If they are not rescued from the Mystery Dungeon in that time, they are ’ejected’ without their gear or equipment - left naked outside the dungeon entrance wounded and restored to 1 HP. Players can opt to immediately take the 1 HP ejection route if solo adventuring. That is not to say things worse then death cannot happen while FAINTED in a dungeon, but you can’t actually be killed there.
Human Artifacts #
The primary loot from the Mystery Dungeons and one of the key reasons that they have such a draw despite their danger, are Human Artifacts. Ranging from advanced technology to ballpoint pens that never run out of ink, to broken scrap, artifacts all share a futuristic design that is visually recognizeable. In the setting, Artifacts run the gamut of helpful to near apcolyptic in effect, and idenitifiable to items bordering on sci-fi to those that just make no sense. Artifact abilities are generally left up to Staff and Storyteller discretion for anything that might make a major impact - and such artifacts are resistant to being used due to the deeply ingrained taboo against them.
Recovered artifacts are generally sent to Canal City, who has the only vault capable of containing them safely, and studied carefully in controlled environments through specialists in The Guild, with known ‘safe’ artifacts moving to Canal City University. The only exception to this is Scrap Town and The Rogues, who have a much more pro-active stance to artifacts.
Still in general, Human Artifacts are considered to be “dark magic” that is responsible for why Pokemorphs live underground, and a harbringer of calamity if messed with. The only way to safely utilize them is through careful, controlled sequestering in Canal City where any advancements can be applied to already in use Pokemorph Technology, rather then used directly.
Interestingly enough, Human Artifacts can be found outside of Mystery Dungeons as well, but often may not be recognized for what they are due to weathering effects and decay due to time. Generally, once something is known to actually be a Human Artifact, even if it didn’t seem to be one at first, it becomes taboo to continue to use or own, and shuffled off to the vaults.
The Surface #
Many legends about the surface exist, many claiming about vast space, plentiful light, and bountiful food. These legends are often told as fairy tales, and many don’t believe it exists, although there is scant evidence it exists.