Thanks to the warning colors of their exoskeletons and their venom-dripping fangs, people know better than to disturb the arachniida, although caution only helps to a point: The many-legged creatures are often content to feed on less intelligent bugs but waste no occasion to attack prey that stumbles upon their nests or disturbs their webbings.

Arachniida range from smaller than a hand to as big as a cave, with a wicked intellect shining through their multiple eyes well beyond the dangerous cunning other predatory bugs possess. They communicate through an elaborate language (one Scarabs can learn to speak) and demonstrate an unsettling aptitude for problem-solving and the use of tools. Some gastrevores theorize that arachniida are rapidly evolving in response to the settlers’ invasion of their territory. The implication is that in a handful of generations, they’ll become a menace nobody will be equipped to stop.

A host of different species tied together by shared characteristics, the arthri are armored bugs whose body develops length-wise, a pair of legs carrying each segment forward. Seemingly never-ending hunger and the instinct to dig bind them together in common purpose, as does the violent frenzy they fall into whenever their tunneling efforts are thwarted or hindered, either by a misplaced trap or an inauspicious cave-in.

Small arthri amount more to vermin than threat, always eager to devour a settlement’s food stocks. Flames keep them away without much trouble. Bigger arthri are a different matter, with colossal ones being true calamities for whoever happens to be on their path. Arthri play a central role in the World Below’s ecosystem, chewing on refuse, toxic fungi, and bodies alike, but their diet includes anything their mandibles manage to grasp, people and houses included. Hunting an arthri for its armor plates leads more hunters into the beasts’ gullet than to a triumphant return.

Chimericals are aberrant creatures made of several other creature’s body parts, with no shared traits save for their unknown origin, their hatred for all beings, and their savage territoriality. Scholars wondered for generations whether chimericals come to be because of the influence of Kaos or whether something out there cuts and sews them together before releasing them against the world, but an explanation would change little.

Although only the most isolated caves contain chimericals, these beasts are the sort that adventurous types seek out for the glory of slaying. Chimericals eradicate all life inside their lairs and wait for bold heroes to walk into their territory, at which point the hunt is afoot. Only one will leave alive. Chimerical offer only hatred and violence.

An oddity raising uncanny questions about the boundaries between settlers and insects, chitters keep more communities under their heel than scholars like to contemplate. Although it’s unclear whether they started as insects who evolved in response to the makiru expansion in the World Below or explorers who left behind their nature to become insectoid predators, chitters are clever, malicious, and lethal.

With thick skin and sharp mandibles, a chitter pack makes for a deadly foe, but the creatures feast and prosper thanks to their cunning more than their might. Chitters look for isolated settlements without allies and circle them, terrorizing the inhabitants with showy assaults, and establish a gruesome ecosystem where the humanoids live as cattle for harvesting.

Chitters take care of their “herd,” happy to defend their stock from danger and let people come and go as their lives demand, but at the same time reserve the right to slaughter anyone. Whoever reveals the settlement’s secret or rebels is taken care of like a sick beast endangering its kin. The chitters force the survivors to live in a nightmare where everyone prays to not be the next in line to feed their monstrous masters.

More a natural disaster than a living species, churnians are the kind of encounter all tunnel explorers hope to avoid. Unlike many other creatures in the World Below, churnians demonstrate a single point of origin — the Obscura structure of the Churn — but spread across the underworld with ease thanks to their speed. While the creatures’ biology indicates they came from somewhere else, a lightless plane where their eyeless bodies would feel right at home, the churnians’ bloodthirsty, taciturn attitude prevents more than conjecture.

Churnians use echolocation to fly around tunnels, an evolutionary tool they manifest as horrid shrieks and howling screams. The horrors move at such an absurd velocity their screams rival windward gales in intensity and strength, while the eldest can turn invisible.

Churnians found in the rest of the World Below sprint from place to place, ripping apart everything they encounter. Scholars know only frustration when it comes to churnians, even ignoring whether the monsters are mere animals or a species with a culture. The yaggyakh demonstrate remarkable knowledge of the monsters’ weaknesses, betraying a history they refuse to share, and the churnians give the tekeli-li wider berth than anything else in the underworld. No other clues exist about the Churn-spawned species’ true nature.

Darklings are a curse, not a people, say some. They are the fear of the Dark made manifest, the embodiment of what happens to those who find themselves alone in the shadows and let the inky blackness in. Legions of darklings inhabit the World Below’s darkest corners, but each cave — each settlement — has places where light doesn’t shine. Here, darkling packs wait patiently, folded into tight crevices and remote nooks, coming out in droves whenever someone approaches.

Darklings take delight in tormenting their victims, whispering threats and laughing from the shadows until they decide the game has lasted long enough. Darklings tasted the darkness and were consumed by it, now existing as carriers of this black waste, for when you cut a darkling open, a slick of liquid black seeps from its body and blots out even the light of Kaos rock. It burns the skin, blinds the eyes, and can make others into darklings, its touch being the last thing all darklings’ victims feel.

Among the mightiest creatures of the tunnels, dragons are presences that no settlement can ignore. Be they merciless overlords, solitary monsters, or enigmatic hermits, dragons imbue the land around them with their own brand of power, drawn from Kaos and processed through the crucible of their being.

While their personalities vary, dragons are driven by pride, desire, and an aspiration to a magnificence lesser mortals cannot comprehend. Their morality sometimes seems to align with that of other creatures, but it exists in a different paradigm. A dragon can act as patron for a settlement while being a winged bearer of destruction for another, but each demands respect, if not outright worship. Meanwhile, plenty of dragons outright refuse to entertain conversation with non-dragons.

Although dragons consider the reminder a heinous offense, most of them are foreigners to the World Below. They have Dialectics of their own, although they consider those of others as disgusting aberrations. The environment of a dragon’s lair takes after its master, changing according to the shape of their Dialectic.

Mad oracles, cataclysms, and Kaos given monstrous shape, diamond dragons exist wellward. The mightiest of their kind, diamond dragons drank deep from the Well and were forever changed. Their minds became unbound by the revelations they experienced, while their touch warps blessings and aberrant mutations into being in equal measure. To the eyes of everyone — other dragons included — diamond dragons are dangerous- ly wild. In truth, their perception uplifts them to insights only the Well Liches can match. Diamond dragons follow their own cryptic whims, their chaotic reactions and random impulses guiding them through the World Below.

Kaos burns within diamond dragons. No diamond dragon looks like another, but their crystalline shape shines in a myriad of colors, some not of this world. Pure and pristine yet utterly alien, diamond dragons bleed Kaos into the air. The ground it- self mutates beneath them, and the light cutting through their prismatic shapes stabs fragments of distant realities into sur- faces, objects, and flesh. Their breath attack manifests as a blast of pure, gleaming, liquid Kaos.

Among the mightiest creatures of the tunnels, dragons are presences that no settlement can ignore. Be they merciless overlords, solitary monsters, or enigmatic hermits, dragons imbue the land around them with their own brand of power, drawn from Kaos and processed through the crucible of their being.

While their personalities vary, dragons are driven by pride, desire, and an aspiration to a magnificence lesser mortals cannot comprehend. Their morality sometimes seems to align with that of other creatures, but it exists in a different paradigm. A dragon can act as patron for a settlement while being a winged bearer of destruction for another, but each demands respect, if not outright worship. Meanwhile, plenty of dragons outright refuse to entertain conversation with non-dragons.

Although dragons consider the reminder a heinous offense, most of them are foreigners to the World Below. They have Dialectics of their own, although they consider those of others as disgusting aberrations. The environment of a dragon’s lair takes after its master, changing according to the shape of their Dialectic.

Custodians, gardeners, and furious guardians, emerald dragons reside wherever life thrives in the blind depths of the underground. Emerald dragons elect themselves as protectors of the natural world, but their mission manifests as violent possessiveness, where the creatures unleash unbridled rage at whoever dares touch animals or plants they protect. They are deaf to any prayer for food and medicines. Entire settlements starve after emerald dragons cut them from their nourishment, while more calculating emeralds are known to kidnap specimens and imprison them as provisions to feed to their own people.

The emerald dragon’s elongated shape resembles a living viridian machine, shining like a gem holding the secrets of life itself within. Even earth responds to the creatures’ majesty, shifting and brimming with energy under their steps. Their breath attacks emerge as a corrosive spew coating everything before them.

Among the mightiest creatures of the tunnels, dragons are presences that no settlement can ignore. Be they merciless overlords, solitary monsters, or enigmatic hermits, dragons imbue the land around them with their own brand of power, drawn from Kaos and processed through the crucible of their being.

While their personalities vary, dragons are driven by pride, desire, and an aspiration to a magnificence lesser mortals cannot comprehend. Their morality sometimes seems to align with that of other creatures, but it exists in a different paradigm. A dragon can act as patron for a settlement while being a winged bearer of destruction for another, but each demands respect, if not outright worship. Meanwhile, plenty of dragons outright refuse to entertain conversation with non-dragons.

Although dragons consider the reminder a heinous offense, most of them are foreigners to the World Below. They have Dialectics of their own, although they consider those of others as disgusting aberrations. The environment of a dragon’s lair takes after its master, changing according to the shape of their Dialectic.

Devourers, destroyers, and eternal wraiths for which life and death have lost any meaning, fossil dragons haunt darkward caves where even specters and undead hesitate to venture. Not even fossil dragons know for sure whether their lineage fell to a curse or made a conscious decision to transcend mortality, but they now exist as something neither wholly dead nor alive. Blessed — or condemned — to twisted immortality, fossil dragons must devour the life of other creatures to preserve their own, otherwise their souls abandon their bodies until circumstances enable a resurrection.

Fossil dragons resemble grotesque frameworks of ancient bone and stone. Black streams flow from their empty eye sockets, while clouds of dust and darkness wheeze out of their joints with each slow, solemn step. Their breath attack emerges as a cloud of rapidly hardening salt and sand.

Among the mightiest creatures of the tunnels, dragons are presences that no settlement can ignore. Be they merciless overlords, solitary monsters, or enigmatic hermits, dragons imbue the land around them with their own brand of power, drawn from Kaos and processed through the crucible of their being.

While their personalities vary, dragons are driven by pride, desire, and an aspiration to a magnificence lesser mortals cannot comprehend. Their morality sometimes seems to align with that of other creatures, but it exists in a different paradigm. A dragon can act as patron for a settlement while being a winged bearer of destruction for another, but each demands respect, if not outright worship. Meanwhile, plenty of dragons outright refuse to entertain conversation with non-dragons.

Although dragons consider the reminder a heinous offense, most of them are foreigners to the World Below. They have Dialectics of their own, although they consider those of others as disgusting aberrations. The environment of a dragon’s lair takes after its master, changing according to the shape of their Dialectic.

Covetous fiends, gold dragons rule over lower strata where lava and sparkling veins of precious metal emerge from the earth like rivers. More than any other of their kin, gold dragons enjoy their solitude, if only because most believe other creatures crave their treasures. The gold dragons’ paranoia encourages them to carry their hoard along as they burrow through the ground, melting their treasures into their skin with their fiery breath and letting it cool into glistening, impervious armor.

A gold dragon’s body looks like a bulky mass of molten stone and metals, forged into magnificent horns and intricate ornaments to glorify their bearer’s appearance. Fiery magma rivers cut through their mantle, smoldering beneath at points while erupting in others.

Among the mightiest creatures of the tunnels, dragons are presences that no settlement can ignore. Be they merciless overlords, solitary monsters, or enigmatic hermits, dragons imbue the land around them with their own brand of power, drawn from Kaos and processed through the crucible of their being.

While their personalities vary, dragons are driven by pride, desire, and an aspiration to a magnificence lesser mortals cannot comprehend. Their morality sometimes seems to align with that of other creatures, but it exists in a different paradigm. A dragon can act as patron for a settlement while being a winged bearer of destruction for another, but each demands respect, if not outright worship. Meanwhile, plenty of dragons outright refuse to entertain conversation with non-dragons.

Although dragons consider the reminder a heinous offense, most of them are foreigners to the World Below. They have Dialectics of their own, although they consider those of others as disgusting aberrations. The environment of a dragon’s lair takes after its master, changing according to the shape of their Dialectic.

Generals and proud conquerors, ruby dragons inhabit the intermediate strata, although some travel skyward or wellward to satisfy the urge to expand. Ruby dragons crave the increase of their temporal power, subjugating entire populations and keeping them bound under crimson claws. These dragons consider stories about triumphant humanoid warlords as a provocation and seek out the most heralded of tyrants to subjugate or destroy, as befit their whims.

A ruby dragon’s entire body resembles a jagged construct of scarlet and crimson gems. The smell of ozone surrounds them while hints of sparks and lightning shine within the rubies, suggesting the electric core of the creatures’ being.

Among the mightiest creatures of the tunnels, dragons are presences that no settlement can ignore. Be they merciless overlords, solitary monsters, or enigmatic hermits, dragons imbue the land around them with their own brand of power, drawn from Kaos and processed through the crucible of their being.

While their personalities vary, dragons are driven by pride, desire, and an aspiration to a magnificence lesser mortals cannot comprehend. Their morality sometimes seems to align with that of other creatures, but it exists in a different paradigm. A dragon can act as patron for a settlement while being a winged bearer of destruction for another, but each demands respect, if not outright worship. Meanwhile, plenty of dragons outright refuse to entertain conversation with non-dragons.

Although dragons consider the reminder a heinous offense, most of them are foreigners to the World Below. They have Dialectics of their own, although they consider those of others as disgusting aberrations. The environment of a dragon’s lair takes after its master, changing according to the shape of their Dialectic.

Scholars, intellectuals, and keepers of secrets, sapphire dragons appear in legends told seaward and windward, but their thirst for knowledge leads them wherever mysteries need solving. While sapphire dragons are less inimical to outsiders than other dragons, wise settlers learn not to mistake their indifference for kindness: sapphire dragons care about learning the mechanisms of the world, gathering lore with little scruples about whatever it takes to obtain it. They despise whoever refuses to share knowledge while requesting hefty payments or services to unveil theirs. They hate the guilds for their hoarding of information despite sharing that desire to lock away their considerable knowledge.

The sapphire dragon’s blue, bejeweled body exudes an aura of cold, covering their smooth skin with frost and rime. A vivid azure energy pulsates within, like light stolen from the purest ice caves.

“Fungal undead” is a blanket term for all the corpses brought back to a putrid semblance of life, animated into shambling masses by the fungi feasting upon their flesh. They’re to blame for the hostility some communities have for Myceli, despite the Dialectic’s ubiquity throughout the underworld. If they can be said to have any drive, fungal undead have an absolute imperative to spread their plague to everyone, everywhere.

Although they don’t speak, fungal undead share a common mind, which facilitates their effort to root together in infective cathedrals of living tissue that breathe out spores and burst into hordes of fungi-riddled corpses when threatened. Fungal undead have no desire to bite the living, but their presence corrupts the air with spores, a hazard that risks making entire caves uninhabitable.

Mighty elemental beings, the geoprucugalla embody nature’s unstoppable force. People of the Elemental Dialectic look at the geoprucugalla and wonder if that’s the fate waiting for them should they fully embrace their adaptations and push them beyond any limit. The creatures show no fragment of the ancestries they once held, if indeed they were once anything other than elements given life.

Gastrevores and stratigraphers offer a different theory, where earth itself spawned the geoprucugalla as a response to the Elementals, simulacra crafted with greater powers to push back against the Dialectic expansion. This instinctive mission leads geoprucugalla to commit amoral acts of mass murder and rampant destruction, with little regard for their own self-preservation. On rare occasions, however, they can be drawn into a conversation about the World Below’s formation and the pres- ence of geological changes. “Rare” being the operative word.

When inhabitants of the underworld develop a taste for feasting on other sentient beings, they risk joining the ranks of a legacy of corruption that twists bodies along minds. A mysterious force reaches out to them, offering a gateway to power they accept, consciously or not. From that moment onward, the name “gouhak” rings true in their mind, an identity they recognize in others.

Most gouhak are solitary hunters. Some gather in ravenous communities, but camaraderie among cannibals rarely lasts when other prey runs dry. Hunger replaces all they were before until only a ceaseless craving remains.

Long ago, back before the Exodus, a darkward community made a terrible discovery. Digging deep, they found a slumbering god, wreathed in chthonic darkness. In that moment, the explorers made a decision. Some wonder whether an external influence revealed a secret — perhaps murmurs from the all-consuming Abyss — if only to explain what happened: each member of that civilization sunk their teeth into the sleeping god’s flesh and drunk deep, gorging themselves on divine essence. In a baptism of blood and death, the haemexii were born.

Haemexii exist somewhere between life and death, doomed to forever feast on other beings’ blood. Their dark curse changed them, a reminder of their blasphemous crimes: all haemexii resemble ravenous parasites, although the most powerful ones learn to mask their true nature. The curse carries forward even to those initiated in their secret society today. The promise of climbing through their ranks and eventually obtaining the blessing of their dark aristocracy spurns far too many to sacrifice everything they hold dear and leave their humanity behind.

The haemexii consider themselves supreme predators and dark demigods, seeing their need to feed on others as a divine right.

The sanguinary aristocracy at the top of haemexii culture, nobles plot against each other for supremacy. They use their soldiers and servants as pieces on an ore-map grid where the prize is the authority to decide how their war against other sentient beings should unfold. Nobles maintain a semblance of etiquette and class, but their dead hearts contain only rot. Rivalry among nobles sees assassinations and betrayals as the norm, with foul acts of all sorts filling the chronicles of haemexii history. On those rare occasions where the haemexii elevate a new noble, their arrival always falls within an elaborate scheme to defeat an enemy or gain prestige.

The blood curse’s gifts manifest with dark majesty in nobles, gifting them wings akin to mosquitoes, moths, and taran- tula hawks, along with mysterious leathery ones for the most blessed. Even their heads take countless shapes, some bearing fangs and mandibles, while others have split their façades open to make room for thirsty proboscides or squirming appendages. Nobles possess a host of terrible powers, turning into blood mists, summoning swarms, and paralyzing mortals with sight alone.

Long ago, back before the Exodus, a darkward community made a terrible discovery. Digging deep, they found a slumbering god, wreathed in chthonic darkness. In that moment, the explorers made a decision. Some wonder whether an external influence revealed a secret — perhaps murmurs from the all-consuming Abyss — if only to explain what happened: each member of that civilization sunk their teeth into the sleeping god’s flesh and drunk deep, gorging themselves on divine essence. In a baptism of blood and death, the haemexii were born.

Haemexii exist somewhere between life and death, doomed to forever feast on other beings’ blood. Their dark curse changed them, a reminder of their blasphemous crimes: all haemexii resemble ravenous parasites, although the most powerful ones learn to mask their true nature. The curse carries forward even to those initiated in their secret society today. The promise of climbing through their ranks and eventually obtaining the blessing of their dark aristocracy spurns far too many to sacrifice everything they hold dear and leave their humanity behind.

The haemexii consider themselves supreme predators and dark demigods, seeing their need to feed on others as a divine right.

The weakest of the haemexii, pages live to serve their betters. Make no mistake though: even the lowliest page proves worthy of the thirsty curse and earns its immortality through trickery, violence, and egotistical obedience. When their flesh sloughs off, any semblance of mercy or morality dies with their bodies.

Pages are vile, sycophantic creatures resembling small-sized hybrids of humanoid and leech, flukeworm, or tick. Their position at the bottom of the haemexii’s food chain fills them with contempt and hatred: pages despise and adore other haemexii at the same time, reserving their worst against those who can’t defend themselves. Although more numerous than all the other castes put together, pages fear warriors and nobles too much to raise a hand against them but waste no opportunity to torture others, including their fellow pages.

Rare is the page elevated to warrior, and almost unheard of are those who manage to become nobles, but the wicked dream always endures within their hollow hearts.

Long ago, back before the Exodus, a darkward community made a terrible discovery. Digging deep, they found a slumbering god, wreathed in chthonic darkness. In that moment, the explorers made a decision. Some wonder whether an external influence revealed a secret — perhaps murmurs from the all-consuming Abyss — if only to explain what happened: each member of that civilization sunk their teeth into the sleeping god’s flesh and drunk deep, gorging themselves on divine essence. In a baptism of blood and death, the haemexii were born.

Haemexii exist somewhere between life and death, doomed to forever feast on other beings’ blood. Their dark curse changed them, a reminder of their blasphemous crimes: all haemexii resemble ravenous parasites, although the most powerful ones learn to mask their true nature. The curse carries forward even to those initiated in their secret society today. The promise of climbing through their ranks and eventually obtaining the blessing of their dark aristocracy spurns far too many to sacrifice everything they hold dear and leave their humanity behind.

The haemexii consider themselves supreme predators and dark demigods, seeing their need to feed on others as a divine right.

While pages keep their masters’ homes in order and torment prisoners, warriors represent the bulk of the haemexii military force. Each wears the insignia of a dynastic house, ancient lineages almost as old as the haemexii themselves. Soon after the first nobles drained the dark gift from the sleeping god’s veins, they warred against each other in a furious battle for supremacy. Broken alliances, betrayals, and vile strategies played prelude to countless battles, where warriors dutifully played their role.

Proud of their nature, haemexii warriors resemble humanoid spiders and assassin bugs. Their physical features suit combat well, but warriors train for the equivalent of entire mortal lives to fight and triumph for their dynasty. Their skills make them fearsome opponents, but warriors are so certain of their superiority they risk underestimating their foes.

The helmina are a deceptive yet terrible plague. Helmina allow their hosts to retain a share of sentience, which contributes a greater torture than devouring their brain. When helmina have their way, they use their hosts to contaminate food and water with more of their kind, increasing their numbers until the infestation spares nobody. People with helmina inside them can still see through their eyes, may even whisper that there’s something inside them, but the helmina then exerts dominance, and their host is forced to laugh away their claim as a joke or suffer immense pain as the helmina shreds nerves in retribution for disobedience.

Helmina are mostly found within bugs, but in recent times, their presence among humanoids grew to alarming levels. Chlzyl and Ipreceans kept them at bay in days long gone, but since the Great Descent, the helmina have expanded across the World Below like never before.

A sad yet common phenomenon voidward, husks are restless undead clinging to a semblance of life. Just like everyone else, husks endured life underground while pursuing whatever dream pushed them forward. When tragedy, defeat, and death struck, all their hopes died along with them. Their pain and sorrow refused to leave. Instead, husks opened their eyes and kept going.

While spirits maintain a sense of self, husks rely on shattered memories and the distant echo of former passions. Sometimes, they clumsily replicate gestures and actions they performed while alive, but most just lay around, with only a pained, wordless weeping as indication of their tragic state.

Scavengers of all sizes recognize husks as fundamentally wrong. The empty shells rot, but only to a point. Afterward, a cursed stagnation takes over, trapping husks in a putrefied eternity only merciful explorers can put an end to.

Whether through the miracles of Kaos or their own terrible power, a host of dreadful divinities hold influence throughout the World Below. Ancient temples and fragments of old faiths are a testament to their might, a reminder the underground world isn’t hidden from the sight of the gods. Some Hypogeans are stranded titans buried in the depths, others are amoral forces of nature from a primeval era. A few even consider the Abyss their home. Yet others embody cosmic truths so terrible that reality bleeds in their presence, spawning creatures known as “daemons” that some Kaosists attempt to summon and bind. Such daemon spawn tends to disappear from this world before any such sorcery can be enacted.

Too removed from the mortal world to directly appear in it except in the very direst circumstances, Hypogeans rely on heralds to do their bidding. Imposing manifestations of unbound terror, heralds are unique, but the actions of a single one can cause an entire stratus’s downfall.

Creatures of corrupted flames with no connection to natural elemental forces, infernites pose a threat to all those daring to explore subterranean magma tunnels. While they have a culture of sorts, infernites are as much an affliction as they are a people. They savor any moment spent burning their victims alive, as if appointed to torture others with their flames by a higher power.

Infernites are bound to their blazing abodes, never spending longer than a scene away from them, but survivors of their attacks risk having the monster’s flame burn their souls. These victims grow increasingly fascinated with flames until self-destructive thoughts burn their identity to cinders, and then the transformation happens, turning them into monsters made of rock, lava, and cruelty.

Despite their apparently similar origins, infernites and geoprucugalla try to kill each other on sight. Something in their origins drives them to an instinctive, mutual hate.

People underground call “ooze” any creature of uncertain shape, liquid or semi-solid, crawling through the World Below. Oozes demonstrate an impressive degree of variety, with slimes of all sorts emerging from the depths in any location regardless of the environment and dominant species.

Most oozes are mindless, showing at best an inclination to maintain a vague form, but a few possess a formidable intellect. Some scholars see oozes in their protean splendor as embodiments of Kaos itself. Others simply dismiss them as disgusting pests.

Iridescent jellies shine with the many colors of Kaos passing through a prism. These jellies possess a strange inclination to mimic geometric shapes, switching between them according to their indecipherable whims. The jellies’ embrace melts the ground and burns anything they touch, teaching explorers to be wary of these shiny slimes, some of which are large enough to swallow several people whole.

In their natural form, klo’tha resemble pitch-black tentacled lampreys, but that appearance isn’t the one most people associate with them. If a klo’tha manages to enter a sentient creature’s skull and devour its brain, it can use the memories to initiate a metamorphosis process and transform into even stranger horrors. Outside of the Abyss, klo’tha resort to surgery to create more of their kind faster, opening their captives’ craniums to insert their larval offspring inside.

Their Abyssal nature is what allows the klo’tha to unleash psychic ruin upon their enemies — the same ravenous imprint that drives them to feast on brains and memories to escape the dread of the void. They also use these psychic powers to communicate mentally with each other.

Somewhat anthropomorphic mantises, the mantodea is one of the species better suited to life underground. Their fierce traditions combine with their natural gifts to ensure their survival against the World Below’s dangers.

Mantodea have rituals where the murder of males for matters of love or dishonor is remarkably common. They employ a squeaking, grinding language other people can learn, but they prefer to not repay the courtesy, given they consider non-insectoid languages slow and unsophisticated. Fond of their isolation, the mantodea show no fear if circumstances require them to venture away from their villages.

While they despise parasites, mantodea maintain a harmonious relationship with other less intelligent bug species in the underworld. They hold respect for arachniida, arthri, vermi, and ptera and won’t see one slain in their presence, commonly employing them as mounts or beasts of burden.

Marmantles are best described as something between cephalopod and a nauseating flap of skin shaped in the form of a flying cloak and animated by cold hatred for the living. Mar-mantles float around tunnels, attacking whoever’s unfortunate enough to cross their path. The creatures latch onto their victims’ heads and choke them, eager to reanimate corpses with the help of their elongated tentacles so they can use them to kill more.

Despite their absolute silence and brutal efficiency, the way marmantles coordinate their assaults hints at a strange intellect rather than mere instinct. A lone marmantle separates from its group every now and then, but scholars suspect these specimens to be explorers on reconnaissance duty rather than stragglers: all notable marmantle attacks imply a planned effort on the creatures’ parts, an act of war carried forward with fresh corpses as its weapons. Whatever intent drives the marmantles, the only creatures they seem to respect are the mantodea, and they pointedly avoid rust knights and gouhak.

Giant bee creatures imbued with the power of the Obscura, melioneirae build massive hives fadeward, drawing nutrition from people’s dreams like a normal bee would with pollen. Melioneirae are harmless unless threatened, even proving beneficial for settlers when attuned to pleasant or constructive dreams. Melioneirae influence the sleeping minds of creatures in their territory, orienting their dreams toward their favorite emotional taste.

Melioneirae’s honey carries the memories of those its matter was drawn from, a precious commodity that can enable rev-elations. Melioneirae are jealous of their honey and tolerate no intruders in their hives, making it precious and dangerous to obtain.

Miasymill are a species of sentient clouds, almost impossible to perceive in their natural state except to trained eyes. These intelligent gases have their own culture, customs, and traditions, forged through lives whose occurrences solid people find difficult to even conceptualize.

Through great effort, miasymill can coalesce into more noticeable clouds. The concentration needed, combined with how vulnerable their gaseous bodies are, ensures miasymill prefer to manifest themselves rarely, but they will sometimes share the gospel of their mysterious gods, the Lords of Ladies and Rot, with other sentient creatures.

Over the years, scholars raised the idea miasymill might be actual sentient diseases rather than “simple” gases, a theory lent credence by the clouds’ religious leanings. They often accompany Vrot priests as they crusade through the World Below, spreading misery in their wake.

“Mockery” is the name people living underground gave to a species of insatiable monsters. Shapeshifters without compare, mockeries stalk prey and decipher their victims’ desires by reading thoughts. Once a mockery determines what shape would be most likely to attract a person’s attention, it mutates and uses its newfound form to lure the prey close. Those making the mistake of falling for a mockery’s ruse must deal with a whirlwind of teeth and slashing appendages, provided the monster doesn’t swallow them whole.

Mockeries aren’t above using all sorts of trickery to attract prey, imitating wounded explorers who suddenly reveal themselves to be horrors three times the size of their disguise. Most enjoy solitude, but at times they group up in lethal colonies, whole environments where each step can lead an unwary adventurer into a hungry maw.

In the World Below’s dampest caves, where legions of fungal undead fuse with the environment until any distinction between mushroom and soil becomes irrelevant, where a single breath holds the promise of thousands of spores invading a body, the mycelium brains lurk. The paroxysmal, inhuman behavior of fungal creatures is formulated by the mycelium brains and their immortal intellects and then delivered through the mycotic mindweb through which the brains are connected.

Mycelium brains rise from the ground when enough fungi gather in a single location. By the grace of whatever gods protect the World Below, the conditions to make that possible are rare, but the danger a mycelium brain’s advent poses is enough for most settlers to make sure mushrooms and fungal undead aren’t permitted to fester beyond control.

For characters, the many people of the World Below are both friends, neighbors, rivals, allies, and hated enemies. Both the chitin artisan crafting a spear and the villain whose chest the weapon will pierce; the Silhouette descended from the settlers forced to flee from their homelands and the wellward patrician enjoying the prosperity of his stratum while refusing to share a crumb with the people living above — people can be the connective tissue and driving force that keeps stories going. Like any other humanoid inhabitant of the depths, all people have their own Dialectics, their own customs, and their own history, each another life struggling to achieve their aspirations in the Vast Underneath.

Beetles of size great and small, the ptera are the most numerous among all insect types. Ptera are territorial and fiercely protective of their kin but placid if left undisturbed.

The most common mounts and beasts of burden in the underworld, docile ptera are commonplace around large settlements. Aggressive ptera nevertheless remain a small-brained yet deadly threat, given most happily chew on anything in their way.

Ptera prove resilient into old age, growing larger and larger with no upper limit. Barring predators, accidents, or diseases, ptera just grow until the environment around them can’t support them any further, and they find themselves trapped, unable to defend themselves or feed. Several caverns exist where the entire ceiling and walls have been replaced with a ptera shell, its innards long since rotted or consumed.

Academics and monsters at the same time, quaesitors are eerie creatures — geometric structures of crystals and eyes, somewhere between a fractal and a snowflake. They float around, carving out passages with their ocular lasers while using their other numerous powers to experiment with whatever grabs their inquisitive attention.

While similar at first glance, no quaesitor looks exactly like another, each proud of their exact crystalline arrangement. Whatever force spawned the quaesitors also armed them with numerous tools to impose their will upon others. Their energy rays allow them to cut, hurt, move, and turn targets to crystal with a lethal destructive barrage from their main central eye. Quaesitors even dampen Kaos itself, sucking it from the environment to fuel themselves.

The quaesitors’ morality leaves little room for other beings. They’re wholly focused on learning more about the World Below and its inhabitants. A curious geological formation might captivate a quaesitor, but only by making it wonder how Adamas would fare with it fused into their ribcage. Despite their lack of mouth, quaesitors have no trouble communicating, although they rarely bother speaking with any creature they consider inferior.

Quaesitors loathe the klo’tha and people of elvkin heritage, seeing them both as fit only for dissection and study. Where this antipathy comes from is a subject of great conjecture among guilders.

Militant servants of the Lords and Ladies of Rot, rust knights spread corruption in their masters’ names, leaving a path of lethargic decay in their steps. While each can extract jagged redbrown weapons from their own matter and use them with great skill, the rust knight’s infamous reputation derives from their ability to corrode gear and force people into sleep with their mere presence. Slow yet tireless, rust knights stay motionless for generations until compelled to move again, attacking in lethal bursts of martial speed.

Anyone who has tried to verify whether these creatures hold a personal identity finds only mindless violence and death. Perhaps rust knights are nothing more than barely sentient rust; oozes hammered into shape and implanted with the imperative to disseminate rot.

Strangely, despite their shared reverence for the Lords and Ladies of Rot, rust knights and miasymill want nothing to do with each other. If ever present in the same area, they each make for the nearest exit or attempt to slay each other, with their battles lasting infamously long.

People underground call “ooze” any creature of uncertain shape, liquid or semi-solid, crawling through the World Below. Oozes demonstrate an impressive degree of variety, with slimes of all sorts emerging from the depths in any location regardless of the environment and dominant species.

Most oozes are mindless, showing at best an inclination to maintain a vague form, but a few possess a formidable intellect. Some scholars see oozes in their protean splendor as embodiments of Kaos itself. Others simply dismiss them as disgusting pests.

Small reddish, brown masses of coagulated blood and unidentifiable matter, scab crawlers are a threat both common and vile. They feast on a settlement’s waste with mindless gluttony until they grow strong enough to lurk after warmer prey. Massacre sites are known to spontaneously generate hosts of scab crawlers, which then fall into hibernation until someone disturbs them.

Incorporeal beings of various origins haunt the World Below. Their nature and motives are as varied as their shapes, but all spirits share antipathy for material beings, seeing them either as unworthy of life, a danger to their existence, or as defil- ers of places they feel rightfully belong to them.

Not all spirits are openly hostile, but few like to commune unless entreated. Their every moment is focused on torment and reminding the living of why they’re there. Like many living things, they’re territorial, with weaker spirits bound to a loca- tion and stronger ones able to leave and haunt their targets.

Those killed by a spirit inevitably join their ranks. Because of this tragic certainty, settlers and explorers prefer to discover what a spirit wants and pay its price, as harsh as it might be.

The restless dead are the shades of those who died and couldn’t move on, typically because their death was painful or happened in monstrous circumstances. Rather than risk becoming a specter, people learned to give themselves quick deaths. Being eaten alive by bugs only to awaken to an eternity of torment is a fate nobody aspires to.

Incorporeal beings of various origins haunt the World Below. Their nature and motives are as varied as their shapes, but all spirits share antipathy for material beings, seeing them either as unworthy of life, a danger to their existence, or as defil- ers of places they feel rightfully belong to them.

Not all spirits are openly hostile, but few like to commune unless entreated. Their every moment is focused on torment and reminding the living of why they’re there. Like many living things, they’re territorial, with weaker spirits bound to a loca- tion and stronger ones able to leave and haunt their targets.

Those killed by a spirit inevitably join their ranks. Because of this tragic certainty, settlers and explorers prefer to discover what a spirit wants and pay its price, as harsh as it might be.

Multiform manifestations of the Obscura, dream spirits are exceedingly rare away from locations imbued with oneiric power. A few occasionally slip away, echoes of dreams and nightmares who must reaffirm their essential nature to not wither away. Dream spirits can be harmless or calamitous, depending on which memories coalesced them into being.

Incorporeal beings of various origins haunt the World Below. Their nature and motives are as varied as their shapes, but all spirits share antipathy for material beings, seeing them either as unworthy of life, a danger to their existence, or as defil- ers of places they feel rightfully belong to them.

Not all spirits are openly hostile, but few like to commune unless entreated. Their every moment is focused on torment and reminding the living of why they’re there. Like many living things, they’re territorial, with weaker spirits bound to a loca- tion and stronger ones able to leave and haunt their targets.

Those killed by a spirit inevitably join their ranks. Because of this tragic certainty, settlers and explorers prefer to discover what a spirit wants and pay its price, as harsh as it might be.

Nature spirits run the gamut between small gods of natural features and forsaken divinities from long-lost faiths, still inhabiting their sanctuaries and curating their broken altars. While their followers might be dead and the laws they hold dear forgotten, nature spirits endure the challenges of time, proud of their essence and eager to deliver destruction upon whoever offends them. They’re commonly attached to altars and relics of great importance to them, but maybe no one else.

Cosmic monstrosities of unknown origin, starbearers embody an enigma no mortal, insect, or spirit can comprehend. The air surrounding their flaming faces shimmers with arcane power as their gravity breaks down reality in formless patterns. Immortal unless slain, seemingly without a culture or motive, starbearers just are. Without apparent rea- son, they wander through tunnels in total silence, crawling upon walls like disjointed puppets. The only sound coming from a starbearer is the low drone its fiery visage unleashes upon those the monster manages to catch, growing into a mind-shattering roar that melts flesh and sanity.

Despite their humanoid frame, starbearers howl into the minds of all onlookers, triggering panicked reactions from creatures big and small with dread. Only nightmares such as the tekeli-li, tenebrals, and certain Hypogean heralds tolerate the starbearers’ presence, with even klo’tha, quaesitors, and wyrmsects steering clear whenever possible.

Surface-touched are living proof that the future lies underground. From time to time, hopeless optimists or those finding life in the tunnels unbearable make a run for the surface, but it never ends well. Those coming back do so as surface-touched, malevolent murderers devoid of any emotion aside from the evident pleasure they take in hurting those not sharing their affliction.

The majority of surface-touched can’t hope to hide their nature. They screech and giggle as they rush at their targets. Their wounds and blisters from the World Above show with terrifying clarity. A few prove to be almost as insidious as the helmina, though, able to maintain a semblance of normality even among friends and fam

Creatures of the World Below gather as swarms for a variety of reasons. In an environment filled with larger predators, swarming offers these animals protection and mutual strength, allowing them to survive as a group where they’d perish as individuals.

Given the sheer number of different swarms one can encounter and the fact some host different species, the World Below’s inhabitants make a habit of referring to swarms according to the methods and goals the myriad of animals seem to have. Swarms represent a threat to anyone caught in their mass. A single one can consume a settlement’s entire reserve of food in a mere matter of hours.

Ferrumicae, blattodii, scarabides, and other skittering bugs swarm in biting hordes, waves of hungry teeth that submerge anything in their path.

Creatures of the World Below gather as swarms for a variety of reasons. In an environment filled with larger predators, swarming offers these animals protection and mutual strength, allowing them to survive as a group where they’d perish as individuals.

Given the sheer number of different swarms one can encounter and the fact some host different species, the World Below’s inhabitants make a habit of referring to swarms according to the methods and goals the myriad of animals seem to have. Swarms represent a threat to anyone caught in their mass. A single one can consume a settlement’s entire reserve of food in a mere matter of hours.

Maggots, slugs, and worms emerge from rotten flesh as writhing pale masses, eager to burrow inside new hosts and devour them from within. One in a million gains wicked intellect and becomes worthy of being called helmina, but all the others still demand to have their hunger sated.

Creatures of the World Below gather as swarms for a variety of reasons. In an environment filled with larger predators, swarming offers these animals protection and mutual strength, allowing them to survive as a group where they’d perish as individuals.

Given the sheer number of different swarms one can encounter and the fact some host different species, the World Below’s inhabitants make a habit of referring to swarms according to the methods and goals the myriad of animals seem to have. Swarms represent a threat to anyone caught in their mass. A single one can consume a settlement’s entire reserve of food in a mere matter of hours.

Saiporasps, locusturas, lepidanae, and other flying bugs travel in razorwing swarms, clouds that sting and devour plants, animals, and people.

Creatures of the World Below gather as swarms for a variety of reasons. In an environment filled with larger predators, swarming offers these animals protection and mutual strength, allowing them to survive as a group where they’d perish as individuals.

Given the sheer number of different swarms one can encounter and the fact some host different species, the World Below’s inhabitants make a habit of referring to swarms according to the methods and goals the myriad of animals seem to have. Swarms represent a threat to anyone caught in their mass. A single one can consume a settlement’s entire reserve of food in a mere matter of hours.

Unlike other swarms, sunflies are beautiful little creatures, appreciated for their ability to shed a glowing blue light. In small numbers, this feature makes sunflies a helpful presence, although the situation changes when numerous specimens gather as a swarm. Their glow turns into a burst of static power that fries whoever is caught by it as if struck by lightning.

Attempts to harness the sunflies’ lightning for the sake of technology and artifice are doomed to end in failure, given the already dangerous endeavor clashes against the little beings’ love for freedom: sunflies detest being trapped or farmed, losing their light soon after the beginning of their captivity.

In a swarm, sunflies produce enough light to cultivate surface plants. A single sunlight produces a candlelight level of brightness, where an entire swarm can be blindingly bright.

Hated by all creatures of the World Below, the tabinada is a species of bloodsucking flies with ugly looks and an uglier demeanor. Although tabinada show an affinity for warm locales and lava, the pests travel far and wide, feeding on anything they stumble upon and sometimes incinerating it just for the sake of it.

Tabinada are large and deadly enough to be considered monsters, flighty and small enough to be considered bugs, and nasty enough to be considered one of the worst blights in the underground world. For reasons devoid of any biological logic, tabinada repay the blood they steal with the lava-like liquid they produce in their bellies, while their reproductive habits inject larvae straight into their victims’ bloodstream.

People underground call “ooze” any creature of uncertain shape, liquid or semi-solid, crawling through the World Below. Oozes demonstrate an impressive degree of variety, with slimes of all sorts emerging from the depths in any location regardless of the environment and dominant species.

Most oozes are mindless, showing at best an inclination to maintain a vague form, but a few possess a formidable intellect. Some scholars see oozes in their protean splendor as embodiments of Kaos itself. Others simply dismiss them as disgusting pests.

The most terrible among the oozes infesting the World Be- low, even dragons and Hypogean heralds fear the tekeli-li. Each tekeli-li is a colossal chaotic protoplasm, constantly shifting as multitudes of horrid eyes, toothed maws, and mighty tenta- cles sprout and dissolve across its mass. Tekeli-li possess both strength and the resistance to face any danger.

The tekeli-li demonstrate a sharp intellect, although their interactions with other beings almost always start and end with a furious tekeli-li charging at their targets and consuming them in a shower of ooze. They live in remote tunnels, spending their time tending to their homes, carving murals, and defending their solitude with boundless violence. The few who manage to spy on the oozes notice the creatures seem to hold devotion toward strange pyramidal gods. Those who peek into their thoughts without losing themselves affirm the tekeli-li hate the idea of being enslaved above anything else, seeing most other beings as threats to their freedom.

Tenebrals haunt the furthest reaches of the World Below, where the Dark reigns supreme, and the maw of the Abyss gnaws at reality. Contact with a tenebral feels like a violent denial of the concept of life. The few who survive the shock and wake up discover the shadow that plunged them into such horror is gone, sometimes leaving a trinket in its wake, as if the tenebral took something and left a payment in its place.

Tenebrals rarely speak. They neither feel nor show emotion. Like the Abyss that spawned them, tenebrals hunger. Woe to anyone who encounters one.

Vermi play a fundamental role in the underground’s eco-system. Unlike their parasitical cousins, vermi only feed on dead organic matter, processing the Kaos found therein and releasing it through the environment with idle yet impressive efficiency. Either as food or as scavengers, the vermi help other species survive, despite the World Below’s hardships.

The vermi’s extraordinary blessings are made apparent when the largest of their species, the garworms, are involved. Everything the garworms touch immediately brims with life: mud and soil welcome any attempt to plant seed, rocks sprout vibrant moss, and even the grimiest waters immediately turn pure and refreshing. Garworms resent being hunted, though, and respond to provocations with anger that’s only sated with living meat.

People underground call “ooze” any creature of uncertain shape, liquid or semi-solid, crawling through the World Below. Oozes demonstrate an impressive degree of variety, with slimes of all sorts emerging from the depths in any location regardless of the environment and dominant species.

Most oozes are mindless, showing at best an inclination to maintain a vague form, but a few possess a formidable intellect. Some scholars see oozes in their protean splendor as embodiments of Kaos itself. Others simply dismiss them as disgusting pests.

Voidward settlements learn to dread void blots. More lakes of liquid darkness than slimes, void blots are an extrusion of Abyssal hunger splitting apart from their source to slither after prey. As if their massive size wasn’t enough, these oozes use the underground’s darkness to become almost impossible to spot from a distance. A single void blot can force an entire community to relocate, those failing to flee swallowed by the Abyss itself, never to return.

Both renowned and dreaded, the Well Liches govern the World Below from their subterranean abodes. The Well - and the Kaos springing forth from it - belong to them by right of conquest, their names filling the souls of underground inhabitants with sacred terror. They are sovereigns in the World Be-low.

No matter the direction in which they honed their personal skills, all Well Liches demonstrate mastery over Kaos and its sorcery. Their exalted state freed them from fear of time, hun-ger, and disease, and all other concerns mortals fight and die over. Kaos erupts from their wounds, healing them in a matter of seconds, and all Well Liches only need to focus their immortal willpower for a moment whenever they wish to perform acts of sublime wizardry.

Liches bind spirits to their will, forcing ephemeral legions under their control with a mere gesture. Shows of immense power, such as flight, teleportation, or arcane detonations, are common among them. The liches use Kaos to change reality to their whims. All fear the time the Well Liches master the summoning and binding of Hypogean heralds or their spawn, the daemons. Many attempt it but claim “the world is not right for this sorcery” as an excuse for their devastating failures.

Certain Well Liches fit the image of sorcerous overlords, but others prefer the role of blessed warrior kings and queens, devious planners whose schemes span generations, or charismatic rulers. Most Well Liches are a bit of each and even more, their prowess combined with the experience of countless mortal lifetimes.

The exact number of Well Liches inhabiting the World Below remains a mystery. Some show more enthusiasm than others whenever it comes time to address Well Keepers, thus becoming the most notorious faces of their species, while a few have either interests or entertainments leading them to travel to wellward settlements on a regular basis. Most, however, rarely mingle with mortals. An encounter with a Well Lich leaves ordinary people shaken.

The sorcerous monarchs form an omnipotent covenant whose sole purpose is to preserve their rulership. Most liches have known each other for countless years, the web of their in-trigues, grudges, and romances enough to fill entire libraries, but in the end, all agree Kaos belongs to them and nobody else.

Every protean sorcery Kaosists wield, each miracle settlements rely on to survive, only happens because Well Liches are generous enough to let some of their blessings trickle upward, an act of semidivine generosity none should ever forget.

Wyrmsects are fierce creatures endowed with powerful wings and lethal breath. Unlike dragons, wyrmsects show no shade of intellect, at least not one humanoids can relate to, because the buzzing scream of the hive mind guides their thoughts. They draw power from neither nature nor Kaos, only from their sheer biological superiority: a wyrmsect’s breath is a corrosive spray of acid filled with vicious parasites, not a miraculous demonstration of elemental mastery.

Wyrmsects only appear in massive hives, though it remains to be determined if lesser bugs gather in their presence or if instincts tell wyrmsects where to find a fitting home. Driven by their primal imperative to lead the invertebrate pushback against intrusions in their territory, wyrmsects devour, destroy, and slaughter until they feel content with the borders of their kingdom, if only for the time being.

Yaggyakh claim to have reached the World Below through a Kaos portal, but they adapted to life underground remarkably well. The sentient fungi find the World Below a fitting home despite other intelligent beings curbing its potential.

Yaggyakh wouldn’t hesitate a moment to murder everyone else, taking over the tunnels for the glory of their civilization. Unfortunately for them, the Well Liches’ control over Kaos, rival forces, and the necessity to build a society from scratch after being stranded here keep the yaggyakh conquest dream in check.

Meanwhile, yaggyakh bide their time, pretending to be reasonable neighbors and offering their scientific expertise to those willing to pay their price. The klo’tha, whom yaggyakh recognize as kindred spirits, are particularly appreciative of the yaggyakh surgical skills, but both sides have no intention whatsoever of maintaining a stable alliance.

The zenshu, also known as “flesh weavers,” are a strange compact of creatures whose aspect resembles a hybrid of humanoid and spider, if that hybrid was made of scarred, sanguinolent tissue. Despite their frightening looks — which their ornate masks barely improve — the zenshu never attack unless provoked, happy to perform their art on whoever agrees to pay their price.

Each zenshu is a master of the art of flesh manipulation, using their many hands like Kaos-imbued scalpels to cut, sew, and reshape living bodies with uncanny yet beautiful precision. Whenever news of a nearby zenshu travels, people struggling against the limitations of their form follow the trail of visceral masterworks to have their wishes granted. The spidery artists never refuse a job: features, ores, and even memories can do little against their splendid skills. Zenshu ask little in exchange: a recollection of a distant event, a trinket, a lump of material discarded from their canvas. Their motives are unknown, but few in the World Below question a generous price.

The zenshu, also known as “flesh weavers,” are a strange compact of creatures whose aspect resembles a hybrid of humanoid and spider, if that hybrid was made of scarred, sanguinolent tissue. Despite their frightening looks — which their ornate masks barely improve — the zenshu never attack unless provoked, happy to perform their art on whoever agrees to pay their price.

Each zenshu is a master of the art of flesh manipulation, using their many hands like Kaos-imbued scalpels to cut, sew, and reshape living bodies with uncanny yet beautiful precision. Whenever news of a nearby zenshu travels, people struggling against the limitations of their form follow the trail of visceral masterworks to have their wishes granted. The spidery artists never refuse a job: features, ores, and even memories can do little against their splendid skills. Zenshu ask little in exchange: a recollection of a distant event, a trinket, a lump of material discarded from their canvas. Their motives are unknown, but few in the World Below question a generous price.

An arachniida subspecies native to Longdeep, stingtails ha- bitually feast on plants and fungi, but won’t refuse any other meal they manage to put their pincers on.

The zenshu, also known as “flesh weavers,” are a strange compact of creatures whose aspect resembles a hybrid of humanoid and spider, if that hybrid was made of scarred, sanguinolent tissue. Despite their frightening looks — which their ornate masks barely improve — the zenshu never attack unless provoked, happy to perform their art on whoever agrees to pay their price.

Each zenshu is a master of the art of flesh manipulation, using their many hands like Kaos-imbued scalpels to cut, sew, and reshape living bodies with uncanny yet beautiful precision. Whenever news of a nearby zenshu travels, people struggling against the limitations of their form follow the trail of visceral masterworks to have their wishes granted. The spidery artists never refuse a job: features, ores, and even memories can do little against their splendid skills. Zenshu ask little in exchange: a recollection of a distant event, a trinket, a lump of material discarded from their canvas. Their motives are unknown, but few in the World Below question a generous price.

Furundin’s spawn is a species of bloated and fanged worms far cleverer than their bestial appearance suggests. They’re big enough to swallow unfortunate explorers.