Umberdeep

Burrowed Cradle of the Uroxi

Beneath ten thousand tons of silence, where the weight of the world presses down like the grip of a god, there lies Umberdeep—the sacred subterranean city of the Uroxi. More than just shelter, it is a memory carved into stone and root, a living monument to survival, unity, and stubborn defiance.

The city spirals out across the interior of a massive cavern, its walls honeycombed with rounded burrow-homes dug directly into stone softened by generations of effort. No Uroxi builds alone. Every tunnel was clawed, crushed, and sung into being with the aid of neighbors, kin, or rival—that's just how Hollow Law works. If you want space, you better be willing to earn it... or fight for it.

Each level of the cavern is connected by bridges of woven root and stone, suspended above streams that shimmer with fungal phosphorescence and slow-glowing minerals. Amber lanterns flicker at every doorway, fed not by flame but by domesticated Glowspore Galls—a bioluminescent fungus harvested in the lower farming chambers. In deeper tunnels, blue-green light pulses gently from clustered Resocryst blooms, a nod to the Uroxi’s bond with underground resonance.

At the heart of the city lies the Corefold, a vast central chasm ringed by clan halls, council dens, and the Spiral Arena, where the Hornturn Trials are held. Here, young Uroxi prove they are ready to take their adult names by facing the echo of the city itself—a battle within a shifting labyrinth of tunnels meant to disorient, test, and temper.

Umberdeep is led not by kings or warlords, but by the Spinekeeper Circle, a collection of elder warriors and lorecarvers who speak with the authority of those who remember when the sky first cracked. They wear robes stitched with root-fibers and armor etched with family spirals, each line denoting a victory, a loss, or a lesson shouted too loudly in a cave where echoes never die.

Despite its formidable appearance, Umberdeep is a communal place. Burrow-front hearths are often shared, disputes settled with ritual grapples rather than drawn blades, and food—thick root stews, crisped lichen-bread, the occasional roast cave-goat—is passed down long tables with more grunting than grace.

Still, it’s no sanctuary for the soft. The earth here remembers tremors. And so do the Uroxi.

Known Features

• Spiral Arena – Home to the Hornturn Trials. Echoes never leave here; they just wait.
• The Corefold – The central chasm that acts as a social, spiritual, and martial hub.
• Glowroot Walks – Suspended tunnels grown from living vines and hardened clay.
• The Crystfarms – Lower chambers farmed for luminescent fungi, moss, and crystal-fed soil.

Notable Lore

• Umberdeep is believed to have been founded not long after the Collapse, when the surface above fractured and bled light down into the underdeeps.
• According to Uroxi myth, the cavern was discovered by Gharr the Solehorn, a hermit-warrior who followed the resonance of a broken spear into the stone and emerged into the hollow days later with glowing eyes and a map made of bone.

To live in Umberdeep is not to hide from the world, but to live where the world cannot reach you.