Paradisium

Paradisium, once known simply as 'The Dungeon' is the setting of the world, an underground reality often unanchored from other worlds and realities, drifting until it finds a reality to anchor to, for a time before drifting off once again. Many questions come from this behavior, many questions are yet unanswered. Paradisium itself grows, changes, perhaps it is taking and leaving behind parts as it moves.

Once theorized to be a prison for otherworldly entity with a corrupting influence highly increasing libido, Paradisium's nickname as 'The Dungeon' has stuck around as a colloquial name and punchline for an ever-growing list of jokes.

Paradisium's Structure

Paradisium is arranged in a way that is impossible to map, with impossible paths that change upon each other, caverns that can take months to cross in a straight line, and days to walk around by an outside route, the nature of the way the dungeon is connected too is uncertain. However, those who live in Paradisium have given some name and structure to their world to help if not navigate, explain where they are.

Scattered Dungeon

A name collectively given to similar features of the dungeon that otherwise would have no consistency or uniformity, these include the Unlit Passageways, Trapped Corridors, Moaning Hallways, Serpent's Road, and the scattered Kobold Dens.

Market Town

One of the largest singular caverns in Paradisium, Market Town sits in the center of the cavern, a dense city with a housing district known as Market Heights, open shopping in the Goblin Bazaar, and rumors of an active Black Market, while further from the dense center the Market Town Outskirts house an eclectic mix of out of the way buildings.

Verdant Caverns

The Verdant Caverns one of the nearest layers to the Market Town, an area ruled by the Verdant Hive, a monarchal hive of Vespids who prefer peaceful cooperation as long as their laws are not broken.

Bending Seas and Coasts

Paradisium has its own underground sea, the features of which mark a breakdown of physics, as the waters of the seas bend and twist, sailors sail up walls, or worry about the squalls when a wave overhead on the ceiling breaks raining down upon the ships, within the seas there are islands, if one knows how to navigate the seas, perhaps those at Smuggler's Cove will aid explorers.

Middle Dungeon

Areas that the denizens of Paradisium have not explored very much, they are often around the same layers of the Bending Seas, and are known to consist of the Haunted Hollows, Temple of the Faceless Gods, and Corporate Hell.

Drachen Meadows

Deeper still is another land of vibrant life, instead of dense jungles, one finds rolling hills, flowers and seaside cliffs and fields of grains, flowers and grass.

Frostveil Tundra

A land of bitter cold, frozen tundra and scattered evergreens that cling to life, nomads and settlers have found life in rare spots in the hostile environment.

Psychedelic Sands

Yet close to the bitter colds of the Frostveil Tundras is a land of endless sun, a hazy land of heat and mystique, as nomadic tribes venture the sands, thriving in their own wyas in the lands they know well.

Culture

Paradisium hosts a number of diverse cultures and societies united by their sex-positivity, which stems from the nature of the dungeon as a corrupting force. This corruption has spread to not just the fauna but also the flora. This is most evident in the Verdant Caverns, where an enormous jungle hosts a variety of plants interested in mating with sapients.

The "upside" of this corruption is that most enemies that would in any other universe kill an adventurer, instead mate with them, making rescue operations, run by the Adventurer's Guild, a regular occurrence.

Due to Paradisium's scattered nature, its societies are disconnected from each other and vary wildly not just in culture, but in the entire build up of societies. From monarchy to anarchy, everything is represented. There is no overall jurisdiction that covers the entire dungeon, and most of the time, if a denizen of the dungeon cannot protect themselves, they are at the mercy of their environment.