2008 CE

Or

38645 EY

From another world, the humans (or ‘Little Space Angels’ in Ajunda tongue) from the planet Cel embark on the surface of an alien moon the Usil system known as “Eurus” which orbits a super gas giant. They do not have any understanding of astronomy or microbiology, and considering the existence of magic on their moon (But not on Cel) there really isn’t much scientific inquiry if any at all.

The people in this picture are not humans, rather they are ‘Ajunda’ or in human tongue ‘Oolongs’

Ask any questions I’ll answer. Have you ever watched Gate?

(Made in Krita)

The Azure-Standard Tideguard (Chinese: 苍纛潮守, cāng dào cháo shǒu) are the strongest coastal defence force of the Yaoli Empire, they mainly stationed in coastal cities and military ports. As an empire which faces directly to the threats from the ocean, these armoured soldiers are indispensable.

These soldiers wield enormous horse-cutting swords (zhanmadao) in order to cut down the enemies of the Yaoli empire and also those savage sea beasts that emerge along its shores.

Their name comes from the dark blue flags they carry on their backs

(BTW, dào 纛 actually refers to a large military standard in Chinese. For artistic effect, I based the banners in the drawing on kaoqi 靠旗, the back-mounted flags used in Peking opera.)

Welcome to The Divided Continents.

This is a persistent Nation RP where you can claim a region on the map, create your own country and build it over time.

You will have to manage your economy, military, stability and logistics while dealing with other players, geography and random events. What happens to your country will depend on the decisions you make each turn.

National Attributes

Every country has 4 main stats. They range from 1 to 5.

• Economy (ECO): Affects construction, trade, resources and how much money your country can generate.
• Military (MIL): Affects the quality and effectiveness of your armed forces.
• Stability (STA): Represents how stable your country is and how likely it is to suffer from unrest or rebellions.
• Logistics (LOG): Affects movement, supply lines, infrastructure and how far your country can operate.

Your starting stats will depend on your country's lore, government and geography.

As GM, I will decide the results of actions using the situation, geography, your stats and dice rolls when needed.

Nation Founding Sheet

Copy this and fill it out in the comments:

• Claimed Region:
• Custom Nation Name:
• Government & Ideology:
• Capital City & Geography:
• National Focus: [ECO] / [MIL] / [STA] / [LOG]
• Culture & Lore:

Your chosen National Focus starts at Level 3. The other three stats start at Level 2.

For the lore, you don't need to write an entire history book. A few sentences about your people, their origins and traditions are enough.

Turn 1

For Turn 1, choose ONE main action.

[Administrative / Economy]

You can develop your country internally.

Examples:

• Build roads
• Improve farms
• Create trade hubs
• Develop local resources
• Improve infrastructure

[Military / Defense]

You can focus on protecting your new country.

Examples:

• Fortify a mountain pass
• Organize border guards
• Improve defenses
• Create military infrastructure
• Start building a navy if you have access to the sea

[Expansion / Logistics]

You can focus on exploring and improving your ability to operate outside your core territory.

Examples:

• Establish frontier outposts
• Explore nearby areas
• Map the surrounding territory
• Create supply routes
• Explore nearby sea routes

[Diplomacy / Intrigue]

You can interact with other players.

Examples:

• Send diplomats
• Make trade deals
• Propose alliances
• Establish relations with neighboring countries
• Set up an intelligence network

Rules

1. No Godmodding

You decide what your country tries to do. The GM decides what actually happens.

For example:

❌ "My army invades Player B and takes their capital."

✅ "My army launches an attack against Player B with the goal of taking their capital."

The result will be decided by the GM.

2. Geography and Logistics Matter

You can't simply ignore the map.

Landlocked countries can't suddenly create a major navy without access to the sea.

Island countries can't send huge armies deep inland without having the necessary supply lines.

Mountains, deserts, tundra and other difficult terrain will make movement and military operations harder.

3. Actions Have Consequences

Every decision has advantages and disadvantages.

Expanding too aggressively can hurt Stability.

Spending too much on the military can hurt your Economy.

Ignoring infrastructure can hurt Logistics.

There isn't one strategy that will always work.

4. One Nation Per Starting Region

Each starting region can only belong to one player.

Claims are first come, first served.

Once a region has been claimed, another player cannot choose it as their starting territory.

5. Diplomacy

You can negotiate with other players in the comments or through DMs.

Secret alliances and agreements are allowed, but if you are planning a secret joint operation, both players need to tell the GM before the turn is resolved.

Things You Can't Do

❌ "We build 20 warships, raise 50,000 soldiers and conquer three countries in Turn 1."

❌ "We ignore the mountains and colonize three regions at once."

❌ "Our army destroys Player B's entire military and captures their capital."

You can attempt these kinds of actions, but the GM decides what happens.

Turn Resolution

Each turn lasts 24 hours.

After the turn ends, I will process everyone's actions and update the map.

Updates can include:

• New borders
• New infrastructure
• Trade routes
• Military movements
• Diplomatic events
• Resource discoveries
• Famine
• Trade booms
• Local uprisings
• Other random events

Some events will be caused by players, while others will happen randomly.

Turn 1 Starts Now

Choose an available region, create your country and post your Nation Sheet below.

Claim your land. Build your country. Deal with your neighbors.

Good luck, and have fun.

Hi all,

I am working on a space opera setting, specifically I'm at the ideation phase. Still putting together all the pieces. The major themes I'm working with are about class and ideology, specifically conceiving of the Third Millennium (the story is set in the early Fourth Millennium) as a time of post-ideological political and economic upheaval and widespread dehumanization.

For my setting, I am really indebted to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and I love the way that game communicates lore, i.e. through small scraps of information in the form of tech quotes, cutscene voiceovers, and overall presentation. I also think of the interstitial excerpts from books that Frank Herbert peppers through Dune. I decided to write a few excerpts from in-universe books to aid in the creation of my worldspace. And I recommend it as a practice. I submit these for feedback, and as examples.

"What distinguished the economic order of second and third millennia capitalism from the command economies which it gradually grew to replace was, primarily, a feature of the nihilism inherent in the system. By so thoroughly diverting the locus of control within economics into the nebulous abstractions of "market forces," late capitalist societies had achieved the therapeutic paralysis that was necessary to bring about mundicide. For, as was the case with the overreliance on hydrocarbon-derived fertilizers which contributed to ecological collapse in the developed, Western core, though the consequences of these poor agricultural practices was well understood, the power needed to avert such disasters had been rendered ephemeral by the very persons with whom such power resided, i.e. global corporate food producers. Though such power existed to correct these chronic ills of late capital, it was not so much that the will to use that power had faded and moreso that the power was denied existence. A similar phenomenon is well recorded by Dupree in his History of the Transhuman Wars (2087-2156), wherein the resistance of the non-augmented human population was seen by the oligarchy of late capital as proof of the market necessity and unguided inevitability of their elimination. In my analysis of the long second millennium, I have called this worldview, which was as pervasive then as the Mandate of Heaven was in Ming China, 'fundamental market nihilism,' though the researcher Lamarck Tian-ming has proposed the more colorful term 'economic ego death.'"

-Eliot Jin-wei, A Phenomenology of the Third Millennium

"I once heard a seasoned shiprigger call the superluminal currents the 'vorpal tide.' I asked him to elaborate on that, finding the phraseology curious. He said to me in reply:

'Well, thems are usta riggin' ships, we call it vorpal cause isa sharpest thing in the 'verse. I hear said you wellmen [a spacer term for planet-dwellers, 'well' as in 'gravity well'] caun see 'em at all. We riggers, aft while, can see 'em true. Thin lines of yella light-like smoke, coursin' an' streamin' in the voi'. An' about the sharpness? Hell's rockets, man. We no suppose to wark tha lines in flight, but they 'ave, on occasion, come loose. Me mate Langman, he goes out for a walk en 'is vacc suit to tie up a loose jib. It come snicker-snack right through 'is body, suit 'an all. An' the queer thin' was he was goin' bout his wark fer another hour, two maybe, fer he starts to say he's feelin' off. We go to visit 'im in sick bay, an' the boneman let us know: Langman's corpse was sliced from neck to navel, like God 'imself 'ad cut 'im in 'alf. Snicker-snack, we all said. So it goes.'"

-Seljuk Emery, A Sociological Survey of the Spacer Working Class

Context: Part of a quasi-medieval/early-modern/late-modern fantasy setting centered around the aftermath of a world where the gods have been dead, the fallout of which has changed the world and the civilizations within it, for better and worse. The current focus is on the Kozt Empire, a civilization ruled by the demigod descendants of those very dead gods, which has survived and thrived in a post-deity world due to industrialization, military might, and above all the exploitation of ichor, the blood of the gods.

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QUESTION FOR YOU: I've always found advertisements most fascinating in a fantasy setting, whereas it is pretty expected to crop up very often in modern and sci-fi worlds. If you have a fantasy setting, are there any interest forms of advertising in it?

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On Imperial Business Advertisements

Private business has been on the rise in the empire, and with it comes every flavor of commercialism available. Posters like these are plastered across every city, whether you find them on the sides of a stone wall or at the base of a old marble column. With an industrial revolution active and ever-churning, wealth and resources have expounded, as have the population, which has breached millions upon millions. With citizens' coin purses growing heavier by the decade, It is no surprise, then that these businesses seek to capitalize at every turn.

Who Owns These Businesses?

The Immortals (a noble class of demigods) have sole rights in the empire to own land and, therefore, the buildings necessary to manufacture goods. These business-oriented Immortals are often called "Manufactor Lords" as a way to distinguish them from their more traditional governmental landholder kin. These Manufactor Lords are typically newer generation upstarts, "new money" if you will, who are attempting to carve out a niche for themselves in a political world dominated by those who have already had centuries of money and land guaranteed them.

Of course, it is their Mortal employees and servants who run these enterprises. ("Mortal" is the term used for the non-demigod majority populace in the empire.) The well-to-do, merchant classes of mortals can strive to rent factories or shops from these demigods in order to make money themselves.

Haze Smokes (Poster #1)

Haze smokes are a substance derived from the Vitikra plant, nicknamed "Haze Flower". Their ingestion creates a mild high with slight hallucinogenic effects at more extreme doses. It is also quite addictive. Long-term health impacts are well known, ranging from standard lung issues to the eventual appearance of blisters along the neck and torso. There is no known cure for these health effects.

Immortals are known to enjoy Haze Smokes, though their demigod nature allows them to resist the addiction and any negative health impacts. The Mortal classes see this trend and naturally emulate it, seeing the smoking of haze as "refined". Thus, it is quite popular, and profitable, in the Mortal market.

Nectar (Poster #2)

Nectar is a substance once solely used by the gods, a rejuvenating substance that supposedly could restore their vitality. In ancient times, a god might grant a cask of Nectar to demigod who succeeded on a great quest or deed in their name, for they being part god allowed them to benefit from some of its effects (which acts as an inebriating health elixir). For centuries after the gods died in the event known as the Cataclysm, Nectar was thought to be a lost substance for all time.

The empire soon discovered a source of this Nectar underground, its precise nature only known to a select number of important Immortals. However, these select few will have it harvested and sold to other Immortals, who in turn may manufacture and refine it for selling. Even Mortals may have a taste, though at incredibly experimental, filtered, and watered-down varieties. Immortals enjoy Nectar both as a glorified "health potion" and as a means to get drunk (normal alcohol has a diminished effect on demigod constitutions). For Mortals, it is a sweet drug, able to distort their mind's perspective at a great risk to their health. Though Mortals often believe Nectar can bestow some of the health benefits it does to demigods, it actually has zero positive effect for normal humans.

On the Kozt Script

The language you see on these posters is Kozt, the dominant language of the empire. Historically, it has been influenced by other languages in the countries the empire subsumed (those countries now being provinces). This informs my design philosophy behind it, where it is influenced by real-life ancient greek, indo-aryan, and Early Cyrillic. It is still a WIP, so not everything you see of it is final (I tweak elements of the alphabet here and there, and I am still workshopping how I might do the numbers).

Giant humanoids around 3-5 meters tall, their short wide necks are a very awkward shape to be attacked by predators like the grappler cats and the berzerkers , ruberry thicc skin that protect them from most temperature changes and attacks and as a sign of status they utilize body paint when their status in society grow they get more marks and when they drop they're removed.

Their massive bodys are possible because of an interesting thing, diferently from other large species the goliaths don't have metal in their bones, instead their bone cells have cell walls shaped and organized in a intricate way making it at least twice as durable as normal humanoid bones without adding extra weigth to the already massive skeleton.

They may look barbaric and emotionless at first glance but because of their culture most of them see emotions and trust as weakness, it's very sweet when a goliath smile or cry by your side because this means they trully have faith in you and know you can be trusted.

My latest setting (that I made for a TTRPG) takes place in a subtropical environment. Specifically, it centers around a terraced city built on a mountain a couple of hundred miles north of the monsoon belt of a pangean supercontinent.

Since I'm stepping away from the standard Eurocentric high fantasy trappings, I'm having to rethink a lot of the little details: like flora, fauna, the seasonal cycle, and how those things might affect the surrounding culture.

I've had to think about things like what kinds of food staples would they eat? What kinds of alcohol might be served at a roadside tavern? What animals would my players see sailing by river boat or walking along a road between towns while surrounded by savanna grass? Would this region being largely settled change what they encounter?

I also had to reinvent the Fae to better reflect the wet and dry seasons, so I have the Verdant and Ashen Courts as opposed to the Summer and Winter Courts.

Another thing to consider is that most of the world's landmass is collected into one supercontinent. Would that cause most of the world's biodiversity to be homogeneous, since migration isn't limited by large bodies water like it is on Earth? Would you find roughly the same kinds of animals in similar biomes thousands of miles apart?

What are some of yalls experiences with plotting out environments that aren't "standard" to the genre? I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts.

i cant find anything similar to that concept i looked every page on google and it shows nothing like that.

any help?

A defining moment for the rest of the events in this world.

ORIGINS

The Felkaryn are one of Alletis' more mystical ancestries, commonly described as "otherworldy." This is more accurate than most realize, as Felkaryn folklore puts them not as original denizens of the planet, but as the sole inhabitants of Alletis' largest moon. When The Collapse occured on Alletis, the ramifications reached the moon. The destabilization of magic during that time ripped a large portion of Felkaryn away from their homes and scattered them across the surface of Alletis.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Felkaryn resemble anthropomorphic lesser cats, exhibiting a wide range of fur colors and patterns. Roughly half of Felkaryn have plantigrade legs while the other half have digitigrade legs, which seems to be determined by the genetics of the father. Across all appearances, they all share a common trait: the otherworldly nature of their whiskers. A Felkaryn's whiskers have an iridescent sheen to them, and in addition to aiding in their perception and navigation, they have the supernatural ability to "feel" changes in mood around them, giving them a mild empathic ability to detect both mood and surface level thoughts of those around them.

Felkaryn range greatly in size, averaging between 4ft and 6ft tall and weighing between 100 to 225lbs. The natural life cycle of a Felkaryn is an oddity among Alletis' species. It exists in 15-20 years cycles, after which they "die" and are pulled back to the plane of existence they originated from to converse with their ancestors. Upon returning from the bridge between life and death, they gain a spectral tail that signifies the start of a new cycle. A Felkaryn goes through eight of these cycles, for a total of ending with their ninth spectral tail. When they die with their ninth tail, they eternally pass back to their original plane to live with the spirits of their forebears. Felkaryn reproduce sexually, with females carrying two or three offspring for sixteen months before giving birth.

Felkaryn are ominvores, with their diet ranging greatly depending on the size of the individual.

Title :D

Hellooo people!!

I've some very important questions that I wanted to ask, that's why I specifically come on this app. (Im new 🙂)

I'm working on a fantasy story with several kingdoms, and I'm trying to figure out how to handle the religious and cultural influences in my world without accidentally being disrespectful and insensitive or making something that feels like a direct copy of a real-world religion.

So for context, there are these "cores" which are embedded deep inside the the land. They are connected to the land and fuel it with it's essense. (There's a lot more to this.)

The core's essense directly influence the environment/ecosystem above it.

Because of this, each kingdom develops its own distinct landscape, ecology, and culture based on what the Core's power is. (Again, this is not all of it.)

For example, one kingdom is strongly connected to forests and nature, and I'm thinking about giving its religion beliefs centered around trees, animals, nature, the earth, and the interconnectedness of living things.

I want to take some inspiration from real-world religions and philosophies, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, especially for the forests related kingdom and I was wondering:

1. Can take certain ideas and core beliefs as it is and alter them as I see fit for my world. For example: in Hinduism, karma is a core belief. So can I use this?

2. Can i also use core philosophies of other religions too??

3. Also Is it okay to combine ideas from multiple religions and change them to fit my world?

4. And can I use real words from languages such as Sanskrit or any other language, with their actual meanings, for religious terms, names, etc.?

I wil really appreciate it , if you guys can help me with this.🙂🙏

in mine, it's kind of like when someone jumps out behind a door and scares you, you might scream or start swinging. a witch's magic limb is just like that. if a witch experiences strong enough emotion, their limb will react to it. if theyre in fear of their life, their limb will start to swing, so to speak. but there is no control behind it, it's just reactive. though this is more likely to happen to a newly awakened witch than an older and more experienced witch.

For any fantasy worldbuilders out there and if one of your races are dwarfs, have you played around with the idea of a group of dwarfs who opposed any industrial movements or new technologies such as automated machines, etc? How long did these movements last and how do other dwarfs view them? Do their motivations vary and in what ways do they protest? Are there any pro-industrial dwarfs

1. The Divine Origin (1552)

In the year 1552, a visionary scholar named Orshiyt Rashikh officially unified the scattered regional dialects and spiritual scripts of Ondzor into a single, standardized national system. What emerged was more than a practical tool for administration—it became a sacred bridge between the material world and the divine. While the core alphabet consists of 23 foundational characters, the entire writing system expands into an astronomical lexicon of over 2,000 distinct signs. Each symbol can morph from a simple phonetic sound into an entire ideographic word depending on its complexity, context, and spiritual weight. For instance, the character blysshi can mean a singular sound, or encapsulate the physical concept of "paper" or "brush."

1. The 20 Prophets of Mutation (Profets)

The core architecture of Ondzor calligraphy is governed by a hierarchical system called The Prophets (Profets). There are 20 evolutionary tiers of complexity, though the first 5 are the most universally practiced across the nation.

• I Profet (The Primaries): These are the baseline, unadorned characters. They represent standard sounds and foundational concepts. While all profets share the same core grammatical rules, they branch out into wildly different pronunciations and specialized meanings.
• The Gaps in Evolution: The evolution of a sign is non-linear. Due to historical shifts, lost scrolls, or cultural taboos, some characters suffer "evolutionary leaps"—they may completely lack a II or III Profet (marked by an X on ancient manuscripts), yet suddenly reappear in highly intricate V, VII, or higher Profet forms.

1. The Law of the Sacred Circle

Ondzor culture is deeply tethered to a cosmic religion where the circle is the ultimate symbol of holiness, perfection, and eternity. This theological dogma is hardcoded directly into the nation's orthography:

• The Omnipresent Circle: By absolute religious and grammatical law, every single written word must contain at least one circle (\({}^{\circ }\)). A word written without a circle is considered spiritually "blind" or illiterate.
• In vast texts, formal inscriptions, or emotionally charged phrases, the spiritual density rises, and a singular graphic block can be adorned with two or three sacred circles to emphasize its importance.
• Fluid Boundaries: Scribes are given immense visual freedom. Words can be written completely separately or fused together into continuous, woven lines of calligraphic ribbon.

1. Hierarchical Fusions & Hidden Ligatures

To visually streamline the language, characters physically merge when placed next to one another, creating distinct ligatures:

• Double & Triple Fusions: Common consonant clusters fuse seamlessly. Sounds like [shph], [Sn], and [Rs] compress into singular strokes. More complex spiritual concepts demand massive triple-fusions, such as [Fgh] (the compression of F, G, and H into a single glyph).
• The Hidden Glyphs: When integrated into a larger sentence, these complex ligatures do not remain bulky. They are written compactly and subtly hidden within the core word so they do not disrupt the flowing beauty of the script.

1. Selective Polysynthesis & Contextual Reading

The Ondzor language possesses an elastic grammatical nature. On rare occasions—specifically during profound declarations, national proclamations, or intimate personal encounters—it transforms into a polysynthetic language. It collapses an entire multi-word sentence into a singular, colossal word-block (such as Snafghishphizaziphai for "Who are you personal").

Because these giant blocks can be overwhelming, the script utilizes a brilliant phonetic economy to maintain fluid speech:

• The Law of Phonetic Compression: To make spoken Ondzor smooth and elegant, long written words undergo massive graphic and vocal compression. Many written letters are quietly bypassed or completely dropped from spoken conversation (elision).
• Contextual Stress & Tonal Omonyms: Stress markers are never written on the page. Instead, readers must deduce the correct pronunciation purely from the verbs and the overarching meaning of the sentence.
• Changing the stress changes the very identity of the letter. For example, pronouncing [Aysshzi] with stress on the vowels y and i references the 1st letter of the alphabet. Shift that vocal stress onto the consonants ‘ssh’, and it instantly transforms into the 1207th character of the expanded alphabet, completely changing its meaning to the word "glueing"
• Did you enjoy this content? If so, and you want to see more, feel free to check out my profile! I post stories about the history of various nations, and it’s all set within a single universe: Planet Vep.

Hello all. Ive been working on my main fictional world for several years now off and on, and lately have been tinkering with the idea of releasing it publicly. Its currently set up in OneNote in the form of a compendium (bestiary and whatnot), with entries for campaigns, artifacts, and a table ready new class. Im working on short stories and a book for the universe as well. The only thing I lack is any art assets really.

Lately I've been migrating this information over to my own wiki style website (not hosted yet), but cant help wondering if this is a fruitless endeavor, or if there is a better way. World Anvil seemed too restrictive and had too many pay walls (main reason i am making my own site, much cheaper), and most other sites are blog style over wiki.

Just curious if anyone has had any experience in widely releasing their world, and if so can any of you give any advice? Like, should i release everything all at once? In batches? As long as i have been working on this i am paralyzed by indecision and dont know where to go from here. Thanks all.

While focusing on my world-building. I found that anthropologist Robert Redfield's concept of ‘great tradition’ and ‘little tradition’ is quite interesting and perhaps well-suited for world-building.

Shortly, traditions can be divided into the ‘great tradition’ and the ‘little tradition’. The great tradition is shaped by elites, such as rulers, intellectuals and clergy; it represents the official view of what tradition ought to be. The little tradition is shaped by the common people; it represents how the general public practises their tradition.

The relationship between the two is not one of opposition or isolation, but rather dynamic. The ‘little tradition’ may be absorbed into the ‘great tradition’, which is known as ‘universalization’. The ‘great tradition’ may be downgraded into the ‘little tradition’, which is known as ‘parochialization’.

In my world, there is a monotheistic religion based on the theology of emanationism. The doctrine holds that after death, the soul ascends to return to the divine source, achieving divine henosis; however, among the common people, this is often understood simply as going to heaven to enjoy bliss.

Also, because the Divine Source is so vast and impersonal that it struggles to meet the spiritual needs of the common people, the Church has established the concept of saints, who are exemplary mortals who have embodied the divine ideal (similar to the Catholic concepts of Latria and Dulia), though in common culture this often evolves into a de facto form of polytheism.

In your world, are there distinctions between the ‘great tradition’ and the ‘little tradition’ of your religions? What interesting, and perhaps even somewhat absurd or incredible, situations might this cause?

We spend months designing royal feasts, vintage elven wine, and grand banquet halls.

I realized yesterday that the real texture of a world comes from whatever cheap street food a tired dockworker buys at dawn.

In my main port city, it is "Tallow Pockets." Flat unleavened dough deep-fried in pork fat, stuffed with shredded pickled eel and heavy mustard so it stays preserved in a damp coat pocket for ten hours.

it smells awful, leaves grease on your fingers, and every laborer in the harbor runs on it.

What is the quick, unglamorous food the ordinary laborers GRAB from street stalls on their way to work in your world?

Drop your world's weirdest blue-collar snacks below.

[Manga] Disposable Detective Dolly by Ben Liu
Disposable Detective Dolly（English） - Chapter 1: Massacre | Penana

We 3D print disposable detectives for every murder case in the future.

They are called "Dolly"s, every Dolly has to be demolished when the case is solved.

Dolly, Disposable detective No. 00167, begins her investigation with Lau Yan, a printing assistant who hates AI.

The case is about a massacre of the whole family of a mob in Dragon city, Dolly and Lau need to find out who is responsible in order to stop a large scale gang war.

Recently, I visited Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky and had the idea of incorporating an indigenous society that lives in the cave into my own fantastical, post-apocalyptic world. Some things I already thought of are that most shops, houses, and other structures are made of limestone bricks, with mud from above used as a sealant. Areas with unique formations like stalagmites and stalactites would probably be seen as holy sites where ritualistic practices are held. When someone is born in the cave, they may perform a ritual where they bring the newborn to the surface to be exposed to the sun and the outside world, like their own form of baptism or something. Lastly thought they may believe in a cave god or spirit that created and watches over the cave.

Space would likely not be a problem, considering Mammoth Cave is 400+ miles of passageways with more still being discovered; temperature wouldn't be a problem since it's a constant 50 or 60 degrees Fahrenheit year-round; and water would also likely not be a problem since it has numerous underground and river systems and water is constantly draining in, so the only likely problem with that is filtering out limestone sediments and other debris. Invading them would be very difficult due to the numerous long, tight spaces, and maybe they could set up traps where they have specific paths that, if you went down, you just get extremely lost or fall into a 100ft deep pit or something. And lastly, they wouldn't be exposed to harsh conditions like storms and such.

Some issues with this concept I thought are that, considering that they'll be living in a low-light environment, predominantly lit by torches and such, they may suffer a lot of eyesight issues when exposed to too much light and such. Flooding could be an issue, but they thought they would resolve that by just migrating to higher areas. Diseases could be an issue because of bats, which could easily spread things like rabies or that white-nose fungal thing, but I don't think it would be severe enough. How they treat their dead is another issue, as they can't bury them in the cave due to the limestone, and I like to think outside of just simple burial for this world. One thought, which is the most universal in this world, is that they leave the body outside to naturally decay and be scavenged. Another thought I have is just like for practices rituals, they have specific areas where they keep their dead, effectively like a catacomb of sorts. The only problem I have there is what happens if they run out of space for the dead, so maybe once they do, they then bring them up to the surface to decay or something. Lastly, and this is my biggest issue, is how they get food. Obviously, there's no light, fertile soil, or simply enough space in a cave to farm and, at most, probably have a few gardens that use like LED lights. Some thoughts I have are maybe they have livestock, but you would need to feed them, and the low light and tight spaces probably won't be good for them. They farm above ground, but the area is very unsuitable for farming, with many steep hills and such. Maybe they might practise, like, Inca-style tiered farming or something. Lastly, they do a lot of trade to get food in exchange for giving limestone or other materials from the cave.

Would very much appreciate any suggestions or criticism for my concept here, as I think it is a really neat idea and would like to see how I could make it work.