So there's a part in Final Fantasy 4 where you go underground and discover a dwarf kingdom in massive cavern with lava lakes. The dwarf realm has its own dwarf castle, village, dungeons, and unique animals like any above-ground world. With dungeons and NPCs just around the corner, I'd like to bring this up. now. Also this is a chance to re-visit my suggestion from earlier this year about lava tubes (active or inactive) branching from hell and also water (and maybe eventually oil) cavities underground. Red51 seemed interested in this idea of the lava tubes and admitted that with water now in place, it can be expanded on to make any other type of fluid that we want.
The original Discussion of Lava Tubes
Here is what I would like to see for underground cities:
- Lava tubes piping lava from hell to underground lava pockets and some to the surface
- Dwarves living in uderground cities (possibly in massive caverns like the ones that open up just above Hell)
- Underground wildlife that could be a source of food
- Underground water lakes and underground lava pits (in the open caverns) as a source
- Underground vegetation such as moss and mushrooms which could be a food source.
- Some kind of village architecture similar to dungeon architecture that would hint that the dungeons are build by the same race of dwarves living "under the mountain" (like in Lord of the Rings)
- Must be possible to survive exclusively under ground.
- Alternative to trees as a wood source. Perhaps giant mushrooms
And now some visual inspiration for underground worlds
Cities
- http://anndr.deviantart.com/art/Underground-city-356714492
- http://jas-tham.deviantart.com…nderground-City-263004194
- http://martanael.deviantart.co…nderground-city-200322579
The great underground city of Dn'i from the Myst Franchise. This was built around a massive underground lake:
The next one looks like a factory. Peraps harvesting the heat from Hell. I can picture this hanging from the ceiling of the hell cave in Rising World. Perhaps the bottom of some one of these massive dungeons stretching from the surface which Red51 was suggesting.
And for something more practical, let's look at real life. Simply do an image search for Derinkuyu and you'll see an impressive underground city in Turkey. It's a massive network of tunnels and rooms. No grand cavernous spaces from what I can tell however.
Note: the youtube video is from the Ancient Alien shows so it gets kinda weird and highly speculative, but the city itself is very impressive.