The Hellscape Handbook

[HollowWorld]

The Hellscape Handbook​

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Landscapes
Chapter 2: Geology, Flora & Fauna
Chapter 3: Vessels
Chapter 4: Infernal Tongue

 

[HollowWorld]

{art credit}

Hellish Landscape
The lands of the Hellscape can overlap and pieces of one can be found in the other.
Each can stand alone in this realm.​

Underplains ||
The vast netherrack caverns and Crimson seas encompass the majority of the Nether. The fungi are sparse but the creatures are always out in the open, hunting and hungry. The heat of the land tends to be cooler in the darker cavern hangings. Near the coastlines, it becomes far more suffocating. Glowstone and shroomlights help light the way for many wandering souls. Further underground, minerals of metals and gems can be found after an arduous effort of searching. Any attempts at settling, or establishing mines, here from the Alteran realm have resulted in abandonment or disappearances. Short and quick travels prove more doable. The land remains a risky place to explore.

Valley of the Fallen ||
Sections of the realm are more prominently full of souls of those who have died in the Nether, trapped beneath the realm’s corrupted barriers that prevent them from passing on normally. Many who are entrapped have failed their contracts with higher fiendish beings or have met untimely ends, often out of the purview of the gods. A few of the known supernatural kinds recorded in Altera are also here- warped and bound by other otherworldly means. These lands tend to be full of dark sands and hills, with the occasional bone or corpse mounds beneath.

Redwood Fields ||
One of the more prominent locations in the Nether, Infested trees clustered together create pockets of Redwood Fields full of growing crimson fungi and weeping vines. The more wild Underlins and Boars hunt around these parts, looking to poach from each other or seek wandering hellish beasts to bring down. The noticeable feature of these fields is that the fungi are ever expanding their borders.

Distorted Gardens ||
These gardens are an unnatural part of the Nether, for they represent a close to habitable area for mortal folk. The foliage of dark green tends to be cooler, but still warped in nature as it twists and winds around the landscape. The area is prone to attract lesser fiends, imps, and long striders. The occasional cluster of Underlins also manage to build cavernous huts around here. Infested trees with warped stems grow around here in similar fashion to the Redwoods.

Ancient Fortresses ||
Dark and deep-red broken fortresses scatter around the far reaches of the Hellscape. They carry most of the capabilities a true castle in the mortal realm would have: Drawbridges, guard houses, towers and the occasional Nether Vessel. Built upon the backs of old mortal slaves, the greater Fiends of the land rose these fortresses in honor of their fallen Queen. Alterans of now have rarely encountered one in their explorations, believing the minions of Grief vanished. But they still stand, some untouched, waiting to continue their corrupted purposes.

Phenomena ||
tbd

Credit: Solus​

 

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]| Geology |[​

Netherrack - Akin to the dirt in how common it can be found, it is the material that makes up most of the lands in the Nether. Blood-red and sticky in texture, it is easy if not uncomfortable to gather and shape Netherrack.

Nylium - When Netherrack is infected by Shroomlight it is known to take on a colour reflecting its strand; warped being blue and crimson being red. Sometimes, this Nylium takes on growths similar to small rootstocks protruding from the ground.

Netherbrick - Taking Netherrack and treating it as one would clay, by shaping it and baking it, Netherbrick would be the result, though it maintains its blood-red color. A staple in architecture for Grief’s now abandoned Fortresses across the many Netherworlds that Alterans have visited.

Blackstone - An equivalent to the rock and stone of Altera; this blackened stone’s only difference is its colour. It is native to this new Nether and is entirely unremarkable and common enough that it loses any sense of uniqueness. It can be found in the various structures across this new Netherscape.

Glowstone - Bearing a fragile crystalline form, Glowstone is a common source of light within the Nether. Warm to the touch, it is easy to manipulate or shatter Glowstone. It is theorised that the growth of Glowstone in the Nethers correlates with the process that corrupts a once bountiful land into a savage hellscape.

Soul Sand - Another common aspect of the Nether’s terrain, Soul Sand bears one of the only sources of naturally occurring water. Due to this, walking across it feels like walking across mud after a harsh and heavy storm. One can find themselves sinking a few inches into the ground, but never to a point where they are truly stuck.

Soul Soil - Unlike the muddier equivalent, Soul Soil is much drier, similar in consistency to dirt. Specks of shroomlight can usually be seen within Soul Soil, having it glimmer within the dark.

Shroomlight - Throughout the Nether, visible and not, there is an encroaching growth of a glowing blue fungus. It is foreign and like no other fungus on Altera. Similar in luminescence to Glowstone, but fungal in nature. It crumbles and spreads throughout the Nether to the point of its spores being harmlessly present within the air. When crushed into powder and paste, it can be used as a fuel for fire and it gives off a blue flame due to the high shroomlight content within.

Crying Obsidian - Similar to the glassy obsidian of Altera, this variant is known to glow from its vein-like cracks in which the Shroomlight fungus has nestled itself. As the fungus matures, it weeps to procreate and is carried off to grow elsewhere.

]| Flora |[
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Infested Tree - These fungal growths have the appearance of large trees and are native and entirely unprecedented in explored Nethers. They are often found in large forests and grow in close ranks of twisted and gnarled stems towering overhead.

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Crimson Stems - Both the trunk and branches of this type of tree appear to be entirely carved as bones and skulls, as if imprinted with the souls of those that died beneath them. The fungus attached to these trees bear a vibrant red color, each boney branch independent of the other to make up the massive fungus.​

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Warped Stems - More like a normal tree compared to the Crimson counterpart, Warped Stems appear to be encased entirely in a web-like structure that crumbles under heavy force.​

Infested Fungi Spores- A vibrant fungi-weed that clusters in short length stock sizes, like grass. Upon its ends are round bubbles that appear spore-like. It clings to all living matters alike, growing in dark or warm areas. They grow slowly and might cling to non-living matter a little more. But they can be removed if not deep set within its roots. These fungal growths act as saplings to the larger infested trees. They are often found on the forest floor and are sometimes known to let out a burst of spores before they continue their growth into a larger tree. They, much like other fungi in the Nether, follow the same coloration of the crimson and warped fungi, depending on what their origins are.

Fungal Vines - Fungal growths that can bear the heavy load of a single heavily armored individual. They have come to form naturally in two
different variants but both give off a harmless puff of their spores whenever they are grasped to further procreate and grow elsewhere.

Weeping Vines - The Crimson variant is the more fragile of the two vines, capable of only growing vertically downwards and clinging to various​

cavern ceilings and walls within the Nether. Some portions of the vine find themselves to be extremely thin, before growing outwards once more,​

giving the effect of red or orange tears hanging independently from the vine.​

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Twisting Vines - The Warped counterpart, these vines are capable of growing in nearly any condition as long as they are planted in the ground. A​

thick central vine with small offshoots all along it, these vines are very easy to climb, forming a perfect equivalent to a naturally occurring,​

spiraling, ladder.​

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Crimsonwort - Crimsonwort is a small, sprouting growth, blood-red in color with shades of black making an appearance too. It glows with a gentle crimson hue, adding to its already mysterious appearance, and is spongy to the touch. It lacks both flavor and aroma, but consuming Crimsonwort in any form leads to nausea and sickness; mild food poisoning.

]| Fauna |[​

Insects - Various insects bare some similiarities to Altera and overlap in this realm. Such as red-ants, arachnids, fireflies, beetles, mosquitoes, and beetles.

{Hellborn} - Details of beings and creatures in this Realm.

Credit:
BoredBrit Luam
Edits by Solus​

 

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Nether Vessels​

Long ago, Netherships & Nether Siege Engines were known as Grief’s vessels and used in her wars by her many minions from the hellscape. They were forms of traveling to certain walks of this other world. Made of netherstone or metal: hellmetal, netherbrick, and blackstone -were all viable material to forge these vessels to help insulate the inside from the heat of the land. Some curved at the bottom, while others were shaped like cylinders with the front shape pointed, or of a battering ram, and stone legs.

What makes these ships and engines special were their ability to drift over terrain and lava, making them valuable to move armies from one place riddled with rifts to another. It is rumored that old magic and enchantments allowed it to hold weight and move- magic that is lost to time and memory, reforged and created anew. They were fueled by both those old wielders of magic and the connection they made with these vessels. Remnants of these Nether Vessels still remain, broken, scattered and ruined around the Nether Hellscape.

Credit: Solus​

 

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Infernal Tongue ​

Infernal beings, those of Fiendish nature- possessed or created- can speak and write a Fiend's tongue to communicate with those of their kind. It sounds like a guttural, demonic sound, when heard by others. Oftentimes, a possessed person is compelled to speak this way by the soul inside them. Those Infernal can write and understand the tongue in its written and verbal form, but the nature of the tongue is to shield communication from the ‘surface beings’, as they call them. Thus, some of the Infernal tongue by greater Fiends can be more warped and unreadable even amongst their kind- often understood in sparse words or sentences. The spoken form is represented by <Infernal: ...>. The written form is written in a series of scratched, rough, symbols and glyphs.

Those familiar with demons of old will not recognize it as the old vile language, but can sense the corrupted tongue by the familiar guttural tones. The tongue cannot be taught, written or understood by non-Infernals, in these current times.

Credit: Solus​

 

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]| History |[ ​

The Nether. The Hellscape. The Underdark. Over the centuries, this realm has been named differently between every new culture and old.

This foreign realm was first inhabited by sentient fungi that began to grow and take over networks of land within the rocky landscape. Within the world, the fungus split into two separate strands that were in a constant natural conflict with one another; warped and crimson. Warped fungus is the closest thing to the pre-corruption fungal growths of this world while crimson fungus is the more corrupted variant, said to be stained by the blood of mortals when they were first thrust upon this hell. The world is full of heat from the Crimson Seas and high and large caverns that wind and weave as large as mountains. The air tends to be either thick with an eerie brown and gray mist. Or if there’s enough space within one pocket cavern- one can see a red atmosphere. There are no skies upon this world and no sunlight shines down- it is completely encompassed within land upon the outer shell and heat within the center layer, making it difficult for any to find it habitable. According to scholarly records, the realm itself is vast and has seen no end. The landscape often alters as it falls apart and breaks into the lava pits below, then raises anew as the fungi grow more woodlands and footholds.

As the Corruption seeped into the world, Queen Grief came down upon the realm and crowned it her Kingdom. This Queen of Corruption rose armies, Fiends and destruction in her wake. Her followers built pillars and fortresses in her name, ruling them to take over lesser demons and lure mortals into the world, or bind to contracts to enslave for their bidding. Many died upon this realm, their souls bound to the landscape in torment and never able to be released. She then wrought rifts and wars upon the mortal realms of Altera throughout thousands of years and once she was finally defeated, her minions fell one-by-one.

Now in the present- she has become a name of fairy tales.

They say, however, that a few of her followers scattered to the far reaches of the Underworld, ready to rebuild again once their Queen returns. For no other could lead them as she could. Strongholds of old still remain, holding remnants of history and have dragged themselves into the present as they become uncovered. Somehow, a few have become emboldened enough for mortals to stumble upon as they trek within the caverns. Dangers will always await within this Hellscape.