Help fund the development and printing of Squeaks in the Deep, a Realms of Pugmire sourcebook, for fans and retail distribution
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For many dogs, cats, and critters of all kinds, downward consideration stops at their feet. Yet whole worlds teem below the realms of Pugmire and the monarchies. Past the initial warren tunnels, caverns, and subterranean settlements, things only get weirder. Welcome to the Underneath.
Presented here is a massive dungeon (what many players call a large, underground adventure) for Guides to take their players through. The Underneath is modular, and its nature is expressed just as much by what is not shown as by what is. Although rodents take exception to the term “dungeon,” it’s not uncommon for dogs, cats, lizards, badgers, and birds to hyperbolize the Underneath as such. We use the term occasionally to distinguish the Underneath from other above-ground adventures in the Realms of Pugmire.
This section provides Guides with locations and set pieces, all which float in the nebulous labyrinth that is the Underneath. The tunnels and passages that connect these locations, however, are not mapped out. This emphasizes the maze-like nature of the Underneath. Guides may take the given set pieces and assemble them as they will, even adding their own connective pieces if they so desire. Each Guide’s version of the Underneath is unique.
It is difficult to orient oneself underground, particularly when traveling through ancient tunnels demolished, rebuilt, and shifted by tectonic shifts of the ages. However, there’s more to it in the Underneath. The ambient psionic energies of the place make some tunnels seem like hazy, dreamlike, liminal places. Many travelers have lost themselves in this mind fog. It dulls one’s sense of direction, bends reality, and whispers bad advice.
Successfully navigating the Underneath has as much to do with intuition and psychic fortitude as it has to do with spatial awareness. Surface dwellers make all checks to navigate and related tasks (such as using the Survive skill) at a disadvantage. Rodents, even those born above ground, ignore this penalty.
The vague, fluid nature of the tunnels ensures that Guides do not need a massive map to keep track of every single twisty tunnel or creepy cul-de-sac. The major locations below are mapped and detailed, while the connecting passages are purposefully not. The Guide may plant suggestions of the in-between spaces in the shifting soil of the players’ imaginations. Players should feel faintly relieved to once again step into a proper map, and get a thrilling sense of stepping into the unknown when they again leave a grid of five-foot squares behind.
This is also the time to let characters with expertise in navigating the Underneath shine. Moving through the underground (even gathering food and water there) is a vital skill. In the spaces between, such characters come into their own, every bit as vital to the adventuring party’s survival and success as the mightiest axe-swinger or cleverest spell-slinger.
When describing the twists, turns, and crawly cracks of the tunnels, the Guide should stress the surreal and weird atmosphere. It’s hard to judge the flow of time down below, both from the lack of celestial light and from the befuddling mind fog. Characters cannot fully trust their senses in those passageways. Describe to them their sensations of the claustrophobia in the dark. Draw out the spooky and moments of dreamlike beauty.
Above all, have fun taking in these phantasmal interludes between the major set pieces of your adventures in the Underneath.
The tunnels of the Underneath can serve as a conveyance to the next major location, but they can also serve as their own set of encounters. They also make great quiet moments for roleplaying and character contemplation, all while soaking in the weird ambiance. Some possible passageway encounters appear here.
Not every tunnel needs enemies or traps. Many should be empty. The quality of the tunnel and its features can be memorable enough. Alternatively, these tunnels can serve to flavor other encounters. Here is a sampling of passageways — you can either roll 1d12, pick one you like, or use them as inspiration to create your own.
table
Now we're starting to see how The Underneath presents itself as a type of dungeoncrawl for Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau. If you like charts and pieces to put together to build your own shifting environment, you're gonna love this chapter!
Tune in on Tuesday for the next Backers-only download. And if you haven't joined in yet, you'll be able to read the entire draft manuscript before the campaign ends (and funds are collected) by pledging now!
So join our rat patrol and let's explore The Underneath together!
Hey there Squeaky Toys,
We're racing through Stretch Goals like we're in a Fast and the Furriest movie! Let's look at our latest accomplishments...
CongRATulations everyone! For our next Stretch Goal, let's see what happens when we mash those two together?
That's right! Eddy and team will take the new locations and setting that gets built for the Underground supplement and add another wave of VTT map support featuring those new areas. Since every session I've played in the past 18 months has been online, I'm loving these VTT support rewards!
And then we'll look at something different...
An Onyx Path staple, Ready-Made Characters for this game. These will be perfect characters to dive right into a game at any time, or serve as amazing examples and inspiration.
We've got less than two weeks to go in our campaign, so please continue to spread the word in your social circles and on your social media! All backers will be able to read Chapter 6 - all about The Underneath - on Tuesday, and will have access to every section of the draft manuscript before we finish! So join our group if you haven't already and let's see if we can't get some more underground goodies on our rewards list!
Far below the teeming city streets, deep in the burrows of the earth, sits the ancestral homeland of mice and rats. Although many rodents choose to live above-ground, each one knows in their bones that tunnels, caverns, and subterranean passageways have been their home since time immemorial.
Ask any rodent how much of their population still dwells in the Underneath, and you get a different answer from everyone you ask. Some will tell you the tunnels are empty, having been long-since abandoned. Others tell tall tales of bustling cities home to thousands of warrens. In truth, most rodents who were born above ground have had little reason to journey below ground — although it is common for elders to whisper to their young wards of the many secret entrances that lead them back to the Underneath, should they ever need to take refuge within it.
How big is the Underneath? Not even the rodents who live in the vast depths know for certain. There are thought to be anywhere from twenty to a hundred rodent settlements in the Underneath, some of vast size to rival any on the surface — and some, it is said, which were built by something far older than rodent hands. And yet, these habitats make up but a tiny fraction of the Underneath as a whole.
For the rodents who live in the Underneath, the massive interconnecting network of tunnels is bustling and complex, but not confusing. Like any city street in the aboveground, the tunnels that comprise the Underneath’s passages function like roads. Strangers to the Underneath notice, however, these roads work in three dimensions — tunnels burrow not only left and right, but upwards and deeper down as well. Those new to the Underneath are confused that the area is divided across multiple levels, but it’s intuitive to the rodents who live in the Underneath.
The rats and mice who make the tunnels their home think of it like a regional map. One warren, for example, might be deeper than another, like how one village on the surface might be coastal or mountainous. Rodents who live in the tunnels are used to navigating on a vertical axis and clambering quickly up or down a steep tunnel is second nature. While it may be common for a dog to say that they are going “down to visit their relatives,” the rodents of the Underneath literally scurry down tunnels between their settlements and back up again with no difficulty.
Surface-dwellers believe the rodents who live closer to the surface world are wealthier or perhaps belong to members of the ruling class. This is also not the case — and neither is the idea that a visitor to the Underneath would be any safer from any potential dangers by staying closer to the surface.
Not even the rats and mice that live in the Underneath have a clear idea of how many warrens exist. The subterranean network is dotted with many hubs where the rodents have burrowed out their homes. Some of these are small domiciles, no larger than a farmhouse, inhabited by a single family. Others are tens or even hundreds of times that size, with occasional communities dwelling in vaulted chambers filled with inter-connecting homes.
The exact number of such warrens is a perpetual mystery. Some villages may be lost for years or even decades, completely forgotten in the network of caves. It is not uncommon for a lone mouse raised in a warren to believe their community and those closest to them are the only ones in the world. At the same time, particularly adventurous tunnel rats often stumble across warrens rumored to have vanished ages before.
This is due to the uncertainty of the tunnels themselves. It is relatively easy for a group of rodents, armed with sharp claws and quick feet, to create whole new tunnels. It is even easier for tunnels to collapse, sealing off areas and chambers forever — and sometimes entire communities along with them! As a result, rodents think of their environment as fluid. A cave that exists today might not exist tomorrow. Nothing is certain — in fact, it’s often said “if you want certainty beneath your feet, head to the aboveground.” Others simply call it the Hungry Earth. This name, although archaic, is said with fearful reverence. Ancient rodents thought the Hungry Earth was a god and made offerings to calm its anger. Today, rats and mice no longer fear it as a vengeful deity, but they are respectful of the earth around them — although it is their home, there are few who haven’t lost family members to the Hungry Earth.
For this reason, most of the rodents who live in the Underneath don’t bother with cartography. Mice who reach a certain age know their way around the local tunnels by rote memory, with many of the youngsters quickly learning which regions they should not venture into. Of course, this does little to prevent the more enterprising rodents from selling maps of their tunnels to the dogs and cats aboveground — such trinkets are seen by the rats as a crass way to earn a little extra money out of the naivety of their neighbors. Dogs and cats who rely on these maps learn they become rapidly out of date, if they were ever anything but fraudulent to begin with. The Hungry Earth does not sit still.
They say every mouse can dig a tunnel, but it takes a tunneller to dig a reliable one. The ever-present threat of the Hungry Earth hangs over all rodents like an unstable roof. Learning how to build a secure tunnel which will last for decades isn’t easy. Rash, foolhardy rodents think because they can scrape a hole out of the earth with their claws, it will be safe enough. However, the deeper that they dig, the more dangerous a haphazard construction becomes for not only the digger but their entire community.
A skilled tunneller knows how to pack soil tightly to reinforce the ground. They know how to adapt supports to maintain the roof, and they know how to reinforce the walls so even the most tightly packed side tunnels can sit side by side. In some of the larger underground areas, tunnellers have made use of bricks, shale, and mortar to create tunnels resembling the greatest castles aboveground. These are often the first impression newcomers have of the Underneath. Yet as travelers move from densely populated areas to the deeper catacombs, the tunnels grow to resemble haphazard mineshafts. This shift lets those undertaking expeditions know they are leaving the subterranean cities and entering unexplored territory — and much of the safety and security those fortifications provide comes thanks to rodents trained from a young age in the art and architecture of tunneling.
For many, this art is passed down from parent to offspring. In other regions, it is formally taught in schools that pass along these secrets to elevate all rodentkind. The difference between a skilled and unskilled tunneller is not simply in their ability to construct, but also to understand the tunnels themselves. Only a capable architect can know for sure if a particular tunnel is safe with a merely a glance or a sniff of the air.
In many parts of the Underneath, tunnellers are respected as valuable members of in their settlement’s social structure. In more densely populated areas, groups of tunnellers hold strong political sway and influence how many parts of their towns are run. However, in less densely populated areas, tunnellers are treated as an exploitable workforce, toiling for long hours to burrow out palatial homes for wealthy rodents. Discussions of tunnel worker unionization has spurred heated debate in recent years, particularly in burrows in which rats hold control over mouse populations. In many of these more traditionalist districts, there’s a belief that tunneling is “mouse’s work,” and only recently has this attitude begun to shift.
Although the cavernous chamber, subterranean hallways, and dim tunnels of the Underneath are home to countless rodents, they are not alone. Creatures dwell in the earth — some vast and scuttling, others wet and slithering. Some babble and hiss in ancient languages, others click and whirr, and many make no sound at all as they hunt.
There are more rumors, fables, and legends among the rats and mice than there are rodents themselves. Some elders eagerly claim to be veterans of a hundred battles against the scuttling ones and warn youngsters not to venture too far for fear of disturbing the souls of the dead. Others whisper of having seen spectral shapes in the tunnels — pale figures that move through walls and hunger for the flesh of newborns fresh from their nests.
In truth, most rodents in the Underneath consider the creatures they share their habitat just another environmental hazard. If there are too many scurrying monstrosities inching their way around a warren, rodents have a choice to make: fight to defend their homes or dig out new ones. Most pragmatically choose the latter. Nearly every warren in the Underneath has an elder who remembers a time when they were forced to migrate from one chamber to another. There’s no shame in moving an entire warren to another region when a new home can be tunneled out in a matter of days.
For this reason, rodents native to the tunnels love telling ghost stories. Such tales carry with them an important message or warning, such as to avoid the tunnels in the upper-left area of the warren, as it may well be the hunting ground of some large and terrible creature. Even so, the creatures that live in the Underneath are very much alive and real. Chambers that have been considered dangerous for enough time may, after some years, prove to be empty, the threat having long since wandered off to find more plentiful prey. There are several tales of a budding young mouse who ventured into a cavern and discovered messages etched on the tunnel walls forewarning of a deadly beast, only to discover a thriving town of rodents who reported that beast moved on long ago.
The one constant danger is the unstable nature of the Underneath itself. Rodents tend to dig tunnels hastily, and while some have endured since ancient times, others have not. Cave-ins and collapses are a persistent threat. Mice and rats speak mournfully of warrens devoured by the Hungry Earth.
A quick update since our last Stretch Goal check-in. Break out the cake and mice cream, because we have another achievement to celebrate!
And though we're just starting to explore The Underneath, there's plenty of room underground for even more adventure...
We're just a whisker away from adding another Stretch Goal acheesement to our list of rewards! Let's keep at it, Squeaky Toys, and finish strong in two squeaks' time!
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.