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The Underground, the Labyrinth that stretches between all worlds and underneath all things, is both the foundations of existence and the minotaurs maze in which all secrets are finally lost. Unexposed to the sky, the Labyrinth is as much like a map of the human brain as it is a place of its own, and some sages have questioned if it might in fact be sentient in a way Metropolis is not. For all things descend, by gravity, into the Underground. It is a subset of Time & Space.
This Lore is practiced by the Children of Ktonor and other dwellers below. (It was originally suggested by the Cults section of the KULT rulebook.)
The Sorceror opens a portal or window into the Labyrinth. In the latter case, the floor becomes transparent like glass, and in the flickering fires below can be seen the area of the Labyrinth that the Sorceror chooses. In the former case, a small flight of stairs, a trapdoor or a chute appears somewhere within the Sorcerors temple, leading down into the Labyrinth. The appearance of the entrance varies; a natural cave if the spell is cast in a rural area, a bomb shelter, perhaps, if it is cast in a military base. The entrance closes up at the end of the spell.
With this spell, the Sorceror becomes capable of effecting Time & Space to an extent within buildings, labyrinths, and caves. By envisioning areas where they want to go, they can twist and alter the passages around them so that they go where they intend, although the travel may be long and arduous. They gain something close to absolute direction -- though they realize that up, down, left, right mean nothing. The changes are not visible as actual physical modifications unless the effect is 20 or higher; otherwise everything changes behind closed doors. If the spell is failed or critically failed the Sorceror may find themselves heading towards the wrong places...or Inferno...They also gain the ability to see through darkness.
The Sorceror can also manipulate the Underground within us all; the subconscious, that untreadable maze of memory. They can cause a person to forget certain events, or (with an effect of at least 10) cause general amnesia; or they can give a person the key to memories they have forgotten, repressed, or hidden in their mind. The Sorceror may muddle the persons consciousness, leading to Split Personalities, or recombine it, reconciling the persons different selfs. The map of the mind also reveals whether any external influences or possessing creatures are acting on the person. In order for this spell to succeed on an unwilling victim the Sorceror must make an EGO roll with higher effect than the subject.
The Labyrinth is its own world of life, breathing shallowly down in the damp darkness. Creatures from the caves of our own world live there, their true forms visible beyond the Illusion; as do humans and ex-humans, and the original citizens of the Labyrinth which connects everything. Some believe the Underground itself is alive, the Corpse of the great original God whose scavengers we all are.
The following are some of the different beings, and the required effect to summon them:
| Larvae | 5 |
| Untergaenger | 5 |
| Achlytide | 10 |
| Citizen of Ktonor | 10 |
| Psilosite | 15 |
| Razide | 15 |
These are described in the KULT rulebook. 1-10 Larvae answer a summoning, appearing from an unexpected wall and eating anything in the room except the sorceror in its protective circle.
The Untergaenger are carrion feeders native to the Labyrinth. They crawl in hordes of hundreds down the passages, crawling on the walls or ceiling, for gravity is not the same for Untergaengers as for other things. They have a certain innate ability to control Time & Space and, unless their preys Mental Balance is lower than -50 or higher than +75, they are likely to find themselves running down corridors that dead-end or circle back to their pursuers...
Untergaenger are in appearance much like horseshoe crabs, but dead white. Human- or monkey-like arms and legs protrude from the front and back of their shell, making them run in a bow-legged scramble, like some Boschian fusion of two incompatible creatures. Two crabs eyes appear towards the front of their body above a rasp-like mouth. Fungus and mold sometimes grow on them, giving them a dirty but camouflaged appearance. Untergaenger are the origins of some legends of boggarts and mine-dwelling gnomes.
These are described in the KULT rulebook. Caterpillar-like people, they live slow, murmuring lives, separate from the world above.
In Ktonor, lightless underground city, dwell beings which would probably burst if exposed to sunlight, just as deep-sea jellyfish explode when brought out of the sea. The higher class of those citizens -- the temple guards and priests of Achlys -- come in respons to their mortal worshippers summons.
Citizens of Ktonor are tall (7 high), thin creatures wrapped in gray veils and cloaks, or mummy-like bandages. They move in utter silence, guiding their way by radar, sixth sense and magical intuition. Their limbs -- all that is visible outside their cloak -- do not look human, with four fingers of long, viscous gray flesh similar to the eyestalks of a snail. If their faces are seen, the Children of Ktonor prove to have blank, beaklike faces (except for a thin set of nostrils and lips), or ones similar to the snouts of star moles (gray clusters of short tendrils). They are not human.
The Children of Ktonor are more often felt than seen, for they bring darkness with them. They carry large torches of gray matter shot through with skull-like features, composed of a composite of all the buried corpses which coagulate and settle down to the Underground. The torches radiate darkness. They also possess axes and awls which are made of metals never seen on the surface, metal which ignores all armor. Ktonor is also inhabited by lost spelunkers, survivors from the London blitz, blind humans who have made the final descent, and Children of the Underworld who are changing into bats and rats in the dark. The Citizens are less threatening than these madmen, but are incomprehensible to humans. They act in unison, obeying messages thrust into their brains by the very material of the Underground itself.
These are described in the KULT rulebook. Confined to an eternal life of pain, these water-bloated, gargantuan corpses slosh slowly through the underground, responding to a summoning.
These are described in the KULT rulebook. Razides are almost as at home in the Underground as in Hell. They are wiser than they look, and make cold bargainers.
The Sorceror buries an object in the earth and lets the collected powers of the Underground change it, down in the roots, mycelium and rot. If the Sorceror also knows the Lore of Death, they can cast the spell on dead bodies and effect their souls as well as their flesh. The changes take place over a period of one month, and are only interrupted if the object is removed from the soil. If the subject is a living being or a resurrected soul, it can stop the process by making an EGO roll with a higher effect than the sorcerors skill roll (though a living being will still suffocate and die).
The spell creates a composite thing out of the regenerating powers of the earth. The Sorcerors effect determines how dramatic the change is. If the spell fails, the object merely decomposes as it normally would. If the spell effect is acceptable (1-5), the object undergoes an unexpected minor physical hange; fermenting in a novel way, turning into a living fungus, or turning into a stain in a shape which may be terrifying or meaningless. If the effect is normal (6-15), the object undergoes a major physical change; a corpse may become a corpse of a different person or a mixture of several people who were buried nearby, and then return to life...a previously empty urn or piece of pottery may be found to contain a strange item, thousands of years old. If the effect is good (16+), the object undergoes a major physical change and a spiritual change; a corpse being revived by part of the soul of Achlys...a books writing being replaced with secrets of the Labyrinth. No matter what the original object was, there is a 1 in 10 chance that the result is alive.
This spell is described in the KULT Metropolis Sourcebook. It causes an earthquake at a point in the Illusion, with a varying Richter scale level and damage amount related to the Sorcerors effect. Living people often tumble through a gap in the Illusion and into the Labyrinth as a result. The Children of the Underworld use this spell to find fresh meat, and as a form of vengeance.
A punishing spell. The Sorceror must know the victims name, and not only their location but their pattern or map of movement; i.e., the route they take to work each day, the roads they travel across, etc. Without this sort of information 10 is subtracted from the Sorcerors effect.
The Sorceror must make a spell roll with higher effect than the victims EGO roll. The spell gradually brings the person into the Underground, first in coincidental ways, but soon more shockingly. The spell takes place over a period of 7 days. They begin to notice bits of earth tracked up under their feet, the sky over them grows more and more cloudy and gray, and their cellar or basement (if they have one) or the subway (if they ride one) seems to grow bigger and deeper, with more steps leading down it each time they travel that way. A Rationalist will try to ignore the changes. Finally space itself is warped around them, and everywhere they go leads them underground. Eventually they end up in the bottom of a wooden shaft which turns out to be a grave. The grave is filled in (by the Citizens of Ktonor, who are summoned along with the spell) and the subject dies of suffocation and claustrophobia.
The only way to reverse the spell in its course is for the subject hrself to manipulate Time & Space in return, or to enter the Labyrinth willingly, in which case the spell is cancelled. If the subject for some reason will not die when imprisoned in a grave, for example being a vampire or a Child of the Night who does not need oxygen, they may be able to dig themselves out and find themselves in a churchyard in the Illusion...or in Metropolis.
The Sorceror can travel directly into the Underground, not the upper regions as with See Through the Underground, but down to the heart of the Labyrinth, to Ktonor and Achlys. Everyone has something suppressed or forgotten, and this spell opens up a dark shaft leading straight down to it. The opening appears violently within the Sorcerors Temple, shaking the floor, and remains open for the duration of the spell. Everyone present should roll for collateral damage as the general vicinity rips apart. The more important the secret, the wider the shaft is, ranging from a narrow vertical ladder (for someone ordinary) to a giant pit like the empty foundation of a skyscraper (for someone with a very Dark Secret...).
If the subject of the spell listens, vaguely familiar sounds from their past lives (and their parallel lives) can be heard from below. Descending to the bottom, either by falling or climbing, the Sorceror or subject is confronted by their own personal Depths. The Depths are images summoned up by the persons own Awakened subconscious to prevent them from dropping all the way down, to Achlys and nothingness. They enter a dark void in which matter is made from their own truths, denials, and beliefs, and where they are confronted by these truths.
This situation must be roleplayed out. Of those who make the Descent, many are thrust into the deep Labyrinth after failing to confront or accept the truth. If they accept the truth completely, they have the opportunity to drop even further downward, into Achlys (whereafter they will shortly cease ever to have existed). If they accept the truth, but do _not_ seek oblivion, they are returned to their surface world, their Mental Balance usually pushed 10-20 points away from zero in the direction of Awakening.
Sorcerors of the Underground know that the Abyss where the Demiurges palace once was greatly resembles a tremendous version of the Descent spell.
Written by Jason Thompson aka Knygathin Zhaum <jason@SONIC.NET>