Khyber
The common creation myth contends that when the Progenitor Dragons fought, Eberron trapped Khyber in her coils and became the world, imprisoning her evil sibling in a living prison. Bound within the world, Khyber spawns demons and monsters to plague the children of Eberron. This might be myth and metaphor, but it's also a description of fact: there are worlds within the world, realms inhabited by aberrations, fiends, and all manner of monsters.
Any time someone descends below the surface of the world, they enter Khyber. But the underworld takes two very different forms. First is the natural realm, networks of tunnels and caverns formed from stone and soil. These passages are dark and dangerous, but they're exactly what you expect to find in an underground realm. Such passages might be home to carrion crawlers, giant beetles, or clans of kobolds. But ultimately these mundane caverns follow the laws of nature.
There's another aspect to Khyber: go deep enough and you find a seemingly endless array of demiplanes, each stranger than the last. When descending into a chasm, you could find a labyrinth inhabited by demons or discover a realm consisting of the guts of a colossal living creature. Anything is possible in Khyber, and these "worlds within" are home to all manner of terrors.
The demiplanes of Khyber are not concretely tied to the world above. You could discover a passage in Breland that leads into a disturbing subterranean swamp filled with oozes and slimes. After traveling what seems to be a few miles, you might emerge from a different tunnel on another continent, half a world away from where you began.
The Mror Holds demonstrate this mystery. Over the past century, the dwarves discovered a vast subterranean kingdom within the Ironroot Mountains. Most of these halls rest in the natural layers of Khyber. The halls connect to one another in logical cartographic order. But as the ancient dwarves dug deeper, they opened passages into the unnatural realms and unleashed hordes of the mind flayers. Passages to the illithid's realm also exist in the Shadow Marches, on the opposite side of Khorvaire. The mind flayers' domain doesn't necessarily stretch across the entire world; the portals to the worlds within defy natural law.
These connections impact the world in a number of ways. Dark forces can rise anywhere in the world, bursting out of a previously unknown portal to Khyber. This fact dictates the primary mission of the Church of the Silver Flame: to stand ready to defend the innocent from such unnatural threats. Because the demiplanes connect to the world at random, you never know what you might find when you venture into the depths. A newly opened chasm in the sewers could be an entirely mundane hole in the ground, or it could be a passage to abyssal forests deep below the surface of the world.
The many layers of Khyber share similarity only in their strangeness and deadliness. Eberron is the natural world; Khyber is the source of fiends and monstrosities. Some cults of the Dragon Below believe that paradise awaits them in the land of an underground sun, but such cultists also consider gibbering mouthers and mind flayers to be creatures of beauty. Wondrous treasures might wait in the worlds below amid hordes of demons and aberrations.
Any time someone descends below the surface of the world, they enter Khyber. But the underworld takes two very different forms. First is the natural realm, networks of tunnels and caverns formed from stone and soil. These passages are dark and dangerous, but they're exactly what you expect to find in an underground realm. Such passages might be home to carrion crawlers, giant beetles, or clans of kobolds. But ultimately these mundane caverns follow the laws of nature.
There's another aspect to Khyber: go deep enough and you find a seemingly endless array of demiplanes, each stranger than the last. When descending into a chasm, you could find a labyrinth inhabited by demons or discover a realm consisting of the guts of a colossal living creature. Anything is possible in Khyber, and these "worlds within" are home to all manner of terrors.
The demiplanes of Khyber are not concretely tied to the world above. You could discover a passage in Breland that leads into a disturbing subterranean swamp filled with oozes and slimes. After traveling what seems to be a few miles, you might emerge from a different tunnel on another continent, half a world away from where you began.
The Mror Holds demonstrate this mystery. Over the past century, the dwarves discovered a vast subterranean kingdom within the Ironroot Mountains. Most of these halls rest in the natural layers of Khyber. The halls connect to one another in logical cartographic order. But as the ancient dwarves dug deeper, they opened passages into the unnatural realms and unleashed hordes of the mind flayers. Passages to the illithid's realm also exist in the Shadow Marches, on the opposite side of Khorvaire. The mind flayers' domain doesn't necessarily stretch across the entire world; the portals to the worlds within defy natural law.
These connections impact the world in a number of ways. Dark forces can rise anywhere in the world, bursting out of a previously unknown portal to Khyber. This fact dictates the primary mission of the Church of the Silver Flame: to stand ready to defend the innocent from such unnatural threats. Because the demiplanes connect to the world at random, you never know what you might find when you venture into the depths. A newly opened chasm in the sewers could be an entirely mundane hole in the ground, or it could be a passage to abyssal forests deep below the surface of the world.
The many layers of Khyber share similarity only in their strangeness and deadliness. Eberron is the natural world; Khyber is the source of fiends and monstrosities. Some cults of the Dragon Below believe that paradise awaits them in the land of an underground sun, but such cultists also consider gibbering mouthers and mind flayers to be creatures of beauty. Wondrous treasures might wait in the worlds below amid hordes of demons and aberrations.
Type
Underground / Subterranean
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