Shadowcap

Known for:

• Medicine

• Explosives

• Fungal art

• Bioluminescent jewelry

• Root vegetables

• Archaeology

• Biodiversity

Together, Apart

Shadowcap is as large of a city as such a dangerous, temperamental location as Demoor can sustain. This is known by its residents and felt through the give and take they endeavour to maintain with their natural surroundings, the wilder inhabitants of the region, and each other.
Shadowcap seeks to be largely self-sustaining (out of necessity and the impracticality of needing things brought from above, primarily) and each person is expected to fulfill a role or duty. Monetary trades are highly deprioritized in favor of bartering and there is a huge focus on understanding more about the world around them in order to best harness it, as well as protect it. In Shadowcap, knowing the fungus around you is important to know which will kill you or heal you, but also to understand if there is a new strain someone should research, if it is the favorite snack of a dangerous predator the town should prepare for, if its bioluminescence is dependable inside a lantern or will fade once plucked from its colony, etc.
Additionally, finding a circle to belong to, knowing the rest of your circle, knowing how you can aid your circle or interact with others is vital to the survival of the entire system. The circles support each other, overlapping and connecting. So, too, do the people living in Shadowcap. It is true that hermits come here to get away, but even the hermits have to add something to the community and everyone still learns their name. After all, if somebody goes missing in a town where everyone has a role, that's a pretty large deal, so people tend to learn each other's names and check on each other. There's also a general cameraderie in this; people don't tend to live in Shadowcap because their life has been easy and conventional, so Cappers tend to bond together over their shared monstrosity or ostracism or peculiarities that landed them there.

Say it with Shrooms

The first anyone on the surface would have heard of Demoor would have been of the exports from the region, most of them fungal in variety, and Shadowcap has spent a very long time leaning into this expectation and labeling, be it as a tongue-in-cheek subversion, a shameless cash grab, or the most logical way thing for them to export. (Opinions vary.)
Either way, Shadowcap is intrinsically known for its mushrooms, fungi, lichens, mosses, algaes, and other plantlike-things-that-don't-mind-darkness. On the eclectic and artistic front, this includes any type of art or sculpture you can imagine. Through this (again, whether tongue-in-cheek or genuine evolution is hard to say at this point), a language of mushrooms akin to the "language of flowers" has evolved in the city (and wider from it). This includes sending particularly beautiful bioluminescent specimens for love or preserved medicinal caps for well-wishing (as a symbol, not necessarily to use). But it also includes sending (meticulously arcanically sealed, safe-to-handle) clear bubbles of violently deadly spores to a business rival or spurned lover to really express your displeasure.
This industry started out fairly simple, with only the most common 'shrooms used for the novice to pick up. But as the artform grew in popularity, so did the desire for more nuance, more elaborate declarations, prettier fungal bouquets. At this point, fungal missives come with a handy card explaining the different pieces included and what they mean (as well as some handy tips about identifying them in Demoor and whether or not to stay very, very far away from them).

Demographics

It is likely that most people think of myconids when they picture the Demoor region and especially its "capital" Shadowcap. While the fungal creatures like the colonial myconid are definitely most common in this region, Shadowcap is home to many. This includes your standard underground dwellers: drow, gnomes and dwarves of a few varieties, the occasional illithid or beholder.
It also includes those who might seek solitude away from the upper continent, the sunlight, the people. Vampires and other nocturnal dwellers, scholarly hermits deep in their Godcrafting, or druids and scientists studying the fungal region and its many symbiosis and interactions all are parts of the Shadowcap population. In addition, more "monstrous" types are known to prefer the privacy of the darkness and the unjudging looks of Shadowcaps for when they need to do business.
Given the shared tendency to prefer the quiet, the dark, the slightly gloomy, there is a shared kinship among Cappers that means they don't tend to have a focus on monetary status so much as what a person can contribute (or, conversely, how little they negatively impact the area). So economic status is of less concern, particularly in a society where trade is often done based on need and not money.

Government

Shadowcap's government takes much of its inspiration from the original natives to the area: the myconids.
Myconids govern in communities known as circles, where each circle is a controlled size divided up enely among the different age groups/lifecycle stages of the myconids (youngest to oldest) with leaders selected to represent each of the different age groups. (For example, a circle of 20 with 4 from each of the 4 age groups and 4 leaders.) Each circle is extremely close-knit, intimate beyond simple family structures due to the intrinsic mind-sharing nature of myconids, and the circle members look out for and advocate for one another. Multiple circles make up the community, coming to agreements about territory, resource-sharing, the management of trade and outsiders etc.
In Shadowcap, this general structure has persisted, though circles are not just for myconids psychically connecting now. Instead, they are self-formed groups of individuals (between 15 - 20) that agree to protect and care for one another while also representing the best interests of the circle in community discussions. There is little regulation of who goes into a circle or how they are formed or evolve, with that left to the individual circles so long as they play nicely with the others when it comes time to discuss important matters of safety, economy etc. It is common for species to group together, or people of a similar economic trade such as members of a trade union (though only if they can agree to have each other's best interests at heart and actually care about each other). The number and composition of circles as well as their recorded opinions on discussion topics are kept in a central log.
No circle is said to have any more power or sway than others, though circles tend to group together and establish voting habits based on this: the underdwellers, the monstrosities, the myconids, the trade unions etc. Though Shadowcap is known to the outside as a city of outcasts and hermits, those who care only for themselves and quiet, to belong to the city itself is to have an intrinsic tie to the rest of your circle. There are no lukewarm circles--to belong to one is to pledge to care for, protect, advocate for, and know the rest of your circle. Those uninterested in this kinship are encouraged to live outside of the city proper (though welcomed to come and visit/trade/stay in paid lodging from time to time).

Defences

Shadowcap is relatively deep in the fungal jungles of Demoor and enjoys a fair amount of seclusion from this. The road to reach the city safely is a winding, serpentine one monitored by guides and guards, including myconid soldiers able to communciate over vast distances due to their fungal connection to their circle and the world around them.
Additionally, Shadowcap defenses include fungal warfare such as biotoxins, bombs, and the many strange creatures that roam the jungles and can be trained by a knowing hand and patient mind. In general, it is understood that Shadowcap (and the Demoor region as a whole, for which Shadowcap oversees) is to be left alone, because those who might want something from it would have to know how to use those resources and survive the area and thus already likely live there anyway.

Industry & Trade

Shadowcap bills itself as a primarily self-sufficient system, making use of the surrounding underground resources to need very little import. However, that doesn't mean there is no import of resources. Many of these imports may come from other places underground, like the arcane foci made from Spiricubus mined to the west. However, many people also may delight in delicacies or materials found aboveground.
As for exports, Shadowcap produces a good deal of culinary and medical goods made from the local fungus, as well as beauty products, art supplies, home decor, and anything that can be interesting to aboveground folks due to the shape, color, or material makeup. Demoor is home to fungi, lichen, interesting rock shaped by both, coral and underground water features; all of these are of exotic interest to surface dwellers and the Shadowcap population is happy to assist with their curiosity for a price (and so long as it does not harm their ecosystem).

Infrastructure

Shadowcap enjoys clean water and limited power due to arcane utilization of the many underground rivers and waterfalls of the region churning through spelled hydroplants. It also boasts a remarkably large hospital network that people all over Demoor (and even above) come to visit in time of need.

Districts

The different circles of the city tend to be co-located in one area, forming many different small districts for the family-like groups of each circle. These circles tend to roughly group with other circles of shared experiences, such as circles formed around specific species or the circles dedicated to specific trades/shared interests.
Some of the Circles include:

• The Myconid circles, of course
• The Wayfarer Way, the circle dedicated to tourism and tending to visitors (protecting and educating them, collecting knowledge from them etc.)
• Delvers of the Deep, a circle dedicated to archaeology and exploring the ruins and remnants of past life scattered around the Demoor region. They are located more to the outskirts of the city and are often considered to be more standoffish, though this could simply be because the circle is usually less than half-populated, with the rest off on delves.
• The Protectorate, the self-appointed militia/security service. They are deeply dedicated to protecting the wildlife and nature of Shadowcap; the people in it are protected too, so long as they behave themselves.
• Inventorum, the guild/circle dedicated to experimenting and creating things from the bounty Demoor's nature provides. The many bombs, unctions and potions, and architectural marvels that people write about when discussing Shadowcap can often be credited to them. They collaborate with the other circles gladly and are incredibly influential as pretty much every part of Shadowcap is only able to exist as it does due to one or more of their creations.

Guilds and Factions

Given its remoteness as well as the intrinsic focus on community inherited from its myconid founders, Shadowcap doesn't tend to see much outright animosity or friction between groups, as all are formed to fill a need in the arcology. That said, the Myconids are known to keep relatively to themselves out of habit, and many other groups tend to stay within their Circle for shared ethics/values/interests. The Myconids hold no explicit power but are deeply respected and deferred to, with the general notion that people are there only by their good graces.

Points of interest

• Myconid Market, named for the original settlers of Shadowcap and not a restriction of who sells or buys at the market, is a vast market of all the different medical, arcane, alchemical, artistic, and other sundries one might travel to the city to partake in.

• Spora Zïratı (spore-uh zih-rah-tea, "Spore Cemetary"), a memorial to the large parts of Shadowcap and the surrounding area lost to rabid overworlders seeking to eradicate the Evo Erosion Plague
based on a misunderstanding that because it was fungal in nature that it had come from Demoor. (The truth was that the fungus came from a remote region of the Ilcarian Jungle, but panicked people during plaguetime are not known for hearing facts or reason.) Thousands of people (primarily myconids) were murdered and large swaths of dwellings lost, mostly through fire. A large portion of the ruins was roped off and preserved as a memorial/museum for what and whom were lost.

Tourism

Shadowcap is not exactly a tourism hub, but there are always those curious (or brave/stupid) enough to venture down on holiday. There are a few folks who have made their life shepherding these travelers, teaching them the ways of safety in the deep as well as offering tours of interesting (and relatively safe) passages and waypoints. Those who provide this service have in fact even created their own Circle, the Wayfarer Way, to encourage collaboration instead of competition.
Common tourist activities include:

• (Supervised!) build-your-own-fungal-bouquet
• Underground lake swimming, using some of the warmer springs and bioluminescent bodies of water
• Archaeology tours of previously abandoned relics (usually dwarven or deep gnome)

Some may be loathe to call themselves tourists for the reason they travel to the city, however; Shadowcap's many medicinal creations are renowned aboveground and when healing cannot be found in the sun, some turn to the dark for assistance.

Architecture

Shadowcap is an arcology, referring to a location that prioritizes seamless integration with the local environment to not disrupt its ecology. It is a city, but it is intrinsically built into the surrounding landscape and works with it, not against it. As one might expect, this functionally looks like a good deal of homes built into/around the many many types of mushrooms in the region. Some of them are in fact large enough to live inside, while others simply are sculpted around, left as exotic lawns or canopies overhead.
The rock of this area of Demoor is mostly sedimentary rock, softer more maleable types such as limestone, sandstone, calciums, shales). These are the kind most likely to be shaped by water and fungal growth, the roots and tendrils of underground flora, and thus are often the most usable for things like buildings, natural bowls and furniture etc. Riddled with interesting holes, divets, crevices, and curves, they make up stalagtites, stalagmites, and more that the people of Shadowcap have pushed themselves to use in interesting ways. (This is, in many ways, similar to those of Red Flagon above, who also use the curious rock formations to their benefit.)

Geography

Shadowcap is located in the deepest part of the fungal jungle that dominates the Demoor region, with the only access being a keen survival sense for the dangerous underground or sticking to the winding path connecting Vitreoline to the city (and the city to the nearest surface entrance). The fungal growths here are generally older, taller, thicker, more diverse and hearty. The soil is well-tended by generations of myconids and subterranean farmers intent to keep the place thriving (especially considering it is their home).
The cavern roof of this area of Demoor is far, far above, almost invisible in the darkness other than the small pinpricks of glowing spores almost like starlight on its surface. Fresh water is available in small pools and ponds formed from the overhead drippage or through burbling springs that force their way up through the sedimentary rock. The entire area is suffused with a soft glow of many different colors of bioluminescent rocks, plants, fungus, and creatures. The spores of the fungus the region is known for sometimes drift overhead in phenomena that catch the light in aurora borealis-esque rivulets of particles and waves.

Climate

Being in the part of Demoor where the ceilings stretch extremely high up, the cool of the cave is sometimes supplemented by light mists or even clouds of moisture that have the space to gather overhead. There are often faint breezes (carrying spore swirls with them) and it is a consistent cool temperature year-round (approximately 65 degrees F).

Natural Resources

• Rare underground coral

• Lichen, moss, algae, and fungi

• Interesting rock formations, clays, pebbles (for landscaping etc.)

• Bioluminescent specimens (and the glowing powder they can produce from their wing dust, pollens, or bones)

Alternative Name(s)

Cappers, Shadowcaps, Deep Folk (a superstitious euphemism used by aboveground folk who never bothered to learn the different city names)

Type

Arcology

Inhabitant Demonym

Caps, Shadowcaps, Cappers, Shroomheads, Shroomers

Location under

Demoor