World Building: A Cross-Section

In considering how to build up from the map I randomly generated and posted yesterday, I had to make a few rules for myself — taking a bunch of random data and making sense of them. There are several means by which to go both up and down from the map — stairs, shafts down and large shafts that go both up and down. I decided that every stair and shaft up lead to some kind of dungeon. Shafts down lead to some kind of underground city and large shafts lead down into a demi-plane of darkness and shadow wherein demons and other nasties lie in wait for the foolish to dare to visit them. The end result could be conceptualized by a cross-section:


You'll notice I was moved to add one more layer up top. I've always liked the image of floating mountains, and it seemed apropos to add some. It allows for a kind of symmetry — the farther up or down an adventurer dares to go, the more dangerous life gets.