For every massive city above ground, there's an underworld below it that the mortals rarely see. How else do you think the Nosferatu have survived for so long? Why else would Caine have given us such potent strength if not to help us build? Given the power of the Blood, the occasional ghoul to act on our behalf above ground and all of eternity before us, we have been steadily building our underworld since the beginning of history itself. I know, because I have seen it: beneath the Pyramids of Egypt, there are chambers that can be entered only by mists or shades, where Ancients rest in torpor, awaiting the end of time. Beneath Venice, there are flooded buildings that have not seen the light of day for centuries, where Methuselahs do not need to breathe or feed but only to sleep and dream. I have crawled through the catacombs of Paris and Rome, where the undead stalk among the bodies of the decayed and subterranean ghouls reverently obey their every whim. Our world is the unseen, and we have been building it for centuries.
—Vampire: The Masquerade — Clanbook: Nosferatu (Revised)
Beneath the surface of the world lies another realm of darkness, horror and blind creatures crawling eternally in the darkness in search of prey. Aside from the nameless and numberless monsters that haunt the depths, nearer the surface is a vast network of tunnels and caverns formed both by natural and magical forces and the toil of two diametrically opposite species, the Dwarfs whose ancient empire — now fallen to ruin — once ran for thousands of miles under the World's Edge Mountains and beyond, and the insidious Skaven whose wicked delvings spread out from their accursed city of Skavenblight through the earth like cancer through a dying body. Here, sheltered from the light of day and hidden from the sight of the world, scurry Goblins in profusion and with them noisome beasts such as Stone Trolls, weirdly mutated fungus-things and worse dwell. This is by no means the full extent of terrors that haunt the depths. Here it is that ancient Dragons gloat jealously over golden hoards gathered from fallen Dwarf kingdoms amid bones piled higher than hills in vast caverns lit by an unholy phosphorescent glow. Deeper yet, legend has it, can be found strange vistas that the men of the surface world scarce can imagine: from sunless seas where eyeless kraken-kin are worshipped as hungering gods by twisted half-ghouls that lurk in lost cities that have never known the touch of fire's warmth, to vast formless horrors of plasm-flesh born of the dark winds of magic that have sunk into the bowels of the world moving though subterranean passageways like a living, all-devouring tide.
"That's how they git you. They're under the goddamned ground!"
—Valentine McKee on the Graboids, Tremors
When they got there, they found the earth all honeycombed with pillars and passages on every side, and heaven alone knew where they all led to. And they could hear waters rushing and the moaning of the winds.
They followed one of the passages, and for awhile they had light from the hole through which they had fallen. But as they went on it grew darker and darker—black darkness, such as there is nowhere save in the bowels of the earth.[...]
Curlylocks was delighted with her lantern, because it showed up all the marvels which had been swallowed by the earth in days of old. In one place she saw lordly castles, with doors and windows all fretted with gold and framed in red marble. In another place were warriors' weapons, slender-barrelled muskets and heavy scimitars studded with gems and precious stones. In a third place she saw long-buried treasures, golden dishes and silver goblets full of gold ducats, and the Emperor's very crown of gold three times refined. All these treasures had been swallowed up by God's will, and it is God's secret why so much treasure should lie there undisturbed.
They followed one of the passages, and for awhile they had light from the hole through which they had fallen. But as they went on it grew darker and darker—black darkness, such as there is nowhere save in the bowels of the earth.[...]
Curlylocks was delighted with her lantern, because it showed up all the marvels which had been swallowed by the earth in days of old. In one place she saw lordly castles, with doors and windows all fretted with gold and framed in red marble. In another place were warriors' weapons, slender-barrelled muskets and heavy scimitars studded with gems and precious stones. In a third place she saw long-buried treasures, golden dishes and silver goblets full of gold ducats, and the Emperor's very crown of gold three times refined. All these treasures had been swallowed up by God's will, and it is God's secret why so much treasure should lie there undisturbed.
— "Reygoch"
