The Underworld
Slowly your eyes open and you feel the water slowly rocking the ferry back and forth. A skeletal hand reaches out to you offering to help you off the ferry and onto the docks. You look up at the ferryman, his cloak hides almost all of his features except for his smoldering eyes. He utters a simple message, that this is your stop, his voice the echoing, hollow passage of wind through reeds. He extends a bony finger toward a strange tablet-like device, and, after depositing you on the docks he'll return to his ferry. Before you can blink, before you can ask any questions at all, he's gone and you're left alone on the docks.
Welcome to the Underworld.
In general, the Underworld is, in fact, underground. This means it has a general, closed in feel to the place, and in the more remote areas, away from cooking fires and other smells of city life, you can detect a faint smell, much like the scent of turned earth, all around you. It's generally fairly damp, and in some places, it may even seem to be raining, the moisture dripping from somewhere unseen above.
The ceiling of the great cavern you find yourself in is beyond the reach of even the best vision, and any with the capability of flight will find themselves unable to reach it. At times, it may appear to be night, twinkling lights dazzling above the city and the Forest of the Dead, and other times it may seem as though the sun is glittering overhead.
Note: Both night and day are completely random, and do not reflect the actual phases of day and night as they would above ground, but are, in fact, simply illusions put in place to make those unlucky enough to be chosen for this war more comfortable in their new, subterranean environment. The sunlight that shines down at random times wouldn't be harmful to any characters who might have an allergy to the sun, as it isn't really the sun, but an illusion designed to imitate that light.
Here is a map of the Underworld to give you some very basic information about how the Underworld is laid out.
Please keep in mind that the Underworld is massive, it's comparing to a medium sized city.
|| { HOUSING} || ✘✘ || { THE LIBRARY} || ✘✘ || { THE MARKETPLACE} || ✘✘ || { HADE'S TEMPLE} || ✘✘ || { HECATE'S TEMPLE} || ✘✘ ||