Rootworld is not a single cavern—it is a vertical world, layered like a living organism. Each depth possesses its own climate, gravity behavior, energy density, and ecological logic. What surface civilizations mistake for impossibility is simply scale plus control.
Xylos is old enough to have learned how to regulate itself.
Rootworld is divided into vast depth-bands called Strata, each separated by pressure gradients, thermal boundaries, and aetheric membranes grown by the planet itself.
These membranes:
Trap heat or cold
Redirect gravity
Filter light and radiation
Circulate nutrients and spores
Each stratum behaves like a contained world, yet remains connected through vertical migration paths, root-bridges, and ancient transit organisms.
Bioluminescent Forests · Faun & Floroid Cities
This is the most populated and culturally dominant region.
Stable temperatures
Dense oxygen-rich atmosphere
Living cities grown from coral-wood and crystal-bark
Bioluminescent canopy acting as a light regulator
Most outsiders believe this is all of Rootworld. They are wrong.
Subterranean Snowfields & Ice Forests
Near the cavern ceilings, radiant heat dissipates into deep crystal formations that bleed cold.
Ice forms around suspended crystal spires
Snow falls as frozen aether particulate
Glacial forests grow from frost-fed root systems
Predators here use refracted light and silence
Snow exists underground because cold sinks upward in Rootworld’s inverted thermal system.
Abyssal Seas Without a Horizon
Beneath the forests lie vast inland oceans, sealed within pressure-stable caverns.
No tides—water is held in equilibrium by gravity anchors
Floating kelp-reefs and bioluminescent leviathans
Entire civilizations live on the undersides of floating landmasses
Some seas connect through siphon tunnels to volcanic vents
The ocean floor is not the bottom.
It is a doorway.
Volcanic Zones & Living Fire
Closer to Xylos’ living core, heat is intentionally concentrated.
Lava flows are guided, not chaotic
Magma rivers power ancient bio-reactors
Fire-adapted flora blooms in ash and sulfur
Apex monsters are born here, not raised
The Pyro-Strata is where Rootworld digests excess energy.
Sealed, Muted, or Erased
Some layers are deliberately inaccessible.
Biomes that evolved incorrectly
Failed experiments in symbiosis
Regions damaged by ancient surface incursions
Places where the planet learned fear
Exploring these zones is dangerous—not because they are hostile, but because they remember why they were sealed.
Rootworld survives because it is not passive.
Heat is moved where needed
Cold is cultivated
Oceans are stabilized
Monsters are grown as corrective forces
When balance is threatened, the planet responds.
That response may look like:
Migration
Predation
Environmental collapse
Or the sudden appearance of something that hunts the problem
Rootworld is a vertical biosphere, layered into vast living strata where climate, gravity, and ecology are deliberately regulated. Snow forms near crystal ceilings, oceans pool in gravity-anchored caverns, and volcanic zones burn deep below—not as chaos, but as function. Each biome exists because the planet requires it, and when that balance is threatened, Rootworld adapts… violently if necessary.