Tzeco is a sprawling, vast, beautiful and treacherous expanse of interlinked caves; wide, long, narrow, deep spaces connected by rivers, paths and cliffs that Somatei travel everyday under the watchful protection of the Roads Guild.
Due to being isolated from each other, each cave can develop its own biome and living species. Some species though, can be found in many biomes thanks to being transported by water, animals or travellers. One common point between most biomes is the presence of bioluminescence, an important feature of many species to signal their presence and communicate. Some however do not rely on light at all.
Somatei tend to settle in vast caves with a source of water and enough place to plant crops and build villages. They like to paint their houses with colorful pigment and hang banners embroidered with ideograms linked to the place’s specialty. Towns are often built near a cave wall, using natural alcoves and ledges to help support walls and roofs. These places are always well lit thanks to luminescent moss used in lanterns.
The Roads Guild works hard to establish and maintain reliable paths linking every settlement together. Interested parties provide materials, equipment and food to the Guild workers towards the construction and care of their paths. The workers often have to build buttresses, canals, stairs, even sometimes elevators or floodgates to ensure safe travel.
Now comes the question: how would you draw maps of caves, knowing spaces can overlap? How would one even begin to map Tzeco itself?
Somatei usually have two types of maps: travelling graphs and geographic maps.
Travelling graphs represent each cave in a very simple way, while the paths linking them are much more detailed and list potential issues, means of transportation, length, etc.
Geographic maps focus on a single cave, or one part of a cave and represent a detailed top down view of the area. For caves with overlaying surfaces, the map is divided into “floors” that are drawn separately from each other.