Sunken Cities

Since the beginning of recorded history, there have been stories of cities lost to time. Whether they were destroyed into nothing more than dust like Sodom and Gamora. Or they sank to the bottom of the ocean like Atlantis. There are hundreds more that people are unaware of.

The bottoms of every ocean contain hundreds of their own small cities, each of them with their own cultures and traditions.

The Atlantic Ocean is home to Atlantis, which runs and controls the entire kingdom of the Atlantic. Every sunken city obeys their will due to fear of permanent destruction and eradication. They prayed to their God, what many of the people call The Kraken. A monstrous octopus-like creature that would sink any ship that dared to disturb its ocean.

The warriors are large and muscular due to their fighting attitudes. They dress in shells and bones that they collect from sea creatures, often wearing shark skulls as helmets and coral as armor. They find whatever they can to use as weapons, often overpowering their opponents. They never swim alone, always in small pods when they travel, even though each of them alone could fight with the strength of an army.

In The Pacific Ocean, there are thousands of smaller cities, all of which live in relative seclusion. They know of each other’s existence, very rarely coming to trade agreements or peace treaties, but otherwise they live as if they are alone.

The largest and most powerful of the cities is Pu’ukohola Heiau just off the coast of the Hawaiian island Maui. They are a rather peaceful people, despite their troubled past. One of the first societies to commit human sacrifice, the people were praying to their God, Kāmohoaliʻi, a megalodon shark that was often mistaken for an island whenever it went near the surface, the body so massive and unfathomable. Now, they are mostly peaceful and vegan, yet the elders of the city will still often lure humans into the waters to feast, their old ways ingrained into their brains and souls. Their bodies are much more slender, allowing for speed to avoid conflict and hide from any excavations or traversal.

Meanwhile, the waters around Asia have a very tight knit community. The cities all have their own Gods that they worship, yet they trade and communicate with each other as if they were a large family. Art and culture shared amongst the people.

The people wear clothing that is reminiscent of the lands they live near, with many of the cities near Japan wearing traditional kimonos while the cities off the coast of China wear hanfu. Most of the other clothing such as necklaces and other accessories are made from rice that is stolen from the surface, held together with thin seaweed.

The Mediterranean Sea is quite small and surrounded by land, but the handful of sunken cities are the ones that are known the least about. They often stay out of trouble, avoiding each other as well as the surface. All that is known is that the seas are packed full of creatures and Gods. The Hydra, Charybdis, Scylla, and Cetus. Each monster has multiple cities praying to them, yet they often avoid each other. Whenever they do come in contact, the monsters clash in battles that throw the sea into turmoil, leading the damage or destruction to cities both above and below the sea’s surface.

The sunken cities further North, surrounding the Scandinavian islands, are believed to be long destroyed. Jörmungandr, a massive serpent that follows nothing but chaos. Cities that did pray to it were exterminated, leaving nothing but rubble that disappeared under centuries of oceanic erosion.

The world often tells stories of the cities or the Gods that they pray to, but the real histories and stories of them are often forgotten or erased.

But that is quiet dangerous, as the split second that the cities were to decide to come together, a war that is unfathomable and unmatched will break out, leading to the destruction of the entire world.

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