Caverns of Ixalan

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Caverns of Ixalan
Information
Plane	Ixalan
Type	Island

The Caverns of Ixalan' are an immense subterranean network that stretches beneath the plane of Ixalan, linking the Core of Paradise to the surface through sprawling cave systems, hidden cities, and ancient ruins. Populated by civilizations like the Oltec, Malamet, Deep Goblins, and other denizens, the caverns hold secrets, lost knowledge, and priceless cosmium veins. Long sealed from the surface world, they were recently reopened, drawing explorers, mythweavers, and entire expeditions into their depths.

Description

The caverns span countless miles, forming a ring of interconnected tunnels, chambers, underground rivers, and massive hollow expanses. Many notable settlements and landmarks lie hidden within:

• Ban Koj or Chuuy Kaaj, the Hanging City - the de facto Malamet capital and cultural hub. The largest population center, its population numbers in the tens of thousands, and its size is larger than Alta Torrezon. It is the center of trade, poetry, literature, and mainstream Malamet culture. Malamet in Ban Koj live in communal housing, their homes built into a cluster of massive, fortress-like stalactites that hang from the ceiling of a colossal cavern. Some buildings are hewn directly from the rock, while others feature painted white walls like pottery. Rope bridges, walkways, nets, and platforms extend between buildings, as well as thick cables from which aerial lifts hang. The largest stalactite is windowless, its interior covered in enormous cosmium glyphs. Inside is a massive pyramid hundreds of steps tall, leading to a room at the top. Within the pyramid sits the sovereign's throne room. Trespassers are exiled from the city by being placed in a large fountain with a jaguar head at the top that fills with sand rather than water and empties into Matzalanti. No Core- or surface-dweller visited the city between when the Oltec closed off the Core and the Queen's Bay Company's expedition in 5 Dawn Era.
• Chama Koj - a ruin, a half-sunken city complex where liquified quicksand flows in deadly rapids. The ancient capital of a forgotten — likely human — culture, the jaguarfolk later took it themselves, either by conquest, won in battle, or bequeathed to the Malamet sovereign. It is now uninhabited except for wandering jaguarfolk Echoes. It is a site of pilgrimage for mythweavers and curious glyphscribes, who journey to the slowly flooding city to uncover its history. The Queen's Bay Company may have passed through this city on their journey to the Core.
• Matzalantli, the Great Door - a massive gilded temple complex of stepped stone buildings above and below an underground freshwater ocean that was built by a forgotten descendant civilization of the Oltec. Lamps burn above low buildings, while long strings of bioluminescent baubles and baskets holding firebugs light the streets and alleys. A round, corroded copper door covered in glyphs sealed the plane's Core from its surface from the discovery of the mycoids until it was opened in 5 Dawn Era. After the death of the Deeproot Tree, Shaper Pashona rediscovered Matzalanti, and thousands of merfolk gathered in the complex, the largest assembly of merfolk bands in Ixalan's history. On the Core side, Matzalantli is located high in the mountains overlooking Oteclan.
• The Mycoid Maze - a fungal forest within a large cavern with a high ceiling.Bioluminescent spores float between green mushrooms as tall as trees.
• The Nameless City
• Porobol Koj or Midden Koj - a large, primarily Deep Goblin trade city and port that sprawls across the cavern floor under Ban Koj, straddling both sides of a wide river. Populated by mercenaries, merchants, porters, scouts, and laborers for the jaguarfolk above, the settlement is dotted with rope elevators that allow transit between the cities.
• Tecutlan, the Searing Rift - a huge cavern crisscrossed with arching natural bridges, with a thunderous fall of lava cascading down the side of a wall, bright enough to light the entire space.
• Topizielo - once one of the greatest cities of the Komon Winaq, now abandoned. In a cavern many miles across, from edge to edge, filled with stone buildings and narrow streets. A central pyramid is etched with cosmium. In the center of the plaza is a dry fountain. After the mycoid infestation, the city's buildings were covered in a blue and green luminescent fungus.
• The West Chasm

Deepest of all lies the Core of Paradise, an inverted sphere at Ixalan’s heart, lit by its sun and serving as the cradle of the ancient Oltec civilization.

History

The caverns have been inhabited for millennia, first by the Oltec, ancestors of the Sun Empire, who retreated into the Core to safeguard their knowledge and cosmium. Over generations, their descendants — the Malamet and others — carved new cities like Ban Koj and rediscovered ancient sites like Chama Koj. For centuries, the caverns remained isolated when the Oltec sealed the Core using Matzalantli, cutting off all travel between the surface and depths.

In the modern age, expeditions like the Queen's Bay Company braved the deep once more, breaching Matzalantli and reawakening the plane’s lost history. The death of the Deeproot Tree further shifted balances of power, drawing merfolk, mythweavers, and adventurers into the caverns in unprecedented numbers. Today, the Caverns of Ixalan are a labyrinth of ancient wonders and new conflicts, where surface dwellers and Core-born civilizations meet in a struggle over cosmium, secrets, and survival.