History Main / BeneaththeEarth

* ''Anime/KotetsuJeeg'': The Yamatai Kingdom are a subterranean civilization who attempted conquering Japan in ancients times, but they were defeated and fled underground. The BigBad Queen Himika definitely harbored a grudge, and longs for revenge.
* ''Manga/MadeInAbyss'' has, well, [[DeathWorld the Abyss]]. Despite the name, it's for the most part well illuminated because of the fluorescent mists that pervade it. The farther down someone travels, the more elaborate its contents become, with upside-down forests, enormous plants, flying serpents, and buried cities existing in the depths. People risk death to retrieve the incredibly valuable artifacts found on the lower Layers, although past a certain point, the MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Curse of the Abyss means that [[YouCantGoHomeAgain return becomes fatal]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
** In ''ComicBook/ActionComics'' #272, ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} visits an alien planet called Terra and discovers its center is inhabited by a humanoid civilization.

* ''ComicBook/XMen'': TheMorlocks, mutants who ''can't'' pass for normal humans, live in the sewers. Originally they chose to have their physical appearance altered by Masque as a sign that they had rejected the surface world.

* "Literature/Reygoch": A vast network of caverns, passages and subterranean streams lies beneath Frosten and the endless snowy plain surrounding the ancient city. As exploring the caves, Curlylocks and Reygoch find treasures which had been swallowed by the earth long ago: castles, ships, weapons, buried treasures...

* ''Anime/MasoKishinCybuster'' (loosely on ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'') has a ''world'' in the middle of the Earth, though this ''might'' be a magical dimension.

* Creator/RichardSharpeShaver's mythos/ConspiracyTheory revolved around an underground civilization of "deros" -- [[{{Morlocks}} degenerate leftovers]] of an ancient civilization [[{{Precursors}} that once settled the Earth]]. Using the technology of their forebears, the deros [[ForTheEvulz cruelly]] torment us on the surface, and [[PeeveGoblins are responsible for more or less every catastrophe that's ever happened]].

* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'': Many worlds have extensive underworlds, either artificial or natural, which are often populated by fairly large societies.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'': After TheEmpire invades Rabanastre, the city's inhabitants are forced to live in the underground tunnels formerly used for storage of goods and merchandise except for the extremely wealthy people.

In mythology, folklore, and fantasy, this is typically where you'll find TheUnderworld. (Or [[{{Hell}} that other place.]]) In ScienceFiction and pulp settings, this will often be home to the MoleMen or dinosaurs in a Lost World. In fantasy, expect instead to find [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]], [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblins]], [[OurElvesAreDifferent dark elves]] and BatPeople making their homes down here. In either case, BigCreepyCrawlies are a common part of the local fauna. Subterranean civilizations armed with giant {{Robeast}}s are a common SuperRobot series antagonist. The KingInTheMountain can also be found here, resting until his hour of need comes again.

-->"I am always beneath you, but nothing is beneath me!"

* ''Franchise/TheDCU'': ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'' has the realm of the Diamond Men, who break out and invade Civic City.
%%** ''ComicBook/PowerGirl'': Strata. Their civilization is even more technologically advanced than Krypton's.%%Example how?

* ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'': TheMorlocks, mutants who ''can't'' pass for normal humans, live in the sewers. Originally they chose to have their physical appearance altered by Masque as a sign that they had rejected the surface world.

* ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'': The exiled tribe of Native American mice in the third film (though this also crosses over with caverns, being that there is a system of small mouse-sized caves beneath the New York subway system in which the tribe dwells).

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': In the Strong Bad Email "buried", Strong Bad tries to determine what is buried beneath his backyard kingdom of Strong Badia, mistaking a beer bottle cap for evidence of a civilization of AncientAstronauts. At the end of the cartoon, you can see a drawing he did showing what might be under Strong Badia, including a "nougat layer", the ancient alien colony of Coldonesdry, and a "dinosaur n [[Series/LandOfTheLost sleestak]] layer".

* ''Series/FraggleRock'': The Fraggles live in an elaborate world of caverns, with the entrance in Doc's workshop. Or beneath the lighthouse, in the UK version. In both cases, exactly where the Gorgs' garden is in relation to the human world is completely unexplored, although the events of [[Recap/FraggleRockS4E5UncleMattsDiscovery "Uncle Matt's Discovery"]] and [[Recap/FraggleRockS4E12RedsBlueDragon "Red's Blue Dragon"]] strongly imply through some otherwise improbable tunnels to places like Australia and a world with a dragon and golden apples that holes to Fraggle Rock lead through and to alternate dimensions with no surface-related logic, and the Gorgs probably live in a different dimension from us; it's possible that Fraggle Rock isn't even physically located under Doc's workshop or the Captain's lighthouse, but that the hole in is simply another portal.

* ''Series/FraggleRock'': The Fraggles live in an elaborate world of caverns, with the entrance in Doc's workshop. Or beneath the lighthouse, in the UK version. In both cases, exactly where the Gorgs' garden is in relation to the human world is completely unexplored.

* ''WebOriginal/LoomingGaia'': In Damijana's sewers under the Shadow Sector live a society of vagrants, who call it the "Gutter Sector".

* ''WebOriginal/LoomingGaia'': Most of Lamai Nation lives in massive underground labyrinths. Any citizens who need sunlight have to go to special sunroof rooms to "worship" the sun every day.

* ''Anime/MazingerZ'' and ''Anime/GreatMazinger'': The Mykene are a civilization that lived and thrived in the Greek island of Bardos millennia ago, using [[HumongousMecha mechanical giants]] [[ChestBlaster blast fire from their chests]] to protecting their land from invaders. An earthquake destroyed their island and forced them to seek shelter underground. They lived below Earth for millennia, building their cities in networks of subterranean tunnels and caverns and grafting their bodies into HumongousMecha to survive. Unlike fromn other examples from this trope they did not strictly harbored a grudge against humans... but they did not like them, nonetheless.

* ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'': The [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Subterror Subterror]] archetype, in particular the Behemoths are all depicted as gigantic monsters living underneath the earth. This is emulated with their effects, which involve flipping themselves face-down and then using their abilities when they are flipped face-up.

* In one Golden Age story the ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica fights the Diamond Men, who live in a realm hidden beneath Civic City.

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'': Moria, the subterranean dwelling of the Longbeard Dwarf clan under the Misty Mountains.

* In ''Film/PitchBlack'', it's implied that there's a fairly substantial subterranean ecosystem beneath the surface of M6-117, to account for where all the bioraptors came from.

* In ''Literature/TheSisterVerseAndTheTalonsOfRuin'', the cavernous salt mines beneath Octavia uncover the ruin of a massive labyrinth, home to any travelers unfortunate enough to wander inside, and an EldritchAbomination that traps people in their dreams while it eats them.

* In ''Literature/WhispersUnderGround'', Peter Grant discovers an underground colony hidden amongst the Tube networks, the sewers and the illegal teenage raves of London.

* ''Series/MythQuest'' has Alex venture underneath the Earth and into Hades to rescue Euridice.

* ''Myth/AfricanMythology'': According to the San tribe, humans and animals lived in underground caves until the creator Cagn lead them to the surface.

** In ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'', the underworld is called Khyber after the primordial dragon-god from whose body it was purportedly created. In some early material, Khyber was a world of pitch blackness, ruled by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s from Xoriat, the realm of madness, where cults of surface-dwellers worshipped the mutagenic energies that emanate from its black crystals. Later changes have reworked it so that while there ''is'' a "mundane" underworld, where you find subterranean monsters and kobold settlements, that's mostly the least terrible part of the area, unless you're in the Mror Holds (where those subterranean areas are actively occupied by swarms of aberrations); the ''real'' trouble in Khyber comes when you start breaking through into the demiplanes, which allow you to find monstrous forests full of soul-absorbing fruit, citadels of flesh or eyes ruled by {{Humanoid Abomination}}s, the heart-realms of imprisoned [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Overlords]], VideoGame/{{Fallout}} vaults full of goblins maintaining the culture of an empire that fell thousands of years ago and other fascinating and/or awful experiences for your adventuring party. Notably, these don't touch the world in predictable ways; Belashyrra's prison-realm can be accessed from both the Shadow Marches and Xen'drik, not because it's that big but because both areas host portals to it.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', the world beneath is known as the Darklands and draws inspiration from pulp fiction of the early 1900s, such as Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's ''Pellucidar''. It's divided into three layers:

* ''TabletopGame/Space1889'': The World Beneath the World is a complex system of caverns and tunnels running beneath the global jungles of {{Venus|IsWet}}. It's formed from the constant growth of planet's vegetation burying older layers of the jungles and swamps beneath newer growth and rotting humus, forming a spongelike system of subterranean cavities supported by the petrified remains of ancient trees.
** This underworld is home to a complex ecology supported by the constant percolation of organic materials form above, mostly consisting of [[BigCreepyCrawlies oversized arthropods]], tangled fungal growths and sundry bioluminescent organisms. It's also home to the Gri, eyeless, albino relatives of the Venusian LizardFolk who have been eking out an existence in the caves for generations and have only sparse contact with their surface relatives and the human colonists.
** The World Beneath the World does not form a single world-spanning network; most of it consists of solitary caverns and small cave systems, and although complexes as large as Australia exist these are not extremely common. However, some speculate that even deeper caves exist and connect the shallower cave systems to form a titanic underworld, chiefly due to the uniform nature of the various cave systems' fauna.

* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'':
** Onu-Koro and Mangaia.
--->'''Lewa''': Has anyone noticed how every time we go underground something bad happens?
** There's also [[spoiler: a "universe" under the island of Mata Nui. It's not ''technically'' underground, being inside of a HumongousMecha that crashed onto the planet a thousand years ago, but from the perspective of the Matoran...]]

* In the background of ''VideoGame/ArxFatalis'', the sun died out and most civilizations of the world, in a rare moment of truce, moved underground into a networks of caverns mixed with the old dwarven mines and rebuild their cities and towns, such as the titular Arx. The entire game takes place underground.

* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'': Wherever you don't find sewers you'll find caverns, with entrances in every park and abandoned lot. The caves tend to house either trolls (former humans mutated by exposure to a drug that induces super powers), beings of living stone, or the various groups of evil magicians. Occasional inter-dimensional aliens may be spotted, usually busy redecorating the place into an ElaborateUndergroundBase. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] at least once in the intro text to a mission, describing your character wondering how any of the buildings in the city keep standing when the ground below is like Swiss cheese.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'' has the player spend a lot of time in a variety of underground areas, such as demon infested lava ruins and the Tomb of the Giants.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Dominions}}'', the nation of Agartha is based on this. Initially populated by the native Pale Ones, humanoids that can grow to gigantic size, they begin to die out and are replaced by humans who take to worshiping them as the Ages progress.

* ''VideoGame/{{Exile}}'' takes place in a gargantuan network of underground caverns, stretching for several kilometers in every direction, and varying from huge caves big enough to have their own weather systems, to twisting little mazes of passages, all alike. As the name of the area suggests, the people who live there didn't CHOOSE to do so, and sure enough, the place is littered with fungus, lava, and plenty of gloom. Many surface towns also have monster-infested sewers.

* ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'': The Locust live in a vast series of underground caverns known as The Hollow.
* In the {{VideoGame/Grow}} games (and other games by the same creator), Tonties live underground in ant-like colonies with a queen and different kinds of Tonties with their own specialities.

* In ''VideoGame/LegacyOfTheWizard'', the hero and his family must delve deep into a massive system of caverns and underground ruins to collect the four crowns and the magic sword needed to destroy the dragon Keela.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel IV'', it is revealed that the location of the Black Workshop is at [[spoiler:one thousand meters below a mountain range that can be seen from the town of Milsante. It's where Rean's held as a prisoner at the climax of ''Cold Steel III'' and throughout all of act 1 of ''IV''.]]

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'''s backstory explains how TheDarkTimes in Hyrule began when a great army of demons emerged from the earth and ravaged the land in their campaign to obtain the Triforce.

* ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion 2'' has the Subterranean racial trait. Being a tunneling sort means that your colonies can support a greater population, and ten points are added to trooper effectiveness when defending against a ground invasion.

* In ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'', warlords of the Black League in Omsk can establish a complex metro system designed to protect their population from Nazi German nuclear attacks.

* ''Franchise/TombRaider'': Nearly every single game will have Lara Croft explore an underground cavern at some point that are filled with [[EverythingTryingToKillYou traps, water, lava, wild animals, and sometimes a T-Rex]]. While she also explores underground urban areas as well, caves are usually more common in the franchise.

* In ''Webcomic/EverydayHeroes'', [[http://eheroes.smackjeeves.com/comics/2162218/home-deep-home/ Hornswoggle and family]] live in an AbsurdlySpaciousSewer.

* In ''Website/{{Taerel Setting}}'': Many kin'toni clans have made a permanent home underground, such as the Wialshy Kin'toni Clan, living in the Anyeri Hard Rock Erosional Caves, the Minemi Kin'toni Clan, living in the Ghar Anaroth Caves and the Diwarale Kin'toni Clan, living in the caves of Caldar Mountain. A zu'aan group that lives underground is the Muvon City Zu'aan, who live in the Frib-kada Caves.

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': in the Strong Bad Email "buried", Strong Bad tries to determine what is buried beneath his backyard kingdom of Strong Badia, mistaking a beer bottle cap for evidence of a civilization of AncientAstronauts. At the end of the cartoon, you can see a drawing he did showing what might be under Strong Badia, including a "nougat layer", the ancient alien colony of Coldonesdry, and a "dinosaur n [[Series/LandOfTheLost sleestak]] layer".

* ''WesternAnimation/MightyMax'' gives us Skull Mountain, located deep underground and surrounded by magma, which is [[BigBad Skullmaster]]'s abode, having been banished there thousands of years ago.

*** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyAndFriendsE35MishMashMelee Mish Mash Melee]]": The Dell Dwellers live in a system of spacious caves beneath the Mystificent Forest, where they handcraft natural objects to then be seeded in the surface world.

'''Marge:''' Of course you'll have a bad impression of New York if you only focus on the pimps and the C.H.U.D.s.

** As in real life, the Catacombs of Paris a.k.a. the City of the Dead, exist and make an appearance in the first book - here, as the temporary lair of Gravemoss. Being an ancient and thoroughly evil necromancer, he feels right at home... right up until [[spoiler: Harry Dresden's [[TakingYouWithMe Death Curse]] (he got better)]] blasts him halfway to orbit.

* ''Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes'' had one that combines urban and caverns. The humans who escaped the fall of civilization thousands of years earlier retreated to buried New York City and due to living next to a giant nuclear warhead, they became mutant, telepathic humans by the time Taylor and the rest arrived.

* ''Literature/TheIronTeeth'': Blacknail was born in tunnels beneath a human city. His tribe used to live there for generations. A large monster filled network of caves called the Deep has also been mentioned, but only briefly explored. Small insects called Harvesters live there and build vast mushroom farms.

** When Homer tells the story of his first trip to New York, it culminates in him falling down an open manhole and being attacked by C.H.U.D.s.
--->'''Homer:''' ...and that's when the C.H.U.D.s came at me.\\

* ''{{Manga/Uzumaki}}'': There is an UndergroundCity [[spoiler:located beneath the town of Kurozu-cho that seems to be the source of the spiral curse]].

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': "Bloody Murder" brings Mac and company into contact with a group of sewer dwellers under New York City.

* The land of Agartha in ''Anime/ChildrenWhoChaseLostVoices'' is underground and can be reached only through certain well-guarded entrances. It is a complete HollowWorld, with some sun-like source of light (but no stars) and its own megafauna. However, its inhabitants are very xenophobic due to their previous experiences with surface-dwellers.

* In ''Film/DarkHeritage'', the descendants of the Dansens have dug tunnels that radiate out from the mansion, and which serve as dwelling places and routes of travel for the feral descendants.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', the Chalice Dungeons are located deep underground beneath the city of Yharnam, which also has an intricate layer of sewers and storage tunnels underneath it as well. Ailing Loran in particular appears to be built into the sides of an enormous desert canyon.

* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', the tunnels beneath Kesandru House (or where it once stood) were originally just a squat stretch of bare earth that Bun-Bun hung out in. But then the Dig-Bots (tiny, self-replicating robots designed to improve the living space) got to work. Eventually they built their own night club down there, and [[http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20100201 their own mall]].

* The Worlds Below, a network of magical caves beneath the Prime Earth, which include such things as the cavern where [[Myth/NorseMythology Loki is bound]], appear in the ''[[Literature/TheCrewOfTheCopperColoredCupids Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids]]'' story ''[[https://thecrewofthecoppercoloredcupids.wordpress.com/2021/12/31/the-winter-quests/ The Winter Quests]]''.

* ''Literature/TheDescent'': our entire Earth is riddled with this trope, and cannibalistic near-human creatures inhabit the global maze of tunnels.

The urban version often overlaps with AbsurdlySpaciousSewer. In video games, this is a common location for an UndergroundLevel. When there's a whole hidden social system living underground, in secret but fairly regular contact with the mundane surface population, that's a WainscotSociety. See also MouseWorld, which is basically this but on a smaller scale; DugTooDeep, for when delving into these places releases something horrible; and HollowWorld, for when the entire planet as we know it is basically a shell wrapped around a close-curved version of Beneath the Earth.

The urban version often overlaps with AbsurdlySpaciousSewer. In video games, this is a common location for an UndergroundLevel. When there's a whole hidden social system living underground, in secret but fairly regular contact with the mundane surface population, that's a WainscotSociety. See also MouseWorld, which is basically this but on a smaller scale, and DugTooDeep, for when delving into these places releases something horrible.

* In ''Blog/CrossingKevinsCrossing'', it is rumored that none of the building have basements because of "tunnels beneath the ground and weird people that live there".

* ''VideoGame/KnightBewitched2'': Deepforge I is buried deep underground, and there's an entire world map underground known as the Ambrose Underworld, just like the Underworld of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV''.

In mythology, folklore, and fantasy, this is typically where you'll find TheUnderworld. (Or [[{{Hell}} that other place.]]) In ScienceFiction and pulp settings, this will often be home to the MoleMen or dinosaurs in a Lost World. In fantasy, expect instead to find [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]], [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblins]] and [[OurElvesAreDifferent dark elves]] making their homes down here. In either case, BigCreepyCrawlies are a common part of the local fauna. Subterranean civilizations armed with giant {{Robeast}}s are a common SuperRobot series antagonist. The KingInTheMountain can also be found here, resting until his hour of need comes again.

* ''VideoGame/{{Turok}} 2: Seeds of Evil'' has the Lair of the Blind Ones, whose centuries spent in darkness has rendered them eyeless as well as giving them [[WeakenedByTheLight a lethal sensitivity to sunlight]].

* The ''VideoGame/UltimaUnderworld'' games, as the title implies, are set in massive network of an underground dungeon.

** The first 40-man raid instance in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', Molten Core, is a huge lava-filled cavern located deep under Blackrock Mountain. It's home to elementals, lava giants, core hounds and Ragnaros, the elemental lord of fire.

Often found side-by-side in with the UndergroundLevel and AbsurdlySpaciousSewer. In mythology, folklore, and fantasy, this is typically where you'll find TheUnderworld. (Or [[{{Hell}} that other place.]]) In ScienceFiction and pulp settings, this will often be home to the MoleMen or dinosaurs in a Lost World. In fantasy, expect instead to find [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]], [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblins]] and [[OurElvesAreDifferent dark elves]] making their homes down here. Subterranean civilizations armed with giant {{Robeast}}s are a common SuperRobot series antagonist. The KingInTheMountain can also be found here, resting until his hour of need comes again. When there's a whole hidden social system living underground, in secret but fairly regular contact with the mundane surface population, that's a WainscotSociety. See also MouseWorld, which is basically this but on a smaller scale, and DugTooDeep.

* In ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold'', the Morlock-like Olmecs dwell in underground cities.

* In ''{{Manga/Uzumaki}}'', there is an UndergroundCity [[spoiler:located beneath the town of Kurozu-cho that seems to be the source of the spiral curse]].

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' has the Depths, a vast subterranean area spanning most of Hyrule's underbelly that serves as a DarkWorld. Initially, the Depths are [[BlackoutBasement pitch black save for those places you've lit up with Brightbloom seeds]], only fully lighting up as you activate Lightroots. There are also lots of monster-controlled mines there that are the main source of Zonaite. And it's where Ganondorf was sealed away in the distant past; all the Chasms opening up the Depths to Hyrule's surface are the result of his [[MadeOfEvil Gloom]] bursting forth upon his awakening at the story's beginning.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karst Karst topography]], formed by water slowly eroding through soluble bedrock over long periods of time, tends to produce impressively extensive cave systems. The largest and most well-known of such caves is probably Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' parodies the tendency for comic book supervillains to come from here with the Underminer at the end of the movie.