Catacombs of Paradise City

The Catacombs of Paradise City are a winding series of underground ossuaries and tombs in Paradise City, Blackhelm Confederacy, which contain the remains of more than eight million people. Running throughout much of the historic Old City section of Paradise City the catacombs were founded as a response to overcrowding and shortage of usable land around 184AD, and were continually used until the very last burial in 1542, with illegal burials in the area spanning well into the eighteenth century.

Section of the Paradisian catacombs

History

Realizing that clearing land in order to create cemetaries would either require the people of Paradise to clear through dense jungle, or else take a voyage by boat to the various islands in the Paradisian harbor, the government of the city decided in 184AD to utilize a time tested Etruscan method of burying their dead: burial in underground chambers. The first chambers for this purpose were dug in that year, and would continually be dug as the need for them grew.

The catacombs today are a great resource for viewing early forms of Exponential art, as the families of the deceased continually sought to one up each other, burying their relatives with elaborate frescoes, sarcophagi, and all manner of medallions. In time, however, more and more people were buried in the catacombs, and large ossuaries were created throughout the sprawling tunnels. The very last person to be entombed was placed in the catacombs in 1542, and afterwards the maintenance of the winding and darkened pathways has fallen to the responsibility of the Church. For almost two hundred more years, however, individuals illegally buried bodies in the various ossuaries, with recordings of unsanctioned burials being found up until at least the 1730's.

Today

Since its closure, and indeed even before, the catacombs were viewed with a certain morbid curiosity by a number of people. Some damage was done to parts of the ossuaries during the Confederate revolution, as armed groups and Muslim refugees both sought to use the tunnels to hide from those on the streets. Today, guided tours are routinely given to the area, and certain, less desirable elements still maintain a presence in a select few areas, making them completely off limits to foreigners.