Tunnelborough

Animals like mice, rats, owls and birds exist as sentient human-minded beings in this world, both to-scale and anatomically correct-ish. Birds are predators to mice, owls being more stalking and nocturnal than other birds. Similarly, rats are a bit stronger and more aggressive than mice, often being less intelligent on average. Birds and owls are nomadic, and predate on mice. They live above ground, waiting to strike. They are enemies of mice and rats, though rats and mice are enemies to each other as well.

This takes place mostly in Tunnelborough.

Tunnelborough Lore: Tunnelborough is located entirely underground, its entrance being a few tunnel openings dug into a small hill overlooking a large freshwater pond. The pond is encased on all sides by tall grass and cattail plants, and canopied by a wealth of tall trees, all with plentiful leaf cover. This provides a tropical climate during summer, and a cold blizzard climate during winter. During the winter, the consul of Tunnelborough will order workers to shut all 4 of the tunnels which enable entry and exit for its citizens in order to maintain heat and safety. Tunnelborough reaches roughly a kilometer down and two kilometers along, a winding network of warm tunnels, in-built stone homes, workplaces and public spaces, a bustling city roughly 11000 mouse citizens strong. Common professions include fishing, stone masonry, mining, smithing, root vegetable agriculture, and law enforcement. Law enforcers, known as “cops”, wear blue caps and cloaks, and are quite corrupt. Cops occasionally lock up new female criminals up in public wooden stocks, hands and head constrained in a stood and half-leant position, often putting up signs saying “free use here” or “public property, criminal bitch” next to the stocks, clearly implying an encouragement of passerby to rape and abuse the poor criminal stuck in the stocks. This punishment usually lasts up to a week. For male prisoners, they’re deferred to prison. If any mouse is left outside during the Great Sealing of the tunnel entrances during the beginning of winter, no effort is made to retrieve them, they’re good as dead. The two consuls, Ardol and Senas, both male, are quite strict and often turn a blind eye to all of the malpractice occurring in the cop ranks. The highest ranked cops, aka defense officers often must protect the city itself from potential outside threats, wearing dark green caps and cloaks along with wielding swords and bows, instead of a cop’s normal wood billy club. Ardol is a gray shorter male mouse, and Senas is a taller stockier male black mouse. There are two schoolhouses in Tunnelborough, Tunnel Academy and Mandrake Boarding School. Both schools have a fierce rivalry. As for government, we have the two consuls at the top, surrounded by a 100-mouse senate of male and female mice of high societal standing, 165 high ranked defense officers, and about 270 normal cops and guards. The government is only around 500 mice strong in total, which leaves 10500 mice civilians. Only 1100 of the citizens are considered of the upper class, leaving the rest of the 9400 as lower class citizens, working as artisans, fishers, masons, teachers, traders, etc. This society isn’t very fair, and is quite self contained, with most citizens not going up to the surface more often than once every few weeks to relax or hunt caterpillar meat. There are several inns in Tunnelburrow, with the most infamous being the Dirty Rodent. The Dirty Rodent is a barely disguised brothel and bar, bribing cops and senate to stay operating. The lower levels of the city, known as the Ghettos, are consisting of the poorest 3000 of the population. They most often make their food by worm fishing or root farming. The next 5500 of the populous lives in the middle area of the city, a bustling area where most of the people live in relative comfort, not well off, but not impoverished. The final 900 people live in the highest areas of the city, with full access to the city’s entrance and exit tunnels. Their streets are paved in limestone, and their lives are decadent. The currency of the city, silvers, are small silver coins distributed to the people via jobs or forced labor. Think of silvers as dollars.