Life in Deshret is complex, vibrant, and messy. Its details depend heavily on the floor in which you live, an important indicator of your social status.
NOTE: This is compiled by a player from multiple comments on the Underspire Discord; many things here may change over time at staff discretion!
FACTS OF LIFE
HOUSING
Housing is controlled by the authorities that rule over any given floor. In Suburba, the slums, the allocation is done by a floor boss who's the most senior and eldest resident of the floor, typically based on the value of your work. (Though it isn't impossible to sneak in a deal with a faction for better digs.) Lower-status workers might be stashed in communal pods with shared bathrooms and kitchens, while higher-status workers might be given small individual rooms.
Sixers - members of the Six guilds - have access to better housing in the residential area known as Arcadia, a subset of Delos (the name for the guild-owned floors in general).
And of course, members of the Great Houses live in mysterious luxury on the lower floors, collectively referred to as Palatine.
FOOD AND DRINK
In the slums of Suburba, food is primarily produced by the vats of the Kolkhos, the collective farmer's association. Efficient crops like tubers, insect protein, soy, algae, and mushrooms are heavily processed into pastes shaped, dyed, and flavored like natural food. One particular tuber known as pith is often processed into pithmeal alongside dried fungi and used to make bread, frycakes, and similar products. Upper-class and noble individuals might be lucky enough to eat the more luxurious genuine produce grown by House Amari instead.
On the meat side, Mythos produces a great quantity of cultivated meat, known colloquially as 'vatling'. Sixers might have access to actual animal meat, but these animals are still genetically engineered for efficiency.
There are no specific 'bodies' of fresh water in Deshret, but water is still not terribly scarce due to geothermal sources and excellent recycling systems.
CLIMATE
There is, in fact, a simulation of natural human weather. It would seem eerie or uncanny to modern-day humans, as it is a little too synthetic and perfect. Of course, to the vast majority of citizens of Deshret who don't venture surface-side, it's all the weather they've ever known.
MEDICINE
Life in Deshret can be brutal, with both illness and injury being very real possibilities. Lost limbs are typically replaced by cyberware, despite Sepulchre's disapproval; biological replacements are available but out of the price range of many.
Mental health is poorly understood; someone delusional is likely to end up with their delusions being classified as either heresy or revelation. This isn't to say that there's no concept of mental illness, but Mythos would typically view the matter as "is there a problem with the body or the soul?" The closest thing to therapy available would be the guidance of Sepulchre's priesthood.
EDUCATION
Most everyone in Deshret receives at least some education, courtesy of the creches operated by Sepulchre. There children are taught the basics of faith, history, and the general knowledge needed to survive in Deshret. Literacy in Shinar, the basic language of Deshret, is widespread - learning other languages tends to be on-demand, however. (See Languages for more information.)
Further schooling beyond primary years is typically handled by an apprenticeship model, particularly among the guilds. For example, A would-be doctor would find themselves apprenticing for a fully-fledged member of Mythos, and in time hoping to attain that status and train their own apprentices in turn.
TECHNOLOGY
Technology is a crucial part of everyday life in Deshret, yet not in a way modern society would recognize. Oh, there are familiar concepts aplenty. Much of media operates over broadcast television and radio channels. Most all citizens own a phone, their own personal portable computing device - and all citizens have the Tessera, a chip installed in every Deshreti's brain during infancy that allows them to query/communicate with the Nous.
What is different is the way people understand and interact with technology. The inner workings of tech are abstracted to just about everyone who isn't an exceedingly high-ranking Guild member; even people who professionally interface with these systems view their most complex inner components as black boxes.
The level and sophistication of available technologies also varies hugely, due to resource limitations and the downstream effects of Sepulchre's control over what is considered acceptable. You might well see black powder firearms comparable to muskets in play alongside fully modern and lethal weaponry, for example.
SOCIETY
SOCIAL STATUS
Social status is conferred on people by employment status and/or House affiliation.
Great Houses: At the very top of the food chain are the members of the Great Houses, the nine families of the Pagos. Even within these Houses there is considerable variation, as the direct ruling line carries a great deal of power while distant kin might only be able to leverage some extra respect.
Minor Houses: There are many other families proud and powerful enough to name themselves a House, varying from almost-as-powerful-as-Great-Houses to in shambles. Being a member of one of these Houses may likely convey some respect, but does not come with any particular legal recognition; ultimately the value of a House name is what you can make it. If the Great Houses are the equivalent of titled nobility, the Minor Houses are more similar to landed gentry - wealthy, influential, but not set apart.
Guild Membership: To be a fully-fledged member of a Guild conveys both economic and social privilege, and the higher your rank the more power. Guild members, or Sixers, are entitled to use particles before their names (see Guilds for the list), often receive better housing, and generally gain status and influence as they ascend the chain.
Yeomen: This is a very broad class of individuals, encompassing contractual workers who aren't fully guilded but serve the Guilds or Houses. This could range from people supplying the Guilds with materials to the gardener of a Great House's estate. Benefits like housing, wealth, or influence might come your way as a Yeoman, but in general they're the quintessential 'middle class'.
Slummers: The slummers of Suburba have their own culture and way of life, with their own agendas and factions separate from the guilds. (For example, they tend to rely on the enginers of The Calibri rather than Vulcani's professionals.) This class is really a blender of people, from criminals and outlaws to disgraced ex-guilders. Some slummers hate the guilds, some don't; some slummers hate the state, some don't. The Coterie, the criminal syndicate that rules the slums, is the only true authority over them all.
PREJUDICE AND IDENTITY
Modern-day notions of identity very much do not apply in Deshret. Concepts of race, ethnicity, etc. are irrelevant; there is no society-wide meaning ascribed to the color of one's skin or the shape of one's features. There can be specific stereotypes - for example, House Vesalius' ruling family is notoriously pale - but they don't reflect a broader notion of what is virtuous or desirable.
This also means that naming conventions are a confusing and complicated mishmash of influences, without any of the patterns we might see today across ethnic, racial, or national categories.
SEXUALITY AND GENDER
Yes. Sexuality is not taboo, either religiously or socially. Prostitution and other sex work is entirely legal. Nudity isn't even illegal across the city as a whole, though it may get you in trouble in the classier parts of the city. Gender and sex are essentially a non-issue from a social perspective, as individuals are free to change not only their gender expression but also their physical features through biomodding procedures. These options are available to most non-poverty-stricken citizens, allowing for radical re-invention.
The only real case where sexuality might be curtailed more carefully is when it matters for lineage - i.e., in the case of the Houses, who typically care a great deal about their blood. Children born out of wedlock to the Houses are not given official recognition, beyond a specific surname to indicate their bastard descent (see the Great Houses page for a full list).
CULTURE
DRUGS
Also yes. Drugs are entirely legalized. 'Alchemy', as chemistry is known, produces plenty of substances for recreational purposes as well as medical.
Most drugs are fully synthetic, with some recognizable real-world substances like tobacco and marijuana being represented. (House Amari does offer the real thing on both counts, at exorbitant prices.)
Smoking and vaping are both used as methods of consumption.
SPORTS
Modern-day sports are largely unknown, but the city's national sport is a version of Hussade, a game in which teams fight across a grid of raised catwalks over a tank of water to reach and strip the opposing team's mascot. (Unlike in Hussade classic, this mascot is NOT a young woman.)
MUSIC
Music is a large part of life in Deshret, with many competing micro-cultures making for a vibrant scene. Specific songs and media from the past are completely lost, but styles often linger, though combined in strange new ways. For example, the slums tend toward sounds like industrial techno, EBM, hard techno, gabber, trap metal, and industrial hip hop, while the Coterie supports dark cabaret/cabaret punk, electro swing, Gothic rock, and even Balkan brass.
The majority of society would likely listen to Symphony's heavily-promoted and mainstream music, leaning toward hyperpop, dark synthpop, synthwave, alternative r&b and hiphop. But Sepulchre's religious music instead borrows from a melded tradition of influences like Gregorian chants, Byzantine chants, Orthodox music, neoclassical darkwave, ritual ambient, drone music, and funeral doom.
The Houses also have their own musical tastes their wealth allows them to patronize. For more details, check out the Musical Inspiration page.
HISTORICAL INFLUENCES
What would the average Deshret citizen know of the world before the Burning? Not a lot - their understanding of old-world culture would be garbled, incomplete, and with a profound confusion between myth and reality. For example, mythological creatures like elves and dragons - when people are even aware of them from old salvaged books or films - might be believed to have once been real, rather than fictional creations. Identities like "European" or "Chinese" would be viewed in the same way we view fictional ethnicities from sci-fi novels today... mysterious cultures with no bearing on everyday life.
Old Earth language influences do survive in Shinar, the common tongue of Deshret, but they've been so chopped-up and combined they aren't traceable/recognizable.
IMAGERY AND METAPHOR
Every culture has its own particularly resonant metaphors and concepts, and Deshret is no exception.
Most notably, ideas of being on the 'top' and 'bottom' are utterly reversed from what we might expect. This is because the top floors are the most unpleasant parts of the city, being relatively more exposed to the contaminations of the Surface, while the bottom floors are newer and more luxurious. You're not doing well in life if you're 'on top of the world'.
Many ancient real-world sources of symbolism simply do not have meanings in Deshret any longer. For example, symbolism derived from Christianity is completely lost; nobody but perhaps the most avid scholars will recognize images like a cross or crucifix.
This also means that the naming conventions of Deshreti citizens are wildly varying, with whatever traditions that exist typically belonging to specific families rather than any kind of culture-wise rules.
Some animal symbolism does exist. Moths have been linked with St. Marrow, and hence viewed positively; wrens, too, receive appreciation for their link to St. Wren. In Suburba, rats are seen as lucky.
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