The Underworld5 collectionsUnderworld Necropolis is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection of 10,000 pixel-art reaper characters minted in 2024 on Stargaze, the principal NFT marketplace of the Cosmos ecosystem. It is the founding collection of The Underworld, a project that has since added companion, evolved and Genesis NFT collections, a utility token designated $NETHER, and a web application called Necrovault through which holders stake assets and access reward mechanics.
The project is distinguished within the Cosmos NFT sector less by its artwork than by the density of game-like systems built around it. Where several better-known Cosmos collections deliberately avoid promising utility, The Underworld is organised almost entirely around it. By mid-2026 it was placing consistently in the upper positions of Stargaze's weekly trading-volume rankings.
Collection
The collection comprises 10,000 tokens, individually titled "Reaper", built around a mortuary and harvest theme in a pixel-art style. Project material frames the setting as a domain in which reapers gather abandoned or "forgotten" NFTs for a final reckoning - a conceit that gestures at the large number of dormant collections on Cosmos chains.
Minting ran on the Stargaze launchpad across at least two promotional phases in 2024: an initial window advertised from 22 August, and a second from 14 to 31 October. Both were promoted through giveaways in which each mint constituted a raffle entry for STARS tokens and additional Necropolis NFTs; the August campaign offered to double the prize pool if 3,000 mints (30% of supply) were reached. The collection carries a 5% creator royalty.
The Underworld ecosystem
Further collections
Underworld Companions is described by Stargaze as a set of underworld pets carrying rewards, intended to introduce holders to decentralised finance. A third collection, Evolved, also trades on Stargaze.
Underworld Genesis the project's largest expansion, is a collection-driven set of 24 creatures in which collectors assemble Sub Sets and Master Sets, with the completion of all 24 framed as the ultimate objective. Contrary to some project summaries describing Genesis as forthcoming, the mint was live on the Stargaze launchpad as of mid-2026 and was described by Stargaze in July 2026 as well underway. The project has stated that allowlist places were to be earned through ecosystem participation rather than sold conventionally.
NecroVault
NecroVault is the project's web application and the access point for most of its mechanics. Its published sections include staking, an Initiation onboarding sequence of ten quests carrying ten rewards, an Ambassador programme, a mystery-box vault, raffles, an Eternal Tree daily-reward feature, an Altar of Sacrifice through which companion NFTs can be consumed, a Dragon's Cave, a Nether Forge for token staking, a Genesis Book, a projects directory and a leaderboard.
The Initiation rewards completion with RUIN tokens and a chest item, and is presented by the project as a substitute for conventional documentation.
$NETHER
$NETHER is the ecosystem's utility token, stated by the project to have a fixed supply of 21,000. It is used for staking rewards, raffle access and Dragon's Cave bonuses, and trades on Osmosis, where the project maintains both a concentrated-liquidity and a 50/50 pool. The project has stated an intention to fund ATOM-denominated rewards from ecosystem revenue.
Team
The project describes itself as developed by an individual using the name King Ken, working with one developer and one artist. The team is otherwise pseudonymous and no further attribution is publicly available.
Platform migration
In early 2026 Stargaze ceased operating as an independent layer-1 blockchain and migrated to the Cosmos Hub as an application, with an NFT snapshot taken on 17 March 2026. Collections were redeployed under new contract addresses bearing the cosmos1 prefix, replacing the former stars1 addresses, and marketplace pricing moved to ATOM. Underworld Necropolis migrated with the platform and continues to trade on the Hub deployment.
This transition is a common source of confusion in third-party data: aggregators indexing the legacy Stargaze L1 report prices denominated in STARS against the old contracts, while post-migration sources report ATOM against the new ones.
Reception and market data
Stargaze's weekly top-volume rankings during 2026 repeatedly placed Underworld among the leading collections on the platform, at second and third position in separate weeks, alongside or ahead of longer-established collections including Celestine Sloth Society and Mad Scientists. One community comment accompanying such a ranking characterised the project as showing steady growth and innovation while describing the wider Stargaze market as considerably quieter than in previous years — a framing that places the project's relative prominence in the context of an overall contraction in Cosmos NFT trading.
An aggregator listing recorded a floor price of 4.99 ATOM (approximately US$7.48) across the 10,000-token supply, giving a market capitalisation of roughly US$74,600, with 149 tokens listed and more than 4,200 cumulative sales.
Ownership is concentrated: approximately 622 distinct addresses hold the supply, equating to around 6% unique ownership, against ratios of 59% to 85% for comparable Cosmos collections. The project has publicly cited a figure near 600 as its active user count, indicating that holder count and participant count are closely aligned by design, with staking mechanics rewarding accumulation of multiple tokens.
The project's X account reported approximately 3,600 followers as of 2026.
See also
Stargaze
Cosmos Hub
Non-fungible token