T23: City Depot

This long, bamlike building contains the major storage sheds, stables, barns, and workshops of the Free City government. It all functions smoothly under the keen-eyed supervision of Foreman Fenrous, the gruff gnome who is the city's chief engineer.

From here Foreman (no one seems to know whether this is his name or his title) Fenrous dispatches garbage wagons, street repair crews, sewer scourers, whitewashers, and all the other city workers.

The garbage men, in their smelly wagons hauled by a pair of sedate draft horses, collect in a different quarter each day. The Free City has come up with a splendid sanitation plan for disposal of its garbage: the garbagemen dump it into the river. A few burnable items are incinerated on the rubbish pile outside of the city, but the river has proved an effective waste removal system for most of it.

The street repair crews work mainly at keeping the Processional and other major thoroughfares smooth and dry. Occasionally they fill ruts or holes that are formed during muddy days on the side streets, but these minor avenues receive little attention most of the time.

The sewermen, whitewashers, the city blacksmiths and carpenters, and so on, do not get sent out unless a specific task presents itself. At other times they work in the depot, servicing wagons and other city property.

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T23: City Depot. This huge building was burned completely to the ground in 584 cy, but it was rebuilt by the end of the next year. It houses the guildmembers and headquarters for several important guilds in the city, most notably the Union of Laborers and the Union of Sewermen and Streetcleaners. The overseer is a gnome named Foreman Fenrous [LN gm F4; hp 31; Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 15; ring of fire resistance, three potions of fire resistance]. Foreman (which seems to be his first name) was burned in the 584 Cy fire, but survived thanks to his ring. He is very paranoid about fires now, and he is trying to get the Directing Oligarchy to make the City Depot fireproof at all costs. Foreman assigns duties and represents the city government to the guilds and unions, if they should have complaints.

The Union of Laborers is the largest guild, with over 4,300 members who are hired out for unskilled or simple labor, such as street repair, whitewashing, digging, carrying freight, and so forth. Many members are hired by Greyhawk’s other guilds and even by ptivate individuals (usually merchants) for short-term day jobs when more skilled guildmembers don’t have the time. The guildmaster is the muscular Wergi Dael of Hardby [LG hf F2; hp 17; Str 17, Con 18, Wis 15, Cha 15], who has been active in labor and guild politics for years.

The Union of Sewermen and Streetcleaners has about 5OO members, about two-thirds of them apprentices. The streetcleaners pick up garbage along the street at regular intervals: High and Garden Quarters on Starday; Clerkburg on Sunday; Artisans’ Quarter on Moonday, Foreign Quarter on Godsday, River Quarter on Waterday, Old City (west of the Processional) on Earthday, Old City (east of the Processional) on Freeday. Three to four garbagemen on wagons drawn by two draft horses each make the rounds, then take the waste either to Garbage Hill (from the Old City, River Quarter, and Foreign Quarter) or to Shack Town to dump it into the Selintan (from the High, Garden, and Artisans’ Quarters and Clerkburg). Garbagemen get days off not necessarily related to the regular workweek.

A special division known as the Sewer Rats consists of the toughest, dirtiest dwarves and gnomes in the city, who receive special pay for marching through the great sewers and cleaning them out (including killing any unwanted wildlife down there). Because certain powerful people don’t want all of the sewers explored, the Sewer Rats are discouraged from going into certain places. There are about two dozen Sewer Rats in all, each with leather armot, picks, hammers, and hand axes. They congregate at the Barge Inn (R11), where they stink up the place terribly. The guildmaster of streetcleaners and sewermen is a tall albino named Glayrin Mok [NE hm F3; hp 10; Con 6; ring of protection +1], who came to Greyhawk as a child from the Wild Coast city of Elredd.

The Union of Courters and Messengers is a new guild, begun only two years ago to put some of the many children in the Old City to work instead of having them run free and & commit crimes. (At least, that was the reasoning at the time.) This guild is run by a former street child, now 24, named Christa [N hf T7; hp 21; Dex 17, Wis 15, Cha 16; boots of speed, ring of invisibility, dagger +2/+4 vs. Iycanthropes]. Christa trains young children to carry small packages and messages for customers within a few blocks’ distance in the city, for which they receive free food, board, and a few coppers a month spending money from the guild. The temple of Pelor thinks this operation is marvelous (as so few others will feed or care for children) but fears for the safety of the youngsters. Some minor clerics of Pelor accompany the children on their rounds and spoil them a bit.

DM's Notes: The entire City Depot and all unions there are in the pocket of the Guild of Thieves, which functions as a shadow government in the Old City. Christa’s urchins are secretly watched over by the guild as well as the clerics of Pelor, as many of these children will be trained later to become thieves or work with the guild in some capacity. The children’s union was Christa’s idea, as was tying it to the Guild of Thieves. In many odd ways, this union functions as a child welfare agency, looking out for their well-being, teaching them useful skills, and ruthlessly avenging any harm done to them. This agency is a peculiar alternative to the City Orphanage (T12).

Glayrin Mok of the Guild of Sewermen and Streetcleaners often secretly hires zombies or was Skeletons to perform cleaning work in sewers that are off-limits to the Sewer Rats. The Sewer Rats know this (they aren’t stupid) but have no complaints, though they always wonder what's so special about certain places in the sewers. (Some tunnels lead to the Thieves’ Guild (T21], and a few lead to the Guild of Assassins.[S5]) A long-term deal was worked out years ago with the Guild of Embalmers and Gravediggers to purchase good-quality bodies to be antmated by unscrupulous clerics. After a long period of service, the undead are disposed of. The Union of Laborers does a lot of side jobs for the Thieves’ Guild, but nothing that vee takes the laborers into the Great Hall (T21). Some laborers are actually thieves who use the sete opportunity to scout the homes of wealthy merchants and lodgings of visiting traders.