UNDERCITY

Social Class: Lower.

Power Center: Often—monstrous.

Buildings: Temples (2%; monstrous deities), poor lodging (6%), poor food (13%), average trades (5%), poor trades (17%), average services (5%), poor services (20%), poor residences (30%).

Description: Every city has its “underground,” an area of criminal activity or black-market sales, but in some communities the term is literal. The undercity lies beneath the streets, a thriving shadow community in which criminals and monsters interact, do business, and kill one another. The district might consist of abandoned sewage or mining tunnels, natural caves, forgotten catacombs, the ruins of long-abandoned buildings, or combinations of these elements. The precise appearance and ambience of the undercity depend on its inhabitants and structure, but most such districts are musty from stale air, and often unsanitary.

Plot Hook: Although the mere existence of an undercity is often a suffi cient excuse for adventuring, a twist on the usual sewer crawl has the PCs chase a fugitive into the undercity. They navigate this strange new environment in order to track down their quarry, rather than as an end in itself. They risk incurring the wrath of more criminals, and monsters besides, for invading their territory.