Locations/building in the slum district

[Wycen]

Circumstances have conspired to put me in the DM's chair for my Sunday group and so I'm going to quarter the group in the "bad part of town".

What kinds of business and places should they expect to find in the area of town called "Dog Town" thanks to the sibeccai (borrowed from AU)? Guards do not patrol the streets, but are present at the gate to the other districts.

The group is 16th level, but no firm ideas on race or class yet.

Thanks

 

[MonsterMash]

I suppose I'd expect to see Pawn Shops, low rent taverns, loan sharks, there will still have to be food shops and stuff, but more likely to have guards employed. Rag and bone men collecting around the streets.

 

[Torm]

Establishments that offer petting and grooming and in some cases "other services".
"Poo holes" for Sibeccai (and others? ) who like participate in the guilty, deeply shameful habit of smelling each others' waste.
Hole-digging gangs that maliciously dig holes and otherwise mark each others' territories.
An outreach facility for at least one of the churches in your campaign.

 

[Gilladian]

Poorer neighborhoods will have flophouses and communal apartments, abandoned buildings, once-fine structures now run down and turned to new uses. Tiny little chapels instead of fine churches. Soup kitchens. Whorehouses and gambling dens. Something that was once a park and is now controlled by gangs or something else dangerous.

Frequently poor neighborhoods are in industrialized zones, so you might have butchers and slaughterhouses, leatherworkers and tanners, dyers, laundries and other industries that produce noxious fumes and noise that would not be tolerated in better neighborhoods.

Old warehouses (maybe used by smugglers, or just abandoned or used for lesser value merchandise). No sewers, no running water - so wells where the women gather to fetch water, chat and bathe, children playing untended in the streets because both parents labor, or because they are orphaned. Many beggars, homeless, crippled and otherwise "outcast" peopole.

If your society has an outcaste group, then even if they are not poor, they may be forced to live in such a neighborhood, so there would be small clusters of these folk struggling to improve their living standard. They might have enclaves of middle-class shops and craftsmen among the worse streets.

 

[Torm]

P.S. The reason my previous suggestions are a bit odd is because I could see others were doing an excellent job of suggesting things that would be found in a normal "bad part of town", so I was trying to think of some that would be specific to a race of canines. And the last is because if the other three are going on, at least one of the churches better be looking at getting involved!

 

[the Jester]

Take any normal business or building type found in the city.

Put 'abandoned' in front of it.

Or perhaps put (front for the thieves' guild) behind it.

Don't forget beggars, gangs, etc. Use today's new about problems in the inner city to help guide you- just change guns into daggers and clubs.

Prostitution, gambling, drug halls, etc... but on the other hand, don't forget to include cheap food, cheap lodging (though not the safest) and good resources for making contacts, gathering information and the like. Though you're not likely to find anyone who knows what's going on with the 'upper crust' in town, you will prolly find a lot of info about the seamy underbelly of society. The slums are a great place to cruise if you want to find the guy who mugged you last week.

 

[EdL]

Lots of good suggestions, and I can't think of anything to add. But I have to ask, 16th level? These guys are stinking rich! So what are they doing in the poor part of town? And why on earth do you think they'll stay there for more tham five minutes?

 

[Wycen]

Lots of good suggestions, and I can't think of anything to add. But I have to ask, 16th level? These guys are stinking rich! So what are they doing in the poor part of town? And why on earth do you think they'll stay there for more tham five minutes?

Excellent question. As I plan it now, the first session doesn't even start in the city, they are in the abyss, fighting to stay alive and get out. Kinda like a flash back episode, but in this case really to get their heads wrapped around high level combat. For most of the group, this will be their first adventure higher than 12th or so level.

And I don't expect them to stay in the city for any longer than they might have to, as the various plot hooks I'm trying to conjure involve far off dungeons, ghost ships and supply shortages (missing caravans).

Torm, you have some unique ideas, thanks.

 

[Sejs]

Big ol' flea markets full of stolen, salvaged, second-hand, patched up, or otherwise questionable merchandise.

Industry for the less frontage-friendly types of guilds. Leatherworkers and papermakers are two prime examples. Particularly in a pseudomedieval setting both stink to high heaven.

Warehouses. Some abandoned, others not, some reclaimed by less savory business practicioners. Just big ol' buildings on cheap land to keep stuff in.

Junkyards.

Homeless or nearly so people living in or around said junkyards, scavenging.

Caravan yards. Basically big shipping/recieving complexes where wagon trains can put in and get sorted. Ideally situated near the aformentioned warehouses.

Crime, both organized and un-.

 

[Hand of Evil]

You also have places that smell in bad parts of town, such as: waste dumps, tanners and meat packers, you also have your drug dens and the lowest quaility of the normal locations. Don't forget fighting pits (animals, monsters, and men), gambling halls.