Underground Polis

Underground Polis follows the exploits of a squad of the Sewer Guard, a police force tasked with patrolling the ridiculously vast network of sewers, catacombs, tunnels and caverns beneath the sprawling fantasy metropolis of Artheia. The game aims for a mixture of dungeon crawling, Weird Tales, good old Sword & Sandal movies and action cop shows, set in an amalgam of a Classical Greek polis, Imperial Rome and fantasy cities from Ankh-Morpork to Zamora.

The Story So Far

The story so far.

Important Notes & Plot Points

• Note 1
• etc.

The City

Situated at the mouth of the mighty river Erion on the northern coast of the Inner Sea, boasting a million citizens, the City of Artheia is the greatest center of human habitation in the known world and a giant shining jewel atop the golden crown of civilization.

Depending on one's perspective, it's also kind of a dump.

Artheia is an expansive city state that lays claim to lands far outside the city walls, with numerous colonies all around the Inner Sea and several along the major inland trade routes to the North and East. "Artheia" usually refers to the entire state, the city proper being called "the City of Artheia" or most commonly just "the City".

Surroundings

Cultivated farmlands cover the fertile plains around the City, broken here and there by woods and grassy hills where livestock graze, extending several days' journey from the City in every direction but South, where spreads the Inner Sea.

Government

Artheia is ruled by a triumvirate of elected officials titled Dictators: the Prince, the Mayor and the Marshal. The Prince represents the City in general and its nobility in particular in foreign matters, and also commands the Foreign Legions. The Mayor represents the trade guilds and merchant leagues and thus, at least in theory, the common citizens; he has the final say in matters concerning trade and domestic issues. The Marshal is tasked with defending and keeping order in the City, and commands the Home Legions; he also has ultimate authority in matters concerning the same.

The Dictators are elected by the Elector Council, a body consisting of all the nobles holding estates within the City itself, the heads of all the officially recognized guilds and merchant leagues based within the City, and the generals of all the Legions. Technically, each Dictator is elected for a term of no more than seven years at a time, but while the office of Mayor does usually pass around as intended, it is exceedingly rare for the current Prince or Marshal not to get re-elected, owing half to political corruption and half to a long string of genuinely competent individuals holding the offices.

Theoretically, all three are supposed to have equal authority, but in practice the Prince generally trumps the Mayor, who in turn trumps the Marshal. Fortunately for democracy, the threat or occasionally outright act of open rebellion has been shown time and again to trump all three. In any case, the Dictators actually delegate most matters and everyday decisions to the Senate, ninety civic officers elected by public vote among the citizens (a citizen being any free person who owns property within the City walls) who take care of running the City through a veritable horde of secretaries, assistants and junior officials.

Home Legions

There are two legions permanently stationed within or near the City. The 1st Home Legion patrols the lands surrounding the city, keeping peace in the countryside and acting as the first line of defense against invasion. The 2nd Home Legion operates within the City itself, enforcing the law and protecting the City (and, ideally, the citizens) from internal threats. Under all but the most extraordinary conditions, this is the only armed force allowed to act within the City proper.

Popular but unsubstantiated rumor insists there is a 3rd Home Legion, a sinister secret police force of spies and assassins. Authorities scoff at the very notion.

Every legion, Home or Foreign, is composed of a number of Companies of varying size, usually 100-300 soldiers, plus support personnel. These are divided into groups of ten soldiers called Arms, and each Arms comprises two Hands of five men.

The Sewer Guard

Comprising the 13th through 16th Companies of the 2nd Home Legion, the Sewer Guard holds jurisdiction under the ground.

The Districts

The City is divided into twelve districts, each officially signified with a number but also possessing a nickname used in all but the most formal contexts (and several less flattering ones not usually referred to in polite company). Each district has one of the first twelve Companies of the 2nd Home Legion assigned to it; they hold jurisdiction above ground, but can also be called on for reinforcements when more warm bodies are needed underground than are currently available to the Sewer Guard itself.

District I - the Citadel

The seat of power at the very heart of the City, containing the palaces and offices of the three Dictators and most of their senior officials, including the Senate. Situated at the highest point in the City, the white marble halls and gilded domes of the Dictatorial complex are an awesome spectacle, especially at sunrise and sundown, bathed in majestic brilliance above the shadowed City below.

This was the site of the original fortress around which the City was formed, and is still well protected by a sheer cliff falling two hundred feet straight down into the Seaport harbor on one side and massive walls of ancient red granite on the others; the City has been breached by enemies before, but the Citadel remains impregnable.

District II - the Market

The great town square and surrounding neighborhoods at the end of the City's main street, Victor's Way, downhill from the Citadel and next to the Seaport. The City's social and economical hub as well as its de facto political center, this is where most citizens and visitors gather for business and leisure, by day and night.

Right next to the square is the Batrios, or Batrian Circus, a huge amphitheater where public trials and executions are staged, along with grand plays, spectacular sporting events, major political debates and other such big budget entertainment. Lesser productions take place in the City's many smaller theaters or just erect makeshift stages somewhere around the square where ever they can find the room.

District III - the Seaport

The main harbor of Artheia, a partially man-made semicircular bay on the east bank of Erion just upriver of the Citadel. It's protected from storms by the Citadel cliff itself. There are commercial and public port facilities, a large shipyard with several drydocks and an entire suburb of commercial warehouses.

The large community of boat people living on the river just off the main harbor, a sort of floating slum, is widely considered an informal thirteenth district (and a bloody nuisance).

District IV - the Grove

A mishmash grouping of temples, shrines and religious fixtures of all sorts, erected around the site of an ancient sacred grove west of the river mouth. The grove itself is long gone - chopped down, says legend, for the funeral pyre of the last Artheian Emperor centuries ago - but the name still sticks. A myriad lesser temples huddle close together in unordered clusters like the shelters of the homeless, mazy and slum-like, while the houses of more affluent deities tower above the masses, surrounded with ample breathing room.

Roughly in the center of the conglomeration stands the Temple of All Gods, a vast green copper dome on grey-veined marble pillars, housing shrines to every god worshiped in Artheia. Anyone who wants to start a cult is welcome to set up altar in here, although floor space is precious and bitterly contested; less popular contenders crowd in the open area around the Temple, trying to stir up enough sympathetic elbows to secure a space inside.

District V - the Wardock

An island in the middle of the river mouth that harbors the military port and main barracks of the 2nd Home Legion, as well as the famous Lighthouse of Artheia. The great river-spanning chains that can block entrance to the Seaport and Erion proper are operated from here.

District VI - the Westbank

A posh, clean, spacious neighborhood containing the private homes and palaces of the wealthy and powerful, situated on a low hill north of the Grove, across from the Seaport. It borders on the river and features several marinas and private docks.

District VII - the Works

An industrial area populated by artisans and craftsmen of all kinds, east of the Seaport, north of the Market.

District VIII - the Long Shore

A residential area of the working class, mostly freed slaves and non-citizens, that spreads along the east shore of the Erion Bay south of the Citadel. The beach is full of fishing boats and every cottage fronted by a small vegetable garden.

District IX - the Vale

Another well-to-do area, just west of the Westbank. Mostly inhabited by bureaucrats and lower nobility.

District X - The Warrens

An urban residential area east of the Market, mostly tenement houses and small rented lots, populated by the common citizenry. The City of Artheia has probably the largest middle class of any state in the known world - which still isn't saying much, to be honest - and this is where the middle-most of them live (the wealthiest upper middle class types tend to prefer the Vale, while the far more numerous lower middle classes make do on the Long Shore).

District XI - The Landport

AKA Crapyard. The neighborhood around the northern gate, containing mostly various stables, stockades, caravan staging grounds and a large cattle and slave market. This is where most land-based commerce enters and exits the city. The whole area is largely open ground, or would be if it wasn't covered with ever shifting temporary closures and shelters, clusters of tents and more or less well guarded stockpiles of merchandise. The earth is packed hard by generations of feet and hooves, but still turns to knee-deep mud when it rains. Always noisy, dusty (except when it's muddy) and packed full of foreigners and other smelly animals.

District XII - the Pits

The newest and poorest part of the city, a regular slum of ramshackle hovels and makeshift shelters south of the Grove. Many refuse to consider the Pits a district at all. It began as a quarantine area for the infected during a devastating plague some thirty years ago and hasn't improved much since. The City government has been quite ruthless in hemming in this sprawling mess of refuse, and the populace takes a very dim view of the authorities.

The Sewers

Ancient, extensive and exceedingly complex, the sewer system of Artheia is one of the unsung wonders of the world.

It is constantly under repair and modification, and has been for a thousand years. There are still open sewers in some parts of the City, but mostly the system comprises a baroque network of aqueducts, sewage drains, storm drains, ventilation shafts, access tunnels, storage rooms, forgotten cellars, ancient streets and buildings, abandoned catacombs, natural caverns and gods alone know what else dug out or buried under the streets. The very bedrock is essentially porous on a gigantic scale.

Every now and then someone makes an effort to map the whole mess out, but no one has ever devised a sufficiently accurate means of navigating underground, nor been able to keep up with the constant changes brought on by all the repairs, expansions and alterations. For that matter, no one has any idea of the full extent of the system. It underlies the entire City and spreads some distance outside the walls, too, but exactly how far is unclear. According to some explorers it seems to reach further afield the deeper you go, and it goes deeper than anybody you've ever heard of can tell.

Coworkers

Many of the people you run into underground are also working for the City. Teams of engineers and craftsmen are always busy repairing or expanding or improving something, somewhere. An army of muckrakers armed with their ten-foot poking poles (the "rakes") make daily rounds all through the active drains, keeping a watch for blockages and making sure the black and clear waters keep flowing as they should. Many other Guard units are also patrolling down here, and aside from quibbling over patrol routes and jurisdictions (no, we gotta be beyond the Vesulla Canal here, this is your headache, mate) might even come to your aid when called.

Crocodiles

The sewers are also home to a small but tenacious population of salt water crocodiles. Some swim in from the sea or the Erion, some are abandoned pets, some have lived down here for generations. All are hungry, vicious bastards.

Deep Town

A region of persistently clogged storm drains roughly between the Market and Seaport, taken over and turned into a transitory village by the homeless. Every few months the Sewer Guard is ordered to evict them but, of course, they simply scatter for a moment and resettle right around the corner as soon as you're gone. This has lead to a strictly unspoken mutual understanding that if they don't put up too much of a fight, you won't be too rough about it, and everyone can just get on with their lives with a minimum of hassle. Not a good place to visit, let alone live, but criminals have sometimes found it useful for laying low.

Explorers

There are several reasons for people to explore the system. Rich kids sometimes go down there for kicks, to seek out weird places (or beat up vagrants); the poor scavenge for profitable salvage; occasionally an official exploration party is sent to try and map out at least a part of the system; wanted criminals hide in the uncharted nooks and crannies, and bounty hunters pursue them; and sometimes adventurers foreign and domestic descend to the depths on some more or less ill-conceived quest for treasure or thrills. Most of the time you simply question the people you come across, just in case, and let them go on looking for whatever trouble they're after, but now and then you need to keep some affluent brat from getting himself killed or stop a misguided adventurer from stirring up trouble that might come back to bite you.

Gas

Snicker all you want. Various obnoxious and dangerous gases often get trapped in chambers and tunnels and gather into large pockets of vaporous evil. Sometimes they explode on contact with an open flame, like the one in your lantern. Sometimes they smell really bad. Sometimes they snuff out your lamp and leave you groping in the dark while you slowly choke to death. Any guard who survives his first week in the job will learn the warning signs - strange odors, visible haze, sputtering or oddly colored flames, a giddy, breathless feeling...

Old Nellie

A monstrous creature that lurks in the deeper sewers. She hates and shuns light, so nobody's ever seen her, but she's always ready to fall upon any guardsman caught alone without a light and drag them screaming into the dark. Or so your senior handmates tell you.

Rats

Half the guard will swear rats grow bigger, bolder and more cunning the deeper you go; the other half are quick to laugh off such nonsense and change the subject. Some grizzled old veterans speak in hushed tones of an empire of rats, somewhere deep down, ruled by a giant white King Rat with a scepter of human bone, and a strange temple where the vermin swarm by the thousands to worship before a foul and beastly idol.

The Slime

A sickly yellow slime mold that sometimes starts to spread out from the neglected tunnels beyond the City's west wall, like a sudden fungal tide, known to cover at worst maybe a quarter mile per day. Brief exposure only causes a mild burning sensation, but people caught unaware by it (typically people sleeping in or under the streets) have sometimes been found digested to the bone; on some particularly disastrous occasions the slime has grown under and up into houses and entire neighborhoods before being noticed, with tragic consequences. Fortunately, burning and shoveling it back have always been sufficient to check its advance, and it usually only happens once a decade or three.

There's probably some significance to the way it spreads out from the direction of the old graveyard, just outside the walls, but everybody has a different theory on what this means (aside from the Pits usually getting the worst of it). Nobody's volunteered to go and explore - aside from that one brave squad, as the elder guardsmen are happy to tell, that never returned. You never met them, it was before your time.

Spies and Smugglers

The various tunnels opening to the river or seashore are often used by people trying to slip into or out of the City unnoticed and, in times of war, enemies have been known to try and get past the walls this way. Preventing these transgressions is one of the main tasks of the Sewer Guard. There's actually a small scale, low key war on between the Guard and the Horseless Soljaks, a foreign gang of fences and smugglers from the eastern steppes.

Other Resources

Water and Wastewater Systems in Imperial Rome - Some atmospheric insights and useful reading about ancient plumbing.