Editing Underground Polis (section)

=== 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.