Editing Night Birds (section)

== Setting ==

A glittering pile of crime, corruption and urban decay. The state capital of Washeegan, the city was heavily built up in the preceding decade but much of this new development has been abandoned since the Depression settled in. Unemployment is rampant. Everyone is desperate for money and a moment of relief. Not a great place to live, but many have no choice and some just belong.

=== Downtown ===

The gilded heart of a city built for business and pleasure, bright and lively even in the dead of night, striped by shadows even at the height of noon.

; The Beauregard
: A popular speakeasy, a public secret. The ground floor offers family friendly dining and dancing to the general public. Trusted customers can descend a flight of stairs in the back into an underground nightclub for drinks and gambling, and even deeper below a secure suite is available by reservation for more private entertainment. Almost no one knows the owner, but it must be someone in good standing with the authorities.

; Police Headquarters
: Tall, grey and blocky. Features one of the city's great architectural mysteries, an inexplicable gaggle of gargoyles perched at every ledge and roof corner.

; Swan Lake
: A large, still pond surrounded by a small public garden, home to a flock of semi-tame black swans adopted by the city and beloved by the populace. A favored spot for families by day and lovers by night.

=== Harbor ===

Opening south-east onto the Larramet Bay, this was once a major hub of maritime transport but now many of its docks and warehouses sit rotting in silence, abandoned and empty. The facilities still in use are haunted by huddled groups of dockhands and sailors looking for work. Seagulls wheel, eerily quiet, above the drifting fog.

; El Verde Grande
: The wreck of a cargo ship resting level as if carefully placed on display on a rocky reef near the north bank of the river mouth. In the absence of anyone willing to claim ownership or responsibility, the jolly green hulk has become a local landmark, an accidental island often explored by bored kids and sometimes used as a concert stage.

=== Outskirts ===

; South Cemetery Park
: A communal area of tended woods, lawns and hedges next to the former site of the city's oldest graveyard (now an open air cinema). Home to a murder of talking crows.