The Quarter

This is officially known as the South River Quarter, but usually referred to as The Quarter. This is the area south of the Old City, between the river and the ridge running south from the Old City.  This is the main adventurers' quarter in town - it's many names reflect this: The Quarter The Adventurer's Quarter The Thieves' Quarter Dragonfief
While South River is often considered to be synonymous with the Adventurer’s Quarter, that is not exactly true. Broadly speaking, almost the whole waterfront from the New River Gate and South Dassal Gate to the Old City, as well as on the east bank of the river, could be called the adventurers' quarter. Parts of Southbridge near the gate are virtually identical to the South River area - same kinds of businesses, same kinds of people, same environment, even the same degree of crime and violence - but they are seldom referred to that way. They make up an adventurers' quarter, but not the Adventurers' Quarter. That distinction belongs to South River, extending maybe out to Canal Street and southwards along the Nordstrasse toward the Creek.
South River may not be the only place for adventurers in town, but it is the core. This is where most of the best known taverns and bars are located: The Dragon Inn, the Pink Onion, Sookie’s Saloon, The Wayfarer’s Rest, The Gay Cabellero, the Wizard’s Walk. It is where most of the armories and magic shops in town are located. This is where major mercenary captains hang their hats, where famous adventurers live - the sort of men who want to maintain contacts with the community. The bulk of the population, though, are the regular sorts who surround adventurers: young ambitious studs with sword, the foreign legion of women, the armorers and smiths and stable keepers and bartenders and card dealers and all the rest who operate that kind of economy.

Demographics

This is full of adventurers, as the name suggests. In the 1600s, the population is significantly reduced from older times, and there are more non-humans in the area. It has always been one of the most integrated parts of the city, with plenty of dwarves, elves, halflings and the like around. After the Troubles, this is even more the case, and gnomes, and even half-orcs become quite common. Before the wars, elves were fairly common - after the wars, elves are very rare. Half-elves were always common, and still are. Halflings stayed about the same; there were more gnomes int he Quarter after the Troubles than before - probably fewer dwarves. Half-orcs are the most increase d- they tend to live on the western edge, up in the hills, in all the ruined and abandoned buildings up there. Finally - there are more and more stranger types in the 1610s - goblins sometimes live openly, rather than purely underground; there are a few drow hanging around; there are even some Gith, though only githzerai. (Githyanki know enough to claim to be Githzerai, if they are in Waynesburg.) 
The human population was also quite a bit different after the Troubles. Easterners from up the Makeesa, Farmington and such, flooded in, and have replaced much of the pre-war population. Much of the service industry - barmaids and bar men, whores and dancers, common laborers and teamsters and the like - are from Farmington or the Makeesa valley these days. 
The people who actually live here tend to be in the service industry - working the inns and taverns and armories and haberdasheries and all the myriad less respectable professions - as well as artists, singers, artisans and so on. Even among adventurers, the people who live here tend to be bards, sorcerers, thieves, or fighters and rangers with ties to bards and thieves. Not counting straight mercenaries. Magicians and clerics - of all alignments and styles - tend to live elsewhere. Specialists, like Paladins and the like, are a real rarity in this part of town.

Government

Law and order int he Quarter is very hit or miss. It is mostly self-policed, as far as it is policed at all. You are, for the most part, on your own there - but the major establishments cooperate with the authorities. There is an Adventurer’s Guild - a fancy name for a private militia hired to keep the peace; there are merchants' guilds and associations who have their own muscle. The City Watch patrols it, but mostly just tries to keep fights from getting out of hand, and makes sure fires are addressed immediately. It is a wild and woolly area, but the violence is concentrated in the waterfront areas, and limits are set on what is tolerated. Violence here is unavoidable, but it is also controlled. Bouncers take care of most of their own problems: since the vast majority of the people here are young studs, mercenaries, yokels on the make, the bouncers (who are usually pretty intimidating fellows, 3-5th level, sometimes higher in some of the high end places) can handle most trouble. When they can’t, they call on their fellows at nearby bars or call on the watch or the guild. The type of violence matters; fistfights will usually just be sent outside, when the principals can't be separated and sent off with their friends. When fights escalate - and they do - there are other options. Cold steel is not encouraged, but there is plenty of it.

Industry & Trade

Bars, inns and taverns, brothels and gambling joints, plus all the things adventurers need: smiths, armorers and makers of swords, bows, arrows and whatnot.

Infrastructure

This part of town was pretty well maintained, in spire of its reputation, before the wars. The streets were remarkably clean, there was a fairly effective sewage system, supplies of clean water and the like. A lot fo this was ruined by the wars - sewer tunnels caved in, water pipes ruined, streets cut up and damaged. Things are better by the river, where the money is - the merchants make sure people can get to and from their places, and not die of cholera while they are there. There are still fairly extensive docks and warehouses buyt he river, though a fair amount of these are empty or underused, and in decay.

Guilds and Factions

There are many. the Thieve's guild is powerful in thew Quarter - which is why it is sometimes called the thieves' quarter. In the 1590s, a single faction of the guild ran most of the Quarter - they got into a war with the Gully faction of thieves and they destroyed each other. In the 1610s, the guild is strong enough, but fractured, with at least three factions controlling different parts fo the area.
There is an Adventurers' Guild, which is a glorified private militia. There is a merchant's association, which attempts to keep the various trades from turning on one another. They provide security, law and order, dispute resolution, where the city cannot.

History

This area was settled in a rush about 50 years after the inner walls were built—it was settled by immigrants from one of the southern wars, who actually laid out streets before they built them. It was, at the time, an uneven, rocky place, hills and gullies and the such, that was cleared out and filled in the process of being built. Much of the southern side and some of the area in the middle is in fact landfill - rocks and gravel and such from various constructions. This gives parts of it an instability - though much of it is solid rock and soil. t is surrounded by dikes, almost all the way around, which are quite effective, except in extraordinary floods. Most of the shoreline is navigable, and is a significant landing area, though more for traffic within the town than from outside the city.
This neighborhood has long since been transformed into the adventurer’s quarter. It originated as a settlement for quarrymen and workers, was settled by foreigners, who were not welcome in the Old City, and thus was almost from the start a rough and ready place, that soon became dominated by crime and adventure. Much of the population has always been transient, and that remains true in the 1610s. It has a well deserved reputation for vice. It is sometimes called the thieves' quarter, but that is not strictly true - it is an adventurer's quarter. But it certainly thrives on vice. It is, in many ways. a vast tavern and brothel. It is the place to be if you are looking for fun, or disreputable work: the whores are pros, the thieves are careful, there are always people hiring adventure, this is where the rumors are. Most goods and services useful to adventurers can be found here, from magic items to cures for the pox. It is, needless to say, a rough and tumble place. There are always fights, which are broken up by overqualified bouncers (there never being any lack of muscle in need of work around here, and the good ones - the ones who can keep the peace without getting cut up or arrested or hits taken out on them - can make a fortune). This is the wildest part of town, though not quite the most dangerous.
The Quarter was the center of a lot of the trouble during the Troubles, and it was significantly reduced by the wars. It has recovered quite a bit, but still has about half the population it had in 1593 - and the empty spaces are full of trouble. The layout is still roughly the same - big, expensive places in the south, especially toward the river; gambling joints and brothels in the north, on the east - women northwest - and the middle full of residential areas and grim bars. Everything is grimmer.

Architecture

Large stone houses int he west, on the hills - though many fo them in bad repair after the wars. The eastern lower half fo the Quarter is full of a mixture of styoes and materials - though a lot of the wooden structures burned in the wars. 
Finally - most of the interior of the quarter was occupied by housing, of every kind of and quality. These buildings are almost all very old, and many of them are coming apart, even the nice ones. Quite a few of the houses are quite nice, large stone and wooden structures terraced and walled, with handsome interior courtyards and gardens - but even these tend to be in disrepair, especially from the outside. This is for a couple reasons - one being that people living well prefer to hide their opulence from the thieves and villains of the place - everyone plays poor. Another is the history of the place ranging from the occasional instability of the ground (piles of rocks and such on top of unstable foundations) to the fact that there have been many wars and other troubles here. Still - don’t let appearances fool you - several very wealthy and powerful characters had places here, some of them shitholes to look at but stunningly opulent inside. Nothing here is as it appears. Finally - in all but the best houses, what open spaces there might have once been have been turned into a warren of alleys and passages and what not - little kitchen gardens, middens, cisterns, stables, and all the rest. A nasty confusing place.

Geography

The western part fo the Quarter is on the slops of a ridge, up to the top. It is fairly high, and the western half has some relatively steep streets. The eastern side is flatter, lower, and much of it built on landfill. 
Add some specifics, street names, areas: The Riverside Promenade is the main drag - this is where the big adventurer’s taverns are, several inns and rooming houses. Music - places catering to bards, and featuring music and singers are concentrated on the Promenade and a couple streets near it - King street and Peregrine street - both running north south, a block or two from the promenade - the next two in. The more respectable places tend to be toward the south - the north has more of the strip joints and brothels. This is roughly true over all - the south is more respectable than the north; the east is wilder than the west, though the west may be more dangerous. (It’s residential - things happen in secret there. Lots of things happen, because the people who live here are not of the best kind.) The respectable whorehouses are concentrated in the north and center of the quarter - the northwestern corner is full of dives. This is a broad generalization. The southern edge of South River has most of the commerce - armorers, dry goods stores, all manner of shops catering to the adventuring classes. Curinin street features a number of magic shops, centered around Anthony’s - a massive emporiums where one could buy or sell almost anything. There were a number of excellent restaurants and inns in this area - also many magicians offering services. Closer to the Nordstrasse, the shops decline in quality - outside the quarter proper, there is a huge open air market, dealing in adventurer’s goods, and foodstuffs, along the Nordstrasse near the cemetery. On the northern side of the quarter, there were similar places - a large farmer’s and fisherman’s market operated between the Riverside Promenade and the docks - this sold good food, and more illicit goods, from a shambles of temporary stalls. The western side of the quarter has a nasty reputation - lots of criminals skulk about in the old streets and alleys there. Most of the quarter is on a side hill, and the area to the west and central is on a particularly high hill, before dipping toward Nordstrasse again. Nordstrasse itself is an exception, with many very large, stone houses occupied by rich folks - though usually adventurers, thieves guild officials, mercenary captains, dubious magicians (since honest magicians tend to congregate near the universities). Not the most honest or welcoming filks. And many of these old house shave been taken over as tenements - subdivided and used by thieves and adventurers. It’s still hazardous. This part of town is as riddled underneath with tunnels and sewers and storm drains and such as the Old City. Some of it being intentional - some of it being the effect of filling in old holes and gullies in this once rugged terrain - some of it from old houses, fallen in and built over. Some of it, of course, built secretly, by other forces - rumors of dwarf and gnome and even drow strongholds persist.
A lot of the workers live in this area - the whores and thieves and serving girls and laborers. Darrow and Faerie street have a nasty reputation indeed, with plenty of very dubious brothels and dives - this is also one of a couple significant homosexual areas - the others being the western edge of the quarter around Alannis and Celeron streets, and a significant concentration of women-only places on Hopford and Ziegfield and Queen and Alain streets. These blocks tend to be very hostile for men - as various women have taken it on themselves to protect themselves. A lot of whores live here, too - seeking protection in their off hours, and some respite from the dangers of the rest of the quarter. This can be an odd and confusing part of town.

Alternative Name(s)

Adventurers Quarter; Thieves' Quarter; Dragonfief; South River Quarter

Type

Neighbourhood

Location under

Waynesburg

Owning Organization

Free Cities of Waynesburg and Sigmund’s Fork