Placeholder: City Name

Districts

Weavers' Walk

Known primarily as the textile district, Weavers' Walk is named for textile manufacture, furs and silk trading etc, as well as clothiers, seamstresses and tailors; however, the area also features many other manufacture trades such as carpenters, cobblers etc.
Notable Features

• The Wash: Washers, tailors, seamstresses, and other clothes-related trades have their base in this area. Streets here are hung with washing lines. This is also where many people come to meet in secret, and it's an excellent place to gather gossip and trade for information.
• Weavers’ Market: An permanent open-air marketplace that’s always bustling. Trade here is chaotic and disorganised, and pickpockets find easy targets in the crowds. Rumour has it that anything can be bought here, from magical amulets to cheap groceries.
• The Tumble: The most overcrowded residential area in [Placeholder: city name], a cramped tangle of multi-story brick and stone houses, stacked on top of each other and squeezed in as tight as they can be made. Many of the city’s toughest scoundrels grew up here in the slums and rookeries.
• The Red Fowl: One of the city’s oldest pubs, owned and managed by a [Placeholder: demonym]. The patrons of this pub come from both middle and lower classes and overall it has a very friendly, forgiving atmosphere.

Ironquarter:

Known for blacksmithing and weapons manufacture, although there are many other factories and workshops for unrelated trades.
Notable Features

• The Iron Dust Railyard: Once the largest station in the city, but obsolete since the Ironstar Station was built in The Crossing. The Yard now only takes a heavy cargo trains, and many of the tracks- along with much of the station- are completely disused and beginning to fall apart. It's a large area and there's rumours of squatters- or worse- making use of the dilapidated buildings.
• The Steelworks: A sprawling collection of factories and industrial workhouses, with many labourers working long shifts into the night.
• The Rust Warrens: The colloquial name for the warehouse district. Some of the buildings here are well-kept and even better-guarded, while others are falling into disrepair and disuse.

The Crossing

Serving as a hub for the city, the Crossing is home to most of the civil offices and headquarters, as well as banks, courts, archives etc.
Notable Features

• Vault Street: A street lined with governmental buildings of all descriptions. These buildings are patrolled by both Bluebottles and by the military. It makes a tantalising but incredibly dangerous target for criminals of the city.
• Three Birds: This area of the Crossing is where most artists hone and practise their trade. Schools of the visual and musical arts, of varying quality, are located here. Students of the arts are usually patronized by a noble or a nobile family, who expect their charges to become masters and perform for them in return.
• Liberty University: A few old townhouses that have been converted into a university. The University is modest and not the best in the city, but it is nevertheless well-esteemed.
• The Record Gallery: The largest library and archive in the city. Much of it is public, but it also has extensive restricted archives of magical and technological knowledge.

Seven Stairs

The streets in this district are incredibly uneven and narrow, even by the low standards of the city. This makes the district inconvenient to navigate by cart or carriage, and as a result the wealthier residents of the city have over time left the district in favour of better-kept areas. It’s a patchwork of different trades and architecture. The crime rate here is one of the highest in the city, and many street gangs scuffle for turf within the area.

Notable Features

• Whytton House: Many of the orphans and lost children of [Placeholder: City name] have stayed at Whytton House. Some are taught a trade, while others are patronized by the gangs in the areas and serve as lookouts, couriers or burglars for them.
• The Rookery: Taking its name from the slang term "rookery", meaning slum. This area has largely poor, cramped living conditions and is riddled with crime.
• The Six of Spades: A bar and gambling den.
• The Drey: A bustling black market, well-known in the city but so far untouched by the Bluebottles because, frankly, there would be no more likely place for a guardsman to get stabbed. Criminals sell their services as forgers, bravos, burglars and assassins. Some denizens of the Drey are willing to sell information, like maps or blueprints. Drugs, contraband and goods that fell off the back of a wagon are also sold here, as well as some exotic materials or even animals. Some people use the Drey to sell legitimate goods that they don't have a license to sell officially.

Ivy's End

By far the most commercial district in the city, Ivy’s End receives goods by rail, road and airship, and as a result the goods here range from the dull and mundane to the extravagantly exotic. Wealthy citizens often make Ivy’s End their home, and as a result the district has streets of modern townhouses alongside the more ordinary cramped shops and residences.
Notable Features

• The Mirror: An extravagant social club, catering to the rich and those who wish they were. There are rumours about the club's proprietor, but none have ever been substantiated because nobody actually knows who it is.
• The Lyrical Star: A tavern known for its unusual alcoholic concoctions and other drinks, not all of which are legal. It's also a safe place to indulge in other illegal substances and pursuits, should your tastes lean in that direction.
• Mademoiselle Sosa's Exotic Circus: Crowds are drawn from across the city to watch the performances and stunts of the circus, some of which are dangerous or even borderline illegal. Exactly who Mademoiselle Sosa is, nobody is quite sure.

Guilds and Factions

Law Enforcement

The Watch

Constables
Nicknamed "Bluebottles" by the criminal populace, for their navy-blue jackets. Officially they keep the peace in the city, and this is somewhat true, but they are typically easily bribed. In poorer areas they are generally cruel or unjust if they can get away with it, and they typically avoid the rougher areas and leave them alone unless they're told to deal with a specific incident. They have their work cut out for them keeping order in some areas of the city, so it's almost hard to blame them for behaving like just another gang. Almost.

Inspectors
Nicknamed "Hounds" or "Watchdogs" for their diligence; the Inspectors are as incorruptible as the Constables are dishonest. They're notoriously hard to bribe, although still not immune to bureaucratic laziness, which leads them to glance over much of the petty crime in the lower districts. (Otherwise, they somewhat reasonably explain, they would never get anything done.) Generally the gangs in the city recognise that getting too ambitious means contending with the Inspectors, which tends to lead to some semblance of restraint.

Official Guilds

Doctors

Nicknamed "crows" for their insignia, and the masks they wear. The doctors of the city have adopted the symbol of the crow, officially as a nod to the masks they wore in the past while the city was stricken by plague. Among the city's cynical underworld, they're known as crows because they turn up for the carrion- either to claim criminals' bodies for dissection, or because they are suspected to steal valuables from the recently deceased.
Uniform: Black and grey, often with a half-mask shaped like a crow's beak. The full plague-doctor beaked mask is rare now, as citizens are understandably nervous about being treated by anonymous doctors.
Wealthier doctors and physicians, especially those employed by nobility, typically wear more brightly-coloured clothing and masks.

Gangs

All gangs in the city can be assumed to be undertaking general criminal activities like burglary, smuggling etc. If applicable, their unusual or most common crimes and behaviours are listed explicitly.

The Wharf Gulls

A gang whose base is in the Dark Docks. Many Gulls are ex-navy or otherwise former sailors, fallen on hard times for whatever reason. Some of the city's gondoliers and barge pilots are also part of the Gulls. They’re known for dredging bodies and items out of the water of the shores and canals and picking their pockets before handing them over to the authorities. Some fight with tridents, harpoons and nets, as well as more traditional cutlasses and pistols. There are rumours that those who cross them end their lives in a watery grave.
Symbol: A white gull with a red beak.

The Silkreavers

The Silkreavers' base is located in Weavers' Walk. They're known for fencing stolen goods, as well as smuggling exotic materials and substances. They typically avoid street confrontations and direct fights, in favour of "peaceful" crime or, failing that, a quick and clean ambush.
Symbol: A spider, with a needle in place of each of its two front legs.

The Iron Flock

The Iron Flock is known for operating out of the disused trainyard in Ironquarter. Most of them generally work as bravos, or hired muscle, but there are rumours of coin forgery and the creation or smuggling of contraband weaponry. Some spread tales of train passengers and even the trains themselves being robbed, but this has not been proved.
Symbol: A dagger with a handle shaped like a bird's spread wings.

The Vixen Company

Also known simply as "The Vixens", this gang is notable for its high proportion of female members. This gang operates out of the entertainment districts in Ivy's End, and are known for making moonshine, and watering down or salting alcohol in the taverns they own. There are rumours of press-ganging and kidnapping. They also smuggle alcohol and orchestrate bar fights or betting rings, which are almost always rigged in the gang's favour.
Symbol: A russet-coloured vixen's head.

The Butchers

Table of Contents:  Click to expand Table of Contents

Type

Capital

Population

~800,000

Included Locations

• The Warrens

Characters in Location

• Prince of Cats