Ribcage

Upward mobility - climb the ladder through the ranks, but don't break the rules unless you won't get caught. Or better yet, fix the blame on someone else. That's the way the world really runs, but in this burg just outside Baator there's no illusionthat life is any other way.

Demographics

The high-ups do well for themselves here, but the common folk of Ribcage suffer. Guards patrol the streets, ready to deal with any "troublemakers." Taxes are oppressive and there's always garnish to be paid. The quiet joke goes that it's an "assurance" against accidents - don't pay and a sod's assured of an accident. The city's laws are designed to keep the five families in power and everybody else out. 'Course, the rulers have to be careful; too much law and the city might rise in popular revolt. As it is, there's sometimes small riots that are quickly and brutally crushed.
Still, most folks in Ribcage struggle to live happy and well, and they do so mostly by getting a powerful friend. Commoners get ahead by getting a senatorial ally. Bribes, favors, and flattery all flow freely here.

Architecture

Mountains tower and curve over it like rib bones, giving the place its name. There's precious little greenery inside or outside, giving the place the color of cold stone. It's walled, towered, and citadeled with enough guards and watchmen to protect any other dust-up twice the size. Officials'll tell a berk it's to protect the city from attack, but as a cutter walks down the street and feels dozens of eyes watching him from every shadow, he can pretty well see it's not the outside they're keeping tabs on.
Actually, Ribcage doesn't look like such a terrible burg to live in. The streets are paved with stone and are fairly clean, the layout's orderly, and most of the houses are well tended, if a little dour. The bodies hung from the gibbets over the main gate serve as notice to the criminal element, so a bubber's not likely to get thumped in an alley. In general, folks speak well of their neighbors.
It all looks pretty good until a basher notices the soldiers lounging at nearly every corner, and learns that the transgression of some of those executed "criminals" was only that they protested the living conditions a little too loudly.

Type

Large town

Location under

Outlands