The Deep Down
Neighbouring Burgh
Location
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| The Deep Down as mapped by Troublemakers |
Physical Discription
The crater left by a long, long defunct open-cast mine. So long ago no-one even remembers what was mined. At its centre is a collection pool gathered from the rain and drains that perpetually run down the slops into it in great ducts and pipes. Around the lake are numerous factories and industrial facilities mostly gone to rust. The only one in constant use is the work-works which try's to turn the collected morass back into drinkable water casting its own web of pipes back up the slops into the dwellings.
Above this circle of decay is the Burgh itself, a continuous urban sprawl climbing the cliffs and sometimes sliding right back down. Buildings are build on dilapidated building some peaking out to shadow those below, others barely hanging on by the skin of there girders. A huge spiral road swirls up from what must have once been a very important building close to the termination of the Big Drop. Thee road which was once wide in places is little more than an alley as residences and attempts are industry and even farming creep in on its gently slopped surface. At one point a landfall so massive it completely covered the road has since been tunnelled through and then built over so that the road for a while disappears into a tunnel of windows and shop fronts.
The other main route into the Deep Down is via the Big Drop. This is a ingenious elevator which uses drainage from the rim to create a counterweight hauling up it laden then drawing off into the lake to counter the returning coach. There are two running side by side but one is seated for passengers and the other open for materials (or cheap standing room fare when there is room).
The thousands of homes are traversed by a filigree of little and sometimes big alleys. Many disappearing into the structures for miles running underground with tributaries running back to the surface or down even further into the network of buildings.
Economic State
A poor burgh. Its main form of export is drugs. The various overhanging, water swept environments make for a truly vast variety of fungi. Some are for food but most have some pharmacy use, either medical or for more distracting uses. Because of this array of different products rarely extending across much of an area the different products have developed their own security in the form of gangs or for the more legitimate usages; syndicates.
Other food products include the many birds that use the housing as nests. Kite fishing as it is called, the use of kites with fishing hooks designed to catch birds in flight are common. The better situated where the buildings create natural funnels and runs have net traps and children on gliders are common chasing swarms of these birds toward such culverts.
The other obvious point of interest to the outsider is the telegraph. A huge telephonic data cable stretches into the gang controlled factory sites. It huge cables hand down the side of the creator kept from laying over the buildings by a series of projecting phylon's. The Ink Jets in their black dog-hide suits control this and are the most obvious and possibly the largest gang in the Down.
For all its potential for industry the people are poor, the gangs and syndicates take most of the profits and any of the trading centres are beholden to the local coterie who take extortionate protection taxes in return for not burning them out.
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