THE CITY OF MANIFEST
CHAPTER 2:
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wars and times of peace, too. Unfortunately, this is not a place for historians—the Undercity is fraught with danger. Bandits and other criminals make their secret lairs here, in the deep reaches where no one goes. Horrible beasts and monsters also wander the buried streets and the natural caverns to which they now connect. Even without the buried layers of urban settlement, the areas beneath Manifest would still be honeycombed with natural passages, caves, and natural catacombs. Underground streams have carved through the rock here for thousands of years, producing limestone caverns and winding tunnels. Of course, the presence of the land of the dead deep below the surface here might have had some supernatural influence on their creation, as well. The Undercity is really two different places. There are the buried streets and natural caves (usually called the Catacombs), and there is the path down to the Veil of Souls, known most commonly as the Ghostwalk.
THE CATACOMBS Stretching out mostly beneath the Portal Ward, the subterranean streets of the buried cities connect to a vast series of natural tunnels, mainly under Phantom Hill, but extending far to the south (much farther than has ever been explored). The buried streets are usually about fifteen or twenty feet wide but only about ten feet high (in some places, they are much lower than that). Rubble lies everywhere, often completely choking off a passage. The streets are winding and difficult to predict (particularly since collapsed or blocked areas are common). Most of the old buildings are filled with rubble or are completely collapsed. A few, however, are open. While some of these serve as basements and cellars for structures above, most are completely sealed off from the surface—man-made caves. These make excellent hideouts for gangs and criminals. There are rumors that enclaves of ne’er-do-wells have set up thriving communities beneath the streets of Manifest. Others say that the Piran Sedestadel have used their spells to shore up and light one area three blocks square and two stories high that they now use as a secret library and retreat. Perhaps most disturbing of all is a small but persistent supposition that the Deathwarden dwarves do not take all corpses down to the Veil of Souls. Rather, the rumor goes, they pass their own judgment as to whether or not a particular individual deserves to have his body in the afterlife, and those corpses they deem unworthy are simply stacked in the Undercity like so much cordwood. The truth, though, is much more mundane. Some small groups have managed to set up residence in the Catacombs, but these are never either comfortable nor completely safe. For example, a woman named Mavyrs (female half-elf Rog5) runs a gang of 13 cutthroats and thieves (six War1, seven Rog1) who are hiding from both the authorities and the Golden. They use an old
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set of row houses, some half-collapsed, as their secret base. Because they are row houses, there are many entrances, but the group has all but two of them trapped with poisoned spring-darts and collapsing ceilings. They use just one to go in and out—the other is their secret way out, to be used only if one of their enemies ever tracks them to their lair. The streets of the Undercity eventually run into a series of natural limestone caves and tunnels. These vary greatly in size—in some places, even the smallest halfling has a difficult time squeezing through an opening or crawling down a tunnel. In other places, the water has carved out vast caverns filled with dripping stalagmites and lime-encrusted columns. Water-filled pools, cold underground streams, and thick patches of fungus and slime are common in these damp caves. These caves are home to all the usual types of subterranean creatures. But where these monsters usually are only found extremely far from civilization, the tunnels make it possible for them to now wander only a few feet below the streets of modern Manifest. On occasion, one or two even find their way up into the city streets (almost always at night). Adventurers are always encouraged to spend any free time they have exploring the Undercity (and hopefully killing any monsters that have taken up residence there). Gathering of Thanatos
This dismal cavern is accessed from the lowest levels of the buried city—then going down from there. It lies below the western portion of the Portal Ward. The cave itself is 300 feet across and 60 feet high. In the center of its broken, uneven natural floor lies a round building of black marble columns and dark stained glass. The architecture is covered in macabre carvings and statues— skulls, bones, and symbols of death and undeath. This strange structure is the secret meeting place of the spellcasters generally referred to as the Necromancers of Night Alley. The seemingly quiet cavern teems with undead, located in a dungeon complex built beneath the rotunda. The building itself provides a meeting room, a laboratory, and some living quarters for almost two dozen necromancers, although they are not all here at once. All of them have personal quarters and laboratories hidden in the city above—the locations of which they usually keep secret from one another (necromancers are generally a suspicious and untrusting lot). The dungeons hold large chambers for storing corporeal undead, which are packed in as if they were crates. There are also sepulchers where wraiths, shadows, spectres, and other incorporeal undead gather and wait until they are needed by their living masters. There is even a lich named Rissachatiros (Wiz12/Clr6) who controls a large portion of the dungeons. It’s likely that the lich seeks to eventually usurp control of the complex, but for now, he allies himself with the necromancers.
