The City

**The City** is an abandoned town in Europe where civilians live indoors or underground, as plague doctors work on the surface to alleviate the latest outbreak of Bubonic plague. The City is an 1800s-era, ambiguously European city with poor and outdated architecture, left abandoned and littered with old world clothes, utensils, appliances, decor, etc. Buildings are often damaged and too structurally compromised to live in or occasionally, even pass by. As the current epidemic has been going on for so long, many habitable locations have been ransacked for resources or occupied by surface parties. The skies are always overcast but it never rains.

## History

The city was once a prosperous, bustling mid-industrialized European town, but fell victim to the new strain of plague over 40 years ago. During the 1860s, it was decided by most that the city was done for and 65% of the population left their homes in a mass evacuation. A remaining 15% would evacuate several years later. The last fifth of citizens left behind would consist of medical professionals and sick civilians with nowhere to go.

Crime was common but could be traced to select individuals running crime rings, or petty fights. After the evacuations, crime is almost exclusively committed by the Red Doctors.

## Climate

The wave of pestilence over Europe has drastically affected the atmosphere. The skies are always cloudy, all day and all night, but it rains so little that the city could be classified as a desert. The temperature is always chilly year-round due to the lack of sun. This kills off plants quite easily and has resulted in poor soil too hard to dig into.

## Locations

### MEDIC CAMP

*Main Article: Medic Camp*

The megastructure of tents arranged by doctors as a makeshift, now quite permanent hospital. All tents are pitched down directly in the hard earth with the exception of the Morgue, Specimen Room and Operating Theatre, which are all (mostly) solid stone rooms.

### THE EXECUTION YARD

**The Execution Yard**, known mainly as just **The Yard**, is a graveyard that is used for public executions of convicted criminals. Such executions involve decapitations, garroting, prolonged hanging, Catherine wheels, and “Maypole bisection” (where on the stage, two to three executioners will circle a criminal with blades until they work them through the waist.) Once executed, especially after hanging, bodies will be left hanging from the tree with signs detailing their crimes for public shaming. These bodies often bloat and explode, littering the base of the tree with decaying innards. Bodies are only taken down when they rot enough to fall on their own.

It is framed by a building that appears to be a church but is actually a funeral home with a crematorium. The structure is not used often, usually to burn belongings and rotten limbs, and in cases where a dying (noncriminal) patient requests they be cremated.

Doctors Beelze and Uvas and their families live down the street and a block to the east from The Yard, across from each other. There is also a school with a playground nearby.

### FLY SETTLEMENT

A small tent gathering like the medic camp on the southeastern side of the city. The territory includes several nearby buildings that contains their acquired machinery.

### CROOKED BOULEVARD

A boulevard on the eastern side of the city that crooks diagonally 45° to the west for a block or two before straightening out again. The east side of the boulevard is mainly housing buildings, and the west side is mainly stores. Doctor Whoosis himself lives on the west side of the boulevard, his home being a converted first floor of a tchotchke shop. Before the plague, the structure of the boulevard was put into question due to a string of carriage accidents.

### WHOOSIS' FLAT

Originally a **tchotchke shop**, the first floor was converted into a two-room apartment by Dr. Whoosis. The “living room” and bedroom areas are conjoined, with a three-pane bay window being off to the right of the bed, separated only by a piano. The second room is a furnished bathroom with a working electrical light but no water. The upper floors of his home are long closed off, quarantined real apartments, intended for the original shop owners. The door is a deep red with a stained brass knocker.

### ABANDONED APARTMENT COMPLEX

*Main Article: Abandoned Apartment Complex*

A large housing complex on the northern side of the city, right across from the large barricade of collapsed structures. It has seven floors of available rooms, but the only occupant is the Main Character, who lives in a bathroom-less single room on the fifth floor. The style of the lobby is in a transitioning state between Art Nouveau and Art Deco, left abandoned to peel and collect dust.

### CASA EDEN

*Main Article: Casa Eden*

Doctor Eden’s large, dark mahogany Gothic mansion is located on the southern side of the city, directly next to Hellcats territory. The Hellcats were familiar with and tolerated Eden and his guests. The house itself was built with a family and their servants in mind but after the plague hit, only Eden lived in it before his death. Even in life, the only occupants were Eden and whatever plus-one he’d have stay over for the night. The internal decor is all dark wood and cloth, and many, many bookcases. The place is in a much better condition than most other places in the city. There is a wine cellar filled with canned food and lots of vintage wines, mainly Amontillado.

### BELVEDERE PARK

A park built in the southern center of town. Before evacuations, it was a common place for duels to be held. The city fountain is nearby, but it has since dried up.

### BELVEDERE TAVERN

A rustic bar and flat bordering the eponymous park. It was a common host to gambling within the law, but occasionally became an unwilling host to bar fights. The air inside was stagnated with cigar smoke and was unusually seedy for the area, the upper-class district.

### ARBONNE INN

**The Arbonne Inn**, also just called **The Arbonne**, is a hotel built in the upper-class district of town. Much like the tavern, organized crime was discreetly committed here. The inn contained a bar, which held several private rooms often rented out by wealthy, shadowy figures. Just a few years before evacuation, the inn's private rooms were the scene for the murder of infamous crime boss Cagney Kramer by a stilted partner.

### VALERIN BANK

**Valerin Bank**, also known as just **Valerin**, was a bank built in the upper-class district of the city. It was robbed of most of the savings it held just before the evacuations and the money was only half-recovered. Valerin closed that day and only temporarily opened up a week later for evacuating citizens to retrieve was savings and valuable they had left there.

### STADIUM

The stadium was a sports and horse racing stadium built in the western part of town. It contained stables for the racing horses and hosted races every weekend. Horse and dog shows were also annually held. Fights over betting pools were common.

### UPPER CLASS CEMETERY

The upper-class cemetery was a resting place for the wealthy who lived in the southwestern corner of town. The area is currently in Red Doctor territory.

### CONSTABLE STATION

The constable station was the base of operations for the police force in the city before the evacuations. It held the offices, case files, collected contraband, carriages, and police horses. When police left the city behind, the contraband, files, and archived newspapers were left inside.

### SINKHOLE

A massive gap that has opened up in the earth beneath a block of city near the Red Garden. Dr. Vassago's home used to be here before it collapsed in on itself.

### RED GARDEN

The Red Garden is the park in the northwestern corner of the city, down the way from the abandoned apartment complex. The immediate area is habitable but is crawling with Red Doctors and outside that are unsafe buildings, followed by doctor-owned ones down the street. The plants in the garden are borderline dying but technically still alive, which is very rare.

### CARRIAGE WRECK

At the very end of the street Main Character lives on, there lies an upturned horse carriage with a massive bloodstain on the roof and wheel skids on the street behind it. It marks the point on the street that the Main Character should turn and follow the perimeter of the city to work. It is unknown how long ago the wreck occurred, how it happened, who was in the wreck, or if they survived. The carriage has been picked clean of anything useful or valuable. There is Red Doctor vandalism nearby.

### DEAD TREE

A black, dried up fruit tree several meters away from the carriage wreck. It was likely an apple tree, and it used to still have an equally dead, dried up fruit left attached to a branch. One day, it went missing, ending up by the foot of the trunk with a bite taken out of it. Later, the apple was found in the same spot, eaten to the core by someone. The same spot also saw two religious zealots flagellating themselves.

### BUNKERS

Basements, cellars, and other underground rooms that the civilians of the city live in while the surface parties wander above.

### SEWERS

The now defunct septic system of the city. It lies mostly empty due to disuse and can function as a secret citywide shortcut. Certain manholes are filled with piles of decaying bodies due to lying within Red Doctor territory.

## Wastelands

The Wastelands are the surrounding dead, dry land that resulted from the lack of rain and substantial sunshine for the past few decades. For kilometers around the city is hard, cold soil with perished flora. Any living plants will be just barely clinging to life. The land is extraordinarily flat with no nearby hills or mountains.

### RED CREEK

The Red Creek is a small freshwater stream located far west of the city. Due to many Red Doctor territories lying on the west side, the creek has been left to their devices. As such, it is unavailable to the Doctors as a reliable source of freshwater.

## Eastern Flatlands

### THE CHURCHHOUSE

An abandoned chapel for Christianity that lies east on a dirt road going out of the city. It sits close to a forest and has been overtaken by still-living plants that survive in its adjacent graveyard that is closer to the city. The church itself is unfenced. There is an attic reserved for storage and office, a side room designed like a suburban kitchen, with a door and stairs that lead to a basement for clerical living quarters. Belongings are in place for salvaging (food cans and boxes in the pantry, wrapped bread in its box, etc.), but the area gives no impression of having been abandoned suddenly.

#### THE GRAVEYARD

The church’s graveyard has been slightly uprooted with marshy plants and vines, presumably still alive by eating through the coffins and bodies underground. There are crucifix tombstones and angel statues all around the area and at least five mausoleums. The open three-fourths of the area are fenced in with black iron-wrought fences with an elaborate chained-up gate. Some still-green trees shield the deeper corners of the yard. A brick wall overcome with nightshade and ivy lies between the graveyard and the church.

### ESCHUANFORTH FARMHOUSE

*Main Article: Eschuanforth Farmhouse*

During the beginning half of the plague, a family of four or five resided in this countryside farmhouse, kilometers away from the nearest civilization, the still-running city. Behind the house were tall grasses and wheat, now yellowed and dry. Doctors made several housecalls to the farmhouse to tend to family injuries, mostly the son. Once he had grown up, he moved out and the family hasn’t been heard from since. Peach trees grew nearby but the forest by the house has dried out as if it were winter. There are flowerbeds in the basement.

### SOUTH FOREST

The forest beside the Eschuanforth house, filled with leafless deciduous trees like maples and oaks. The forest is very gray and silent, though the area tends to be windy and chilly.

### NORTH FOREST

The forest that borders the churchhouse and swallows the back of the graveyard. These trees are still full of leaves and still have some green in them.

## Gallery

* Diagrams

Party breakdown of city territoryCross section of a city street
## Trivia

* While referred to as a city and having urban areas, the location is more akin to a large town. Thus, it is common for characters to refer to it as “in town”. Many locations in and around the city are described flippantly as such.
* The country the city lies in is never disclosed.