Abwindstadt

The shame of Stahlofen, **Abwindstadt** is the city's worst slum and an infamous haven of depravity and deformity.

## Description

Located downwind, Abwindstadt is subject to not only the worst of Stahlofen's more mundane smog and soot, but also to the magical smog belched forth by the College of the Iron Order. A poor slum, Abwindstadt is a ramshackle aggregation of shabby houses and shanties, filthy streets, and noxious odors and smog. While much of the city struggles with the soot and smog produced by its industry, in Abwindstadt it is a battle long lost and abandoned, with layers upon layers of soot caking all surfaces, and the smog draping the city in a perpetual cloud of night - excepting of course the shimmering and colorful smogs produced by the Iron Order's school.

Infamous, Abwindstadt is renowned as a haven of thieves and murderers, the diseased and the deformed. Although Abwindstadt enjoys the benefits of the city's sewer system running beneath it, the sewers there are less well maintained and their entrances unsealed. While vagabonds often exploit this to take refuge in the cold winters, preferring the stink and filth to the cold and snow, these unguarded entrances also allow disease-carrying rats, and worse creatures, to come and go from the filth-ridden depths as they please.

Near the heart of Abwindstadt is a twisting network of clustered alleys known asthe **Drehungen**. A filthy place of poverty and desperation, the Drehungen is to Abwindstadt what Abwindstadt is to the rest of Stahlofen. As dangerous as it is disgusting, open sewers in the Drehungen lead to the subterranean ones beneath the rest of the city, and the poor Abwindstadters here sift through the filth and sewage searching for anything of value, no matter how small. The buildings here are all little more than shanties leaning against the stronger structures that form the border of this place. It is here that the most malformed of Abwindstadt's mutants dwell, as well.

The magical smog, fumes, and vapors belched forth from the College of the Iron Order are the source of much misery in Abwindstadt, producing mutations and malformations in newborn babies, and sometimes even twisting adults. Resultingly, Abwindstadt has a higher rate of mutation and deformity than other parts of the city, at times even worse than parts of Schwarzwald. Many of these unfortunate individuals are tolerated, out of necessity and apathy more than out of any sort of enlightened or tolerant attitude, and know better than to venture into other parts of the city. Nonetheless, even Abwindstadters have their limits, and the most malformed individuals are driven out, often into the sewers, while babies with severe deformities which are not killed as Tieflings are typically abandoned in die Drehungen. There is a widespread claim that such babies so abandoned will be claimed by the mutants there and raised, perhaps in the sewers, but whether this is a genuine belief or simply a comforting lie such parents choose to adopt is unclear.

## Magic

Due to the magical pollution from the College of the Iron Order, Transmutation magic in Abwindstadt is empowered.

As a full-round action which provokes an Attack of Opportunity, a spellcaster can attempt to attune themselves to this pollution by succeeding on a DC15 Spellcraft check. This attunement lasts for 24 hours or until the spellcaster leaves the pollution's effective radius.

While attuned, a spellcaster's transmutation spells are heightened by +2.