Grollen

A multi-use arena hosting gladiatorial bouts, obstacle course events, and large-scale sports competitions. Every few months it hosts a Blood Bowl — extreme rugby played with magic, few rules, and a reliable body count.

Gehenna is a nine-stage concert and festival venue carved into the mines beneath the Brass Ward. Bands from across the world perform here almost year-round. Each stage is named after one of the nine circles of hell, descends deeper into the earth, and has its own distinct character and atmosphere. Playing the deepest stages is considered one of the highest honors in music.

Voxhive is both a recording vault in the Underward and a city-wide record manufacturing operation — Voxhive Records. The infrastructure to capture and distribute the music that passes through Gehenna lives here.

The central headquarters of the Brightsparks — colloquially known as the "sparkies" — Grollen's city police force. A large building that coordinates law enforcement across the city's wards and under wards.

A street of mobile vendors, booths, and stalls whose tenants rotate on a weekly basis. No two visits are the same.

The city's primary state prison. Thalen Blackfoot has contacts inside and visits them at night, scaling the exterior walls without much apparent difficulty.

Run by Mieka, a Kalashtar woman described as shrewd, intelligent, and a skilled assassin. She communicates directly into the minds of those she speaks with rather than out loud. Has a good working rapport with Hammerhand, and has provided the party with useful intelligence — including a warning about Brightsparks surveillance and rough directions to Caelistra's location.

White-brick buildings and tall thin windows sit oddly out of place amid the brass, steel, and neon of the modern city — yet they hold a profoundly rustic charm. The education district is split in two: the upper half houses the larger halls and purple-roofed buildings centered around a grassy quad and a large clock tower flying a purple and gold flag depicting a simplified globe. Down escalators, ramps, and stairwells, the lower half is a grid of frat and sorority houses draped in banners, their small lawns still scattered with the remnants of last week's parties.

Bright-eyed students, hungover lecturers, and stony-faced academics mill about the grounds in roughly equal number.

The operational heart of Grollen's mining industry on the surface. Three major stations coordinate extraction, transport, and processing of raw material from the Grimlit Mountain tunnels.

The governmental seat of Grollen, housing city administration, the offices of the Parliament representatives, and the security apparatus of the Keep itself.

The original city of Grollen — old dark cobblestone streets and cracked brick walls, unchanged. About one-thirtieth the size of the present city. It is where Grollen began before the mines expanded the settlement outward and downward into the enormous metropolis it is today.

Beneath an abandoned library in an alcove of the Historical Ward, a trap door opens into a civil war-era bunker. The Naughty Dogs, Vivian Tate's gang, have been operating out of this structure — its age and obscurity keeping it off the Brightsparks' radar.

The Bannerless located the bunker in Session 6 after a coordinated search through the Historical Ward. Aiden shifted into a Canisfolk form to bluff the group through the door as supposed new recruits. The session ended with the party face-to-face with Vivian Tate, Naughty Dogs members quietly sealing every exit, and Aiden drawing his gun.

A residential and agricultural district on the northern edge of the city. Greenhouses provide food production for a population that otherwise lives entirely on top of or inside rock. The North Underward exists beneath this district but has not yet been documented.

A Pitch Ward dive bar owned and operated by an ogre named Dominic Antiago. Below the bar, an illegal underground fighting ring operates. This is where the party first found Aiden Barlowe in Session 1 — mid-fight, winning.

A warehouse in the Pitch Ward that was being catalogued by Artur Kendel and Chevier on behalf of the Office of Municipal Arcana's SDP Division. The Cactus Bunch, hired by Vivian Tate of the Naughty Dogs, raided and occupied the warehouse while looking for a specific shard. The party assaulted and cleared it in Session 3–4.

An extensive network of old mine tunnels runs beneath Grollen, connecting the Under Wards and various points of interest. Parts of the network are known and used; others are abandoned and largely uncharted. The White Rabbit nightclub and the Golden Oriole Hospital are both accessible through this network. Knowledge of the tunnels is a mark of exclusivity in certain circles.

The Bannerless traversed a section of the tunnels in Session 7 while pursuing Vivian Tate. Notable finds along the route:

A residential district on the southern edge of the city. The South Underward exists beneath this district but has not yet been documented.

An underground medical facility serving criminals, the destitute, and those unable to afford conventional care. Accessible via the mine tunnel network through a building connected to The White Rabbit nightclub. Staff work in smocks and masks across multiple floors carved from rock.

The Golden Oriole had been using the crystal shard in minute dilutions for experimental memory and cognition enhancement in patients. After being cornered by The Bannerless in Session 7, Vivian Tate struck a deal — the shard and all research went to the party in exchange for the hospital being left alone.