Sharn Sewers [Archive] - Wizards Community

Sharn Sewers [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Alac_Gane
07-14-07, 09:06 PM I was looking into the ECS and Sharn: City of Towers and I saw a few things about the Depths (i.e.; the sewers and its inhabitants), but aside from the stones of purity underneath the city to clean their water, I didn't feel there was much explaining what should be inside of a sewer. I guess I can't say I'm an expert.

Does anyone have any suggestions about what would be within a large city's sewer lines for water flow, maintenance, and possibly expansion?

And don't forget about the goblin city tucked beneath/within it! I could use a connection for that, even though a bunch of level 1 characters are going down there... They wouldn't be able to get past the seals to Duur'sharaat without some help. <<
Alex_
07-15-07, 03:32 AM The example adventure on the back of the ECS suggests an entire community thriving down there of people who feed off the refuse and trash of the people above. I get the impression that most of the seals can only be bypassed with certain items, after passing certain tests, or meeting other requirements. Makes them good as "sealed doors" for the PCs and explains why all of the sewers haven't been explored yet. Inside, I would imagine there are sites and artifacts from Old Galifar and Dakhaan of interest to those on the surface.

I don't know if you're familiar with Star Wars or the Knights of the Old Republic Games, but I got the impression that it's like the lower reaches of Coruscant or Telos, where the undesirables of society live. Or for a more comical analogy, think of the Mutants from Futurama. The city of New New York was built upon old New York, just like Sharn is built on the ruins of Goblin cities. They live down there, and can be allies/antagonists/suppliers of the PCs, but there are some places in the sewers where they just don't go.

Of course the sewer can be its own ecosystem. Fungi, plants growing in any areas where light seeps down, rats, reptiles and amphibians, vermin, even small mammals like raccoons, opossums, weasels, and the like. Fish could be swimming in pools of fetid or undisturbed water. And then there's monsters, especially those nasty slimy kind that feed on refuse, stone, or unwitting parties who fall down shafts into garbage areas on the detention level. Otyuh, Gibbering Mouths, Xorn, Grick, and the like.
Alac_Gane
07-15-07, 11:23 AM The example adventure on the back of the ECS suggests an entire community thriving down there of people who feed off the refuse and trash of the people above. I get the impression that most of the seals can only be bypassed with certain items, after passing certain tests, or meeting other requirements. Makes them good as "sealed doors" for the PCs and explains why all of the sewers haven't been explored yet. Inside, I would imagine there are sites and artifacts from Old Galifar and Dakhaan of interest to those on the surface.

I don't know if you're familiar with Star Wars or the Knights of the Old Republic Games, but I got the impression that it's like the lower reaches of Coruscant or Telos, where the undesirables of society live. Or for a more comical analogy, think of the Mutants from Futurama. The city of New New York was built upon old New York, just like Sharn is built on the ruins of Goblin cities. They live down there, and can be allies/antagonists/suppliers of the PCs, but there are some places in the sewers where they just don't go.

Of course the sewer can be its own ecosystem. Fungi, plants growing in any areas where light seeps down, rats, reptiles and amphibians, vermin, even small mammals like raccoons, opossums, weasels, and the like. Fish could be swimming in pools of fetid or undisturbed water. And then there's monsters, especially those nasty slimy kind that feed on refuse, stone, or unwitting parties who fall down shafts into garbage areas on the detention level. Otyuh, Gibbering Mouths, Xorn, Grick, and the like.

Well, this is all well and good (especially the KOTOR reference), but I need infrastructure to make a map with. Is it possible to get a real pipeline map or something that I could glean some things from?
Alex_
07-15-07, 04:46 PM Sharn is far too big, and the sewers, far to expansive to make a complete map of them. Just map out the more important locations that involve important encounters, obstacles, or the like. The ruins on which the sewers are built and through which they run are just that: ruins. Map them out like an old broken down dungeon/castle/stronghold with stuff from long ago.

When the PCs aren't at any one of these particular sites, just give a rough explanation of the area and ask for balance, climb, jump and other skill rolls as needed.

Again, I suggest the adventure provided in the ECS as a good example of how to run an adventure in the sewers of Sharn. It's more like a cartoon sewer. There aren't many small pipes, and since it uses magic, and given the massive distances involved, I would assume there are no mechanical pump systems or anything really relying on differential pressure. When water needs to flow upwards, it merely flows upwards- in defiance of gravity and flows to where it needs to flow.
Vharuck
07-15-07, 09:36 PM What's in a big city's sewer? Well, I'd tell you but I think this post would be deleted for the word.

Joking aside, otyugh's are sewer lovers. Staple sewer monsters are oozes, rats, bats, bugs, and poop golems.
OctaviusIII
07-16-07, 05:57 AM Ah, but for infrastructure? Well, think of the sewer as dual use: moving waste to a processing station, and providing access for people to maintain that system.

The movement may be accomplished through gravity, digging the tunnels and pipes in such a way that they would go towards wherever the waste ends up. The pipes themselves would be like roads: smaller ones feeding into the larger. As for access infrastructure, the larger pipes would probably be stone with "sidewalks". Access would be through either old tunnels or through manholes. There would probably be handholds, or the remains of those handholds, along some of the more narrow passages. There wouldn't be anywhere that would be designed to be deeper than 2-4 feet.

Given the existence of civilization down there, there would have to be a lot of abandonded pipes but the city isn't just going to leave the entire system to rot or to become overrun by beasties. Thus, there would be a healthy balance of maintained sewers, occupied sewers, and infested sewers.

One other thing would be storm surges. Sharn is built in a rainy tropical zone, so anybody living down there would have to find a way to divert the water coming into the sewer from storm drains to keep their homes from flooding. Whether that means sealing off tunnels and pipes into segments through steel doors or what, it would have to be done for practical reasons.

So keep in mind: gravity; small lines feeding into main lines; maintenance accessibility; practical concerns of sewer living (flooding, smell, disease, wet and fauna); and functionality.
Alac_Gane
07-24-07, 12:46 PM The movement may be accomplished through gravity, digging the tunnels and pipes in such a way that they would go towards wherever the waste ends up. The pipes themselves would be like roads: smaller ones feeding into the larger. As for access infrastructure, the larger pipes would probably be stone with "sidewalks". Access would be through either old tunnels or through manholes. There would probably be handholds, or the remains of those handholds, along some of the more narrow passages. There wouldn't be anywhere that would be designed to be deeper than 2-4 feet.

Given the existence of civilization down there, there would have to be a lot of abandoned pipes but the city isn't just going to leave the entire system to rot or to become overrun by beasties. Thus, there would be a healthy balance of maintained sewers, occupied sewers, and infested sewers.

One other thing would be storm surges. Sharn is built in a rainy tropical zone, so anybody living down there would have to find a way to divert the water coming into the sewer from storm drains to keep their homes from flooding. Whether that means sealing off tunnels and pipes into segments through steel doors or what, it would have to be done for practical reasons.

So keep in mind: gravity; small lines feeding into main lines; maintenance accessibility; practical concerns of sewer living (flooding, smell, disease, wet and fauna); and functionality.

:) These were mostly the kinds of things I thought up after a few days; the storm drain section pretty much doubled my map up.

I figure I'll have one room be a spot where several stones of purity are with either an encounter with the City Watch and magewrights or the Red Jackals who just got done eating the previously stated. Another will be a large drain that empties out into a natural cavern that would flow into the Dagger River or the sea. I think that will be the point where I introduce the way into Duur'sharrat.

I'm definitely going to have some slippery slopes. I'm thinking about auto-reset traps that would be made to kill small vermin, and another "trap" that is supposed to either disintegrate, shrink item, or continuously shatter garbage that is too big to fit through grating. If a person or an animal larger than tiny size gets into the trap and makes enough noise (like yelling for help) or can shove a pick into the emergency shutoff (DC 15 Open Lock) once the machine to shoot the spell starts up (5-second warning), the machine shuts down temporarily and rungs come out of the machine to climb back up. That ought to scare someone. ;)

Other than that, should I include other rooms for drainage or water flow or maintenance that could act like traps or encounters? And what should maintenance rooms include besides levers for valve and main flow shutoffs?
kentonblack
07-25-07, 08:26 AM the Xen'drik book had a classic trap room built up. The crusher trap. Its an EL5 trap though...so...well....

*PC's go squish*
Shady314
07-26-07, 07:32 AM Have you played FF XII at all? The sewers of the Main City see a lot of use in side quests and the way the sewer is laid out and the way you can control what sluices are open flooding and draining certain areas could give you some ideas how it could look.
Alac_Gane
07-31-07, 01:05 PM Have you played FF XII at all? The sewers of the Main City see a lot of use in side quests and the way the sewer is laid out and the way you can control what sluices are open flooding and draining certain areas could give you some ideas how it could look.

I didn't play much of it, but I do remember the sewers, yes. I will look into that.

Now I pretty much need some sweet encounters, I guess. A couple of darkmantles will be in there and the Red Jackals will definitely be making an appearance, but I don't just want my party to be fighting rats and shifters the whole time... I need something else that won't outright kill them.

I'm gonna put some Dragon Below cultists in Duur'sharrat, but I can't think of much else besides perhaps an ogre boss fight.

And thanks, you guys. :)
Ryoden_Anariavas
07-31-07, 02:55 PM Swarms of beetles

Gricks

Stirges

Ozes

Crocodiles

Snakes

Zombies

and thats just off the top of my head
Anything in the MM that has a terrain of "underground" or "swamp"
RFrenchJr
08-01-07, 01:17 AM You'll have to forgive me for my ignorance as I haven't read or even glanced through Sharn: City of Towers, but I think some common sense can be applied to the sewer system of Sharn.

First of all. Sharn having been built on the ruins of the goblin city. More than likely the goblin city didn't have an advanced system of plumbing so essentially instead of digging out channels and pipes for Sharn they just laid them through the ruined framework of the ancient city. Because they probably wouldn't need every open area, alley, and roadway of the former city there are chambers, sometimes large interconnected chambers with nothing inside of them, most of these would be sealed off, others would have been left open or broken open as pipework was run through them.

Secondly, stone, asphalt, brick doesn't absorb water, at least not as much as open soil does, so anytime you have large amounts of stone covering the ground i.e. roads you wind up with a water run-off and drainage problem. Seeing as Sharn sits on the banks of the Dagger River all of this water would be channeled toward their through a series of slowly downward moving channels.

Which brings up another point. Sharn consists of many floating towers. Since these don't touch the ground there would have to be some way to transport waste and trash down to the ground and water up to the tower. Seeing as the manifest zone to Syrianna makes it easier to levitate and float things I wouldn't see much of a problem having magical assisted pips that pump water up completely of their own accord. You'd have to have some sort of teleportation circle at the base of these floating towers to transport waste water and refuse to the underground layers otherwise it'll just be running out of the tower, which is rather unsightly.

Other than that you should realize that there is a very slim chance that anyone in your gaming group knows the intricate workings of a proper sewer system, especially a medieval pulp noir metropolis connected to a manifest zones sewer system, so you can wing it and I doubt if any unanswerable questions will come up. Why are their drow living in the sewer? Doesn't much matter when they start attacking. I don't think it's essential to map out the entire sewer system, much in the same way I don't think it's important to map out an entire city right down to every street name, residence, and shop. By releasing a quintessential Sharn sewer system map you've limited yourself for the future in case something new comes into play in the campaign. "Oh crap, I don't have a mindflayer layer, guess I can't do that unless I alter this map."

As for populating your underground sewer system you've got five monster manuals of official Wizards released monsters not to mention the countless other d20 OGL monsters out there, if you can't find enough to populate seventeen sewer systems you're just not looking hard enough or you're being too damn picky and in that case you can start creating your own monsters to inhabit your underground layers.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Alac_Gane 07-14-07, 09:06 PM	I was looking into the ECS and Sharn: City of Towers and I saw a few things about the Depths (i.e.; the sewers and its inhabitants), but aside from the stones of purity underneath the city to clean their water, I didn't feel there was much explaining what should be inside of a sewer. I guess I can't say I'm an expert. Does anyone have any suggestions about what would be within a large city's sewer lines for water flow, maintenance, and possibly expansion? And don't forget about the goblin city tucked beneath/within it! I could use a connection for that, even though a bunch of level 1 characters are going down there... They wouldn't be able to get past the seals to Duur'sharaat without some help. <<
Alex_ 07-15-07, 03:32 AM	The example adventure on the back of the ECS suggests an entire community thriving down there of people who feed off the refuse and trash of the people above. I get the impression that most of the seals can only be bypassed with certain items, after passing certain tests, or meeting other requirements. Makes them good as "sealed doors" for the PCs and explains why all of the sewers haven't been explored yet. Inside, I would imagine there are sites and artifacts from Old Galifar and Dakhaan of interest to those on the surface. I don't know if you're familiar with Star Wars or the Knights of the Old Republic Games, but I got the impression that it's like the lower reaches of Coruscant or Telos, where the undesirables of society live. Or for a more comical analogy, think of the Mutants from Futurama. The city of New New York was built upon old New York, just like Sharn is built on the ruins of Goblin cities. They live down there, and can be allies/antagonists/suppliers of the PCs, but there are some places in the sewers where they just don't go. Of course the sewer can be its own ecosystem. Fungi, plants growing in any areas where light seeps down, rats, reptiles and amphibians, vermin, even small mammals like raccoons, opossums, weasels, and the like. Fish could be swimming in pools of fetid or undisturbed water. And then there's monsters, especially those nasty slimy kind that feed on refuse, stone, or unwitting parties who fall down shafts into garbage areas on the detention level. Otyuh, Gibbering Mouths, Xorn, Grick, and the like.
Alac_Gane 07-15-07, 11:23 AM	The example adventure on the back of the ECS suggests an entire community thriving down there of people who feed off the refuse and trash of the people above. I get the impression that most of the seals can only be bypassed with certain items, after passing certain tests, or meeting other requirements. Makes them good as "sealed doors" for the PCs and explains why all of the sewers haven't been explored yet. Inside, I would imagine there are sites and artifacts from Old Galifar and Dakhaan of interest to those on the surface. I don't know if you're familiar with Star Wars or the Knights of the Old Republic Games, but I got the impression that it's like the lower reaches of Coruscant or Telos, where the undesirables of society live. Or for a more comical analogy, think of the Mutants from Futurama. The city of New New York was built upon old New York, just like Sharn is built on the ruins of Goblin cities. They live down there, and can be allies/antagonists/suppliers of the PCs, but there are some places in the sewers where they just don't go. Of course the sewer can be its own ecosystem. Fungi, plants growing in any areas where light seeps down, rats, reptiles and amphibians, vermin, even small mammals like raccoons, opossums, weasels, and the like. Fish could be swimming in pools of fetid or undisturbed water. And then there's monsters, especially those nasty slimy kind that feed on refuse, stone, or unwitting parties who fall down shafts into garbage areas on the detention level. Otyuh, Gibbering Mouths, Xorn, Grick, and the like. Well, this is all well and good (especially the KOTOR reference), but I need infrastructure to make a map with. Is it possible to get a real pipeline map or something that I could glean some things from?
Alex_ 07-15-07, 04:46 PM	Sharn is far too big, and the sewers, far to expansive to make a complete map of them. Just map out the more important locations that involve important encounters, obstacles, or the like. The ruins on which the sewers are built and through which they run are just that: ruins. Map them out like an old broken down dungeon/castle/stronghold with stuff from long ago. When the PCs aren't at any one of these particular sites, just give a rough explanation of the area and ask for balance, climb, jump and other skill rolls as needed. Again, I suggest the adventure provided in the ECS as a good example of how to run an adventure in the sewers of Sharn. It's more like a cartoon sewer. There aren't many small pipes, and since it uses magic, and given the massive distances involved, I would assume there are no mechanical pump systems or anything really relying on differential pressure. When water needs to flow upwards, it merely flows upwards- in defiance of gravity and flows to where it needs to flow.
Vharuck 07-15-07, 09:36 PM	What's in a big city's sewer? Well, I'd tell you but I think this post would be deleted for the word. Joking aside, otyugh's are sewer lovers. Staple sewer monsters are oozes, rats, bats, bugs, and poop golems.
OctaviusIII 07-16-07, 05:57 AM	Ah, but for infrastructure? Well, think of the sewer as dual use: moving waste to a processing station, and providing access for people to maintain that system. The movement may be accomplished through gravity, digging the tunnels and pipes in such a way that they would go towards wherever the waste ends up. The pipes themselves would be like roads: smaller ones feeding into the larger. As for access infrastructure, the larger pipes would probably be stone with "sidewalks". Access would be through either old tunnels or through manholes. There would probably be handholds, or the remains of those handholds, along some of the more narrow passages. There wouldn't be anywhere that would be designed to be deeper than 2-4 feet. Given the existence of civilization down there, there would have to be a lot of abandonded pipes but the city isn't just going to leave the entire system to rot or to become overrun by beasties. Thus, there would be a healthy balance of maintained sewers, occupied sewers, and infested sewers. One other thing would be storm surges. Sharn is built in a rainy tropical zone, so anybody living down there would have to find a way to divert the water coming into the sewer from storm drains to keep their homes from flooding. Whether that means sealing off tunnels and pipes into segments through steel doors or what, it would have to be done for practical reasons. So keep in mind: gravity; small lines feeding into main lines; maintenance accessibility; practical concerns of sewer living (flooding, smell, disease, wet and fauna); and functionality.
Alac_Gane 07-24-07, 12:46 PM	The movement may be accomplished through gravity, digging the tunnels and pipes in such a way that they would go towards wherever the waste ends up. The pipes themselves would be like roads: smaller ones feeding into the larger. As for access infrastructure, the larger pipes would probably be stone with "sidewalks". Access would be through either old tunnels or through manholes. There would probably be handholds, or the remains of those handholds, along some of the more narrow passages. There wouldn't be anywhere that would be designed to be deeper than 2-4 feet. Given the existence of civilization down there, there would have to be a lot of abandoned pipes but the city isn't just going to leave the entire system to rot or to become overrun by beasties. Thus, there would be a healthy balance of maintained sewers, occupied sewers, and infested sewers. One other thing would be storm surges. Sharn is built in a rainy tropical zone, so anybody living down there would have to find a way to divert the water coming into the sewer from storm drains to keep their homes from flooding. Whether that means sealing off tunnels and pipes into segments through steel doors or what, it would have to be done for practical reasons. So keep in mind: gravity; small lines feeding into main lines; maintenance accessibility; practical concerns of sewer living (flooding, smell, disease, wet and fauna); and functionality. :) These were mostly the kinds of things I thought up after a few days; the storm drain section pretty much doubled my map up. I figure I'll have one room be a spot where several stones of purity are with either an encounter with the City Watch and magewrights or the Red Jackals who just got done eating the previously stated. Another will be a large drain that empties out into a natural cavern that would flow into the Dagger River or the sea. I think that will be the point where I introduce the way into Duur'sharrat. I'm definitely going to have some slippery slopes. I'm thinking about auto-reset traps that would be made to kill small vermin, and another "trap" that is supposed to either disintegrate, shrink item, or continuously shatter garbage that is too big to fit through grating. If a person or an animal larger than tiny size gets into the trap and makes enough noise (like yelling for help) or can shove a pick into the emergency shutoff (DC 15 Open Lock) once the machine to shoot the spell starts up (5-second warning), the machine shuts down temporarily and rungs come out of the machine to climb back up. That ought to scare someone. ;) Other than that, should I include other rooms for drainage or water flow or maintenance that could act like traps or encounters? And what should maintenance rooms include besides levers for valve and main flow shutoffs?
kentonblack 07-25-07, 08:26 AM	the Xen'drik book had a classic trap room built up. The crusher trap. Its an EL5 trap though...so...well.... PC's go squish
Shady314 07-26-07, 07:32 AM	Have you played FF XII at all? The sewers of the Main City see a lot of use in side quests and the way the sewer is laid out and the way you can control what sluices are open flooding and draining certain areas could give you some ideas how it could look.
Alac_Gane 07-31-07, 01:05 PM	Have you played FF XII at all? The sewers of the Main City see a lot of use in side quests and the way the sewer is laid out and the way you can control what sluices are open flooding and draining certain areas could give you some ideas how it could look. I didn't play much of it, but I do remember the sewers, yes. I will look into that. Now I pretty much need some sweet encounters, I guess. A couple of darkmantles will be in there and the Red Jackals will definitely be making an appearance, but I don't just want my party to be fighting rats and shifters the whole time... I need something else that won't outright kill them. I'm gonna put some Dragon Below cultists in Duur'sharrat, but I can't think of much else besides perhaps an ogre boss fight. And thanks, you guys. :)
Ryoden_Anariavas 07-31-07, 02:55 PM	Swarms of beetles Gricks Stirges Ozes Crocodiles Snakes Zombies and thats just off the top of my head Anything in the MM that has a terrain of "underground" or "swamp"
RFrenchJr 08-01-07, 01:17 AM	You'll have to forgive me for my ignorance as I haven't read or even glanced through Sharn: City of Towers, but I think some common sense can be applied to the sewer system of Sharn. First of all. Sharn having been built on the ruins of the goblin city. More than likely the goblin city didn't have an advanced system of plumbing so essentially instead of digging out channels and pipes for Sharn they just laid them through the ruined framework of the ancient city. Because they probably wouldn't need every open area, alley, and roadway of the former city there are chambers, sometimes large interconnected chambers with nothing inside of them, most of these would be sealed off, others would have been left open or broken open as pipework was run through them. Secondly, stone, asphalt, brick doesn't absorb water, at least not as much as open soil does, so anytime you have large amounts of stone covering the ground i.e. roads you wind up with a water run-off and drainage problem. Seeing as Sharn sits on the banks of the Dagger River all of this water would be channeled toward their through a series of slowly downward moving channels. Which brings up another point. Sharn consists of many floating towers. Since these don't touch the ground there would have to be some way to transport waste and trash down to the ground and water up to the tower. Seeing as the manifest zone to Syrianna makes it easier to levitate and float things I wouldn't see much of a problem having magical assisted pips that pump water up completely of their own accord. You'd have to have some sort of teleportation circle at the base of these floating towers to transport waste water and refuse to the underground layers otherwise it'll just be running out of the tower, which is rather unsightly. Other than that you should realize that there is a very slim chance that anyone in your gaming group knows the intricate workings of a proper sewer system, especially a medieval pulp noir metropolis connected to a manifest zones sewer system, so you can wing it and I doubt if any unanswerable questions will come up. Why are their drow living in the sewer? Doesn't much matter when they start attacking. I don't think it's essential to map out the entire sewer system, much in the same way I don't think it's important to map out an entire city right down to every street name, residence, and shop. By releasing a quintessential Sharn sewer system map you've limited yourself for the future in case something new comes into play in the campaign. "Oh crap, I don't have a mindflayer layer, guess I can't do that unless I alter this map." As for populating your underground sewer system you've got five monster manuals of official Wizards released monsters not to mention the countless other d20 OGL monsters out there, if you can't find enough to populate seventeen sewer systems you're just not looking hard enough or you're being too damn picky and in that case you can start creating your own monsters to inhabit your underground layers.