Sluicebridge
Sluicebridge is a good starting area for PCs beginning a campaign at 1st level. It's dirt cheap, full of people with problems and full of motivators to scrounge enough coin together to get out and up as soon as possible. GMs should emphasize the common humanity of those caught in the area, many of whom are too pour to live anywhere else. Any description of the outdoors should include sensory details that remind the Players that this is a pretty wretched place to be, from the burning/itching sensation of the mud to the smog in the air to the perpetual bog-like humidity.
It's also important to remember that the smell and residue of the place lingers, and PCs with business up the spire must choose between either visiting an expensive perfumery (there are many in the lower and middle levels) or being treated like dirt by anyone above the first few levels of the tower. Guards will treat any characters bearing the filth of the Sluices with suspicion, assuming them to be thieves or miscreants.
One of the poorest areas in Highspire, Sluicebridge is the entrance used only by those who cannot muster the money or influence necessary to access one of the main bridges into the tower. Between the crime, the pollution and the lack of infrastructure, transporting anything one hopes to sell anywhere about ground level is probably futile, as more discerning buyers will literally turn up their noses at the distinct smell anything brought through Sluicebridge inevitably acquires.
Geography
Polluted runoff from the numerous factories and laboratories of the spire has resulted in a cloying, vaguely acidic mud covering the ground around the Spire's base. It's not uncommon to see large pieces of garbage or debris that aren't worth the effort to move or recover simply sitting between the ramshackle buildings that make up the district. In essence, it's a landfill of highly polluted garbage that no one would inhabit given any other choice. Then again, some don't have any other choice, as it's one of the few places cheap enough to dwell that a laborer could conceivably make a living on the low wages offered for factory work in the lower and underground layers of the spire.
Fauna & Flora
A hodgepodge of plants and animals decorates the district, many of the lifeforms having descended from castoffs or escapees from higher up the spire. This leads to an ecology of scavengers that are typically happy to feed on one of the many types of garbage being brought out to the slums every day. A small but still significant number of predators feed on those scavengers. While they know that they can typically find easier meals than humanoids, large numbers, slim food supplies, rabies and just plain old malice are among the many reasons that visitors are advised to stay armed and vigilant at all times.
That said, various types of molds, oozes, carnivorous plants, mutated animals and other insundry inhabitants can usually find easier meals, meaning that Sluicegate sees certain monsters lurking closer to human civilization than would otherwise be tolerated because they've learned that leaving people be (usually) is a better long-term survival strategy. Otyughs, rust monsters and giant rats are all particularly common.
The environment itself is more than a little poisonous, and characters spending an extended time here who aren't native should check once a week to see if they develop a disease or accidentally ingest a poison of the GM's choosing.
Alternative Name(s)
The Bilges, Bottomspire, Reekspire
Type
Wasteland
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