Sluicestad

Sluicestad is a former dwarven transport hub in the Underdark where the Deep Lines hit the floor of an enormous subterranean lake. Unfamiliar with submaritime shipping, the dwarves brought in help from the human company Aqua Nova. Now it has become the largest remaining human majority population in the Underdark, and the local Aqua Nova office is the de facto government. Visitors in Sluicestad often hear the locals saying variations of the phrase "'Water's clean" and are confused as to its use. It is a shortening of the phrase "At least the water is clean here." It is used in a similar fashion as the phrase "such is life" or sometimes as an exclamation when something goes wrong. Indeed, water purification is the major source of trade in Sluicestad, and the majority of clean water in the Underdark comes from here.   Although humans are the majority in Sluicestad, dwarves are a close second—either members of the shipping clans who first dug the Lines, or Conductors passing through looking to trade services for clean water. Drow are fairly common as well, as Aqua Nova trades with the nearby drow city on the surface of the lake in order to survive. And of course, as the largest remaining majority human population, the town is plagued by propaganda, recruiting, and raids from the Census, who see it as the crown jewel of the Underdark: the ultimate prize for the perpetuation of the human race. Aqua Nova does not agree with the Census and employs investigators throughout Sluicestad, and sometimes even into the Deep Lines themselves to root out Census agents and influence. Despite Aqua Nova's attempts to maintain Sluicestad as a neutral trade center, tensions continue to rise between factions: drow nobles seeking the legendary Aqua Nova pure water guaranteed to be unpoisoned by ambitious rivals; human sanitation workers, wary of drow who see humans as fit only for slaves; drow revolutionaries, attempting to assassinate and sabotage the drow nobility at every turn; Dwarf conductors looking only for trade and something safe to drink, yet caught in the middle of the escalating conflict; Census agents seeking human stock and water, as well as trade deals with the drow for the purchase of human slaves; representatives of Alakezan, seeking water to maintain the Beacon; agents of The Inventor, hoping to poison the water supply with magic suppressing drugs; and at the center of it all, Aqua Nova investigators trying to keep the water clean, and to a lesser extent, keep the peace.   Sluicestad is a town of constant dripping, flumes, condensation, pipes, trickles, vats, gutters, tanks, catwalks, and moisture. The town is shaped like a can, with water pouring down from the top where the submarine docks breach the underside of Lake Grahla, and running along rooftops, splashing onto walkways and raining down to the collection reservoirs at its base. It's not uncommon to see denizens of Sluicestad wearing long coats, cloaks, high boots, and wide brimmed hats which look out of place elsewhere in the Underdark, all to keep off the "rain". The purification magic used to clean the water causes light to emit from beneath its surface, and so Sluicestad has the eerie look of being dimly illuminated from below, the natural lighting shifting with the ripples from the water in the reservoirs and vats.