Puddles (District)

Puddles always had a flooding problem in serious storms and a few of its structures are old ships washed up onto dry land during particularly turbulent squalls. When the quake hit two decades ago, Puddles sank a few critical inches lower and much of it flooded and stayed flooded.

The center of the district is now a festering lake and most businesses are calf-deep in water even at low tide. Those who could afford to relocate have moved on, leaving only the poor, dishonest and bullheaded to make a damp existence in homes that are rotting from below. There are no surviving records to show who owns what, so some new residents have moved in simply to claim cheap buildings, no matter how badly flooded. Criminals, con men and homeless flock to Puddles, believing life there to be a better option than expulsion for vagrancy.

This neighborhood has also been hit hard by the Rat Plague and the Muckrakers have been doing everything they can to contain it. However, this often involves wanton slaughter of entire flophouses and burning the bodies in mass graves down by the water.

There are only three major political forces within Puddles. The district council is a single man, Haigen Tophook, who also runs the local guard and the only viable business, the Salvage Guild. Haigen runs much of Puddles as his private—if impoverished—domain, and receives very little pressure to do otherwise. His authority, such as it is, legitimately comes from the Grand Council and as long as he asks them for no funds to fix the district, and even manages tax payments, the Grand Council is happy to allow Puddles to become the city’s cesspool. His sole official competitor is Lady Seichya of Tevineg, an Ulfen warrior woman who runs the main prison of Val Royeaux on the southern edge of Puddles. Lady Seichya has made Haigen an ally rather than an enemy and the two agree that matters around the prison are her concern and the rest of puddles is his.

Ayespir's Astounded Abyss
This is the only reason any visitor would want to delve into Puddles and it’s a bad reason at that. A dank, much-covered carnival of patched tents and unsteady huts is home to the largest freak show in eastern Temeria.

The “Abyss” is presented as a mortal patch of Hell, with every imaginable and unfortunate combination of creatures and objects. For just a few pieces of copper, patrons can witness the twitching Living Eye, the ghoulish Self-Consuming Troll, the sad Ghost Girl—with her constant song of loss accompanied by her endless repetition of her own suicide—and even the Inverted Man, whose white bone framework barely holds in his oozing organs and pulsing muscles. Of course most patrons believe the freaks are likely illusions or costumes, but most come anyway. In fact, the performers are exactly what they’re presented to be, most being victims of curses and such.

The Little Ocean
The flooded central section of Puddles, this is an old park with rotting trees and crumbling clock towers sticking out of it. The “Little Ocean” can actually be fished and in severe storms, parts of the wrecked ships in Val Royeaux are washed into the lake, resulting in regular salvage dives by the bolder members of the Puddles’ poor. The Little Ocean is the only source of honest work in Puddles and it is uncommon, backbreaking, low-pay work at that. Only when a ship is believed to have something of value on board washes within the Little Ocean does money flow into the district and even then, it comes in the form of mercenaries buying helpers to attack the aides hired by other mercenaries. The flooded houses and taverns around the Little Ocean see more life than most of the district but even here poverty and despair rule the day.

Siphons
These underground tunnels are dangerous and often flooded. Some connect to the sewer system, some are obsolete and walled-off parts of the sewers and some are part of a sprawling series of crypts and emergency tunnels. Some criminal elements use the Siphons as a hideout, shoring up walls with heavy bricks and creating elevated doorways to keep their lairs dry, through seepage and the risk of collapse are always problems. One of the best-known residents of the Siphons is Grandmaster Torch, a soft-spoken information broker covered in horrible burn scars.

The Stilt House
Though Puddles is often called “lawless”, the district does have its own district guard. Officially named the Muddied Center Reserve Civilian Corps, they are known as the Muckrakers and often called by much less polite titles. The Muckrakers were formed as a “temporary” measure after the earthquakes subjected the Puddles to the worst flooding in the district’s history and have never been disbanded or replaced. As a wholly volunteer force, they’ve never been paid.