Geography: Dirt City History

Dirt City is an enigma in The Wold or for that matter just about anywhere. It was formed from the 2nd wave of criminals relegated to the Cursed Swamp by the Free-Stators League in the 2nd Century A5. This wave upon emerging from the swamp held several secrets of The Way, a secret means of travel to the Dark of The Continent of Yrth, formerly known as the Cataclysm Lands (See Osto). Combining with some first generation rogue families, they traveled south to set up a utopian city of thieves.

Named Dirt City for the black dirt that seemed to actually cling to all living matter, the town was a free for all. It was fair game for anything and anyone—after dark. During the daytime, the citizens hung out in public bath/tavern combinations and tried to keep the dirt out of their pores.

Children were not allowed outside, even during the daytime for fear of attack and reprisal. However, children, always capable of finding a place to play, began to take over the family basement and call it their own. The adventurous ventured into the sewers and found ways to visit other children through them. Even parents, once they got over the shock of their kids venturing out into the sewers realized that it was safer than the streets.

With time, families took to the idea that underground was safe and it became an unwritten law that the underground world was out of bounds for thievery or attack. Some families even built underground tunnels between neighborhood houses so that children and women could visit back and forth without any fear of assault. Poorer families made entrances to the sewers and set about making these safe for travel so that they could visit their neighbors and the local taverns and stores without going above ground.

Eventually finding rats and spiders in the sewers became virtually unheard of. Instead, children that gravitated naturally to the sewers and tunnels became known as “rats” which was short for “brats.”

Some family groups began to have pretty fancy tunnels and sewer cracks were sealed. Children would paint murals on the walls. A local priest, a Halfling named Lillo made a contest out of the murals and began to encourage all families to connect to their neighbors in “friendly fellowship.”

This yearly mural contest evolved into a festival. No thievery or business could take place on Mural Day. Lillo and The Master Thief, which is the equivalent to mayor or prince in Osto, would judge the event.

Families continued to visit and connect to other tunnels. Before long, the tunnels and sewers under Dirt City were pretty much interconnected. Each family knew and cared for the tunnels near their homes. It became a matter of prestige to have the fanciest and cleanest tunnels and murals. Tapestries began to replace murals. Tunnels began to be lined with carpet and fine woods.

Then, about 100 years ago, a group of Halfling refugees from the giant uprisings of the Red Hills moved to Dirt City and once again this race affected the city. They looked the city over deciding upon a place to live and settle their group of about 50 families. The location they settled upon was revolutionary as well as controversial. They bought property, and cheaply one might add, underground.

They approached the owner of the “property above,” as it became popular to say, and bought the rights to the “property below,” many times buying the right to run a flight of stairs or a burrow entrance to the surface. So, for the first time, families were living pretty much totally in the “City Below.”

Businesses began to open up on “Below.” The first of these was the “Blue Barrow Inn.” Visitors to Dirt City and trade that was legitimate began to flourish. Illegitimate businesses slacked for awhile, but evolved and the “families” grew strong again.

Many families then began to “build down” abandoning their surface house in favor of safer underground rooms. Other families build businesses under their houses with entrances on the sewers and tunnels. Over the next 20 years, this town moved totally underground as far as family living and activities were concerned.

Dirt City today is two separate entities. There is the normal village underground and the City Above, where intricate thievery games are staged. Below, all weapons must be “double-banded.” In fact, it is a choice of life-banishment, incarceration, or corporal punishment to draw a weapon underground for any reason. Tavern talk has therefore evolved such sayings as “You want to take that above?” Most of the major “families have houses above as well as below. The Master Thief of Prince Thief is the only one to totally live above. By tradition, his keep is above ground to resist overland invasion. Therefore, he must travel to a tunnel entrance to enter the City below.

Dirt City has no city wall, as such. Instead, it has a series of towers, each of which can defend its surrounding area. Each tower has a public entrance to the City Below. These towers extend out past the City Above and into the surrounding farmland. Mothers and children farm the surrounding lands during the day, while roving guards protect them from intruders.

The “City Above”

When the criminals from the Cursed Swamp first arrived to found Dirt City, those who chose to remain thieves faced a unique situation. Who do we steal from? Two answers obviously presented themselves: people in other places, and each other.

The rogue community quickly began forming into groups for power, prestige, and protection. All were officially of “The Guild” being residents of the town, but since they desired a great amount of freedom, the guild was more like just being a registered citizen of Dirt City. Instead, rogues gravitated towards the “families of power.” There were two types of “families.” There were those descended from the Citizens of The Way and those with power bases of money.

Most of these “families” held both in-city and out-city operations, which due to the name of the town, became known as Dirty Operations and Clean operations. For clean operations, “family bands” would do anything from robbing the nearby Orc tribes of their spring raiding loot, to traveling to distant cities such as Osto.

Some houses would band together for Clean Operations and split the profits. Yet these same houses would compete in unclean or “tarnished” operations stealing the profit from the other house.

The next step in the sophistication of thievery in Dirt City was proposed after the “Death of Violet.” Violet was a beautiful girl born to the House of Teeth. The house had just returned from a joint venture with the House of the Wolf. The House of the Wolf, upon it’s return, decided to attack the House of Teeth and double their profits. The leader of this raid was the eldest son: Arturo. He did this gladly, for he was hoping to find the girls chambers and speak his heart to Violet whom he loved. She, however, when the raid bells rang, not being one to hide her chambers, donned a mask and leather garments to hide her identity. She then entered into the fray. As often happens in such cases, she was slain by her suitor. In his remorse, he killed himself on her sword. It is an old storyline, but it turned Dirty City upside down.

At first, both families blamed the other side in blind remorse for their losses. Each major family took a side and quickly civil war loomed in Dirt City. However, a traveling bard, young and out on his first venture into the Great Wide Wold happened to be in town and playing for the week in the Root Cellar Inn. There he spoke his mind on the matter to a mixed crowd containing members of both families. He played a piece he called “What if?”

What if?
…death claims the innocent?
…brother fights brother?
…mother loses son and son
…loses brother?

What if?
…we keep killing each other?
…hating each other?
…making each other bleed?

What if? …the money we steal isn’t worth the price?
…our hearts are cut and sliced?
…we cause a person’s future life?
…What if?

What if?
…we could bring back the dead?
…from Gargul’s kingdom they fled?
…we could let the lovers wed?

What if?
…we did not our relatives attack?
…if the longing for peace held us back?
…if we could cut each other some slack?

What if?
...we wished so very hard
…that the Gods heard our cry?
…and no one had died?
...we could breathe a great sigh!

Let us open our eyes!
…and not choose sides!

What if?
…love ruled the day?
…and we learned a new way
…to earn with honest trade?

What if?
…love ruled the day!

What if?

And with that, among the sobs that flooded the room, the young man produced a wish ring.

He spoke, “If I bring Arturo and Violet back to us, will you all vow never to raise arms against each other again?”

All stood and with a great noise gave their vow. And with many tears, peace was forged between the families. Violet and Arturo were brought back from the Lands of the Dead and were married in great fashion in front of the fields of the city.

Very quickly, all Thief Houses, Trading Syndicates, and Independent Merchants swore their agreement to the new peace from Dirty Enterprises. The entire town, both mourning the tragedy and rejoicing in the resurrection of the happy couple promises to lay down their swords. IN fact, all weapons were totally left at home. Even the guards in the tower were seen to be unarmed and no arms were allowed within the city.

The citizens of Dirt City began to fill their lives with things other than thievery. The change was genuine. Life-long enemies met in friendship and discovered that they were more alike than different. Generations of hostilities came to an end. The attempts being made on all sides were genuine!

But secretly, where only the heart talks and where the inner core of the family discusses things, each house still blamed others for the tragedy of Violet and Arturo. And each still held shame and concern for actions unresolved at the time of the peace-forcing event.

Some citizens began to say how they thanked the gods that their house was not involved in the event. Others would comment on the arrogance of those making such claims reminding those who would listen of the acts of thievery known to originate from the speakers house.

And so the tension grew. Bards, thinking of helping maintain the peace came by the dozens. It seems that each bar always had some bard preaching through his poetry the ways of peace and harmony. Churches were built. Citizens were told by street corner priests to, “Seek the way of health.”

“Seek the say of peace.”
“Seek the way of love.”
“Seek the way of life.”

It seemed that everyone with a message showed up at Dirt City’s Towerstep asking to come in and help save “the poor thieves from themselves.” And on some it began to grate. And with others, patience began to grow thin. Every citizen of Dirt City knew that peace was good. It was safer for his family. It was more civilized. Breaking the peace would be devastating for the house that was responsible. Even for anyone who knew the person who broke the peace.

So the tension grew. People stayed in trying to hold their tongues. Some worked out, trying to release the tension in their soul. Others ate. Others remained silent. Others seemed not to able to stop talking. Some shopped. Some became obsessed with their work or hobbies. But the tension grew. There was a palpable feeling in the sewers of the town that something was about to blow!

And the place where the tension was the greatest was between the two houses of the lovers: the House of Teeth and the House of The Wolf.

Then simply one day, it blew. No one knows exactly who did the deed, but during one of those cold winter nights, an assassin made his way into the Castle of the Prince of Thieves and was successful. Those who shouted the news hardly had the words out when the accusations began to fly. Moments later, the fighting erupted--first in the taverns, then spreading out into the streets and then from house to house. For the first time in the history of Dirt City, there was violence in the City Below.

However, little did the city know that outside their private little hell, a greater evil had been spreading. The Year Of Ascension had begun with the death of Domi, the God of Courage and the armies of his murderer, the upstart god Marteaus, was sweeping in the direction of Dirt City under the command of the Three Necromancers. The City of Dirt was literally destroyed in a matter of hours. All were killed--obliterated from the Face of The Wold.

Then just a suddenly, a year later, along with the rest of The Wold, Dirt city was recreated. All simply woke up one morning, finding themselves in their homes once more, as if it had all been a bad dream.

Immediately the street corner priests and the bards in their taverns began to preach fervently for the people of Dirt City to learn from the reprieve given by the gods or from Fate himself. The People of Dirt City simply had to learn to get along. War and then Oblivion was the only other option.

Once again, all in the City of Dirt agreed and a second period of peace began. And this time, the people of Dirt City were truly committed to peace. All could remember the horror of their last hours. And each could remember their deaths the pain and frustration involved in unneeded death.

However, three centuries of thievery and a society solely based upon such an occupation is not easily forgotten. The people of Dirt City remain at the core what they were: thieves. They ache to head to the unattended surface of the City Above and pick someone’s pocket. They dream of a Clean Operation and the sheer joy of seeing the shock in the eyes of the citizens of Osto as the House of Shadows strikes again stealing a huge amount of riches from those who flaunt it there in the face of the starving.

So they are resurrected and are alive again. The war or as some called it, “The Brawl To End All Brawls” has not started up again. But the primal issues and reasons that it happened the first time have not been solved. Slowly the city has yet again begun to simmer—to fizzle. It sits like a birthday firecracker that was lit and has not yet gone off. Perhaps it’s a dud and eventually everyone will forget its explosive power. Or perhaps it simply has a long fuse and the explosion is to happen tomorrow…or the day after.

All houses, syndicates, and merchant houses have returned to Clean Ops. However, as of yet, there is no sign of any dirty ops. Several close calls have occurred as the clean ops of opposing houses have intersected, but so far, in such situations all concerned have backed off.

Can the peace hold? Or is Dirty War the unavoidable destiny of the citizens of Dirt City?