QuoteThe State of the Setting
In the years since the Darkening and the Apocalyptic Events that followed, much has changed in the world and within our small corner of the Underdark. What follows are some brief comments & updates about regions and groups that will hopefully help players understand our setting a little better and that may fairly be understood as IC knowledge by a particularly well informed character. It is assumed that the reader already has a decent baseline understanding of EFU lore; totally new players may wish to consult elsewhere for more detailed information.
Upper Sanctuary
Although the flood of refugees that once traveled through the Rescue Portals has been greatly diminished, there remains a small trickle of humanity that still occasionally arrive. After being being given a cursory enthrallment check, they must find their own way to make a life for themselves somewhere in the increasingly overcrowded sections of Upper Sanctuary. The days of refugees being provided free tenement housing somewhere along the edges of Upper are long past. Sanctuary has become increasingly crowded, squalid, and unpleasant. Faced with an absence of space, many itinerants have been 'moved along' into the unwholesome alleys of the Public Housing Vault despite the dangers that are known to exist there.
Although the economy of Sanctuary may fairly be described as vigorous, unemployment is high. The Workmill largely relies on animatronic labor which provides few opportunities for employment outside of Mushroom Spore Harvesting and the more dangerous professions such as Wormeringing, Hunting, employment with the Watchers & Warders, and of course the disreputable trade of Adventuring. The days of isolationism and secrecy are, however, long past and Sanctuary trades with many other monstrous settlements around the shores of the Dark Lake. Sanctuary maintains a small outpost in the flooded Canal below from which a small fleet of vessels arrive and depart regularly.
Emerging utterly triumphant from the Crystal War, the Watchers & Warders and their allies upon the Directorate are understood as the true masters of Sanctuary.
The Public Housing Vault
Faced with a rapidly increasing population, the Directorate of Sanctuary led a massive public-works project to expand and build suitable housing within this large vault that is adjacent to the smaller caves of Starag's Rest. Although initially all seemed to be going according to plan, misplaced funds & broken machinery & general incompetence led to a situation in which much of the housing stock within the Vault is of poor quality or even left unfinished.
In recent time, the Housing Vault has developed an increasingly unsavory reputation. It is rumored to have become a place filled with sightings of disturbing monsters and populated with those with an unwholesome interest in Aberrant technologies. Now officially sealed off due to supposed plague, some who visit the district claim that - among the masses of Sanctuary's most poor - there are those who openly sympathize with some Aberrant powers or who willingly partake in their most freakish gifts.
Despite being officially quarantined, trade and travel between the Housing Vault and Upper itself nonetheless flows at a rapid pace.
Final Sanctuary
Much of the elite of Sanctuary have withdrawn from the shabby life of Sanctuary into the perfectly secure, utterly resplendent pleasures of Final Sanctuary. Final Sanctuary remains closed off of to the masses, but to receive permission to dwell there has become the fondest wish of many of the ambitious and desperate.
The Flooded Lowers
After nearly a year of conflict and fighting between the three major cultsof Lower Sanctuary, the conflict has been decisively won by the Cult of the Ooze. During the climactic final battle, the Great Ooze Slp'slp'grlp'alshlpt rose from the depths below to smash and destroy much of Lower. Streets and buildings sunk and cracked, embankments were washed away, and Lower is now a dank, flooded place. Desperate survivors loiter in those sections that are kept dry by crude rubble dykes, or make a strange life for themselves in the upper floors of soggy structures or even upon crude rafts and barges. Among other mysterious new arrivals, wild-bearded shamans have begun to emerge speaking of how the Dark Lake itself can be transformed to flood and burn away the impurities of the World, and a collection of rebels and anarchists ill-suited for life in Upper above are cautiously making a home below despite the considerable discomfort of living in such a dank place.
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Hopefully this will help with clarifying how things are at this present time. There are, of course, some exciting plans afoot for things in the immediate future and beyond...