The Undercity

Art by Liz Danforth

As regular readers know, recent posts have been about Flying Buffalo's CityBook series of supplements.  Electronic versions of these books are now available at RPGNow for your gaming edification.  In this post, we look at the third CityBook.  Having the subtitle Deadly Nightside, the theme of CityBook III – as explained in the Introduction – “is a dark and dangerous excursion into the seedier section of fantasy cities.”  The term 'Nightside' is used as the actual name of a section of a hypothetical city rather than a generic term for an unsavory urban area.  Whereas the establishments in the previous installments were organized according to business type, entries in Nightside are organized in three layers:  Good, Bad, and Deadly.  This layer structure is “the rough order characters would be likely to encounter [the establishments].”  The Introduction continues:  “In short, unless you've got a very jaded gaming group, you're not likely to hit an opium den right off the bat.”  Yes, an opium den is described on pages 76 – 82.

Michael Stackpole was the sole editor of CityBook III and also provided two of the establishments.  One of these entries – The Undercity – is like a Beggars' Guild, but “definitely a different Beggars' Guild.”  The term 'Undercity' refers to beggar society as well the location where the beggars reside (also called “the Warrens” or “the Underrealm”).

     The City's current level is built upon a dozen previous cities – some old enough to be legendary, a couple more lurk beneath those.  The beggars, over the generations, have dug down, excavated and set up living quarters in buildings that once stood in sunlight but now dwell in everdark.  Most of them live in a level about four cities below the surface, and the sewers cut through levels 1 and 2, though never did hit any of the warrens.

(The sewers are described as a separate 'establishment'.)

The beggars are divided into six 'tribes':  FAKERS (“...normal children of beggar parents”), WARDREGS (“...warriors or adventurers who have suffered maiming injuries”), GUTTERKIN (“...the utterly desperate and destitute...[usually] old, drunk, or mad”), ILLKIN (“...people who have been maimed and disabled by disease and illness”), SPOILED (“...those who have been maimed by an accident, or on purpose, and can no longer function in society because of their injury”), and YSRAIGET (“...congenitally deformed beggars”).  Many of the Ysraiget are 'changelings' – malformed children of 'Upworld' parentage who have been switched with “normal beggar babies.”

The term 'Ysraiget' is derived from Ysrai, a god that the beggars worship.  “A full thousand years before history was recorded with any veracity, Ysrai's temples were swept from the earth...,” the book explains,“Ysrai is so thoroughly removed from the minds of men that his name is only known to a few practitioners of arcane and blasphemous rituals.”  On the lowest level of the Undercity, the beggars found a statue of Ysrai, “broken and scarred like themselves...”  Creating their own cosmology, “The beggars made this god their own.”  They also “tied the selection of their King to their patron deity.”

The current Beggar King is Myre.  According to his description:  “He was one of four beggars who met the prime requisite for candidacy; he was maimed in a manner similar to the injuries on Ysrai's statue.”  As King, Myre “has stressed the importance of gathering and sifting information.”

     Through a bizaare [sic] set-up, beggars all memorize and analyze (if mentally capable) all the news, rumors and actions in the City.  Stories pass through the Undercity and are relayed to the individuals who handle that information.  New beggars are trained and learn everything one of the older beggars knows so redundancy is built right into the system.  In fact, some of the most hideously deformed Ysraiget are so mentally gifted they can remember and recall centuries-old gossip as if they'd heard it the day before, and they'll link it with any cogent data gathered before or since.  Without benefit of books or scrolls, the beggars have the most complete history of the City and world in existence today!

Myre's part in the information network involves him spending “time in Domdaniel's Gate speaking with Tranq.”

Domdaniel's Gate is an establishment contributed to CityBook III by the designer formerly known as Paul Jaquays.  The current Domdaniel's Gate tavern is situated under the ruins of the original Domdaniel's Gate.  Thirty years ago, the original tavern was destroyed by...

...a time implosion, caused by the crash-landing of a time vehicle.  Its pilot, Tranq, a man from the far-flung future found himself stranded in the past; pieces of his time machine scattered across the near past and future like a debris trail from a sinking ship.

Tranq is the current proprietor of Domdaniel's Gate.  As a tavern, the “Gate” has a regular clientele of “undiscriminating local bullies, ruffians, thugs, and punks...”  Other than the tavern's bartender, Tranq's true nature is known only to Myre, the Beggar King.

     Myre discovered Tranq's secret as a child and would often help him find the missing pieces of the time machine.  When he became king, it only seemed natural to use Tranq's establishment as a formal link with the “normal” world.  Tranq often uses his futuristic technology to aid the beggars in whatever ways he can.

All of the alcohol that the tavern serves is acquired on the black market and is delivered via the Undercity.  Also, Tranq is the only non-beggar to have been instructed in the “beggar dialect.”

Paul Jaquays and the Darkside

First, let it be known that your humble host is happy for Jaquays. This post should not be construed as an attack upon that person or a condemnation of that person’s recent choices.

Next, allow me to provide some background information for those readers not “in the know.” Back in the day, Paul Jaquays was a talented designer of table top role-playing game material, especially adventure modules. Jaquays, also a capable artist, provided graphics for various RPG products. Eventually, Jaquays transitioned to the computer gaming industry. Given the money involved, I can’t blame Jaquays for abandoning table top RPGs. Now, Jaquays is undergoing a different transition. Jaquays recently announced the adoption of a feminine identity, “both socially and physically.” Paul Allen Jaquays has become Jennell Allyn Jaquays.

Nowadays, gender transitions aren't exactly front page news and the fact that one of the RPG 'old guard' is transsexual shouldn't be a big deal. What makes this case interesting is that it's Paul Jaquays and to appreciate why this is interesting, we must venture to the Darkside.

Around twenty years ago, Jaquays designed the first few installments of a generic system series of sourcebooks branded as 'Central Casting' by Task Force Games; specifically:  Heroes of Legend, Heroes for Tomorrow, and Heroes Now! Each book provided a system of tables that could be used to provide depth and 'color' to player characters (and non-player characters). This was good stuff – boatloads of random tables for character generation. What's not to love? Someone needs to reprint these or at least make them available as cheap PDFs on RPGNow. The young folks these days don't know about good products like these. There is more to this hobby than the 3.5/4E pablum that gets churned out and marketed to our unknowing youth. This is why the OSR is important. This is why we need to preserve and cherish our heritage. Excuse me, I digress. Where was I? Ah, yes...the Darkside.

Via the tables, characters could acquire personality traits. Pleasant and worthwhile traits were called Lightside. Unpleasant or immoral traits were called Darkside, representing the baser aspects of humanity (or, one assumes, other species). Starting with the second book, neutral traits were also included. Characters could have a combination of traits. Possession of Darkside traits did not necessarily imply that a given character was evil; such traits could be interpreted as 'flaws' that a character could work to overcome. However, “...more often than not, characters who exhibit several [Darkside] traits are either knowingly evil or have become trapped in a lifestyle of wrong behavior.”

The problem is that “unpleasant” and “immoral” are subjective concepts. Because Jaquays created the books, it was his paradigm that determined what traits qualified as Darkside. At the time, Jaquays was an unabashed religious conservative. (I have no doubt that Jaquays remains religious, just not as conservative.) Among the Darkside traits were “sexual perversions,” including “transsexualism.” (Other listed ‘perversions’ included homosexuality, bisexuality, and transvestitism.)

Let’s put this in perspective. Jaquays went on a personal journey where she confronted and accepted that she is, in fact, what she once vehemently condemned. This is especially courageous and deserves admiration. Gender – and the explicit division thereof – is a core component of identity in our civilization; so much so that we have distinct pronouns for different genders. Essentially, Jaquays had to fundamentally reassess an identity she held for over fifty years. After that accomplishment, wearing high heels doesn’t seem so difficult.

Anyway, Jaquays was criticized (perhaps justifiably) for his deprecatory treatment of alternative lifestyles in the Central Casting books. In Heroes Now!, references to specific “sexual perversions” were removed and replaced with a section that touted ‘wholesome’ values and decried “popular” trends that sought to “brainwash society” into accepting “perverse behaviors” as normal. Your humble host is given to understand that Jaquays now has a different attitude, allegedly* saying that “There is content in my Central Casting Books which represents a different mindset than I now hold.”

In closing, I would like to provide a paragraph from the original Heroes of Legend:

I would think that Jaquays stills subscribes to this sentiment, although she has a different perspective as to what “deal with their problems” entails.

* Although it seems reasonable that Jaquays would say this, I cannot find the actual source for the quote.