The Seattle Underground

Since its recognition as a district, the Seattle Underground has seen huge growth and shifts in its population. Much of this coming from new SINs being assigned and distributed by Renraku (somehow, they were ready with new Seattle SINs, along with new corp SINs for some new hires). Alongside new SINs, other SINs are moving in, with Underground construction and gentrification becoming the new rage. According to the census, the population has doubled, but it’s really just gained around ten percent, while the rest of the boost is just SINs being assigned to the SINless. The total real population down here is just over 200,000.

This new growth is changing the Underground in ways no one would have expected. Alongside this, someone else has taken an interest in this place and she’s making inroads, though those inroads are deeper than those of Renraku. We’re seeing new caverns for construction opening up, new places with alchera being discovered and exploited and new paths around the city that surprise even the Underground lifers.

While the ork title might be gone, orks themselves are still around but others are moving in too. The culture of the Underground is shifting and with that shift will come the normal pangs and pains of change. Trouble is rumbling, but the real question here is whether this experiment of social change is going to settle in to make a new haven for all in Seattle or erupt like a volcano directly beneath the city.

I wish I could say that the hard-working, blue-collar, alternative, and somewhat rebellious vibe still permeated the Underground but it just doesn’t anymore. The dark, subterranean realm once felt like a place where those who didn’t fit in could settle safely, but with gentrification comes crime to rob the gentrified and anger to fuel those and other crimes.

The gentrified sections of Tourist Highway and the Heart are shifting away from the barter-and-blend culture of the former Ork Underground and moving to look like much of the city above, with the exception of the fact that looking up doesn’t see the sky. The main stretches are getting heavily lit, cleaned up, and patrolled by Lone Star, and the new construction looks less like makeshift DIY and more like an authentic architectural style, called “pum-modern.” This look blends some classic style elements such as fluted columns with modern style aspects of steel and glass to provide a reflective yet classic fascia that brightens these subterranean depths thanks to the abundance of reflective surfaces. The name comes from the design source, pumilionis, a.k.a. dwarfs.

Outside the tourist- and newcomer-ridden Heart, you slide into what most down here still refer to as the Ork Underground. This is where the real heart of the underground still beats. Here you can still barter based on trust and everyone understands what brotherhood truly means. Outsiders are quickly ousted or indoctrinated (usually with a nice, friendly beatdown) in order to make them feel welcome. The air is occasionally stale and musty, but it’s always cool, and construction is still DIY, usually with cast-offs and scraps from above. Those cast-offs are also a key part of life down here. The repair-and-return mentality that was once vital to the Underground was replaced in tourist country with spend-and-toss thinking. The tossed stuff comes here and locals fix it, take it up top to the Biz for sale, or sell it among their own. Lone Star doesn’t come down this far unless they have a real good reason and a real big force, so the only law you have to worry about (or rely on) is your own, or that of the local gangs.

In the furthest depths of the Underground, you find what locals call the Feral Underground. This place has a simple vibe: enter at your own risk. It got a bit of a numbers boost recently when the population spiked as ghouls who were holding their minds together suddenly snapped. Many came here, others were hunted, and some were put down like rabid animals when they went crazy on the surface. Other things live down here, too. The exact population of this section is anyone’s guess, as there are maybe twenty valid SINs in the whole place.

Beyond, beneath, and beside these places is where you’ll find the Depths. These are pockets and places that have more recently been accessed, mostly by a certain water wyrm. No formal residents live here, but several spirits and other servants of the Sea Dragon are studying and exploring them. The alchera are the hottest spots to check out, though rumors of a subterranean city/settlement that was not part of an alchera are gaining traction. The security here is the lack of easy access, wild alchera, unstable tunnels, and pockets of poisonous gases pooling in the deep. Lone Star never comes here. If they think someone really important is down here, they hire runners to find them.

If you ask a lifer they’ll say this place is headed to hell in a handbasket. If you ask one of these new-downers they’ll tell you this is the most up-and-coming neighborhood in the city. No matter what, it’s headed for some struggles and quite possibly a class war that won’t work out well for anyone. Sure, the lifers outnumber the new-downers and certainly aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty but Renraku and Lone Star are making a fortune policing this spot and they’ve got no problem setting up a few checkpoints to make sure people understand the difficulties and dangers of visiting the district. They use the points to tag and track local troublemakers and once again we’ll get a place separated by class. It wouldn’t even be surprising if the Underground redefines its census range and suddenly those other underground parts of the city, which are finally getting some safety infrastructure and buildup, are going to be removed and set aside once again.

Federal Holidays

Day of Woe

A memorial for those lost during the Night of Rage, February 7 is not truly a day for celebration but instead a day of remembrance for all. This doesn’t mean the locals don’t gather, drink, cook together, and celebrate the lives they have, it’s just not talked about like a party (much like some cultures where people get together after a funeral to drink and celebrate the dead).

The party may be rowdy, but everyone still knows what they’re there for. Even the newcomers respect Night of Woe.

It’s not uncommon for Humanis to have a presence down here at this time, usually claiming to be supportive of the plights of the metahumans all the while slamming them with enough microaggressions to create a kilo-aggression. Fights are common.

If you’re not a metahuman and you’re headed down to honor and support your metahuman allies, make sure you stick close to them. The Sons of Sauron regularly check the local humans. If you have a local or a meta backing you, they’ll usually toss a little respect to you and then move on. If you claim support but no one can vouch for you, you’re going to get tossed - or worse.

Recognition Day

Recognition Day is named for the day the Ork Underground became the Seattle Underground with the successful passing of Proposition 23, which legalized the Underground as an official Seattle district.

While the Day of Woe is a day of remembrance, Recognition Day is intended as the biggest party of the year in the Underground. Honored on the second Monday in August, it’s a hot time above and a great time to invite folks down to the cool confines of this subterranean district to celebrate its formation. The Tourist Highway floods with the massive influx of visitors, and the eight new hotels built this year are already getting booked for next year. While the holiday is celebrated Monday, there are parties all weekend long.

All are welcome to bring their nuyen down, but some are only tolerated so far. Parties got increasingly wilder as you went deeper. Tourist Highway had some generally blasé government-funded celebrations, while out in the Stretches things got wilder. There are rumors of a pair of parties in the Depths that involved drugs, astral travel, and an appearance by the Sea Dragon and her entourage.

Seattle Underground Divisions

The Seattle Underground has three major divisions: The Heart, The Stretches, and the Depths. Each of these divisions is separated into zones for the purposes of census and voting, though the Heart just has two and the Depths are a single zone. The Stretches comprise twelve different zones spread out along and under the periphery.

Level One

The Heart

Following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, which destroyed some 33 city blocks in the Downtown area, the city decided not only to require new buildings to be constructed of more fire-resistant stone or brick rather than wood, but also to regrade the streets of the area one or two stories above the then-present level. This led to the network of underground basements and tunnels, even sidewalks, which became known as the Seattle Underground. The Underground was abandoned for many years until a revival as a tourist attraction in the mid-20th century led to its refurbishment and expansion.

Although it is commonly believed that metahumans, mainly dwarfs and orks, moved into the Underground following the events of the Night of Rage, in fact several groups already occupied the area well before, although the violence in the streets above led to an influx of new metahumans seeking shelter. By the 2040s the Underground was well established as a haven for metahumans and became known as the “Ork Underground.”

The Underground has seen a series of expansions and renovations over the years, with much of the initial structure and bracing work from more than a hundred and fifty years ago still in place. This includes brick support archways and glass blocks that filter in sunlight from the street level, tinted purple over the years by impurities in the glass. The ork inhabitants have cleared out and expanded many sections of the Underground, creating an entire community beneath the Downtown streets.

Tours of the Ork Underground are available; inquire at the Big Rhino Restaurant or in the basement of Lordstrungs downtown. If you are in the market for ork craft items and unique gifts, as well as shops that cater specifically to metahumans, be sure to check out the Underground’s bazaar area

The Heart sits under Downtown, with its main access coming through the basement level of Lordstrung’s where the district government, formerly called the Undergov, took the entire floor and started building down from there. A second public entrance sits beneath the Big Rhino and opens up to the Mall, the first stretch of the Heart to become an updated retail center after Prop 23. Neither of these entrances allow more than foot traffic, though some small electric bikes and scooters have found their way into regular use.

The Stretches

Extending from the Heart like long, spidery legs are the various zones of the Stretches. Most folks still refer to these areas as the Ork Underground because this is where the real denizens tend to live.

Official borders of the various zones range from as far north as Bothell beneath Snohomish and down to the south under Tacoma and Renton near SeaTac and the edge of Renton, respectively.

Tunnels and pathways also run out to the unofficial pockets of the old Ork Underground such as Wilhem Park by the Crying Wall memorial in Tacoma but they are not part of the official Underground District.

Don’t forget the paths that wind their way out to Puyallup, Redmond, Everett, and probably outside of Seattle; some even say that the alchera caverns could run all the way down the coast to LA.

Level Two

Ork Underground

Considered informally part of The Stretches, this is where the real heart of the underground still beats. Here you can still barter based on trust and everyone understands what brotherhood truly means. Outsiders are quickly ousted or indoctrinated (usually with a nice, friendly beatdown) in order to make them feel welcome.

The air is occasionally stale and musty but it’s always cool and construction is still DIY, usually with cast-offs and scraps from above. Those cast-offs are also a key part of life down here. The repair-and-return mentality that was once vital to the Underground was replaced in tourist country with spend-and-toss thinking. The tossed stuff comes here and locals fix it, take it up top to the Biz for sale, or sell it among their own.

Lone Star doesn’t come down this far unless they have a real good reason and a real big force, so the only law you have to worry about (or rely on) is your own, or that of the local gangs.

If you could handle the OU before, you can handle it here. The only real struggle is that stale air. With the population and the poor ventilation, this place becomes an asphyxiation hazard at times and more than one family has been found asphyxiated in certain portions where poor ventilation proved fatal.

Level Three

The Feral Underground

In the furthest depths of the Underground, you find what locals call the Feral Underground. This place has a simple vibe - enter at your own risk.

Down in the Feral Underground you’ll find Infected, some shadow spirits, several bug hives (don’t worry, they’re small), the displaced of society (especially changelings), extraplanar visitors, shedim, headcases, and all manner of odd castoffs. Some areas are dangerous because of the geology, some because of the population, some because of the astral overlap, but most are simply deadly because getting in and out is a test of endurance, intelligence, and ingenuity, all at once!

It got a bit of a numbers boost recently when the population spiked as ghouls who were holding their minds together suddenly snapped. Many came here, others were hunted, and some were put down like rabid animals when they went crazy on the surface.

The exact population of this section is anyone’s guess, as there are maybe twenty valid SINs in the whole place.

Level Four

The Depths

Beyond, beneath, and beside these places is where you’ll find the Depths. These are pockets and places that have more recently been accessed, mostly by a certain water wyrm. Every Zone has at least one access to the regions known as the Depths. One and Two were first and the regions beneath them have the highest concentration of “residents,” though no formal residents live here.

Several spirits and other servants of the Sea Dragon are studying and exploring them, though. The alchera are the hottest spots to check out, though rumors of a subterranean city/settlement that was not part of an alchera are gaining traction. The security here is lack of easy access, wild alchera, unstable tunnels, and pockets of poisonous gases pooling in the deep. Lone Star never comes here. If they think someone really important is down here, they hire runners to find them.

In the deepest reaches below Fourteen, the Sea Dragon has excavated a cavern with its own subterranean city. While its existence has been confirmed by reliable sources, its nature has not. Whether this is a city built underground by some ancient power or a cavern with an alchera or an astral portal, no one claims to know.

Zones

Zones are usually connected via several routes, though none of them could be properly called “highways.” Most are footpaths that are occasionally big enough to run a moped or small bike through, so it takes a bit of walking to get from zone to zone beneath the ground. They all have topside access points, though they are often unmarked and hard to find.

A faster public transit system is under consideration but there are a lot of infrastructure aspects to consider and even more pockets that need to be filled to grease the works. If you needed to get from the furthest south point to the furthest north, it would take about twenty hours of walking. You can make the same trip in a car in about an hour.

Zone One

Zone One sits under Downtown, with its main access coming through the basement level of Lordstrung’s where the district government, formerly called the Undergov, took the entire floor and started building down from there. A second public entrance sits beneath the Big Rhino and opens up to the Mall, the first stretch of the Heart to become an updated retail center after Prop 23. Neither of these entrances allow more than foot traffic, though some small electric bikes and scooters have found their way into regular use.

The stretch between those two entrances is known as the Tourist Highway. It was a strip of shops and restaurants running the span, but it has expanded and transformed to add in hotels, entertainment, and service spots like spas and massage parlors. This is the most drastically changed section. As many of those businesses dug downward to gain floors, the restaurants and hotels had to get up to code, meaning they had to run electrical and plumbing, all hidden behind the pum-modern façade of columns, steel, and glass.

Zone Two

Surrounding the Tourist Highway, the first Zone of the Underground, is the rest of the Heart that is known as Zone Two.

This is a place with smaller shops, some new hotels, fancy subterranean residences near the surface, and smaller local dwellings a level or two deeper. It extends under much of the heart of Downtown, with breaks and passages around some of the larger structures’ basements.

A new structure is being developed along the edge of Lake Union, complete with a glass façade below the water.

Plenty of other construction is going on, and this place is expanding rapidly.

Zone Three

Zone Three is a community living in interconnected, partially filled caverns with outlets along Lake Union large enough for small fishing boats. There are also a few completely flooded passages big enough for a small sub (or a water dragon).

The largest settlement in Zone Three, known as Fisherman’s Cove, opens to Union Bay by the Cirrus Hotel.

They’re close enough to the main zones that they get a lot of travel but they isolate themselves by focusing on bringing seafood down into the local markets and having a large transient population. Their residents are often out on fishing boats for large portions of the year. This creates times when they are on shore to be a bit rowdy and revelrous, which overflows into Downtown at times.

Zone Four

Zone Four is just south of the core zones, essentially bounded by I-5 and the freeway.

It’s home to some great resale and repair shops, and the citizens come up on a regular basis to do some street peddling in Downtown.

They keep it low key to avoid legal complications and to prevent the Star from coming down on them.

Zone Five

Zone Five centers beneath the Beacon Hills areas with many of those living there surviving off the cast-offs from the rich surface districts. It’s ironic that the poorest section of the Underground lies under this wealthy area, but then again the Underground has always been located under Downtown for the most part, so it makes sense.

Residents gather trash and sift through it to sell worthwhile finds to the fixers in Four. Now that the Underground is an official district, Garrick Tregoe has opened a pair of restaurants that are fully prepared to welcome those from above and hopefully breathe some life into this Zone.

Zone Six

Zone Six is one of the most populous regions in the district. It runs under much of the section north of the core zones and south of Union Bay and Portage Bay. Residences for many of those who work on Tourist Highway are here, along with the squats of many of the orks who lived down here before it was a district and would have preferred to keep it that way.

Infrastructure improvements by Renraku are leading to a lot of conflicts with the longtime residents. Many of their homes are not up to code and the cost to bring them to code often comes with a Renraku SIN, a big debt, and a job down here to work it off. Some new businesses are getting built and luring topsiders down but the vastness of this area’s labyrinthine locales keeps them from wandering out of the shops and into the actual Underground.

Zone Seven

Zone Seven occupies the patch of land bordered by Elliot Bay on the south and the waterway between Lake Union and Shilshole Bay. Inside this Zone are over a dozen smaller communities that each have their own flavor (and usually metatype).

Orks are concentrated in half of them, but two are almost entirely elven, two are troll settlements built a little bigger for them, three are dwarf neighborhoods that seem to be coming up to date faster than the rest, while the remainder seem to be where humans in this area are corralled by their prejudices.

It’s an interesting arrangement and while it has decreased random metaracial violence it makes governing more difficult, as each group is only concerned with themselves.

For those coming down from above, you get cultural foods and elements in each area that are reflected by the clusters of shops and food stalls in the neighborhood. Options to learn about the cultures and get some of the most authentic dishes around are two great reasons to come down and visit.

Zone Eight

Zone Eight has gained the nickname of the Rumble thanks to the Federated-Boeing Field. Aircraft coming in and out of the airfield are easily detected by everyone in the various areas of this Zone as they shake the ground just enough to rattle a little dirt and dust off the walls across the entire span from the International District south of F-B Field.

There were areas of the Ork Underground that went under the airport but when the city made it official, they declared that all of those sections belong to Fed-Boeing rather than the Underground. There’s some security around but most of the folks down there just ignore whoever claims to own this patch.

The rest of the region is a rebel’s playground. Grey- and black-market shops, safehouses, drug dens, entertainment clubs, and all those places that don’t like nosy folks poking around enjoy the lack of tourists or outsiders here.

The frequent rumbles are too much for outsiders, so no one visits here without a purpose.

Zone Nine

Spanning from near Inverness down to Union Bay, Nine is a generally quiet section of the Underground that makes a nice place to visit, lie low, or even hit up one of the quaint clubs for a job meet.

Zone Nine is north of the waterways between Lake Union and Puget Sound and many still wonder how this is considered part of the same Underground if it’s not attached. Funny thing is it is attached.

Under the waterway are several old tunnels that link the Zones north and south of the water. They’re actually some of the largest passages, as they were once intended as flood prevention, but the systems were never really needed. It was mostly just money for construction companies but the Underground is benefiting from them now.

The distance from Tourist Highway begins to become apparent in this Zone as people here become almost singularly focused on life below rather than pandering to life above.

Shops, restaurants, and homes reflect the Underground style rather than some glossed-over trendy look. Renraku is still working to get a genuine infrastructure in place, and the residents here are genuinely thankful.

Zone Ten

Zone Ten is north of Zone Seven on the north side of the waterway and is again connected with deep tunnels that were intended for sewer and flood control. It has small clusters of residents all the way up to Bitter Lake.

During the struggles to get Prop 23 passed, Zone Ten suffered a massive terrorist attack when several neighborhoods were flooded. A “seismic event” caused a rupture between Green Lake and the Ork Underground. Responsibility for the attack was never claimed and the news still calls it a seismic event but everyone in Seattle knew what it was.

Hundreds lost their lives, and the event was spun by Prop 23 supporters as proof of the need to support the infrastructure of the Underground. The rest of the Zone was stunned and many locals continue to deal with PTSD.

The population dropped after the attack but then rose again sharply after the district gained recognition as young orks, showing their independence and bravery, moved here to make a statement that they cannot be intimidated. The vibe is slowly shifting thanks to the influx of youth and the parties they’ve brought with them.

Some of the best pop-up clubs in the sprawl are here. You need to be in the know of where and when, since they rarely last more than a week but during that week it’s easy to make a connection with the hosts of the next party or with someone who’s in the know.

Zone Eleven

Zone Eleven often feels like the most distant even though it’s physically not because there is only one way to get there via the Underground and no one likes to cross it.

Coming from Zone Eight (“The Rumble”) is a single tunnel that was built as part of the 14th Avenue bridge. The tunnel was quietly used to move things people didn’t want seen to and from the airport.

This Zone is also one of the most spread out. It only has five pocket communities spread from the Duwamish all the way down to the 518 at the north end of SeaTac. Quite a few SeaTac workers live near the south end, while workers at F-B Field live up north. In fact, there’s a bit of a rivalry between them when they get together in those central communities.

Living and working out here is interesting, as many of these communities get along better with the surface towns than with the rest of the Underground. They aren't always great relationships but they are certainly more interconnected with the surface than with Tourist Highway.

Zone Twelve

Zone Twelve is the first that touches outside Downtown and slips over into Bellevue and a sliver of Renton and that’s only because they fought to be part of the Underground. Most down here know they fought, because the zone offered them some small semblance of protection from the hell that was about to rain down on all the unofficial parts.

As soon as Prop 23 passed the population here spiked with gangers, criminals, and shadowrunners who call this patch of subterranean turf the “Umbra.” It’s their own little dark spot to dip into in order to avoid the light of the law.

While this area has several nice little shopping districts and a number of subterranean dining spots, it is also home to some of the best secret passages, hidden tunnels, and camouflaged nooks. As more and more buildings are updated by Renraku, the “sub-architects” are right behind them refashioning and reconnecting these hidden spots.

Zone Thirteen

Zone Thirteen may have been named for its location but it could definitely be the unluckiest Zone.

North of Nine, it has communities near Northgate Mall and then up and around Lake Washington into Snohomish, up to Bothell. And that’s why it’s unlucky.

Crime stats for the Underground show that this Zone has already had five times as many arrests as any other Zone. Come up from the Underground in the Snohomish entrances and suddenly you get arrested, usually for nothing more than having horns or tusks. It doesn’t matter what you’re actually doing the cops in Snohomish will find something you’ve done wrong.

There’s no love lost and no real tourism coming from up here. The people who live here do so because they don’t think they have a choice. They don’t have the means to move. They owe too much to the wrong person to go anywhere else. Whatever anchor has found its way around their ankle.

Zone Fourteen

Zone Fourteen has a strange “foreign embassy” feel for most. It’s a small patch at the southern end of Downtown that was blocked off because Gimli Harris has a massive investment and a drekton of pull (though not enough popularity to have been elected Mayor, that honor went to an ork: Kathleen Shaard).

Fourteen is almost entirely dwarfs and might as well be called the dwarf underground. Thanks to some global connections and some unseen deal with Renraku, this Zone has been fully updated to fit infrastructure expectations within its first year of existence.

No other Zone is even close, not even One.

It’s an interesting little undercity with scads of businesses, hotels, and high-tech infrastructure that sell what the Seattle Underground could be if all the Zones got even a fraction of the funding Gimli Harris managed to pull for Fourteen.

Places of Interest

Hotels

Aston's Moneymakers

Type: Motel

Rating: ★

Price: ¥20

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Four

Description: Aston's Moneymakers is the lowest of the low when it comes to chain cubicle motels. They're usually placed in abandoned storage units, warehouses, or other industrial lots that have been barely converted to hold the patented stackable "air conditioned" cubes which can go ten-high and house four individuals per cube with a shared sink and individual commlink-coded lockers for personal storage.

The problem here is that when they're at a location where they can stack you can only reach the cubes above the first four via ladder, the lockers are easily hacked (or just yanked open), the "air conditioning" is a glorified venilation fan that is oftentimes broken and the shared sink is always clogged. If you're lucky its with puke, food, or hair. If you're unlucky?

Well, when you gotta go you gotta go.

Aston's has expanded into The Stretches of the Seattle Underground as a bid to convert some of the abandoned spaces that fleeing orks and trolls have left behind and they've made a property killing renting out to people who get lost or turned around. Their prices are fair but most of the time the places the cubes get placed in attract the kind of crime they can't protect against just because the security is so poor.

The Cozy Caverns

Type: Hotel

Rating: ★★★★

Price: ¥325

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Fourteen

Description: The Cozy Cavenrs in Zone Fourteen of the Seattle Underground is advertised as a "hotel that's been built to allow guests to live like a caveman." The reality is that it isn't even remotely caveman-like, unless said caveman was also a billionaire.

This hotel was "built" from local materials, reformed by local stonemasons and magicians with the ability to shape stone. It goes down ten floors and has a single central "hole" with a trio of cable-suspended elevators and a spiraling hallway that curls around the exterior of the elevator shaft.

Two of the elevators service all the floors, while the third goes only to the bottom floor “penthouse.” There are also stairwells for safety but they’re rarely used, even by the staff.

Underground Renton Inn

Type: Hotel

Rating: ★★

Price: ¥165

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: One of the first hotels to finish construction after Prop 23, the local Renton Inn chain placed a fully-functioning two-star hotel right underneath the Lordstrung's building in the hopes of targeting those visiting the famous "Tourist Highway."

The Renton Inns offer excellent accommodations at an affordable rate, and often work closely with local tourist companies and attractions to offer discounts to their guests.

Restaurants

Abklatsch

Type: Troll Restaurant

Cost: ¥

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Seven

Description: Abklatsch is a troll restaurant located in one of the two primarily-troll enclave communities in Zone Seven of the Seattle Underground. This doesn't mean that you're not welcome here if you're not a troll - far from it, Abklatsch is open to anyone who wants to spend money. It only requires distinction because non-trolls seem to forget how little of the world is made for trolls and for those visiting here is going to be a firm "shoe on the other foot" scenario.

Most humans struggle with the "oversized" appliances, as there are only a few human-sized chairs and tables which always seem to go too quickly.

If you can get past being a tiny, puny little creature then you're in for a treat, as Abklatsch is the premier restaurant for Black Forest Troll Kingdom cuisine.

Troll food is heavily inspired by northern Germanic cuisine and its evolution through the lens of a troll. Lots of meat substitutes and cloned meat or soy-based products turned into bockwurst or hamburg steaks covered in rich brown gravies, horseradish sauces, and rich mustards. Dishes are almost always served with sauerkraut, pumpernickel bread, or fries alongside extra-generous portions of lager beer.

Of particular note is the smoked or fried sprat, which are usually served as appetizers and in large quantities that humans tend to find difficult to stomach due to the portion size.

Bull's Horns

Type: Orkish Restaurant

Cost: ¥

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Nine

Description: This orkish restaurant is located deep in the heart of Zone Nine, where the power loss is regular and the other amenities are either illegal taps or at best spotty. Despite that, Bull's Horns is a beloved neighborhood restaurant with a built-in bar that has been serving the neighborhood for nearly a decade.

The ceilings are tall, the stools are ratty, the booths are peeling and the tables themselves are so old that you're liable to get a splinter or two but the food is pure ambrosia and is considered by many to be a true hidden gem that'll make you forget that not a single thing on the menu is anything but some form of processed soy. It's that good.

Rumors are that the owner is a shadowrunner, though, and that Bull's Horns is a way of him laundering his money. No proof exists of this and the neighborhood itself seems to not really care, as the most popular eatery in their neighborhood makes genuinely good ork food with a clear southeastern, Cajun-style flair.

Crazy Harry's Big Fat Sloppy Sea Shack Diner

Type: Diner

Cost: ¥¥

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Three

Description: To call Crazy Harry's a "diner" is a bit of a stretch, as the "establishment" itself is mostly hand-carved into a tunnel that leads down into Fisherman's Cove. By the time you descend down the tunnel far enough you can smell the batter-fried something and the addictive tartar sauce and when you finally sit your butt on the one of six stools that Crazy Harry's has available at his narrow, short-ceilinged food stand you're probably considering leaving.

Those who don't make that mistake are greeted by Crazy Harry himself, an ork of indeterminate age who wears a pirate hat and operates the deep fryer behind her like it owes her money. Her grasp on hygienic kitchen practices are a little harrowing at times - particularly when she licks her fingers when she grinds up the house fish sticks and then stirs the blender with them right afterwards - but when Crazy Harry places your long-awaited dish in front of you in this hot, smelly slice of the Seattle Underground all doubts are washed away thanks to Harry's skill in the kitchen and sheer love of the game and you'll become intimately aware of why orks say that Crazy Harry's is the best food stand in Seattle.

Garrick's Grotto

Type: Orkish Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Five

Description: Garrick's Grotto serves small-dish orkish cuisine that has been modified for the common palate.

Its primary entrance is above-ground, located in the back of an apartment complex's garden. The walls around the entrance marquis are done up to accenuate the vibe that Garrick's Grotto is a literal hole in the wall.

There is also an accesible Underground entrance/exit but that entrance is nowhere near as trussed-up and is just a simple green metal door.

As the space itself was recently built, Garrick's Grotto was made with plentiful seating in mind and creating a unique space to cater to this area's above-ground residents, most of whom are very wealthy and want the novelty of an ork restaurant and orkish cuisine without any pesky focus on class inequality or orks.

Skyder Papegøjen

Type: Elven Restaurant

Cost: ¥

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Seven

Description: Skyder Papegøjen is an Elven restaurant located in Zone Seven of the Seattle Underground in its only Elven-only community. While the elves there won't kick you out if you show up they do generally seem to be wary of certain outsiders, likely due to the violence they can face when fingers are pointed regarding the Underground's gentrification which none of the residents had anything to do with due to the community existing for longer than the district has been considered legal.

Skyder Papegøjen itself serves an eclectic mixture of Elven and Pomoryan foods and is one of the best restaurants in the Seattle Underground due to the quality of the food and the presentation of it. Skyder Papegøjen focuses on the "purity, freshness, simplicity, and ethics" of the food served, which means that the restaurant owners eschew hyperprocessed foods for things that can be grown locally or purchased with the ethics of the agricultural industry in mind.

Unlike most Elven foods, Pomoryan foods isn't strictly considered vegetarian. Skyder Papegøjen offers a selection of frikadelle (meat balls) and cold cut meat on their menu but the majority of dishes involve gherkins, rye bread, asparagus, oats, rapeseed, cheeses, and eggs.

The Madison Mile

Type: American Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: The Madison Mile serves your typical assortment of American-style middle-class foods at affordable, family-friendly prices.

The Madison Mile is a newer restaurant in the Seattle Underground which was started up by a long-time Ork Underground resident who was sitting on some prime real estate. Managing to have legal proof of ownership - unlike most orks - he was able to make a killing when Renraku came by a few years ago and began construction on the Jason Albert Grimes Memorial Hospital.

Formerly a SINless janitor, he jumped for that Renraku SIN and a healthy nest egg for a business the moment that the Japanacorp asked.

A lot of people consider him to be a sell-out since he only employs fellow orks in the kitchen and in less visible roles and he'd have few friends in his old neighborhood, provided that old neighborhood actually existed. Most of the people who hated his guts ended up having to move thanks to Renraku's construction and the few who hung around didn't last much longer before the Star cleared them out.

The Kaer

Type: Dwarven Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥¥

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Fourteen

Description: The Kaer is something of an Underground rarity: its just as popular as any surface restaurant across the entirety of the Underground. People travel down to The Kaer via a tunnel built into the base of an old skyscraper which turns into a small set of stairs and then opens up to a neo-militaristic stone fortress of a restaurant that's oozing with class, aesthetic, and good-old hearty dwarven cooking.

Food-wise, the menu of The Kaer resembles something almost like a mixture of a mead hall and a pub, with emphasis on locally-brewed alcohols paired explicitly with certain types of dishes. The waitstaff will even help you pair your drink with a dish (and vice versa) so you can get the full experience.

The prices are better than one might expect when they see the table settings, intricate lighting set-up and interior décor but it offers an unforgettable meal, making it one of Seattle's busiest and top-rated hotspots.

Tregoe Under

Type: Orkish Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥¥

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Five

Description: Tregoe Under is something of a major novelty above-ground, as its primary entrance is a glass box elevator built into a small glass holding building.

Entering, you slowly descend into the Underground and are greeted with a minimalist, glass-and-chrome focused futuristic restaurant which serves less heavily spiced and smaller portioned ork cuisine for the discerning (read: non-ork) palate.

The restaurant is available also by an Underground entrance but the door itself is never advertised and used mostly for delivery orders so that the glass box elevator isn't too crowded during dinner service.

Trollstack

Type: Breakfast Restaurant

Cost: ¥

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Six

Description: A 24-hour pancake house, named for its specialty: the Trollstack. A tower of pancakes that will satisfy the appetite of even the hungriest troll.

The usual variety of breakfast foods such as syntheggs, soybacon, and so on are also available here.

The owner and head chef, Thrudd, is an ancient-looking battle-scarred troll with an equally huge appetite.

Customers who have the sense not to be frightened by his fearsome visage find him a very friendly person, willing to serve new ideas for free to those who ask about them.

Bars & Clubs

Animal Instinct

Type: Nightclub

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Ten

Description: Animal instinct is the opposite of a dress-up kind of place. It's built in what looks to be an old basement where they once had industrial equipment or generators but has been hollowed out all except the control cabin and the catwalks.

Most of the raves held here weekly are geared towards specific sub-cultures in the Seattle Underground, though the main demographic is almost always the younger ork crowd due to its location.

When it rains, too, it tends to get a little humid in here as it will partially flood. Never more than enough to slosh around your boots but definitely noticeable if its your first time.

On the weekdays, Animal Instinct resembles more of a DIY DJ booth and a big room with good acoustics but on the weekends the cybergoths, furries, kandi kids, and other sub-cultures show up in force.

Areola 51

Type: Gentleman's Club

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Two

Description: A popular, trog-centric gentlemen’s club just beyond the safety of The Heart. It does tend to exclusively cater to the main demographic here, meaning that you're not going to find anything but women, and every woman here is going to be some form of ork but that's exactly what the people going to Areola 51 want.

Its rumored to be owned by a well-mannnered, slickly dressed Fomori named Toil who can generally be found occupying the large back-corner booth.

He’s well-known by those who are adept at navigating the Underground, and he enjoys a level of respect and popularity in the local community since he funnels a portion of his earnings into social projects.

Brimstone

Type: Nightclub

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Fourteen

Description: Brimstone is a fairly average bar located in Zone Fourteen of the Seattle Underground - the dwarven part of it, for those not in the know about such things. The inside is done up to resemble the interior of a volcano and AR eruptions happen on the regular on the dance floor when the music starts to get going when they do their Friday through Sunday live DJ sets.

It's run by Estella Bryan, a dwarf woman in her 40's who is rumored to be ex-corporate, although nobody knows which corporation. She's on good terms with the local magnate, Gimli Harris, and doesn't cause any trouble in Zone Fourteen but has set Brimstone up to become what is easily the closest thing the Seattle Underground has to a "data broker heaven."

Dozens of them congregate here regularly and Bryan has clearly cultivated a strictly safe environment for meet-ups, drop-offs, or sales negotiations away from the prying eyes of the surface. There were rumores that the Shadowrunners Union tried to push in on Bryan's turf, but Bryan isn't a fixer herself and the close-knit nature of Zone Fourteen meant that the elf who came down there to issue an ultimatum didn't exactly return to the Union without missing a few pieces.

Maxine's Bar & Grill

Type: Strip Club

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Six

Description: Barbecued food delivered by topless waitresses to faux-wood tables with a view of three runways of strippers in front of a mirror-backed stage.

Three carved stairways lead to private rooms above, which are rentable for practically any reason or occasion.

Non-orks and non-trolls tend to get watched by security and are always put into the private room closest to the bouncer's breakroom.

Floodgate

Type: Nightclub

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Ten

Description: Floodgate is the newest, nova-hot nightclub for the youth of the Seattle Underground. Having started off as an informal rave, the twenty-something ork organizers of this club have since decided to give a real "go" and turn their illegal party site into an illegal club.

With funding scratched up mostly from illegal criminal activity, Floodgate has managed to bring with it a few amenities while resembling a large, open underground floodgate waterway. They have a DJ booth, lots of seating, and hundreds of speakers and lights so that the party doesn't need to stop.

The only problem that Floodgate has been running into is the open aspect of it, with lots of thieving of supplies and items. Thankfully Floodgate's popularity means that they've got enough money to begin investing in security, which they're always looking for, making this a prime place for some ork muscle to get their start.

Attractions

Ghoulsburg

Type: Community

Division: The Depths, Level Four

Zone: N/A

Description: It’s not formally named that but you’ll find “paint” on the walls to warn you that you may be straying too close. You should also catch a whiff with your nose well before you get there but sometimes we can’t tell one stench from another and down in the Depths there are a LOT of stenches.

Ghoulsburg is home to the bulk of the feral ghouls that have come down here and made it a home. Well, more accurately this is where they got shoved when they started struggling with their connection to civility.

Those who held their minds together pushed their misguided kin down to these depths. They’re surviving on the scraps and supplies sent down to them and on the bodies of those poor souls who make a wrong turn down here and end up ghoul chow.

Before you ever reach Ghoulsburg, you should run into other ghouls and Infected and if you’ve got a decent rep with them you might make it out alive. Then again, if you have beef with someone or make comments you really shouldn’t, you can expect them to send you straight to the meat grinder!

Government Buildings

Seattle Underground District Hall

Type: District Hall

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: Formerly known as "Undergov," the Seattle Underground District Hall is the seat of Mayor Kathleen Shaard, the District Council, and various other committees and sub-offices that have been formed and are being continuously formed in the Underground's most rapid time of change that it's seen since the Night of Rage.

The Underground itself doesn't have as many of its own structures as other districts do, meaning that it has yet to gain a courthouse of any kind or any previously standing police stations to contract out to Lone Star.

Instead, even most of the old Undergov building has been renovated and only just finished expanding to include the District Council offices for each individual council representative in 2082. More is definitely to come but as it stands the District Hall is always busy, never quiet, and ten times as frantic as any other District Hall.

Seattle Underground Historical Society

Type: Museum

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: The first office and special committee formed by the newly created Seattle Underground offices, the Seattle Underground Historical Society is filled with a collection of volunteers, anti-authoritarians, pro-meta rights activists, ex-criminals, a few actual criminals, and normal everyday citizens of the Underground.

Their unifying purpose is the preservation of the Ork Underground that has rapidly deteriorated and disappeared as gentrification began to rear its head. They've already managed to make a few areas historical sites that cannot be changed and the residents of the Underground that haven't fled donate to the society regularly whenever they can, so they rarely run into issues of funding, volunteers, or interest.

Lone Star Forces Underground

Type: Police Station

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: Rather than the standard navy blue and yellow, patrols in the Underground wear white shirts with yellow piping, a navy-blue tie, and navy blue pants. They still have the traditional logo, and their badges look like the rest of the tin stars, but the uniforms are brighter and honestly, they look more friendly. This doesn’t actually make them more friendly, but it makes them easier for their fellow officers to spot when they need backup.

It’s wise to point out that this patrolling is focused on the retail spaces of the districts. They respond to homes only if they are officially addressed, and even then they usually take too long to be effective help.

The "precinct" itself is mostly a glorified kiosk, as all further policing such as arrests are handled above-ground, usually brought vertically to the corresponding precinct and dropped there but the building in the Heart is a district-owned, Lone Star operated non-emergency station which helps ensure that the right kind of people are safe from the wrong kind.

Businesses

Below Job Bros.

Type: Grocery Store

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Nine

Description: Below Job Bros. was at one point a commune of like-minded Ork Underground residents and it really hasn't changed all that much beyond becoming a legal business venture. They're mostly responsible for most of Zone Nine's utilities upkeep (which isn't saying much) and they resemble something of a trade union more than anything.

They have a collection of Matrix specialists, electricians, plumbers, construction workers, builders, and other specialists across all spectrums of building and maintenance which vary in skill level from "figured it out one time" to professionally certified union-capable workers.

They've been a staple to their community for ages and there are rumors that as Renraku moves in towards Zone Nine that they'll be the first ones offered SINs and proper jobs but the guys in charge at Below Job Bros. don't seem all too eager to sell their souls, even if a good amount of their workforce is.

Computer Exchange

Type: Computer Shop

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone Two

Description: This low-end electronics store is known worldwide for its lack of quality. Pretty much all the Computer Exchange branded commlinks and dataterms are just cheap knock-offs produced in another neck of the world with their stickers, RFID chips and AR-branding slapped on top.

That doesn't mean that Computer Exchange isn't popular - on the contrary, their prices are what allowed them to become and early adopter of the Seattle Underground. They were planning on placing a store down there after seeing the sales figures of a location near an Underground entrance long before Prop 23, which also meant that they opened the floodgates in their company for cheap SINless ork labor - it benefited everyone, after all!

They opened their first Computer Exchange in the Underground in 2079. Its located just outside the Tourist Highway (their above-ground location having an Underground entrance near to it already, after all).

The manager's upselling has bothered a few customers but the prices (and drekky product quality) mean that they keep coming back and his all-ork staff does mean that they're genuinely a local employer, especially since they don't require SINs to work there.

Event Horizon

Type: Illegal Market

Division: The Depths, Level Four

Zone: N/A

Description: There are a lot of places that offer black market goods but none of them have the readily available stock of interesting and illegal items of Event Horizon. This far down in the depths that there’s no law to control anything.

Occasionally a small strike teams comes down in order to supposedly stop some faction or another from getting their hands on a WMD but those are rare events as the area is so deep and so remote that not even the black market weapons dealers down want any kind of WMD around - not in these clustered caverns with their limited air and structural stability.

The dealers here bring down all manner of arcane and technological treasures. Being this deep underground limits astral movement and Matrix coverage, making magical or electronic tracking nearly impossible.

Unique items that hit the market down here are often announced and accessed via a custom black host on the Matrix that few people have access to.

Fungitech Farms

Type: Farm

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Thirteen

Description: This Snohomish-based corporate start-up has been the Underground's best and only corporate friend for the few years leading up until Prop 23 passed.

Before Renraku rolled into the Underground, Fungitech was the largest employer in the entire Underground. They've lost quite a few workers to those shiny new Renraku SINs and they've been pushing back anyway they can - shadows included.

They still have a lot of support with the locals, as the Underground still benefits greatly from the products of their fungus farms.

Deep inside the Ork Underground, Fungitech’s biggest project is slowly making progress. It seems that certain parts of the Underground offer near-perfect conditions to test certain genegineered fungi hybrids, so the corp struck a deal with the orks to take over a section for their own. Supposedly Amazonia is hoping the fungi will be useful to its space program - along with hydroponic vegetables, an orbital habitat could run for years on the stuff without being supplied from Earth.

Fixin's Workshop

Type: Repair Shop

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Four

Description: This small-scale repair shop is mostly geared towards the upkeep of used electronics and other appliances but also acts as something of an personal consumer chop-shop where anything that can be stripped for parts can be brought in for a fair price, though they won't keep anything that they don't want so most people end up leaving with partially disassembled vacuum cleaners, toasters, or trid displays that Fixin's doesn't want.

The space itself isn't "officially" a shop, nor do the owners have a legal claim to the land itself but its been serving as a low-key neighborhood repair center for a little over a decade and to avoid potential legal ramifications they tend to sell most of their goods in Downtown to avoid Lone Star's attention turning towards their home base.

Give Us Your Money!

Type: Laundromat & Trideo Arcade

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Six

Description: A chain of laundromat/trideo game parlors and a regular hangout for many of the disaffected, bored ork youths who are too young to visit the nightclubs and raves of Zone Ten and haven't had their families driven out by gentrification just yet.

The heavy-duty machines are well-known to handle larger loads without shredded potentially delicate clothes (most of the time) and its been slowly opening more and more chains in the Underground now that their original location has become a full trideo arcade in The Heart.

The tokens (good for a half hour in a full simsense immersion pod, or for one wash or dry!) are considered an alternative currency amongst the teenager population of the Underground and double as a great knuckleduster in the sleeves of twenty.

Jade Forest

Type: Massage Parlor

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: Intended to be a cross between a massage parlor and a sauna, Jade Forest banks almost entirely on the novelty of being tended to by gorgeous, well-mannered Undergrounders. For most people that means that they come in expecting orks, although the odd troll or dwarf seems to scratch the itch.

While billed as slightly upscale and as a place where you can go to have certified specialists massage the stresses of the Sixth World away, the local yakuza do slip in more than one or two employees who offer "other" services for those who know how to ask for them, although their location in the Tourist Highway means that Jade Forest is primarily a massage parlor first and foremost.

And probably a tax shelter.

Memorial Way Integration Center North

Type: Volunteer Organization

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Six

Description: Memorial Way Integration Center North is a branch of the Memorial Way Integration Center, a basement-level business in the small stretch of unofficial buildings and underground structures that rest underneath the Bicson Building in the Port of Tacoma.

A wholly volunteer organization, the original Integration Center and its new northern mirror act as a sort of non-government "help desk" for citizens of any underground communities. While Memorial Way has only a fraction of the population (and was not legalized with Proposition 23) that Downtown's underground does, their problems are usually the same: finding adequate medical care, employment, necessary items, education, et cetera.

One way that the Integration Centers help with this is by partnering with local businesses. In the Port of Tacoma they are mostly partnered with the Brichert Paper Mills, Federated-Boeing Metalworks, and Learson Shipyards to give those who choose to live around the Crying Wall Memorial gainful employment.

In Integration Center North the organization has managed to find a few partners, mostly the odd Stuffer Shack, grocery store, or construction contractor but they've provided thousands of invaluable volunteer man-hours allowing orks and trolls who previously never knew about taxes and other bureaucratic processes to succeed in the rapidly changing Seattle Underground.

It isn't known to many, either, but the entire organization is run by the Skraacha. Integration North was built to act as a pseudo-neighborhood watch to keep an adequate eye on the corporate gentrification and potential abuses by Lone Star.

Old Drek

Type: Resale Shop

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Four

Description: Old Drek is a glorified illegal pawn shop that's set up in Zone Four of the Seattle Underground, just far enough away from Lone Star or the district government that they can keep doing what they've been doing for going on twenty five years.

Ownership has changed a handful of times since the shop itself is just an Underground store front with no above-ground access and its been a combination pawn shop-living space more than once. The current owners seem to be pretty savvy, though, offering a no questions asked or answered guarantee to anyone who comes into Old Drek.

The expertise on display is pretty fantastic, even if the owners won't warn you if you're trying to fence off hot goods and they tend to only make sales of hot items above ground and far away from Old Drek to ensure that the Star doesn't catch on to their operation.

Omega Grade

Type: Electronics Shop

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Fourteen

Description:This tech and electronics store in Zone Fourteen of the Seattle Underground is one of the wealthiest independently-owned shops in the entire district. The shop itself is owned by dwarven magnate Gimli Harris but the day-to-day is run by David Chandler, a middle-aged ex-CrashCart cybersurgeon and technophile.

Many mistake Omega Grade as a cyberclinic at first blush because of its exterior ARs but once you get past the threshold you see the real reason for coming to this technological heaven: high-end, workable electronics which are usually only available via proprietary corporate stores or the Matrix following a significant SIN check.

Given how much of Zone Fourteen is run by Gimli Harris and how beyond reproach his businesses tend to be, this is one of the best places to buy tech you don't have the licenses for or the SIN that can pass muster. Chandler himself has run afoul of Lone Star a few times, meaning he has no loyalty to police and as long as you don't carry a bigoted view on dwarves then you don't have a lot to worry about.

Regal Tridplex

Type: Trideo Theater

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: The Regal Tridplex is a small, four-screen trideo theater which serves almost exclusively the up-and-coming blockbusters and festival films for prices that are only marginally cheaper than above-ground.

Unlike most busineses in the Tourist Highway, the Regal Tridplex is geared towards providing a service to the Underground residents rather than exclusively the tourists. They have friendly, helpful staff and stack the screenings in just the right order, knowing what the ork demographics will want to travel to the Heart to see.

While they don't exclusively hire orks, they do have a majority presence in the staff and the Regal Tridplex is a good, clean place for fun that many Undergrounders have been craving for decades.

Silver Nimbus

Type: Gambling Parlor

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Eight

Description: Another gambling parlor run by the local Seoulpa Rings which have been in the Underground long before its legalization, Silver Nimbus is housed in the basement of a long-demolished building which still has a single entrance leading above-ground and a few other that branch into the tunnels of the surrounding Stretches.

It caters mostly to the locals of the Rumble, as most outsiders find the noise and tremors caused from the Federated-Boeing facility up top to be more than a little too disruptive.

The Basilica

Type: Casino

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Six

Description: The Basilica is called a casino but its really a glorified multi-level gambling den and pachinko parlor with poor enough ventilation that you're not allowed to smoke for fear of contributing to the asphyxiation of its patrons.

Its one of the older dens in the Underground, pre-dating Prop 23 by a good ten years and being something of a "right of passage" for a lot of orks growing up down here. Once they've hit maturity, ork parents tended to slam a handful of UCAS dollars in their hands and push them off to the Basilica to waste some dough on slot machines, alcohol, and whatever else they wanted.

It didn't always work out like that but it did enough to create an entire generation of SINless workers who were dependant on the Basilica as their one form of "safe" entertainment as long as they didn't get into too much debt with the Seoulpa Ring that runs the place.

There are talks of renovation as the gentrification of The Heart is practically visible in the distance but so far it's remained steadfast as the same ruddy, smelly den of neon and excess that it has been for over 20 years.

The Biz

Type: Public Market

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: At the center of Tourist Highway - underneath central Downtown - is the Biz, so called because the person who gave it a name misspelled bazaar as bizarre.

Thanks to the efforts of the Seattle Underground Historical Society, no one can touch the authentic old-school flavor of the Biz.

It’s better lit but still looks hand built, though the shops in the stalls are changing as the rent is starting to rise rapidly and cater mostly towards new residents and tourists.

The Dollhouse

Type: Bunraku Parlor

Division: The Heart, Zone Two

Zone: Zone Two

Description: The Dollhouse is more or less a glorified bunraku parlor run by the local yakuza that followed behind Mitsuhama and Renraku as they made their inroads into the Seattle Underground. It's done-up in such a way that, officially, its a hostess club that offers the shortest, prettiest, least tusky ork girls possible as "conversation companions."

While yakuza typically aren't all too fond of metahumans, they don't seem to have a problem in the Underground itself, although most of the employees of the Dollhouse are clearly picked out and potentially altered so that they look "less orky" and are geared towards selling their slice of the sex trade to tourists who wander a little too far out from the Heart as they search for that "Underground experience."

The Dollhouse is making scads of nuyen, practically hand-over-fist, as tourists throw down their money just as much as the down-on-their-luck locals do, probably looking to relieve some stress from the fact that their home is changing more rapidly than they could've imagined.

Tusk

Type: Clothing Shop

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: Located in the Seattle Underground just next to the Lordstrung's entrance to Tourist Highway, Tusk is a clothing store for ork- and troll-sized people.

Offering all sorts of clothing from casual wear, swimsuits, to formalwear, Tusk even offers on-site expert tailoring that includes any alterations to armor-cloth and body armor designs so that they can comfortably fit a metahuman body.

Underground Oasis

Type: Spa

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: The Underground Oasis is a fully-functioning one-level spa that exists in the hollowed out remains of some old footpath tunnels and storage areas but if you told someone inside the spa that they were in the Underground they'd probably struggle to believe you.

While hardly being a luxury-level endeavor, Underground Oasis built a top-of-the-line facility and hired best-in-class interior and AR designers to make the Oasis feel as calming, tropical, and spacious as possible. The ceiling itself seems a foot higher up than it already is and each room feels more spacious than the last.

They offer typical spa fare at affordable prices - affordable to tourists, at least. You'll never see a local working or visiting here unless its an after-hours janitor.

Unk's

Type: Gambling Parlor

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone Two

Description: At one point Unk's was an honest-to-goodness ork-run joint where those who were done with their drekky dayjobs above could come down, throw back a few mugs of hurlg, and play some cards with their neighborhood friends. Those times have long-since passed, mostly due to the death of Robert "Unk" Callahan who ran the place since the 2060's until his recent death in 2081.

The old bulldog supposedly died of old age but when his daughter was run out of the Heart thanks to an aggressive bit of land purchasing by Renraku and then sold Unk's out of nowhere to a local yakuza holding company it became pretty clear what happened.

Now running the place as their own little gambling parlor, Unk's has kept most of its "orky" decor and aesthetic but has had all of its employees bribed, blackmailed, or bullied into submission. Slot machines line the walls and the house seemingly wins a lot more than it used to, with the payouts being a lot smaller when people do win at any of the multitude of concurrent games going on at Unk's.

They've also stopped selling hurlg, instead opting for a flavored grog which is passed off as an "ork delicacy" to the more lower-income or suggestible tourists who make it away from Tourist Highway.

Xena's Boudoir

Type: Lingerie Shop

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone One

Description: A lingerie store for the larger sizes, this place sees a fair number of human customers as well since not all humans look like teenage elves and the selection is insanely varied.

The silks and satins here are designed to flatter ork women (for the most part) but they do in-house fittings and the occasional adjustment and never turn away a customer.

Towards the back they have more human-oriented sizes (the Ork Petite section to be specific) and even have a few racks of troll- and dwarf-specific items.

Medical

Jason Albert Grimes Memorial Hospital

Type: Hospital

Division: The Heart, Level One

Zone: Zone Two

Description: After Proposition 23 was passed into law in a landslide vote, Renraku wasted no time at all breaking ground into an area which was now prime real estate which was, mostly, underneath Downtown. After the loss of their arcology it seemed like a good idea and, hindsight being 20/20, it was a very, very good idea.

Renraku is now making money hand over fist in the Seattle Underground and despite some early hiccups when Renraku's contractors were clearing out the space for the hospital, the Jason Albert Grimes Memorial Hospital has been one of their most successful projects.

While it pales in comparison to their clinic in Zone Fourteen, this hospital has state-of-the-art amenities, top-tier staff, and even a research wing which specifically is invested in ork- and troll-related conditions which are not well researched.

A lot of people feel weird, since its Renraku that's doing this, but there's surprisingly a lot less discrimination than anyone was expecting and there are even a handful of trolls on staff, a lot more orks. They aren't offering as many charitable programs or outreach as people want but since its in the Heart, that pretty much just means the wait times aren't miserable thanks to the amount of standard foot traffic they get.

Diamond Clinic

Type: Clinic

Division: The Stretches, Level One

Zone: Zone Fourteen

Description: Some people like to joke that this is named over how Gimli Harris got his fortune, as the Diamond Clinic is in the heart of Zone Fourteen of the Seattle Underground and that means its firmly in the locked-off section of dwarf country that has seen the most progress.

It's no mystery that it has its own clinic, especially one so well-funded and, apparently, a fully public project by Gimli Harris himself. The clinic itself can handle pretty much anything, including emergency services, but it lacks the size to have such things as a research wing, extensive surgical suites and long-term care facilities. That doesn't seem to bother the locals or the staff all that much, though, as these are all things they can pop above ground for in a pinch.

The Diamond Clinic's main "draw" is that it's another feather in Gimli Harris' hat and everything it does has is state-of-the-art, often just out of proven prototype stages. From biomodifications to pharmacy services, the Diamond Clinic serves Zone Fourteen like nothing has before.

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