Dirt City
- This article is about the geography of Dirt City. For the game of the same name, see Dirt City (game)
See the maps of Dirt City
Find out more about the Houses of Dirt City
Dirt City is located in Izen, where the South Peaseblossom River empties into the Lotophagi Ocean. It is home to some 50,000 people, mostly human. Halflings and half-orcs make up the majority of the non-human population. Despite the city’s reputation as a “den of thieves,” only about 20% of the total population is involved in the illicit activities that have made the city infamous. Of course, since that 20% also includes the leadership of the city, Dirt City’s dark reputation is not unfounded.
Criminal activity in the city is managed by the six major Houses of Dirt City, each of whom specializes in a specific area of crime. There are also low-level criminals known as "Grubbers," who are considered too unimportant or incompetent to be of interest to the great Houses. Grubbers are widely reviled in Dirt City.
Aside from the Houses, the other major players in Dirt City are the Temple of Wardd and the Dirt City Merchants’ Guild. Founded just 10 years ago, the Guild has already built a reputation as an association of (reasonably) honest, albeit shrewd, business people. They buy and sell with one another, with the ordinary citizens of the city, and with merchants in other cities.
The remaining population of Dirt City consists of laborers, artisans, farmers, fisherfolk, and a small smattering of professionals. They make their way as best they can, which usually means forging some kind of accommodation with the major Houses. Thus, while most Dirt City citizens are not actively involved in crime, most do have some indirect connection, through the Houses, to criminal activity. It is all but unavoidable.
Dirt City was founded in the 2nd Century after the Fourth Cataclysm, by the second wave of criminals relegated to the Cursed Swamp by the Free-Staters League. Using secret means of travel, the criminals made their way south and founded what they hoped would become a criminal utopia. They named the new town Dirt City, for the black dirt that never seemed to stop sifting from the sky and clinging to everything it touched.
The rogues’ paradise suffered something of a jolt about three hundred years after Dirt City’s founding, when a popular pair of young lovers, Violet and Arturo, met a public and grisly end. The deaths caused many citizens to question the lawlessness that had led to the tragedy, and resulted in some major changes. Most notably, it was the deaths of Violet and Arturo that brought about the “no violence” rule for the City Below.