"The sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight."

- Walter Savage Landor

Building upon the forgotten remnants of its own demolished history, diminishing and expanding, Paridon now waxes senile. Its origins are now myth and legend, having been lost, like everything else, to the ubiquitous Fog. Crippling famine, violent crime and political turmoil have all left their scars, and the weight of history has broken the city's agéd back.

And yet despite the crushing burden of its own existence, Paridon continues to limp numbly onward, trudging through the detrius of its own past. It leans heavily upon its crutches, and gropes—blind and frightened—for a friendly arm, an outreached hand, an explanation as to the meaning of it all. Finding nothing, it struggles with its own sanity, and whips into obedience the dual monsters of panic and terror. Thus it is that Paridon manages to remain, after centuries of deprivation and imprisonment, an island of civilization amid an infinite sea of mist and shadow.

The Basics

Featureless walls of dark stone encircle a cramped, constricted city of some fifty acres, ostensibly serving to protect Paridon's 12,000 inhabitants from the terrible Fog, as well as those things which occasionally wander out of its abyssal ether. Fog is, notably, an inescapable part of life in Paridon—a constant cloud of gray mist to match the gray of the city itself.

Paridon is, after all, a city that exists in shades of gray, for the Domain of Fog bleaches all colors to pale, ashen shadows of their original vibrancy. Trees bloom in shades of iron; roses blossom as dried blood. There is no color in Paridon that has not been drained of its hues. It is a city cast in black-and-white, much like the photographs by which its citizens are so very intrigued.

Through this world of faded color flows the filthy and sluggish Rhastik River, which, in addition to serving as the only link between Paridon and the outside world, also splits the city into the East and West Banks. The Banks themselves are divided into various neighborhoods, each distinctive and unique in its history and culture. It is often said among the Paridonesians—especially the aristocracy—that you can tell a lot about someone simply by knowing where he or she lives. Indeed, one's address is of critical importance in determining one's social status in Paridon, and consequently the aristocracy has made a fine art of judging which neighborhoods, streets and squares are respectable, which are fashionable and which are simply out of the question.

The West Bank

The West Bank is undeniably the heart of Paridon, housing all of the city's governmental, commercial and educational institutions as well an overwhelming majority of the population. Often referred to simply as "the City," in acknowledgement of its centrality to Paridonesian life, the West Bank is generally what people visualize when they think of Paridon: confining, confusing and tightly packed, with the poor crammed into tenements and the wealthy living in narrow yet elegant townhouses. The streets are labyrinthine and restricting, having been laid out over centuries of development to accommodate new buildings, traffic trends, population growth and, of course, the twin hills of Upper and Lower Rise.

The Rises dominate the West Bank's skyline, forming north-south bookends, of a sort, for Paridon's crushing urban sprawl. The northern hill, which is the smaller of the two, is Upper Rise—home to Loring's Grid and therefore synonymous with wealth and prestige. To the south, Lower Rise serves to define the West Bank's landscape, looming over all of Paridon like the festering corpse of a dead colossus. At its peak stands the hulking, haunted remains of the Eppington Watchtower, which marks the center of the city's most degenerate slum.

Abbeydown: This quiet, residential neighborhood of unassuming brownstones and dimly-lit streets derives its name from the abandoned, decaying monastery at its center. The Abbey, according to city scholars, was built long before the rise of Mankind's Divinity, and until the Death of Superstition was home to an order of god-fearing monks. Now, its crumbling husk stands bleakly amidst the modest homes of the bourgeoisie, who, though considering it an eyesore, also believe it to lend an air of charm to neighborhood.

Adel Square: Named for Paridon's most revered and august Lord Chancellor—Genseric Roberts Adel, fifth earl of Boustead—the Square serves as the thriving center of Paridonesian life. All of the city's most important institutions are located here, including the Seat of Council, Istoria-Dalson University, the Mynard Clock Tower and the Mercantile Exchange, just to name a few. The Square itself is an expansive paved space, encircled by gas streetlights and filled with the stalls of street vendors. A marble statue of the Lord Boustead, who oversaw Paridon during the turbulent years following the Fog's Descent, stands atop a 50-foot column in the Square's center, portraying him as delivering an impassioned speech. Supporting the pedestal upon which Adel's statue rests are sculptural personifications of Reason, Science and Order.

Crossing: The key landmark of Crossing is its bridge, which, until forty years ago, served as the only link between the West and East Banks. It is a generally rundown area, home to the working aspects of the lower class—dockhands, factory workers, bargemen and the like. Crossing is one of the oldest continuously-inhabited neighborhoods in Paridon, however, and in decades past it was considered a fashionable area for the city's middle-class. Thus, it benefits from a few perks not found in such slums as Eppington and the Tenter's Vale, such as a few paved streets and a small number of working streetslights. The buildings themselves still exhibit some signs of their past distinction, but time and poverty have not been kind, and most are but shades of their former beauty. Crossing is not uniformly brutish and vulgar, however. The farther north one travels, the more Crossing improves, until one reaches the somewhat respectable areas of Northbridge and Adel Square. It is the more southern regions of Crossing, nearer Eppington, that are truly dangerous. In these thoroughly disreputable regions, muggings, barroom brawls and even the occasional murder are not uncommon.

Deadgate: Though its name would perhaps suggest otherwise, Deadgate is one of Paridon's more estimable neighborhoods. Situated around Greyfeld Cemetery—the city's largest and most prestigious burial ground, where all of Paridon's high society are laid to rest—Deadgate is home to physicians, bankers, lawyers and other individuals of creditable profession. All of Paridon's up-and-coming families seek residence in Deadgate, for it is considered a necessary stepping stone on the way to becoming a member of the city’s social elite. Paridon's aristocracy, on the other hand, typically dismiss the neighborhood and its inhabitants as "posuers" and "new money."

Eppington: Eppington is the last refuge of the insane, the destitute and the utterly forgotten. Monsters lurk in its darkened alleyways; madmen stalk its deserted streets. Through the aisles of its crumbling, desecrated churches, ghosts wander and slithering daemons crawl.

Eppington is old, and city historians believe it to be the site of Paridon's original settlement—but its age is a weighty burden, grinding down the once-grand townhouses of the wealthy, and smothering the meager hopes of its miserable inhabitants. It is a neighborhood of perpetual darkness and choking fog; of filth-laden streets and trash-strewn parks. Over the centuries, Eppington has come to resemble an urban jungle, its denizens wild-eyed and feral, its streets cracked and split by undergrowth. The sky, when it is visible at all through the fog, is obscured by hanging debris and crisscrossing cloth lines. Like animals, the people of Eppington huddle in corners and around foul coal fires, hiding from the sewer-things that are known to prey upon the lonely and the lost.

And everyone who comes to Eppington is both lonely and lost.

The Littoral: The Littoral is a neighborhood of charming boutiques, luxuriously appointed teahouses, fashionable restaurants and exclusive social clubs. It is where the elite of Paridonesian society go to shop and mingle, to see and be seen. All in all, it is a lively and opulent neighborhood, where showroom windows reflect the incandescent lighting of a thousand streetlights, and the hurried trot of countless carriages mingle with the polite conversation of aristocrats.

Loring's Grid: Gothic townhouses of brick and granite, surrounded by wrought-iron fences and immaculate gardens. Rococo mansions of multi-colored marble, towering over the trees of a dozen parks. Balconies overlook malls, fountains bubble in courtyards. Wealth and power have built a neighborhood of opulence and grandeur, of gleaming brass streetlights and paved, spacious streets. Designed by the brilliant architect and urban-planner J. J. Loring, the Grid now serves as the golden throne for the children of ageless affluence and impeccable breeding. It is the neighborhood that they call home. There they dine upon silver plates, and eat with forks of platinum. All of Paridon—nay, all the world—is ravaged, plundered and purchased, so that the aristocracy may eat strawberries and wear satin gloves. Silk and gold, diamonds and velvet, lamp-skin leather and fox-fur cloaks fill the wardrobes of the Paridonese aristocracy, imported from distant lands, or else stolen from primitive foreigners. The greedy hands of the untouchable elite grasp forth from the pallid, perfect beauty of the Grid, stealing away the fortunes of countless peoples, and strangling the lifeblood from the city they call their own.

Northbridge: Northbridge is almost entirely dominated by the presence of Istoria-Dalson University, even though said institution is technically located within the boundaries of Adel Square. Indeed, the University and Northbridge are practically synonymous with one another, to the point where some have begun referring to the area as "the University District" or "the Academe." Perhaps in another decade or so, this old-fashioned neighborhood of bookstores, coffee houses and student lodgings really will take on a new appellation; one more reflective of its collegiate character.

Westgate: Once, only a few short years ago, Westgate was the home of the city's poor tenant farmers—families who rented land outside the walls from Paridon's aristocrats, upon which they would try to eke out a meager living. Because so little land existed beyond the city walls, rents were exceedingly high, and the farmers of Westgate were forced into lives of debt and want. Now, in the wake of the Fog's Second Descent?, matters have become even bleaker. Where once a few hundred acres of land surrounded Paridon's granite walls, now there is nothing but endless, billowy Fog. The farmers of Westgate have lost everything, and are, as a result, both jobless and destitute. The neighborhood is rapidly devolving into an Eppington-style slum. Hundreds of families face starvation, and crime is rising at a staggering rate. Yet the prospect of having another disease- and crime-ridden ghetto so close to Adel Square and Abbeydown is not a palpable one for the Council, and so measures are being taken to provide relief for Westgate’s poverty-stricken inhabitants.

The East Bank

The East Bank has traditionally been a desolate and forgotten shore; a bleak landscape littered with the haunted ruins of a bygone era. It had been abandoned centuries ago, when the Fog first engulfed Paridon and its environs, cutting the city off from outside contact and sending the populace into a panic. Along with many other outlying districts and neighborhoods, the East Bank was entirely depopulated as a result. In the wake of riotous violence and rampant starvation, people flocked to the heart of the city on the West Bank, where the Council still held some measure of control. In the decades that followed, the bridges that linked the East and West Banks fell into disrepair for lack of use, until eventually only one crumbling link remained at the River's most narrow point. The buildings, warehouses and factories on the "Other Side" soon became empty husks, their silhouettes barely visible through the Fog.

Paridon slowly recovered, however, and as it did, its population grew. After a century, housing on the West Bank became scarce, despite efforts by the Council to re-establish and re-integrate old neighborhoods outside the walls. Homelessness and overcrowding became greater and greater problems, with the typical results of epidemic, fire and rent riots. With little other alternative, the Council was forced to reopen the East Bank for settlement, repairing the old bridge at Crossing and building a new one up river. Yet people refused to move—over the generations, various urban legends and frightening tales had evolved around the decaying structures of the barely-visible Other Side. The Council, thus seeing that even the desperate homeless would never move to such a location as the East Bank, forcibly relocated its poor and powerless across the River, and once there, left them to their own devices. The settlers of the East Bank, faced with no alternative, thus tried to make the best of their situation, taking up residence in the least dilapidated of the old ruins, and establishing shanty-towns all along the coast.

That was fifty years ago, and these days, the East Bank is a bit less of a dumping ground for the outcast. Of course, some areas, such as Tenter's Vale, are still home to pariahs, derelicts and vagrants, but these regions do not represent the East Bank as a whole. Indeed, parts of the East Bank have become red-light districts, catering to those vices that the Council would never tolerate on its own side of the River. Though still considered a savage and terrifying "frontier" by most, the East Bank is slowly evolving into something more stable. It is rumored that within a few decades, the Council will have no choice but to officially recognize those unwanted masses that they exiled to a forlorn wasteland, and consequently grant them full rights as Paridonesian citizens. Whether the people of the East Bank will choose to be recognized as citizens under the Council's authority, on the other hand, remains to be seen.

The Docklands: The Docklands are Paridon's industrial sector, a region of cesspits and open-sewers, were huge factories blast abyssal soot into the slate-gray sky. It is here that almost all of the city's manufactured goods are made, from firearms to textiles to porcelain dishware. No one lives in the Docklands, but close to half the city's working population is employed here. These laborers work in deplorable conditions, earning less than a few pennies a week for their twelve- to fourteen-hour shifts. Children as young as five are used as gophers, climbing into the monstrous machines so as to clean and repair them. Women are routinely raped and beaten by their male overseers, and are required to meet outrageous production goals and deadlines. It is a wasteland of twisted metal, cold granite and infinite suffering, where the filthy tears of a servile population mingle with coal dust and garbage.

The Jungle: Not all of the East Bank has been resettled in the last fifty years--a vast swatch of it, in fact, remains completely untouched. The Jungle, which lies north of both Tenter's Vale and Other Side, is perhaps Paridon's most aptly-named district. Here, nature has reclaimed what is rightfully hers. Undergrowth slithers up through the cobblestone streets, and ivy strangles crumbling walls. The roots of trees break up the sidewalks, and their branches obscure what little sunlight the city typically gets. The Jungle is a mixture of rural and urban, nature and artifice, a gruesome locale where the caws of ghastly birds can be heard along with the rustling of underbrush. Glimmering eyes, narrow and small, watch anyone who enters this region from the murky shadows of debris and brush. It is an utterly savage place across the River from an utterly civilized city, the result of two centuries of neglect.

Other Side: Time has treated Other Side well--the settlement has, since its founding, grown from a pitiable shanty town to a thriving community of crime and temptation. After decades of development, Other Side now functions as Paridon's red-light district, catering to those habits that are outlawed or scorned on the West Bank. Other Side has truly become the very face of decadence, birthed from the Home Guard's apathy, the Council's disdain, the aristocracy's willful ignorance and Paridon's stifling, conservative culture. The settlement's main road is lined with a dozen houses of vice—the restored and renovated baroque mansions of Paridon's forgotten past—all of which serve as brothels, casinos, nightclubs and bars. The largest of these establishments is the Playhouse Glorianna, owned and operated by the half-elf Isle Bassington. Bassington is an effeminate and arcane fey-child whose foppish exterior belies both his mysterious motives and ruthless business acumen. His influence over Other Side is substantial, and although he is something of a ward boss, the locals adore him for the protection, jobs and favors he provides. It is a well-known secret that "Bassington's house" is the playground for Paridon's male aristocracy, where the impetuous youth and aging lords of the city's elite go to enjoy a highly illicit and strictly confidential good time. This fact further bolsters Bassington's position, and grants him a sort of power that no rival casino-lord could match.

The Strand: The Strand consists of a thin strip of land that runs along the Rhastik River from Northbridge into the Docklands, along which a single road lined with guard posts runs. It is along this route, which directly abuts the Jungle to the east, that Paridon's factory workers travel to their places of employment. The whole area measures no more than a few hundred yards all told, but it is still heavily guarded by the Regiments. Drawing duty along the Strand is considered the worst of luck, but it is a job that pays well—the factory owners and their investors would be most upset, after all, if their connection to the Docklands were unexpectedly cut off.

Tenter's Vale: Recent arrivals to the East Bank are typically forced to live on the outskirts of Other Side for a time, at least until they establish themselves within the settlement itself. Until such time, these poor souls live in tents and shacks constructed of salvaged materials, where they huddle at night from the strange sounds of the Jungle, and cringe at the shouts, screams and gunshots of Other Side. Life in Tenter's Vale is, to borrow a phrase, nasty, brutish and short. Disease runs rampant; theft and murder are both common affairs. Add to this the horror of living on the cusp of the benighted Jungle, and one can easily see why Tenter's Vale is the last refuge for Paridon’s utterly lost.

The Wharves: Paridon's only connection to the outside world is by the Rhastik River, the sluggish waters of which are crowded both day and night by ships bearing cargo to and from the city's shores. These vital links to the Lands Beyond the Fog must all dock at the Wharves, which run along the western shore of the Docklands, and are the only place along the Rhastik River deep and wide enough to accommodate so much water traffic. During daylight hours, the Wharves bustle with activity as ships come and go, cargo is delivered or taken aboard and smaller vessels transport goods along the River. At night the area falls deadly quiet, save for a few unlucky guards, and the skyline becomes a forest of masts and sails, their dark outlines cast against the Fog.

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Page last modified on November 10, 2003, at 04:03 PM