Downwarp looks like it was once a thriving metropolis that was abandoned
to its own decay. But this appearance is deceiving. Despite the
ubiquitous rust, debris, and decay, Down still thrives. True, it lacks
the cozy infrastructure and unifying cultural vision of its sister Up --
living in Down can be downright uncomfortable to most Puzzlebox natives,
used to luxury and stability. But Down attracts artists, mystics, and
other passionate personality types like its staid sibling never will.
Down essentially is a monolithic abandoned skyscraper, with irregular stories each so huge that it has room for more buildings on its bare, exposed floors. A first glimpse of Downwarp shows just one of these stories, with any walls and ceiling lost on the sodium sky. The 'floor' is peppered with regular-sized skyscrapers, a number of nightclubs and drug dens, and even what may have once been freeway-scale roads. What lies underneath all this development, Functions only know, except that it includes a vast and unmappable (possibly even non-Euclidean) network of tunnels; it is taken for granted that they're full of lost urban tribes even weirder than the people who live on the surface.
Things fall apart fast in Downwarp. So do systems, even social and
interpersonal ones. Entropy just seems to get a boost from the local
laws of physics there. This makes it very difficult to build anything
lasting in Down. It also teaches the locals to be very broad-minded and
self-sufficient, since they know nothing will last forever. Downwarpians
are ingenious recyclers, capable of turning just about anything broken
into just about anything -- and then, once that breaks, into anything
else.
Points of Interest
- Big Active: Formerly the XodonBank tower, this hundred-story needle of tarnished gold is now home to a number of squatting sentients and their various projects.
- The Tude: A raucous arena and performance area at the top of the Big Active tower in Downwarp.
- The Mind Electric: Catering to the brainsurfer crowd, this drug bar in Downwarp is trippy, grimy, and loud.
- Downwharf?: A seedy market in nasty water.
- The Heliquary: A popular drug den.
- JG's Toque-N-Tank: A garage servicing vehicles of all makes and species.
- Ballard Memorial Freeway: A derelict highway running between Downwarp's main square and Downwharf.
- Darkunder: A hole in the ground full of interesting things.
- The Rookery: Town in a building in a city in a building.
- [Papa Legba]?: A car wash that found its calling, working for the Strange Medical Corps...
- Necropolis: City of the dead, and those who live with them.
- DownSea and DownBeach
- [The Stilling]?: A lone tower far from the main byways, a singular point reaching heavenward. Kosmos's home.
- The Giant Robot's Graveyard: Resting place for the other unsung heroes of post-modern, scarce-times wars.
Warps: Down - Up - Bottom - Top - Charm - Strange