Last of Lorden's three wards is Beast's Landing on the southern shore of the Gwaun. It is totally overrun with monsters, and its neighborhoods have taken on terrifying new aspects.
Beast's Landing
Generations ago, as Lorden first grew, a mayor named Bast built the Iron Bridge and pushed the city to expand to the southern shore of the Gwaun, and the new neighborhood was named Bast’s Landing in her honor. Once it was overrun by beastmen from the south, the wags at the popular Lorden Opinionator broadsheet re-christened it “Beast’s Landing,” and the name stuck.
There are many riches to be found here, as it was abandoned in a hurry by merchant and beggar alike. The only trouble is that monsters of all sorts have made their homes in the tumbledown houses, shops, temples, sewers, outhouses, bath houses, and so on. The old divisions of Beast’s Landing have mostly been forgotten, and its “neighborhoods” are all nicknames given to notorious areas of the ruin by adventurers lucky enough to make it out again.
Beast's Landing has six "neighborhoods": The Burn Ward, The Labyrinth, The Pudding, Rat Island, The Safe Zone, and Shitburg.
The Burn Ward
A massive fire eradicated block after block of wooden houses in what was once a middle-class residential neighborhood. Well picked over by adventurers, the Burn Ward has few valuables to offer, but its burnt- out houses and shops can be a good place to hide from roving beastmen as they also have no reason to come here. Sleepers should be wary, however, of a previously-unknown species of night vulture that has a taste for burned flesh but will eat the living in a pinch.
The Labyrinth
This was once a massive temple-complex dedicated to the New God. Multiple small churches, offices, libraries, and outbuildings make up an imposing compound, but the real wonder is underground: an intricate series of service tunnels connect all the buildings in the complex, and are rumored to extend to a few other spots on the southern shore as well. One retired adventurer even claims he was held captive by a minotaur named Phobos who lives in the Labyrinth, and who only released him to warn others against going there, but nobody believes him.
The Pudding
The Pudding was the site of the last and largest battle between the soldiers of Lorden and the beastmen invaders before Beast’s Landing was abandoned. Once a great public park and garden, the earth here was churned into a foul slurry of blood, shit, urine and mud as the two sides fought in a torrential rain. Twenty years later the ground hasn’t recovered, and veteran adventurers speak of “sloggin’ through the Pudding” to get to other areas of the Landing. The terrain isn’t the only hazard, though, as monsters come here often to dine on its broad selection of corpses.
Rat Island
The name says it all for Rat Island, a small, rocky outcropping connected to Beast’s Landing by a rickety aerial cable car system that is inexplicably still running after all these years. Each of the six cars can fit four human-sized creatures comfortably, and cycles between Rat Island and the Safe Zone on the shore at about half an hour for a round trip. The island itself is overrun with rats of all sizes, who seem to be forming a society among the ruins of an old hermitage. How they’ve gained intelligence isn’t clear, but they are certainly reproducing and mutating at an alarming rate.
The Safe Zone
The nickname “Safe Zone” is used somewhat ironically, as nowhere in Beast’s Landing is really safe; you’ll often hear an adventurer say “We didn’t even make it past the bloody Safe Zone before the damned beastmen scented us!” But as the section of the southern shore where the Iron Bridge lets out, the Safe Zone sees the highest number of adventurers, so the beastmen are more likely to avoid it than the other neighborhoods of the Landing. It’s made up mostly of old shops and homes, with a few small parks set among the buildings.
Shitburg
Once a prosperous residential neighborhood called Bromberg, this area is known for having the densest population of the meanest, toughest beastmen. Their brutal kings make their homes here in a vile mockery of civilized life, and are attended by hordes of lesser monsters. Novice adventurers speak of the area with awe and fear; veterans dare each other to sorties “deep in the Shit” after heavy drinking, and agree only after a few drinks more.
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