This is a description of the environs of the undercity of manhattan island which is where most of my games are set. While it is my general policy to put up my material that is not area-specific in the Vault, I felt that this document can be of use to explain how the various denizens of the Undercity relate to one another. I also felt that this is an interesting document in terms of the various features that a large Nosferatu domain can possess.

100 feet below Time Square is Nosferatu town hall a series of small open chambers linked by lateral tunnels. This area is clean, comfy, and warm.(gators don't come here, and rats actually wipe their feet.) The "living room" is loaded with old furniture stolen from office buildings. there is even snack machines which have been rigged with a small amount of C-4 and quite a large amount of white phosphorus. Two of the adjoining rooms are filled with boxes of storage crates.Anything that the nosferatu don't want to store in their own demesnes ends up here. an empty refrigerator holds a few large earthenware crocks with Preserve Blood rituals on them. A sliding bookcase hides the central surveilance post as well as one of the nodes of Schrecknet. there is also a small community armory here. This area is where the surveilance reports are coordinated.(from undercity and some spots above ground.)

 The Cathedral:

Designed and built by Edgar Lowell, this underground fastness actually has a quarter sized lens that opens onto open sky (somewhere near 125th street, all native Nosferatu know where it is) and a system of mirrors that allows in sunlight and magnifies the meager light that the lense allows in to light the stained glass ceiling. a hidden switch in a alcove will cause the ceiling to split into quarters and retract exposing a large area of the church to naked and magnified light. The streetlights on 125th produce enough light to hurt Setites but the main trap is removing the stained glass during daylight hours.

The cathedral is designed in a traditional european style even though the symbols that adorn the church run the gamut of faiths.(some of the younger nosferatu have made a game of stealing religious symbols(but never artifacts or relics) from churches.half a dozen crucifixes,scrolls,altars and even a row of confessionals stolen from St.Pat's.

all the pews and confessionals are fire scarred from an incident a few years ago when a rat knocked over one of the candelabrum. Now all them are securly bolted to them floor. a pissed off nosferatu can of course rip them from the floor. Very,very large candles burn here and the air is redolent with candles and water damage. Safira can often be found here facing east and so can Edgar. He comes here to meditate. Ruthann comes here to actually worship and is seriously considering kidnapping and embracing a priest to perform services.

 The Ballroom:

Designed in mockery of old style european court ballrooms, This is where Fat Edna can be found issuing dictates, conducting ritae,and throwing the occasional ball. toreador are often sent invitations, occasionally Malkavians crash and are almost allways welcome. Floor is of black and white tile, the Ionic collumns are covered with flourescent graffiti. There is a dias at one end where Edna has placed her mock throne and a grand staircase at the other that leads to a second salon floor which circles the ballroom and has a wrought iron fence. there are stolen suits of armor and other similar touches.

Occasionally this place doubles as an arena for captured slaves. There is a balcony behind the throne dias that open directly out onto Lake Felch. There is sort of disgusting granduer to the whole place. Seeing nosferatu in moldy tuxedoes and evening dress waltzing is an extremely weird sight. More common though is a tendency among younger nosferatu to use the place for thrash metal or techno night.

 Lake Felch:

Stretching from Harlem to Tribeca with inflows and outflows extending throughout Manhattan. Most of this incredibly toxic lake lies in a twisting and turning open fastness at the mid-level of the undercity. It is without a doubt the largest spawning pool in the world. and sports the finest in albino ghoul gators as well as mutated carnivorous goldfish.

many use poled skiffs and a few bridges to traverse the lake as a power boat would inevitably snag its propeller on something big and metal. Edgar is usually building a bridge or a buttress here and is not to be bothered. Occasionaly there are conflicts with black sprial dansers who consider Lake Felch to be their own private beach. Green Jean, Edgar, Fat edna and Paracelsus have begun a project to create an artificial island in the middle of the lake for holding prisoners and cattle.

 The Confessional:

A mid sized room that that lies to Paracelsus's domain that he has generously donated to the use of any nosferatu that wants to use it. It is a torture chamber with medieval devices,surgical appliances,drugs and electrical apparautses for the extraction of information. it is well stocked and also has cells with variable light levels nearby. At Paracelsus's request, Edgar Lowell has installed a series of Lucite pylons that reach to street level and terminate in the Confessional as fiber optic cable of varying thicknesses. The exterior of the cables is painted with black paint and there is a control handle which can retract the cable's point for safe handling. Thicker cables are used for interrogation while the very thinest have been used to "Tatoo" certain nosferatu. Naturally such vampires are heavily sedated beforehand. in most cases this is for decorative purposes, but a couple of nosferatu have been forced to to walk around with the word "Dumbshit" tattooed on their forehead.

 The Flush:

Basicaly, a way to get rid of or execute unwanted intruders. Miscreants are taken to the Flush,bound with anchor chain in some cases, and tossed into a water pit. a lever opens the bottom of the pit and the intruder is unceremoniously flushed out of an outflow pipe near the south end of riverside park and directly into the Hudson

 Saint James Infirmary:

Named for the famous hospital and the jazz song of the same name, this is a place for special kine friends of the kindred to crash. It lies near grand central station and thus is very near the surface. Black spiral dansers found anywhere near here will be terminated with extreme predjudice...This place can provide hot meals,medical care, and emergency shelter to kine on the streets. those on the street who know of this place know better than to come empty handed or abuse their priviledges. payment is often in information,blood or favors. this area can help up to 50 street people at any given time and has resources for much less. Supplies are routinely "donated" from area hospitals (except Bellevue mental hospital, which the Nosferatu won't go near for love or money.)

 The Tangles:

Each of the various nosferatu kingdoms has a tangle and manhattan has 3, A tangle is a large area near the surface which uses the sewer systems,the gators, numerous manual traps and detours, 3-D maze construction and other tricks to kill attackers. Nosferatu who encounter something they can't kill or shake run to a tangle and hope that methane, or claymores, or pit traps or gators or flying blades or whatever can slow the attacker down. Lots of spiral dansers die here. at the center of each tangle is a sewer phone call box that can call most demesnes and town hall to summon help. However, any nosferatu who calls for anything less than multiple spiral dansers or a nicktuku is considered a chickenshit. The center of a tangle also usually has a small armory. each one has at least two shotguns with dragonfire rounds.

The Lo-ways:

Edgar's mentor once built a Lo-way from Manhattan to Queens. After that he said,"Never again!" Edgar built the one from Manhattan to Staten island and swears he'll never build another either. The Lo-ways are heavily trapped and ultimately collapsible tunnels from island to island. These tunnels are not shared with anyone who is not trusted or a longtime resident of undercity. It has also been noted that there is an underground waterway connecting manhattan and Brooklyn but no-one knows who put it there and it's only accessible by swimming Lake Felch. It is also known that there are multiple tunnels between manhattan and the south bronx but these are unsafe due to the Spiral dansers who built them and some other things that may be living down there. Nosferatu that cross here stay obfuscated but even that isn't fool proof. Of course the nosferatu also make use of the lincoln and holland tunnels but usually enter from deep underground

The Arboretum:

Created and maintained by Green Jean and occasionallly helped along by Paracelsus. This area is one the natural wonders of the undercity. Visitors should be warned that some of the plants are carnivorous, or blood dependent, or incredibly poisonous or in some cases all three. a good way to get on Jean's good side is to bring her fertilizer. the place is large and open and has at least three levels.

The Undermall:

In a down at the heels section of tribeca, there is an underground mall and parking structure that went out of business over ten years ago. Squatters and crack addicts have to be chased out occasionally. The Undermall is largely empty and often serves as a place where other clans may contact clan nosferatu. Because of the layout of the mall and the traps that keep intruders out, anyone trying anything is liable to find himself perrished. The parking garage is also used to store vehicles that have been bought or stolen by the clan. The undermall parking garage also has a fully functioning chop shop run by one of the younger vampires.

Le Oubliette:

This is the domain of Linus Janisek. It is a clean and well appointed area which serves as Haven, art studio and gallery. it is well lit and boasts hardwood floors and other amenities. It is accessable by a manhole in the middle of south Houston street and a freight elevator nearby.

The Devil's Attic:

A long time ago, Getty, J.P. Morgan, Knickerbocker and a few other rich fellows like that decided that they wanted to have their own train station where they wouldn't have to rub shoulder with the hoi poloi. To this end they began builiding a subway system that would run underneath the regular system. As surveying began, they discovered that parts of the rock that manhattan were very unstable, they also broke in on Lake Felch once or twice. The engineers found that the rock was geologically unusable for any kind of building at all down to a level of 500 feet and more in some places. The rich men said fine. dig lower than that.

And that's just what they did. They built a station house underneath the Knickerbocker hotel and key-only elevators to street level at all the major stops. They built pumping systems and ventilators and brought the trains down piece at a time to be assembled on site. The station was finely appointed and each car in the train was to be a showpiece of rail engineering and modern decor.

There was only one problem: It wasn't going to work. The pumps never did work properly and weren't built to handle the unpleasantness when it rained seriously aboveground. The Ventilators worked O.K. but they were nearly impossible to service and the air got staler and staler.

Finally the decision was made to abandon the whole works. and it was going to be far to expensive to remove all that junk from down there, so they just left it. Standing in waist-deep oily sewage.

The Nosferatu role in this grand debacle is fairly clear. The idea for the rail system was the humans idea but it could easily be coopted for nosferatu uses. The Nosferatu were fairly salivating when the humans abandonned the project. Then the Spiral Dansers showed up.

The Devil's Attic is considered a holy place by the Spiral Dansers and they guard it viciously. It lies far below most of the Nosferatu warrens and causes some consternation to the elders but most of the places that the sprials can come into the nosferatu realm are trapped with silver treated claymores with motion sensors.

(This whole idea was cribbed from the book Reliquary.)

Additional Elements of Undercity:

There are three distinct levels of undercity, Uptown, Mid-level, and Downbelow. Uptown is the business area of the nosferatu undercity. it consists of subways, sewer systems, building basements that have been joined without the owners knowledge, entrances to underground parking garages, and other similar areas. Uptown is honeycombed with sewage outflow pipes (trapped, of course.) air vents of all sorts,(ditto) Incinerators, freight elevators, reservior water shunting systems and a bunch of other similar features.

Uptown is also occasionally an area of conflict. Other supernatural types occasionally try to lay claim to underground areas of their own making or try to drive the Nosferatu out. (Setites and Giovanni try this on occasion.) but these skirmishes rarely get far. The only supernatural types that have managed to consistently managed to stay without being uprooted are the Ratkin (who dont take up much room and are impossible to root out.) and the Cathayans. (who give far better than they get.)

Mid Level is the undisputed realm of the Nosferatu. Most of mid level is fairly dampish as this is the place where much of the moisture collects. Lake Felch is the primary geographical marker here. Tunnels in this area tend to be fairly direct here as many of them have to be built from scratch. Long tunnels are fairly uncommon so you may have to play connect the dots in order to cross town. Each dot of course is somebody's territory. almost all of the Nosferatu in the area keep some kind of domain in this section. The Tangles are also in this area, and as such are a boon to the nosferatu traveller and a bane to anybody else. Midlevel does have a problem insofar as methane tends to collect here. Keeping the ventillators fixed is a full time job.

Downbelow is any area that is far below the Nosferatu domain. tunnels in this area are fairly crabbed and tiny. They tend to be natural or built to the bizarre specifications of the Black Spiral Dansers...or other things. The only really large open area down here is the Devil's Attic. Most Nosferatu don't come down here. If they do, its to hide something or dump something they want to forget about.