Gutter Goddess
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To flesh out an area in 1313 that’s been written a few times!
- Image Credit: Here
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links:
- City Name: The Guts
- Classification: Urban Center
- Location:
- Coruscant
- Affiliation:
- Population: Crowded
- Demographics: The Guts is a diverse environment encompassing hundreds of species from humans and near-humans to undocumented species of unknown provenance. Unlike the higher levels, where humans are the dominant species, there’s truly no demographic majority in the Guts.
- Wealth: Poor
- Stability: Low
- Freedom & Oppression: There is virtually no law enforcement of any kind. However, the many gangs that roam the Guts expect local businesses to pay protection fees in exchange for intervention from hostile competitors, and to maintain access to tight markets. Crossing any of these gangs - let alone the Dead Shens - is liable to ruin your life. So most people keep a low profile.
- Description: The Guts is Level 1313’s most impoverished and violent community. Despite this, it is still a thriving ecosystem in its own right. A bustling microcosm of culture, with hundreds of small, family-owned businesses that have spanned generations. It is not an easy place to live, but the vast majority of its residents haven’t lived any other way.
Club Cadaver: Often called “the party that never ends,” Club Cadaver is a multistory cantina and dance club located at the heart of the Guts. It has everything discerning underworld patrons could want: bars, VIP booths, dance floors, live music, and dubious substances. Rumor has it that
Srina Talon
once elbow-dropped
Mercy
during a night of revelry at the club. Of course, the number of people who’ve said “I was there when it happened” exceeds the property’s physical capacity.Butcher’s Row: Like many communities in 1313, The Guts has a place where illicit goods can be bought and sold - Butcher’s Row. Along a street which runs through the heart of the community, Butcher’s Row is lined wall-to-wall with street food vendors, outlaw tech dealers, and black market stalls. The Row has developed a particular reputation among Force Users and the superstitious for its many vendors that specialize in alchemized goods and materials. The deceased Triumvir,
Vestra Tane
, once hawked her dubious wares on the Row.The Side Streets: Often called The Guts themselves, the community is known for its labyrinthine and claustrophobic side streets. They contain everything from cramped apartment blocks to hole-in-the-wall dives, and standing-room-only eating establishments. It is easy to get lost, and even easier to get pickpocketed or mugged. The side streets are without a doubt the most dangerous area in the Guts.
Arris Windrun
famously got lost in the Guts and was subsequently mocked by
Allyson Locke
for having her cybernetics stolen and replaced with inferior models.Dead Shens Hideout: The Dead Shens Syndicate maintains a hideout in a converted speeder garage and adjacent warehouse. Frequented - and thus guarded - by a number of local swoop gangs, most residents know to stay away from this location. It is even rumored that the hideout has secret passages leading throughout the underworld’s sewage system and ventilation shafts, providing discreet (if not risky) traversal of the ecumenopolis by daring swoop jocks and runners.
SECURITY
Low
- By nature, the Guts is difficult to police. The only stand-in for authority, then, are the various swoop outfits and street gangs that run amok. Most of them are pledged to the Dead Shens, but granted enough autonomy (by choice and necessity) that the Syndicate only steps in to deal with crucial problems that threaten the area system-wide.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Guts is 1313’s poorest and most violent community. The whole community exists in the liminal spaces between other zones of Coruscant’s most infamous underworld. Accessible only via labyrinthine back alleys or by airspeeder above, it is a rather insular urban sprawl beneath durasteel sky. Swoop gangs rule the streets, and the economy is dominated by thousands of small, family-owned businesses that compete for corners rather than whole turf.
It is perhaps unusual, then, that despite the relative instability and dangers of the Guts, the community still manages to come together in many ways. First, the Guts are an air pollution risk. If - for any reason - the ventilation shafts were compromised, the entire area could be subjected to type II or even type III atmospheric conditions, harming or killing the hundreds of thousands who live in the crowded microcosm. To prevent this, a neutral organization of technicians and operators maintains the vents and common utilities, under mutual protection of the swoop gangs as guaranteed by the Dead Shens. Altruistic though it may seem at a glance, this is purely a business decision for the Guts’ biggest players. After all, dead shopkeepers don’t pay protection.
Aside from rampant crime and eerie infrastructure, the Guts is also home to a more upbeat atmosphere within its entertainment district. The heart of which is Club Cadaver, a renowned venue and cantina that has been ground zero for several galactic success stories in the music industry. Not too far from the club is Butcher’s Row, a thriving black market known for selling more oddities than practical goods, and a frequent shopping spot for Sith Acolytes from the Academy, and - at times - discerning Sith Lords in search of unusual reagents and other alchemical components.
But perhaps most infamously, the Guts is the principal territory of the Dead Shens' presence in 1313. From this inconspicuous hotspot, the Syndicate can exert its influence across the entirety of Coruscant’s criminal underworld. The Syndicate is known to use the Guts as a sort of nexus point between the various ventilation tunnels, sewage systems, and other pathways that move discreetly between the zones and communities on Level 1313.