Those that aren't lucky enough to live a sheltered existence in suburbia probably end up here. There are more people packed into these four blocks than in the rest of the city combined, and it's not even close.

This place is a closer to a living organism than a structure. The buildings here are endlessly stacked up with no air between them. Long ago this superstructure reached the limits of its footprint, and ever since then has been growing upward like a twisted tree. The structure seems to bulge outward as it goes up, with balconies and gated windows for those lucky enough to have a room on the outside edge. It seems constantly on the verge of collapse. Somehow the buildings seem to lean on and support each other, holding things together at least for now. It's easy to imagine other forces at work, struggling to keep this place alive against the constant pull of gravity.

Any semblance of urban planning has long since evaporated. Small factories, bars, shops, and dwellings are all cobbled together with the narrowest of corridors connecting them like capillaries. At the street level, it's always crowded. Even more so at lunch time as the lines back up for the numerous food vendors selling all sorts of tasty victuals. A few roads - more accurately described as tunnels - head inwards into the interior of the structure. Even the main thoroughfares are narrow and twisting. Once you step off them it's easy to get lost.

Natural light doesn't really seep in past the outer shell of this place. The interior feels like if somebody set up a mall inside an apartment complex and then twisted it all up. Narrow hallways and staircases connect disparate shops, residences, and other, more unseemly places. You can find almost anything here, but good luck finding the same place twice. The halls seem to shift and it's never quite certain where you're going to end up. It's always noisy, and there's a constant dripping of water in all the corridors. Pipes for water, electrical lines, and sewer systems are all makeshift affairs, carrying their various products to whoever set them up, or whoever paid for access.

D20 Locations you might find in The Burroughs

1. The corridor ends abruptly in a vertical shaft. It extends indefinitely up and down, no light can be seen in either direction.
2. A door opens to a damp and hot room. The walls hold cabinets packed with various tools, and in the center of the room are three large boiling cauldrons with different colored liquids inside.
3. A crowded corner hides a small vendor selling meat pies to a voracious group of patrons. The line is long and the pies are running out.
4. A rowdy bar with loud music. The door to the bar is open and a brawl is spilling out into the cramped hall.
5. A small factory producing children's toys. There are way too many people in there. It smells of lacquer and burning plastic.
6. A dimly lit parlor with numerous card tables set up. The door is being guarded by a person in a disturbingly realistic boar's head mask.
7. The corridor ahead seems impossibly narrow. As you traverse it seems to never get so thin as to not let you proceed. Looking back, it's unclear how you were able to make it through.
8. A room, devoid of furniture. It's lit with deep red lights and pads line the floors. People lie catatonic on the pads, and a haze fills the air.
9. A padlocked and barred heavy wooden door. Deep thrumming comes from within the room.
10. A single ray of light shines down an impossibly long shaft. It illuminates a blossoming tree, old and gnarled.
11. The corridor ahead is blocked by a mass of twisted cables. Continuing in that direction looks impossible.
12. An old style water pump sits in an enclave off the hallway. It emits a colorful sweet smelling liquid.
13. A heavy fog engulfs the room. Anybody who enters the fog passes out within around a minute. They wake up somewhere completely different.
14. The constant dripping of water here becomes a full blown rainstorm. Water pours from overhead, and runs down the hallway and stairs.
15. A typewriter shop well off the beaten path. The vendor seems shifty, and the typewriters are clicking even when not in use.
16. A decrepit children's playground, rusting but functional. It's lit by dim bulbs. The swing sways and creaks as though someone just got off it.
17. A large iron gate blocks further access to the corridor. Two impossibly large people stand behind the gate with some unknown weapons on their hip.
18. A modern elevator with a nice and clean mirrored interior. It has two buttons inside, up and down.
19. A team of bureaucrats* has drilled into this room from the outside, going through many residences and shops in between. They are handcuffing a small man while his family watches in terror.
20. A bare room with a sigil painted on the floor, surrounded by a circle of robed figures holding candles. There is indecipherable scrawling on the wall, and in the middle of the sigil floats... something... hard to look at.

* The bureaucrats are kind of like a police force, but without even the pretense of helpfulness. More to come on them later.