Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: WyldRose <kidkaos@******.NET>
Subject: Seattle Underground/Ork Underground
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 00:17:37 -0500
From Gurth's Post
>>> Would like to see more on the Ork Underground and Elven
>>> Nations.
>>
>> Ork Underground sounds good, but the two Tir books seem to
>>explain the Elves pretty well.
>
>I'm all in favor of Ork Underground stuff, I think that if FASA will
>continue to ignore it, maybe we should do something on it. Preferably _with_
>maps, as I love to have floor plans of something...
>

I am assuming that everyone is aware that there really is a Seattle
underground? I went on the tour a few years back when I lived in Seattle.
What happened is that Seattle was orginally built going up a very steep
large hill. There was a large fire that burnt the orginal city down in the
I believe it was the early 1900's or so. There had been plans to fill in
the area and push dirt down the hill so that it wasn't so steep. However
the store owners panicked and started rebuilding their stores so they
wouldn't lose the property. The town council decided to build up the roads
and so forth, but it took them much longer than they'd plnned. Meanwhile
the stores in anticipation built their stores with a ground entrance and
then at the 3rd story they rebuilt another entrance. When they rebuilt the
roads they didn't fill in the street levels but built the roads at the third
story level (second story in some areas ) and leveled out part of the hill.
today when you walk through part of downtown Seattle you walk on sidewalks
that have glass squares. These glass suares (most are 3 inches by 3 inches,
built in decretive patterns in the sidewalks) provide light to the underground.
Today the stores in these areas use the underground 2 floors for storage.
There aren't any businesses down there (except the underground tour). But
people do stil walk down there. At one time merchants did have stores down
below and you could wander through the area. But by 1920 the area was
closed down, although they recently found a 'speak-easy' that had been
abandoned. It was complete with gambling machines and tea-cups :)
On the tour we walked past a bank that had 2 floors bellow and a large
department type store. You could see pretty well with light filtering in
from the streets above. There were lots of rats and filth though. All in
all it was a pretty fun tour.
If you have a street map of Seattle the Underground is (I'm trying to
remember exactly) starts at about James and dosen't go a lot further than James.
None of the unerground is further than 4th Avenue and then goes almost to
the water front. (Excuse any errors I'm doing this from memory, I can get
exact cordinates when I look at a map, if anyone is interrrested) Anyway,
the Underground is right downtown Seattle.
As far as in the SR universe, if the Ork Underground goes 'down' it would
take a heck of a lot of magic to keep the water out. If you go much further
down you would have problems with the water rushing in. This area has
occassional problems with Puget Sound anyway when water backs up in the
sewers and stuff.
I would guess that you could access any of the sewer systems for the rest
of the downtown from here, so the Underground might be more sprawled out
than down.
I would also venture a guess that bars like the Punumbra and other places
in the Downtown would have storage areas and 'back doors' that exit directly
into the underground. I think there is a set of stairs by a building (in a
building) in Pioneer Park in Seattle that allows access to this area in our
times (It's kept locked though). However, from looking at SR maps this area
seems to be part of Archology in 2050. In my campaign, I'd always assumed
Archalogy had a couple of exits into the Underground.
Kay
Message no. 2
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Seattle Underground/Ork Underground
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 11:21:29 +0200
> I am assuming that everyone is aware that there really is a Seattle
>underground?

I was, yes.

> If you have a street map of Seattle the Underground is (I'm trying to
>remember exactly) starts at about James and dosen't go a lot further than
James.
>None of the unerground is further than 4th Avenue and then goes almost to
>the water front. (Excuse any errors I'm doing this from memory, I can get
>exact cordinates when I look at a map, if anyone is interrrested) Anyway,
>the Underground is right downtown Seattle.

Even better is taking a copy of the SR1 rule book, which has a map on page
201 which indicates where the Ork Underground is. It starts at James St. and
stretches north to Pine St.; from west to east it runs from 1st Ave to
approx. 6th Ave. The southern corner of the Underground is actually
underneath the Renraku Arcology :)

If you want I can give a more complete location by exactly naming the
streets that form its edges.


Gurth@******.nl - Gurth@***.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
she's just as bored as me
Geek Code v2.1: GS/AT/! -d+ H s:- !g p?(3) !au a>? w+(+++) v*(---) C+(++) U
P? !L !3 E? N++ K- W+ -po+(po) Y+ t(+) 5 !j R+(++)>+++$ tv+(++) b+@ D+(++)
B? e+ u+@ h! f--(?) !r(--)(*) n---->!n y? Unofficial Shadowrun Guru :)

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.