A dark and shadowy section of the town in the expanses of the Underdark has has shops and taverns built into the sides of a massive cavern. Patrons can move from this section to other areas via passageways or across the vastness of the open cavern the town occupies. The underground town owns trade routes heading deeper underground and a trade route to the surface world.

The Obsidian Shard Overhang

“In the Shard, you don't watch the horizon—you watch your feet and the shadows. One moves, the other disappears.”

Velryn 'Cold-Pour,' proprietor of the Biolume Basin

• TavernThe Biolume BasinThe floor is slightly slanted toward the abyss, causing round mugs to roll away if not carefully placed. The walls are covered in soft, spongy blue fungi that dampen all noise to a low hum.
• ShopSilk & ShadowValerius refuses to look customers in the eye, instead staring longingly at a 'driftglobe' he has enchanted to mimic the golden hue of a setting sun. The shop is kept uncomfortably warm by several small braziers to ward off the underground chill.
• ShopThe Searing AnvilHurgun ignores any verbal greeting and only acknowledges customers who strike a small tuning fork near the door. He speaks by hammering in a rhythmic code that sounds like the natural vibrations of the cavern.

district

The Shard Overhang

timeOfDay

Perpetual Gloom

crowdLevel

Moderate

economicTier

Mercantile

• NPCVelryn Cold-PourVelryn is a man of profound contradictions. He is notoriously tight-fisted with his coin, often overcharging travelers for 'surface-dweller tax', yet he secretly provides free cavern-broth to the town's orphaned 'gutter-gnomes'. He is cynical and dismissive toward grand heroes, believing that everyone has a price, yet he remains fanatically loyal to the local mining guild that saved his life decades ago. He treats every conversation like a transaction where he must gain more information than he gives. He is perpetually grumpy, but his grunts vary in pitch to convey complex emotions that only regulars can decode.
• NPCJaxen 'The Rat' VaneJaxen is a study in functional paranoia. He is aggressively friendly to strangers who look like they can carry heavy loads, but he treats his long-term business partners with cold, calculated suspicion. He is remarkably generous with information about 'safe' tunnels but will lie through his teeth about the risks involved. He possesses a strange code of ethics where he will never steal from a 'mule' he has hired, yet he feels no guilt if that mule is eaten by a Hook Horror due to a detail he 'forgot' to mention.
• NPCMalice Vrae'TholMalice is a study in profound, unsettling stillness. She possesses a temperament as cold and steady as the deep earth. She is immensely patient with the natural shifts of the cavern but reacts with a sharp, terrifying intensity to any man-made noise. She speaks to the cavern as if it were a temperamental beast, viewing herself as the only one capable of keeping it asleep. While she is helpful to those who approach in silence, she shows a cruel, unsettling disregard for the lives of those who 'blaspheme' against the quiet by shouting or fighting.

• LootLoot

1. 1A shipment of surface-grown spices has gone missing between the elevator platform and the Silk & Shadow shop.

   If they succeed

   Retrieving the spice crate grants the party a 20% discount at the shop and local favor.

   If they fail

   The shop owner is forced to close, and a gang of street urchins gains access to potent surface toxins.

2. 2Investigate the 'Searing Anvil' forge, where the smith claims the heat-vents are being used as a literal listening post by Duergar spies.

   If they succeed

   Disrupting the spy network earns the party a custom-forged 'lightless steel' weapon.

   If they fail

   The smith is kidnapped, and the district’s defense secrets are sold to a rival faction.

The strange acoustics and sheer drops of the Overhang play tricks on the equilibrium of those not born to the deep.