#119 Rainstreets

Age: 150 Years

Hidden or Lost?: Hidden

History: Every city has its shady alleys, its ‘bad part of town,’ but then there's the shadowy neighborhood that's only whispered about by the paranoid and wise. The neighborhood known only as Rainstreets.

Rainstreets is a liminal thicket of deadends, buzzing neon signs, and rain-soaked alleys that can be found in any metropolitan center of sufficient size and spirit density. So long as you know how to look for it. While it's easier to locate at night where the mysteries and sorrows are deepest, Rainstreets can be found anytime by correctly attuning oneself to the rhythm of the city. Weaving in with the crowds of pedestrians, dodging in time with passing vehicles, and letting the sounds, smells, and overwhelming systems wash over you. Then simply enter a rundown building you don't know, or jag around a blind corner in the shadows. There you'll find Rainstreets. No one is certain where the metaphysical neighborhood originally emerged from, although most assume it is a sort of physical manifestation of the unique soul of cities.

The murky district gets its name from the constant night and the perpetual rainfall that blankets the tightly packed streets. Even if you're passing into its borders from a warm, sunny day, the skies over Rainstreets seem to darken, and the shadows welcome the rain. The people and places that call Rainstreets home are no less incredible. Drifters and spirits of all kinds and from all times have come to inhabit the apartments and storefronts of Rainstreets.

You have shops like Jin's Teahouse, where gossip about what has happened and what is yet to occur flows in equal measure, or the Unfound Shelves where you can find strange, cursed trinkets and relics that are as likely to kill you as serve you. There are rare services, such as the Old Lies Detective Agency where the undying spirit of gumshoe Paradox Whistler will help you solve any mystery for the right price, and the Subcartographer, where an erudite and ancient map artist holds maps to the infrastructure of every city. Then there are landmarks like Tammy’s, a popular dive bar where cross-urban travelers from different planets, times, and potential universes mingle, and the Capricorn Tower, the only true skyscraper in Rainstreets, which is home to a mysterious force known only as The Striving.

Should you find yourself lost in the big city and stumble upon Rainstreets, be careful where you turn as you might become even more lost than ever before.

1. The Firehouse

2. Club Grimould

3. Silent Alley

4. Tammy’s Pub

5. Old Lies Detective Agency

6. The Capricorn Building

7. Scorpion’s Den Bar

8. Eternity Market

9. Court of Streets

10. The Peering Shadows

11. Jin’s Teahouse

12. The Unfound Shelves

13. Warehouse of Desire

14. Tudor Griffon Estates

15. The Subcartographer

16. Tenement Arms Apartments