I've been interested in parkour and urban exploration for a while, checking out different buildings and the like that are in my area, and seeing how to traverse the 'urban obstacle course' we call life in different ways, when a friend of mine found a drainage tunnel that we started exploring. I found it pretty interesting a trip, and got me thinking about a possible run idea, but I want to try and base it in as much reality as I can, because I know that there's going to be someone ready to nitpick it apart.

The idea I was having was an underground squatter area in the sewers. Everything I've been seeing in real life is of tiny tunnels, less than six feet tall, and generally about wide enough for only one person to walk through. Drainage tunnels may be a bit wider, but even then there's not all that much space to put things in. The best I can think of then using what I've seen would be like say a water treatment center or a resevoir being used, but I was thinking something more like the X-men's Morlocks or your standard Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 'home' for people to live in. A bit of a.... pipe dream, if you'll pardon the pun.

I know its easy to say 'Hey, the sewers were revamped and these are old tunnels left behind', or 'Maybe they knocked down a few walls and enhanced others' or whatever, but the problem I'm seeing with that is, if the city was going to revamp the sewer system in most areas, they would basically demolish what was there before when adding the new stuff wouldn't they? Other than maybe closing off areas that are no longer in use, such as sectors of the city which are not maintained anymore. Which, again would only be like five to six feet tall, unless they dug out the underground. A lot of work for little reward, I would think.

Actually, most old cities do have multiple sewer/underground systems.

London has 2 levels of underground/subway in some places [lower levels used as air raid shelters in WW2].

It's more likely that new systems will be lower than old systems because they need the old systems to continue to provide support for the building already in existence - which would have to be shored up otherwise.

In addition, tunnels could just be out of use and/or forgotten about...
...I'm sure lots of that information could be lost after 2 global datacrashes, mass civil problems, mass rebuilding, mass disruption in society.

Areas which get a lot of rain need wider drainage tunnels, and areas which regularly find acid rain and dead bodies stuffed into manholes need wider tunnels still. You often have underground subway tunnels (I am unable to tell whether Seattle has a metro, but they do have a bus system called 'metro'), either in use, abandoned, or for utility. One of the books mentioned large underground moving walkways, which seems a little hokey, but there you go. Finally, you will oftentimes have underground utility tunnels, for routing telecom, power and gridguide cabling. Much of this is necessarily large enough for a human to fit in, but they're usually closed off from general access. Still, you can break through if you're willing to dig a bit. On the one hand, I imagine gridguide has necessitated much more underground tunneling to wire up the city. On the other, a lot of this work can be done by drones, which don't have to be human sized.

In the barrens the problem is a little different. You have a lot of old buildings, now covered with volcanic ash, rubble, and overgrowth. Those buildings are still there and oftentimes still standing, to some extent. You have the classic situation of older cities, where the new just builds on top of the old, leaving tunnels and hidey holes all over the place (but be ready for ghouls and devil rats).

I seem to recollect a Shadowrun book largely about wandering around the secret Seattle underground.

Seattle isn't exactly ideal for what you're talking about, but if you're the GM, there are plenty of excuses you can find.

If you're talking about Seattle, here's a Photo Tour. (I'm assuming we're talking about Seattle, but there are a lot of US cities with undergrounds, like Atlanta. Wikipedia has a list.)

If your worried about player nitpicking, start with what's around today and then build off of it. Sixty years in the future is plenty of time for subway tunnels to be dug, used, condemned and sealed off. Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel always gets brought up in these discussions, but for good reason. There are a lot of clips of that show on youtube (the San Francisco episode is currently there in it's entirety.)

Oo, urban exploration. I love this stuff.

Do you need some inspiration? I've done some digging, and this is the best stuff I've read:

A Beginner's Guide to Adventures in Building Infiltration

The Cave Clan - Australian UErs that roam the underground sewer systems of Aussie. IIRC, they started mapping the tunnels under one city and they're constantly finding new places to put on there. Lots of discussion of etiquette, rules, signage, that sort of thing.

Infiltration.org - "The Zine about going places you're not supposed to go." These are *the* guys to read about UE. Lots of discussion, tons of links, and lots of great stories. They cover everything from abandoned sites to churches to catacombs and drains, really interesting stuff.

Wiki's got some interesting stuff

Wish I could find a good resource for the Paris Catacombs, but here's a brief tasting:
Paris Catacombs - A good start via wiki
Cataphiles - A brief discussion of the catacombs explorers
A Flickr set
The Mexican Perforation - French authorities accidently stumble onto a complete movie theater dug into the Paris catacombs, come back to arrest those responsible, find the theater abandoned and a sign reading "Do not try to find us."

This one's a favorite, exploring an abandoned missle silos -
A Choose Your Own Adventure Series
Titan1 Missle SiloPictures

Ted the Caver - One tale of a caver that suddenly stops at the end and hasn't been updated in years. Which is a shame, it was getting really good.

There. That should give you guys some ideas to work from. All thanks go to my constantly curious mind and the internet, for providing me with people that are ten times crazier and braver than I ever will be. Now, to go back to work

Now that story could be turned into an SR horror type flick. With Ted hiring runners to come with him. Though for the troll, a shape change spell would be mandatory.

PS: I wonder if he died on his last attempt---I also wonder if that was a work of fiction. A good read though.

http://duks.s3.amazonaws.com/Thefearofdarkness.pdf

Edit:Did a datasearch--Yep-a caver and fiction writer wrote that (Sci-fi/horror-go figure).


http://www.speleophilately.com/Contributors/ThomasLera.html

I was going to put in a winky in there - I knew the story was as fake as Dionea House - but I didn't want to ruin the versimilitude of the story. It would just be unfair, y'know?

The interesting thing about the Seattle underground is that you have to surface many times during the tour. And it is relatively small area compared to the total size of Seattle. who knows what areas might but just on the other side of one of those walls on the tour. Then you add the fact that some of these areas could have been renovated as a speakeasy and hide outs for criminals in the past.

Like the stair case the used to lead to the second flood on the tour (its in the picture tour). Wonder how many building have these hidden some place leading not just to the sub level of the building now, But are connected to other sub levels from the old street.

It's been said but... with constant "urban renewal and transportation projects" it isn't unlikely that after two crashes and all the social upheaval and civil unrest in 2070's Seattle that there is a multi-layer labyrinth...

Add in to that, more excavations by the orks, trolls, and dwarves living there for over 30 years. You probably have a small city.

Your biggest enemy is actually the water table and bedrock with excavating. Unless you know what you are doing and use good tunneling methods you are more likely to kill yourself than actually succeed in tunneling. Most tunnels also are not connected.

-Chrysalis

You can be as realistic as you want to be.
But you are playing in a game with orcs and magic.
Why let reality ruin your plans if you really want to run this kind of game.