The Pits

Back to Harbour City

Just outside the Northeastern Sally Port is the fighting pits -- a popular attraction -- from which this neighborhood derives its name. If anywhere can be worse than the Squalids, this is it.

Places of Interest

• Arena: The Pits
• Market
• Jail
• Guard Tower: The Northern Watchpost

Brothel: The Lordlings Teat

The Lordling’s Teat serves the rougher and more brutal crowd of the Pits. This establishment caters to fighters, gamblers, and the disreputable patrons of the fighting pits. The ambiance is one of raw indulgence, with a more unrestrained atmosphere than The Gilded Abyss. Here, patrons can find rooms for private brawls and little in the way of elegance or secrecy; instead, it’s a place of overt pleasures and dangerous company.

Proprietor of The Lordling's Teat: Tormin "Steelhead" Voss

The Lordling’s Teat is operated by Tormin "Steelhead" Voss, a grizzled former pit fighter turned entrepreneur. He earned his nickname after Mad Doc Pindle patched an especially bad head wound he suffered in the Pits, despite winning the fight, with a steel plate. Tormin’s motivations are primarily profit and power. Having fought in the pits himself, Tormin knows the neighborhood's gritty heartbeat and uses his establishment to channel the ferocity of the arena into his business. While he doesn’t formally work under the Beholder, Tormin pays a hefty cut of his profits for protection and freedom to operate as he wishes.

Tormin’s motivations are driven by his personal creed: survival and dominance. He sees his brothel not only as a business but also as an extension of his reputation. His main goal is to gain control over the Pits by becoming indispensable, eventually leveraging his influence to break free from the Beholder's shadow. Despite his brash exterior, he’s careful not to challenge the Beholder directly, preferring instead to build allies among the more independent-minded mercenaries and brawlers of Harbour City.

Adventure Hook

The party is hired to investigate a series of disappearances linked to The Lordling’s Teat. The missing individuals are promising fighters who vanished after visiting Tormin’s establishment. Upon entering, the party quickly realizes they’ve stepped into a trap, as Tormin intends to use them in a brutal “last-man-standing” spectacle for his most exclusive patrons. The only way out is through a gauntlet of brawlers—and possibly to uncover what Tormin is really doing with his patrons.

Mad Doctor: Crassus "Doc" Pindle

The mad doctor responsible for patching up Tormin "Steelhead" Voss is known as Crassus "Doc" Pindle, a notorious figure among Harbour City’s underground healers. Doc Pindle is a former alchemist and surgeon, expelled from the city’s official medical guild for conducting unsanctioned experiments on his patients. Now, he offers his services to those desperate enough to seek him out, often leaving his clients with as many scars as fixes.

Crassus Pindle earned his nickname "Doc" from his brutal, unorthodox methods. He’s fascinated by mixing alchemical solutions with surgical interventions, and his workspace is rumored to resemble a cross between an apothecary and a butcher’s shop. It was Doc Pindle who “repaired” Tormin’s skull after a particularly savage match in the pits. Using a custom-made steel plate to reconstruct the fighter’s fractured skull, Doc left Tormin with a new moniker—“Steelhead”—and a new outlook on life, both of which boosted his reputation in the Pits. Some say the steel plate has a strange glint to it, hinting that Pindle may have added a few experimental enhancements as well.

Doc Pindle operates out of an abandoned apothecary near the Pits, known as the Bloodwell. Here, he treats the wounded fighters who stagger in from the arena, as well as any criminals, vagrants, or outcasts who need quick, albeit questionable, medical care. His motivations are less about money than they are about his bizarre passion for experimenting on the human body.

Adventure Hook

Doc Pindle has gone missing, leaving Harbour City’s most hardened fighters suddenly in need of urgent care. The party is hired by a fearful underground figure to find him. As they search, they uncover traces of blood magic and strange alchemical compounds, leading them to question whether Doc Pindle has been taken—or has willingly disappeared to pursue his darkest experiment yet. The party must track him down, but the closer they get, the more they realize they may be stepping into a trap that could make them his next patients.