The Cogs, Depths, and Cliffside

A foundry crew guides a casting through the heat and soot of the Cogs.

Below Sharn's better-known wards are several different kinds of place. The Cogs are the industrial underside of the city. The Depths include buried structures, older infrastructure, and ruins. Cliffside follows the river-facing edge of Sharn. These names describe related parts of the city, but they are not interchangeable.

The Cogs

The Cogs are a place of work as well as a destination on a map. Foundries and other industrial activity belong to the same city that consumes their output above. Heat, machinery, supplies, and working shifts shape movement through industrial spaces.

People living or working below the main wards still need food, repairs, messages, and help when someone is hurt. An inhabited passage can look neglected to an outsider while being a familiar route to the people using it every day. Neglect and vacancy are different conditions.

The Depths

Art: Francis Tsai. Image source and credits, Eberron Wiki.

Sharn is built over older structures. Some buried spaces remain connected to the working city; others have fallen out of ordinary use. An old foundation does not guarantee an open doorway, and an accessible tunnel does not guarantee an exit at the far end.

The difference matters to travel. Public routes, work areas, utilities, and abandoned passages can sit near one another without offering the same access or safety. A shortcut on a sketch may cross a barrier that a resident knows to avoid.

Cliffside

Cliffside connects Sharn to its river-facing edge. It sits outside the neat picture of five quarters each stacked into three wards. A journey down to the waterfront is consequently a different routing problem from descending a few floors inside a tower.

The vertical guide places these areas beneath and beside the wards. Daily magic describes the skilled work behind the city's useful devices, and transport covers movement between its layers.