For every holestead and settlement carved out of the underhive, there are dozens of ruined domes, abandoned levels and derelict factorums. These are places of peril, where hivers try not to linger on their way to established settlements or, if they have any sense at all, never visit in the first place. In this Apocrypha Necromundus we venture into the deadly domes and tunnels of these Badzones.
Enter the Badzones
The underhive of Hive Primus is home to hundreds of settlements and holesteads. Some, like Irontree, Raffik’s Folly, and the Tangle are built into the fabric of the hive, their streets hanging over yawning pits or latched onto the side of the primary heat sink. Others, like Dust Falls, Brunner’s Dome or Port Mad Dog, guard gates, tunnels and bridges leading from one zone or another, their inhabitants growing rich off trade between clans and gangs. A few, most notably Misfortune and Rust Town, are held together by the singular will of a powerful individual, and survive in spite of their location or the industries of the underhive.
Then there are the Badzones. These are the wastelands between established towns and holes, where old trails and tunnels link one place to another, but there is little in the way of human habitation. Outlaws, muties and outlanders often call the Badzones home, having been driven out of more civilised society to eke out an existence among the rats and ripper jacks. Raiders, be they human or otherwise, are the least of the horrors the Badzones have to offer, and faulty machinery, shambling horrors and carnivorous fungi can all kill a hiver as quickly as an outlaw’s bullet.*
Hive Perils
Among the various Badzones there are regions with particularly dire reputations.** Perhaps the worst of these is the Ruin, a Badzone that sprawls out across the underhive roughly midway between Dust Falls and the hive bottom. This no man’s land is a haunted waste, filled with every conceivable horror the underhive has to offer. It is also a known hideout of Chaos cults and xenos worshippers, there being some who say that in its depths whole alien armies are being mustered, awaiting the day when they might rise up and tear Hive Primus down.
Only the boldest gangs dare to brave the Ruin, often on the promise of creds from the Guild or some crime boss. As a known bolthole for outlaws it also attracts its fair share of Bounty Hunters, lone killers scouring the Badzone for signs of their prey. Most of those who go into the Ruin don’t return, or if they do, they come back scarred, missing limbs or having been driven mad by the things they’ve seen.
In addition to outlaws and murderers, not to mention rats the size of cyber-mastiffs, the Ruin is filled with the kinds of perils that are only possible when complex artificial environments are subjected to thousands of years of neglect and pollution. Machines and servitors that once faithfully served Mankind have become hazards, their mindless routines fatal to anyone who gets in their way. After all, a mono-task servitor whose only job is to screw lumens into the ceiling of a dome might seem harmless, unless it decides a ganger looks a lot like a lumen…
The failure of these environments and their systems has also given birth to all manner of hostile flora, from carnivorous plants to sump jellies – leading to the popular hive saying ‘Just because it doesn’t have a mouth doesn’t mean it can’t eat you’.
Enclave of the Dead
The Ruin is a haven for those individuals deemed unsuitable to live among civilised society.*** Gangs of escaped slaves and pit fighters make homes among the ruins, fighting to survive on rat meat and wall-scrapings against corrupted-servitors and mutant monsters. From the edges of the Badzone they raid established settlements, dragging their loot and captives back into the shadows.
As bad as Ratskin renegades and mutie warbands might be, perhaps the most feared residents of the Ruin are the living dead. One of the reasons travellers avoid the Ruin like the plague is because of the actual plague. Known as the neuron virus (believed to be the remnant of some ancient Dark Age bio-weapon, or perhaps the influence of some malign power) it can turn humans and critters alike into brain-dead zombies.
The Ruin is a well-known nest of the infected, with the occasional herd of the undead shambling out into the sentry guns of Two Tunnels or trying to claw its way up the Abyss into Dust Falls. All this would be bad enough if there weren’t pyskers with the power to command those afflicted by the neuron virus, and turn them into their own personal army.
In the Ruin, the dubious honour of being named lord of the dead belongs to Karloth Valois. An off-worlder, Karloth was drawn to Necromunda by the Mercator Pallidus, and once served the rulers of the Corpse Guild. When his dark psychic gifts were uncovered, he was forced to flee downhive, where some claim he contracted the neuron plague, becoming something altogether more and less than he once was.
Able to command those touched by the plague, and spread it through the hive, it was only a matter of time before Karloth was declared underhive enemy number one. Despite the fact the Redemption claim to have killed the necromancer (more than once, depending on who you ask), rumours still say he ‘lives’ within the Ruin, biding his time and plotting his revenge.
The Badzones can add all kinds of interesting new twists and hazards to a Necromunda campaign – if the ideas here have sparked your imagination, pick up the Necromunda Rulebook and Gangs of the Underhive book to get your own campaign started.
* If you’re lucky… the alternative is ‘life’ as a plague zombie or an excruciatingly slow death in the vines of a venomgorse forest.
** This is quite a feat, when you consider the underhive also contains spiders literally the size of houses.
*** Which really is saying something if you’ve ever visited the latrine pits of Dust Falls or seen a bar fight in Port Mad Dog end in automatic weapons fire.