History[]
There exists a place that floats in the void between the dimensions. It is connected to all places, yet belongs to none. It is the size of a small country, and most of it is covered by the thick woods known as the Woods of the Lost, so named due to the number of people that has gotten lost within in ages past. People who, as was later discovered, have stumbled upon other lands and dimensions.
However, as time went, the natives begin to learn and understand the nature of their land, and soon discovered how to manipulate the Woods of the Lost. In time, a thriving community built up near the centre of the land, named Crossgate for its purpose. However, when the community grew to the size of a city, that name was lost, and the city was known only as ‘The City’. It needed no other identification, as it was the only city in the whole land.
It was around this time that some enterprising soul came up with the idea of kidnapping the people from the other dimensions, and enslaving them as labourers or pleasure slaves. As the land is but loosely connected to the various dimensions, the budding slavers managed to escape retribution. With a secure land that they could return to, it wasn't long before a general feeling of superiority grew amongst those who ventured forth from the land.
Over time, this sentiment grew even more pronounced in the nobles of The City. The leaders of The City became xenophobic, and built a huge wall to surround it. Entry into The City proper is forbidden to the common folks, and the nobles within grew arrogant, and started to view the people outside the walls as lesser than themselves.
The commoners outside, unable to enter The City, and yet too fearful of wandering too far into the Woods of the Lost, settled down in Slums and shanty towns outside the walls.
Over time the superiority complex of the nobles grew to the point where they saw nothing wrong with taking what they wanted from the commoners - gold, food, and even women - increasing their own wealth at the expense of the ones outside. Anyone foolish enough to wear jewellery runs the risk of being robbed, and/or killed. Any pretty girl wandering unsupervised is just asking to be kidnapped and sold as a slave in The City.
A slave market soon formed in the slums, as the nobles would rather not dirty their hands themselves. It was at this time that the Thugs rose as a faction. Originally hired hands to protect and guard the slaves, many were thrown out for forcing their attentions on the slaves instead. Discontented, they lingered in the slums and caused all sorts of trouble, and after one too many fights that broke out over the more valuable slaves, The City finally saw fit to sent one company of Guards to keep the peace.
The Guards did their best, though by then their numbers were too few to maintain order. At best they could preserve the appearance of order, but underneath that thin cover of civilization, the Thugs ran things more or less as they pleased. There have been murmurs within the Guards that perhaps they should compete more directly against the Thugs, but so far nothing has come from it...
This is the situation that you found when you stepped into the Slums, after having been gone for many years. You sensed an opportunity when a (comparatively) large building went up for sale. Using a portion of your money, you bought the place and gave it some basic furnishing. With the newly established slave market and influx of female slaves, and the general lack of entertainment in the Slums, you can use this building as a brothel, filling in the gap here. There is opportunity here, if you can grasp it...
Geography[]
The main feature of this pocket dimension is the City. It stands more or less in the centre of the land. The City is multi-tiered, with each higher tier belonging to higher-ranked and richer nobles, culminating in the pinnacle, where the ruler lives. The houses also follow suit, with each higher tier getting bigger and more extensive.
Just outside the main gates are the main slums, inhabited by people too poor to enter the City.
To the south of that is the port, though it's really too small to be called that. Basically a couple of wooden docks to connect the ships to shore, it's used by captains unwilling or unable to pay the needed taxes to use the main docks within the City.
To the west lies farmlands and ranches. It is the breadbasket of this dimension. The grains and livestock produced here are used to feed the entire dimension. However, the recent influx of slaves have greatly strained the productivity of this region. The noble in charge of this area, Lord Gainsworth, is currently looking for alternative solutions to the food problem, though it almost seems like he's the only one actually worried about it.
There are some merchants that had somehow bribed the method to navigate the Lost woods and/or the seas surrounding the land from the slavers, and they bring in much needed necessities. But the number of merchants thus equipped is very small, and their prices are highly inflated, so their wares are mainly only available to those in the City only.
Beyond that is the Woods of the Lost, a vast expanse of forest that is somehow able to adjust its own size to fit into whatever dimension it's currently in. It seems to fold into itself, however, and you sometimes can walk through the woods in a straight line and exit the woods in the same location as you enter them.
The sea lies to the South and East. Much like the Woods of the Lost, they are somehow able to adjust to fit the dimension they are in, merging into the existing seas of whatever dimension they end up in, but always include a small group of islands. The largest of the islands, named Banyrkr, served as the main contact to the mainland, and is also where the noble in charge, Lord Bismarck, resides.
North - East is a large mountain range, and within lies a complex network of caves. They seems to expand themselves sometimes, new passages opening up when you are not looking, and occasionally merging into existing cave networks in other dimensions. Near an extinct volcano a small mining town, called Telmond Hights is formed, and is responsible for most of the ores used. The sheer amount of backbreaking work also means the men here are large as a rule of thumb. This makes the current noble in charge rather unusual, in that he is actually smaller then average, with a particularly rat-faced look. It is rumoured that he is actually the bastard of the previous lord, but after the people whispering such rumours found themselves having terrible accidents, the people mostly just shut up. Miners as a whole are not really talkative anyway.
South of the mountain, and east of the City, is the Desert, a vast expense of sand as far as the eye can see. There too, people have sometimes wandered in from other dimensions, lost and confused. The mirages and optical illusions mean the rifts to other dimension are particularly hard to see, and most desert folks do not dare to travel too far to the south or east past the Oasis that forms the main town in this region, for fear of getting lost.
Weather[]
Is rather unpredictable in this land, due mainly to the weather of the host dimension steeping in. As such, it can be raining one moment, and sunny the next. All depending on what weather is currently in the surrounding lands. Lately, however the amount of rainy weather is increasing. It is currently unknown if it is connected to the increased stability of the dimensional rifts.
Time[]
Time is rather stable in the pocket dimension, with a standard 24 hour cycle, 7 day week. However, anything longer is not really recognized. As this pocket dimension isn't moving around a sun, seasons do not really exist. As such, there is no year, no holidays, or anything that depends on a unit of time longer than a week. Crops and animals that have been here for a while tend to adapt to this weird system of time, and managed to somehow grow healthily anyway. The people living there aren't curious enough to question why.
Economy[]
This world runs on gold, as the standard value of it is the most consistent throughout the dimensions visited. The coinage used in the dimension is issued by the Ruler, who maintains a standard weight per value of each coin. Merchants who travel out of this dimension have followed the slaver's practice of carrying gold, mostly in bar form, for trade. Slavers, however, use theirs mainly for bribes and purchase of slaves. This makes caravans prime targets for bandits and robbers. Merchant caravans are usually guarded by well-armed mercenaries, though sometimes even that is not enough.
Technology[]
Mainly medieval level, due to insufficient volume of resources (crude oil, natural gas) required to industrialize. Most commonly used materials remain wood and iron. Certain weapons or tools made from other materials can be found, often traded in from other dimensions, but they are relatively rare.
Magic[]
Magic follows it's own rules in this pocket dimension, and people that came in from other dimensions, mainly slaves, have found that their abilities and magic typically transform, taking and losing properties in order to adapt to this world's rules. This strict overwriting of magic is what the wizards study in their tower within the City. However, having little to no proper understanding of the procedures of experimentation, more often then not all they manage to do is blow themselves up. Thus progress in their understanding of magic is slow to non-existent. The one notable exception is the field of alchemy, which has produced several useful consumables, and is, in fact, the main reason why the Wizard Tower has not been torn down yet. They still suffer their fair share of mishaps, however, usually from poisonous concoctions.