There are businesses in these sections but the businesses match the residents; tough, well-protected, and often shady. Permanent establishments are uncommon - for instance there are no inns - but taverns abound and street sellers and pushcarts supply the inhabitants with their base needs.
Middle class residential
The homes, and more common apartment blocks of these neighborhoods are usually tidy and well-kept, and filled with the hard-working backbone of Pendor. Many residents are servants for the wealthier residents of Uppendor, or fill the Strip with employees or help to keep the Guilds and Craftshops open and productive. Some of the homes are owned by their residents, but not the land that home occupies. All of the land in these neighborhoods are owned by upper-class landholders - there is no land-owning middle or lower class in Pendor.
While these neighborhoods are predominantly residential, businesses can be found sporadically throughout: corner markets, barbers, taverns, service businesses, and similar enterprises that serve those of modest means.
Temple district
The Loppendor Temples are a far cry from the quiet and dignity of the Uppendor temples. The raucousness of the Temple District is only matched, perhaps, by the noise and squalid excitement of Shantytown Strip. There are a handful of permanent Temples in the district, but most are rentals. Whatever gods are in vogue at the moment are worshipped in the rental temples, those of greater current influence occupying the more prestigious buildings in the southern half of the district, as those with dwindling worshippers or that are struggling to find an audience occupy the less desirable northern Temples.
The riotous colors and loud noises of the differing priests calling their worshippers to mass (and most important, trying to entice new worshippers into the temples) rival that of any carnival. Indeed some of the priests are more barkers and pitchmen than holy men and women.
The district consists of three permanent temples, two shared facilities, and numerous temporary residences for the gods that are each leased to whichever cleric can afford to be the highest bidder.
The permanent temples are the Star of Stralos, the golden-domed College of Mar-Bor and the three-part Holy of Holies and Comedic Theatre of Lobar (shows nightly, two on Fridays, open stage Sunday afternoon). There is an open-air amphitheatre filled with noble columns that is shared by several sects uncomfortable under a closed ceiling, and a stone circle that has, over the years, been home to numerous Druidid cults and is still shared in an unlikely alliance of Obad-Hai and Dunamis Erth-Father worshippers.
Most of the temples will provide healing and other Divine services at reduced or no charge to believers. The profusion of competing temples assures the adventurer of finding any desired Divine service or Clerical/Druidic item from the Players Handbook available at a 5% discount off of book price. Even some of the less-legal (read evil or chaotic) services may be available here but only to the very discrete and deep-pocketed.
Mixed middle class and commercial
Along with the artisans and craftsmen in Upper Pendor, this section drives the economic engine of the city. Armorers, blacksmiths, weaponsmiths and many other Guilds are found in this section. Pendor has a booming trade with the cities of the Abollah, the Sailor Peaks and the Swamp, as well as the many villages, towns and cities of the Heartsland and most of the trade goods are made here. Tanners, potters, and other Guilds and Crafts of all types can be found somewhere in these sections, usually located together with other businesses of the same type. For instance, all of the tanners are found between 1st and 2nd streets just east of the Eastern Way, partly due to the proximity of the stables that are also in that area but mostly because the only area downwind is The Shadows and no one cares how the noxious odors of tanning impact the Shadow-dwellers.
There are residences here as well as the Guildhalls, but less so, and more often than not, the residences belong to the proprietor who lives onsite. Many of the establishments have been in their families for decades, but as with the middle-class residences, only the buildings are owned, the land underneath belongs to titled landholders and annual lease fees must be paid.
All common and and most superior items shown in the Players Handbook can be obtained here in one shop or another. Common items are 5% cheaper than book price due to competition caused by the number of merchants and suppliers. Masterwork items are rare.
The Strip (Loppendor)
The Strip is a commercial district catering to travelers along the main roads through town. The Loppendor strip is a no-nonsense grouping of businesses that do not have the expensive clientele of the Uppendor strip but are more established (and safe) than those of the Shantytown Strip. Bars, inns, stables, brothels, supply stores and especially mining supply stores all jostle for space along the Loppendor Strip, with the plots that face the main road (Lower Broadway) attracting the most customers, and fetching the highest least prices.
A good meal, if rather plain, can be found here at a reasonable price. The horsetraders are probably selling you a healthy animal. The escorts, both male and female, are most likely to be reasonably attractive and disease-free.
Like the Uppendor Strip, the Loppendor Strip closes, with most shops barring their doors at nightfall and the taverns and inns and a few others closing at just before midnite when the City Guard begins enforcing curfew.
Market and Bazaar
The market is a space left open for local farmers to bring their products into the city. Most of the food and drink that enters Pendor starts out here.
The western section of the market is set aside for travelling merchant caravans to set up shop while in town. There is no way to predict the goods available in the caravans, but this space is policed by the Guards and only merchants that appear to have some degree of respectability are allowed here. The others are directed to the bazaar.
Part flea market, part gypsy camp, and all chaotic, the bazaar is Pendor's free trade area. Unusual and exotic goods can be found here, in temporary tents and the occasional permanent structure. Buskers and cart vendors abound and the atmosphere is light. Some of the booths are filled with regular Pendor residents selling off unneeded items, but most are professional traders of one sort or another, both reputable and otherwise.
If you are looking for a specific weave of Abollan linens, or want to have your palm read, or are just bored and want to do some people-watching, the bazaar is the place. But beware of pickpockets and cutpurses, and look to see which shops are avoided by the locals. The local crime element has strong ties in this area.
The bazaar officially closes at nightfall. The City Guard makes regular sweeps through the area throughout the dark hours to insure that nothing untoward is going on, but it is a large area with no regular plan or layout and the Guard is of only questionable effectiveness.
Farms
Most of the farmlands nearest to Pendor are the property of either Duke Blackstone or the Handuins. Most of the farmers are serfs who till the land for their lord in return for the privilege of living on the land and supporting themselves. There are a few small landholders that have their own estates on farms but most of them are several miles from the city walls.
The land here is fertile and the farms stretch for many miles from Pendor in every direction except that of the Ur Plateau.
Mercenary camps
This section of land deeded by Duke Blackstone was formerly occupied by farms and Shantytown. The last several months have seen an accumulation of mercenaries, and those mercenaries have chosen or been told to camp in this area. The Shantytown residents were expelled, but they are used to this as Krubi sweeps them out whenever he decides there are too many or they are detracting from the granduer of his city.
Many of the serfs that formerly tilled portions of this land were unable to find other suitable situations and became Shantytown residents themselves.
There has been only one official statement from the Governor's Palace, and that accompanied a tax increase decree needed to pay and house the troops. According to the decree, the soldiers are a "temporary measure needed to maintain the peace and tranquility of Pendor".
Shantytown
Shantytown does not appear on official city maps nor even exist according to Gubernatorial decree. But reality often conflicts with the desires of the high and mighty and Shantytown has been here, in some form or another, since the rebuilding of the city walls. Stonemasons and rockcrawlers of all kinds were needed to do the massive construction projects that rebuilt Uppendor and Loppendor, and they stayed here in a tent city that came to existance from what had been fields and farms.
In time, the craftsmen and tradesmen left, but their shacks and lean-tos remained and many of the most unfortunate found them to be better than sleeping in the open air. Every city has those who cannot or will not find a place of respectability and this is Pendor's. Even those who live in the slums of Cliffside and The Shadows are considered to be at a higher level than the squatters and near-homeless that live in Shantytown.
There are a few businesses here, of the sort that supply the most basic of needs such as food stores and dry goods, but they are few for most inhabitants have no coin whatsoever, and even the businesses that exist tend to the unscrupulous who scalp outrageous prices out of those who do have the wherewithal to go elsewhere. The criminal element is here too, as it is in all of Pendor, but here it often does not even bother to disguise itself in anonymity.
The Strip (Shantytown)
Those in Pendor refer to this section as the Shantytown Strip, but those from outside of the city simply call this area "The Strip" or "The Pendor Strip". The Shantytown Strip is a hive of base desire and those who make money off of such desires. Anything one wants can be found here, although the price can be high. And the price can include one's life for such is cheaply held here. Exotic women and men are available, and any form of smokeweed or stuporific or even worse. The gambling halls and taverns have pleasure rooms in the back and the inns rent rooms by the hour. Pawn shops abound, feeding a raging black market in goods of all kinds, some obtained legally but most otherwise.
Some establishments have taken on a form of permanence but most are temporary, light wooden shacks or even large tents. Unlike the Uppendor and Loppendor Strips, this section of The Strip never closes. But the noise and activities reach their climax at night while the morning daylight finds the place near-deserted.
The Strip today has three distinct sections: the east through Dockside caters to the longshoreman and oarsmen of the river trade. The west has recently become dominated by the men-at-arms and camp-followers of the mercenary camps. The central stretches, called the "Neutral Zone" are more open to anyone. It would not behoove a drunken soldier to wander into a Dockside brothel, nor a careless polebarger to sit himself down in a soldier's tavern.
It is not uncommon to find residents of Loppendor here, or even Uppendor, partaking in the types of entertainment that are not allowed within city walls. Some of the wealthier are accompanied by body guards and entourages but more commonly they are solitary and in "slumming" disguise to conceal their actual identities and origin.
The City Guard makes regular patrols through this area, but is very careful to insure that they are at well-known and specified intervals. The Guards want involvement and confrontations no more than do the Strip's denizens, and in reality the Guards presence here is all but completely ceremonial. The crime syndicate rules this section of town, no matter what the Governor decrees, and even the Guardsmen know this. It goes without saying, and perhaps is part of the appeal of the place, that visitors had best beware of themselves and their belongings while in the Shantytown Strip.
Dockside
Alannis is in a rebuilding mode, and the cities of the southern coast are starved for the metals and ores of the Ur mines which all pass through this port area as they are loaded onto barges and sent downstream to Chaldee and beyond. The Ollawanda bustles day and night with barges and oarboats bound to and from Chaldee, Pendor, and the many villages along the river banks.
The Dockside section contains the warehouses, loading docks, guildhalls and related structures and organizations needed to support river traffic on such a scale. Some of the commercial enterprises are City-owned but most are privately held by wealthy nobles or syndicates of merchants and others. It is said that the crime syndicate has reach here too, but nothing is ever proven.
There are no residences in this section, for the well-to-do merchants of this section live in Pendor while the rivermen themselves live in East Bank.
The smell of this district is famously bad due to the hundreds of closely-confined draft animals kept here, awaiting their turn at pulling barges upstream from Yarden Landing.
East Bank
Like Shantytown, East Bank has its origins in the legions of stoneworkers and tradesmen that flocked to Pendor during its rebuilding. Unlike Shantytown, the residents of this area are here by choice, due to it's proximity to Dockside, and in some cases, specifically because it is not within the city walls.
East Bank can be a rough area, for its residents are rough and tumble rivermen who do not take well to strangers. But rivermen are often as honest as they are gruff and East Bank is a safe area and neatly tended. Many of the temporary structures put up by the wallbuilders are being gradually replaced with more permanent homes and structures. The rivermen themselves are often away, of course, but their families remain behind and East Bank is gradually becoming a small city of its own, complete with its own market, small temples and the cries and laughter of many children.
The land of East Bank is mostly deeded to the Handuins, though the area directly abutting the city wall is the Governor's, and three lesser noble houses own a wide swath on both sides of the Great Road.