History WretchedHive / TabletopGames

*** There's has a region of Sigil, the main city, that is actually called "The Hive". It's one big lawless slum where criminals, the Athar and Xaositects anarchists, the death-worshipping Dustmen, the nihilistic Bleak Cabal and ''demons'' fight for control. Even Sigil's normally formidable Harmonium guard are too afraid to patrol there.

** UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}} has a Wretched Hive within a Wretched Hive, in the Barrens.

*** The villageo of Nulb, featured in ''TabletopGame/TempleOfElementalEvil'', the village of Nulb is a notorious haven for various pirates and brigands, many of them aligned with the Temple. It's very dangerous for visitors, who can easily lose both their purses and their heads.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' features the sprawling metropolis of a plane that is Ravnica, the [[Franchise/StarWars Mos Eisley]] of the Multiverse that's best described as the love child of Coruscant and Ankh-Morpork.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': While parts of it are more glamorous and well-to-do than others, New Capenna is still corrupt from top to bottom; whatever government the city ''does'' have is so ineffective, the five crime families that run the city don't even bother with the pretense that they aren't in charge. Order is maintained solely by the uneasy peace the five families have, and the local FantasticDrug is the single most valuable substance in the city.

** Solaris VII isn’t quite as bad as the first two, but the planet’s biggest claim to fame is the Solaris Arenas, where battlemechs duke it out in gladiator matches for public entertainment. While killing your opponent isn’t the primary goal of said matches, dying is certainly a major risk for anyone competing in addition to the usual vices and dangers that happen when a major form of entertainment is treated as SeriousBusiness. Organized crime outfits are major power players, in both the government and in the Areans.

** Dorakaa, the capital of the dEmpire of Iuz is infested with demons, orcs, undead and particularly malevolent humans. Torture, slavery and murder are regular occurrences. The architecture and layout of the city are hideous and unpleasant, and most citizens live in semi-starvation and in fear for their lives.
** Molag, the capital of Iuz's neighbor the Horned Society, is very similar to Dorakaa. The main differences is that devils and hobgoblins replace the demons and orcs, as the Horned Society is LawfulEvil compared to Iuz's ChaoticEvil.
** The drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu is pretty much Greyhawk's answer to the Realms' Menzoberranzan. One of the main differences is that there are a lot more evil humans, daemons, demons, kuo-toa, vampires, orcs, bugbears, mind flayers and other various malevolent creatures infesting its streets. The drow of Erelhei-Cinlu also firmly believe in BondageIsBad, much more overtly than in Menzoberranzan.
** The Pomarj and the Bone March were once domains ruled by humans, but they were later conquered by alliances of orcs, goblins and other humanoid monsters. They became lawless hellholes whose human populations included various bandits, pirates, murderers, slavers and other friendly sorts. Bone March is as chaotic and wild as it always was, but the Pomarj became an empire under the tyrannical Turrosh Mak, who personified AsskickingLeadsToLeadership.
** In ''TabletopGame/TempleOfElementalEvil'', the village of Nulb is this. It does however have a small number of decent if not good-aligned characters living there. The player's actions can either [[MultipleEndings destroy it or make it prosper.]]

** ''The World of TabletopGame/{{Greyhawk}}'' has a few cities like this, most notably the city of Dorakaa in the demon-ruled Empire of Iuz, the city of Molag in the Horned Society, the drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu, and the entirety of the orc- and goblin-ruled Pomarj region.

*** If you're wondering how the Dark Eldar have managed not to kill themselves off yet, that's how it ''used'' to be. It's been {{Retcon}}ned since another codex so it isn't ''that'' bad, and to address the FridgeLogic produced by the previous depiction. Turns out most violence in Commorragh is formalized via duels, assassinations, gang violence, etc. Kabals rarely go into outright warfare in their own streets, preferring Machiavellian schemes and political manoeuvring to come out on top. As WordOfGod has said, Commorragh just wouldn't be able to function if it was just mindless slaughter all the time. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not a very horrible place to live; it most assuredly '''is'''.

--->'''[[WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice The Emperor of Mankind]]:''' [[AC:If there is one place you do not want to find yourself alone, it is that place. If the galaxy was a run-down town, Commorragh would be the local nightclub-turned-insane asylum.]]

** The Dark Eldar are a race of AlwaysChaoticEvil SpaceElves, and their capital Commorragh fit the trope. The city is ruled by warring kabals and the only semblance of government is the biggest kabal that's powerful enough to boss the others around. Getting killed by a total stranger in broad daylight (well, technically due to its location in the Webway there is no day and night cycle in Commorragh, only perpetual twilight) in the middle of a street is seen as a perfectly normal occurrence. One has to wonder how the Dark Eldar have managed not to kill themselves off yet. Well, that's how it ''used'' to be. It's been {{Retcon}}ned since the new codex so it isn't ''that'' bad, and to address the FridgeLogic produced by the previous depiction. Turns out most violence in Commorragh is formalized via duels, assassinations, gang violence, etc. Kabals rarely go into outright warfare in their own streets, preferring Machiavellian schemes and political manoeuvring to come out on top. As WordOfGod has said, Commorragh just wouldn't be able to function if it was just mindless slaughter all the time. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not a very horrible place to live; it most assuredly '''is'''. Also, it's not really a single city in a conventional sense, but thousands of cities, ports and realms spread all over the Webway, linked together with a vast PortalNetwork. Nearly all of these smaller cities certainly count as examples as well.

* Similarly, the major cities of the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' world are much like their ''40k'' counterparts, sans the plumbing. The city of TabletopGame/{{Mordheim}} became so depraved, corrupt, and horrifying a comet was thrown at it. Then it became a bunch of warped ruins home to a few depraved, corrupt, and horrifying ''mutants'', any number of criminals who arrived to take advantage of the lawlessness, as well as the mercenary warbands coming from across the realm to loot it.

* A number of places in the Coalition States in ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'', but most notably the Chi-Town 'Burbs. One city, Cuidad Juarez, is stated to be "The Mos Eisley Cantina scene, spread out over an entire city". Also, Atlantis.

* The wandering island of Ilwuz in ''[[TabletopGame/ProseDescriptiveQualities Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies]]'', which is a vicious pirate haven that has only enough rule and order to keep the place operating at all. Important issues on the island are occasionally put to a vote, but the simplest way to get more votes is to come armed, and nearly any means is considered acceptable to sway the vote.

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* Junkyard, built next to the remain of Salt Lake City, from the ''[[TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}} Deadlands: Hell on Earth]]'' setting.

* TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering features the spawling metropolis of a plane that is Ravnica, the [[Franchise/StarWars Mos Eisley]] of the Multiverse that's best described as the love child of Coruscant and Ankh-Morpork

* A number of places in the Coalition States in ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'', but most notably the Chi-Town 'Burbs. One city, Cuidad Juarez, is stated to be "The Mos Eisley Cantina scene, spread out over an entire city". Also, Atlantis.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': Wu-Jian is HiveCity that serves as a major Realm port in the Western oceans. The majority of its bulk is a mountain of poorly planned, ramshackle architecture where teeming masses live like sardines, criminal gangs openly rule entire city blocks, and gladiatorial arenas, brothels and gambling dens crowd the narrow streets. The topmost layer of swaying apartments is considerably calmer, at least insofar as it's where the crime bosses like to live and they prefer their immediate neighborhoods quiet, while the bottommost levels are a barely inhabited urban wasteland choked with stagnant seawater, sewage and flotsam and home chiefly to bands of scavengers, desperate criminals, and Exalted and Fair Folk hiding from the Realm. The Dragon-Blooded, who make a point of living outside the city, chiefly ignore the mess as long as it avoids interfering with the docks and warehouses.
%%** The city of Nexus, to a tee. "Ah, Nexus, the city of one thousand names!" "Yeah, but only a hundred of them are printable, and only ten of the printable ones are even nice..." Adapted into the [[Franchise/StarWars Nar Shaddaa]]-esque Nexus VI in the science-fantasy Heaven's Reach Shard.
* The cities of the ''TabletopGame/{{KULT}}'' RPG. [[spoiler:All cities in Kult are echoes of the One City, and the bigger they get, the more likely that the borders with the One City get thin and tenuous...]]
* Junkyard, built next to the remain of Salt Lake City, from the ''[[TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}} Deadlands: Hell on Earth]]'' setting.
* In the parody game ''TabletopGame/{{HOL}}'' the titular site is a Wretched Hive planet. HOL is essentially a combination of garbage dump and penal colony for the galaxy.
* The small-press RPG ''TabletopGame/FatesWorseThanDeath'' is set in a cyberpunk future where ''Manhattan'' has become the Wretched Hive due to a series of wars, economic disasters, and anyone with a suitable level of income fleeing for the burbclaves. The city is divided between gangs, drug pushers, the wreckage of social movements and subcultures, and a self-replicating serial killer. Despite all this, it's supposed to be an EarnYourHappyEnding game -- how hard will you fight to clean up the mess?
* The island city-state of Al-Amarja, setting of ''TabletopGame/OverTheEdge''.
* ''Every'' city in ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem''. One of the more popular books for the line, Damnation City, even gives players rules for how to build their own city of the damned.
* Montreal in ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade''. It's far from the only one in the setting, but Montreal is so wretched its setting book, Montreal By Night, got the "honors" of being the launching title of Black Dog Factory, White Wolf's imprint for mature products. This is what happens when [[ReligionOfEvil the Sabbat]] is in charge.
** In fact, almost ''all'' cities held by the Sabbat tend to be like this. Although the Sabbat are happy to treat humanity like abused pets, they understand the value of the {{Masquerade}} even as they curse the very concept. As such, any city they claim will see a catastrophic rise in kidnappings, gang warfare, and serial killings - mainly so that people accept that as the default, and don't ask too many questions when all the patrons at a diner are murdered and exsanguinated.
* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' supplement ''Dreamlands'' boxed set. The city of Dylath-Leen in the Dreamlands is described as being one of these.
* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'': Scum Barges, places where anything goes and you can probably get anything not actually capable of punching through the hull if you know the right person to ask.
** And then there's Legba, a cluster habitat in the Belt run by the Nine Lives crime syndicate, kidnappers and slavers who use [[BodyBackupDrive cortical stacks]] as currency. To quote the book: "calling it a hive of scum and villainy is an insult to scum and villains".
* The Free State of Orleans in ''TabletopGame/CastleFalkenstein''. It essentially has no central government, since the ShadowDictator, President for Life Aaron Burr, hasn't been seen in public in more than a quarter of a century. The closest thing to a national leader is the Mayor of New Orleans, who runs the underworld and only provides neighborhoods with police protection if they pay him. The economy is based on piracy, gambling, and prostitution, all of which are legal as long as the proprietors pay their licensing fees, and the country is defended from foreign retribution by Marie Laveau and her zombie army.
* Maven Haven is the port of call for nearly all Asteroid Belt pirates in TabletopGame/RocketAge and it shows. The majority of the economy is built around servicing the pirates in [[RedLightDistrict various ways]] and the only law is what the pirate enforcers decide it is at that moment.
* The wandering island of Ilwuz in ''[[TabletopGame/ProseDescriptiveQualities Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies]]'', which is a vicious pirate haven that has only enough rule and order to keep the place operating at all. Important issues on the island are occasionally put to a vote, but the simplest way to get more votes is to come armed, and nearly any means is considered acceptable to sway the vote.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': The city of Nexus, to a tee. "Ah, Nexus, the city of one thousand names!" "Yeah, but only a hundred of them are printable, and only ten of the printable ones are even nice..."
** Adapted into the [[Franchise/StarWars Nar Shaddaa]]-esque Nexus VI in the science-fantasy Heaven's Reach Shard.

** El Infierno is a district in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, formerly Hawthorne, Gardena, and Compton, where immense numbers of unemployed and homeless citizens (courtesy of massive plague-induced riots, their extremely violent suppression and mass corporate buyouts of the wrecked neighborhoods) were quite simply walled off and left to rot. Fortifications eventually reached the point where the entire ghetto was surrounded by armored concrete walls patrolled by armed guards and automatic turrets and crossed only by elevated and highly fortified highways, cutting the locals off from the world -- and, of course, absolutely no aid of any sort was heading in, even when the area was swamped with radioactive waste from an exploded nuclear plant. The situation predictably degenerated into starvation, chaos and gang rule, with the only relief to be had was at corporate installations where locals could get food, medicine and shelter in exchange for being {{Human Guinea Pig}}s for new products. It was eventually put out of its misery when it drowned alongside the rest of the city, but the human suffering there was such that going through the astral plane over it is still tantamount to suicide.

** The Dark Eldar are a race of AlwaysChaoticEvil [[OurElvesAreBetter space-elves]], and their capital Commorragh fit the trope. The city is ruled by warring kabals and the only semblance of government is the biggest kabal that's powerful enough to boss the others around. Getting killed by a total stranger in broad daylight (well, technically due to its location in the Webway there is no day and night cycle in Commorragh, only perpetual twilight) in the middle of a street is seen as a perfectly normal occurrence. One has to wonder how the Dark Eldar have managed not to kill themselves off yet. Well, that's how it ''used'' to be. It's been {{Retcon}}ned since the new codex so it isn't ''that'' bad, and to address the FridgeLogic produced by the previous depiction. Turns out most violence in Commorragh is formalized via duels, assassinations, gang violence, etc. Kabals rarely go into outright warfare in their own streets, preferring Machiavellian schemes and political manoeuvring to come out on top. As WordOfGod has said, Commorragh just wouldn't be able to function if it was just mindless slaughter all the time. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not a very horrible place to live; it most assuredly '''is'''. Also, it's not really a single city in a conventional sense, but thousands of cities, ports and realms spread all over the Webway, linked together with a vast PortalNetwork. Nearly all of these smaller cities certainly count as examples as well.

* A regular setting in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''.

** UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} becomes a ''literal'' Wretched Hive after a [[BugWar particularly nasty incident with some bug spirits]].

* MagicTheGathering features the spawling metropolis of a plane that is Ravnica, the [[Franchise/StarWars Mos Eisley]] of the Multiverse that's best described as the love child of Coruscant and Ankh-Morpork

* MagicTheGathering features the spawling metropolis of a plane that is Ravnica, the [[Film/StarWars Mos Eisley]] of the Multiverse that's best described as the love child of Coruscant and Ankh-Morpork

** Solaris VII isn’t quite as bad as the first two, but the planet’s biggest claim to fame is the Solaris Arenas, where battlemechs duke it out in gladiator matches for public entertainment. While killing your opponent isn’t the primary goal of said matches, dying is certainly a major risk for anyone competing in addition to the usual vices and dangers that happen when a major form of entertainment is treated as SeriousBusiness.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'':
** Large sections of the Inner Sphere are like this, but especially Dustball, Kooken's Pleasure Pit and Solaris VII.
** Most citizens of the Inner Sphere view the Periphery as this, with varying degrees of accuracy.
** Kooken's Pleasure Pit was set up expressly as a WretchedHive (or at least the major cities, [[WordOfGod official canon]] has it that the remainder of the planet is normal, and ''strictly off-limits to offworlders'' to keep it that way) by the Lyran Government as a way to break the back of a crime syndicate by introducing competition to Dustball. (In game, both KPP and Dustball are essentially Nevada or Amsterdam, writ larger and with the more questionable entertainments accentuated.) The gambit only half-worked... people flocked to Kooken's, but the crime-boss-ruled Dustball is as strong as ever. But Dustball is now property of Clan Jade Falcon who have put an end to the gambling industry on the planet.

** Some place where Chaos takes root, such as a daemon world, the society there that arises or survives its coming almost invariable become this, if it isn't snuffed out by [[EldritchLocation|the dangerous, bizarre terrain]]. A few times, they survive anyways. A few places in the Eye of Terror are detailed, and ''TabletopGame/BlackCrusade'' provides a similar location as its standard setting.