Catalogue of Ankh-Morpork building types¶

Guild headquarters¶

(e.g., Assassins’ Guild, Thieves’ Guild, Fools’ Guild, Seamstresses’ Guild)

• Description: The primary engines of the economy and de facto government. Each is a powerful, semi-autonomous entity controlling its trade, providing training, and enforcing its own laws.

• Consumes: Energy (for lighting, heating vast halls), Water, Communications (clacks, messengers), Security (internal enforcers)

• Produces: Tax revenue (to the Patrician), Skilled labour, Social order (by regulating their trade), Business confidence (stability), Guild fees

• Sensitivity to disruption: Very High. A major guild failing creates a power vacuum and economic chaos.

• Trust decay rate: Rapid. Confidence in the city’s stability evaporates if the Thieves’ Guild can’t guarantee “security” or the Fools’ Guild stops controlling its members.

• Failure Modes:

  • Criminal Interference: Ransomware on the Assassins’ client list; extortion of the Seamstresses.

  • Ideological Disruption: A guild protest that shuts down markets or a split within a guild leading to civil war (e.g., Thieves vs. Cutpurses).

  • Degradation & Neglect: Ageing training facilities lead to a drop in standards, causing “unlicensed” practitioners to emerge.

  • Strategic Interference: Subtle manipulation of guild politics to weaken the city’s power structure.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Fix the specific problem (e.g., catch the extortionists).

  • Resilience Investment: The Patrician might force a guild to modernise its charter or share power to prevent future strife.

  • Compensatory Measures: Allowing the guild to raise its fees to cover losses; granting a special charter.

  • Accountability Actions: The Patrician “requests” the resignation of the Guild Head; a show trial within the guild.

• Narrative Hooks: “Assassins’ Guild goes on strike over pension dispute,” “Rogue faction within Thieves’ Guild destabilises insurance market,” “Fools’ Guild clown shortage leads to rise in amateur, unfunny street performers.”

Taverns & inns¶

(e.g., The Mended Drum, Biers)

• Description: The social and informational heart of the city. A place for deals, news, relaxation, and casual violence. Ranges from rowdy to utterly disreputable.

• Consumes: Energy (for lighting the sign and cellar), Water (for cleaning, diluting beer), Communications (gossip is the main product, but they rely on news arriving), Food & Beverage Supplies

• Produces: Tax revenue, Public morale, Social cohesion, Information (for patrons and spies), Business confidence (over a pint)

• Sensitivity to disruption: Medium (Biers) to High (The Drum). A popular pub failing is a local disaster. Biers’ clientele might be more patient with disruptions, as they have plenty of time.

• Trust decay rate: Moderate. A “beer shortage” is noticed immediately. A pub shut down for health reasons leads to rapid local grumbling.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Cellar floods (water), roof collapses (neglect), beer lines foul.

  • Operational Error: A new brewer misconfigures the vats, ruining a batch of the famous Morporkian stout.

  • Supply Chain Failure: The brewery (see example) fails; hop supply from the Sto Plains is interrupted.

  • Criminal Interference: Protection racket demands become unsustainable; the pub is used for a crime, leading to a Watch crackdown.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Fix the cellar pump; find a new hop supplier.

  • Resilience Investment: The owner digs a deeper well; diversifies drinks menu to include more spirits/dwarf bread.

  • Compensatory Measures: The owner offers a “night on the house” when the beer is back; the brewery compensates the pub for lost trade.

  • Blame: The landlord blames the water company, the brewery, or the rival pub across the street.

• Narrative Hooks: “Mended Drum loses its licence after a riot,” “Bloody Mary mix-up at Biers causes existential dread,” “Rival pub opens on Filigree Street, offering ‘quiet contemplation’.”

Civic amenities¶

(e.g., The Dwarf Bread Museum, The Dysk theatre)

• Description: Cultural and entertainment institutions. They are not critical for survival but are vital for the city’s soul, identity, and tourist trade.

• Consumes: Energy, Water, Communications (marketing, ticket sales)

• Produces: Cultural asset (pride, identity), Tourist revenue, Soft power, Public morale

• Sensitivity to disruption: Low to Medium. A museum closure is sad, not a crisis. A theatre burning down is a major cultural event.

• Trust decay rate: Slow. People are annoyed but not angry. If the Dysk remains closed for a season, trust in the city’s vibrancy wanes.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: The museum’s roof leaks, damaging priceless dwarf bread.

  • Criminal Interference: Theft of a major artefact (e.g., the Scone of Stone from the museum).

  • Ideological Disruption: A group of puritanical dwarfs protest an “un-dwarfish” exhibit; a rival theatre company sabotages the Dysk’s premiere.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Fix the roof; catch the thief.

  • Resilience Investment: Improve museum security; insure the artefacts.

  • Compensatory Measures: The Patrician donates a personal artefact to fill the empty spot; the theatre offers refunds.

  • Blame: The museum curator blames the City Watch for not preventing the theft.

• Narrative Hooks: “Scone of Stone stolen from museum! Dwarfish diaspora in uproar,” “The Dysk’s latest play, ‘The Patrician: A Comedy,’ sparks diplomatic incident.”

Slum dwellings¶

(e.g., The Shades, Cockbill Street)

• Description: High-density, low-quality housing. The population is resilient but has no margin for error. Pride and community are the main currencies.

• Consumes: Energy (if they can afford it), Water (from communal pumps), little else

• Produces: Labour pool, Local trust (strong community bonds), Crime (as an economic alternative), “Pride” (a non-material output)

• Sensitivity to disruption: Extreme. Any disruption is a direct threat to survival.

• Trust decay rate: Variable. Trust in neighbours might increase in a crisis, but trust in the authorities decays instantly.

• Failure Modes:

  • Combined Utility Outages: A pump fails, and there’s no money to fix it. This is a daily emergency.

  • Criminal Interference: Gangs become more predatory when the legitimate economy fails.

  • Strategic/State-aligned Interference: Neglect by the authorities is the baseline state. Any disruption is blamed on them.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Fixing the pump is the only thing that matters. Quickly.

  • Compensatory Measures: The Patrician might order a cart of water delivered, which buys a few hours of goodwill. Food drops.

  • Accountability Actions: Vimes personally visits and beats someone (metaphorically or literally) for the neglect. This is the only thing that restores faith.

  • Resilience Investment is a foreign concept here, but would mean better housing.

• Narrative Hooks: “Cockbill Street pump runs dry; residents refuse to complain out of pride,” “Shades community organises own night watch after Watch pulled out,” “Rumour of plague in the Shades leads to city-wide panic and quarantine.”

Middle-class and artisan housing¶

(e.g., residences in the Isle of Gods or near Pseudopolis Yard)

• Description: Respectable homes for merchants, guild members, and senior watchmen. They have a stake in the city’s stability.

• Consumes: Energy, Water, Communications, Transport (to get to work)

• Produces: Tax revenue, Social stability, Local businesses (corner shops, bakeries)

• Sensitivity to disruption: High. These citizens are vocal and have the ear of the guilds.

• Trust decay rate: Moderate to Fast. They expect services for their taxes. A few days without water, and they’re writing stiff letters to the Patrician.

• Failure Modes:

  • Combined Utility Outages: A power outage means no light for the shop, spoiled food, and a very annoyed merchant class.

  • Transport Failure: If the main bridge to their district is closed, they can’t get to work or market.

  • Public Service Failure: A delayed Watch response to a burglary leads to a rapid loss of confidence.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Fix the bridge. Restore power.

  • Compensatory Measures: A temporary tax break for affected businesses.

  • Accountability Actions: The head of the relevant guild demands an explanation from a city official.

• Narrative Hooks: “Isle of Gods residents demand action over river smell,” “Merchants on Cockbill Street border petition for a new Watch patrol to protect their businesses from ‘those people’.”

Major civic institutions¶

(e.g., Pseudopolis Yard (Watch HQ), Post Office, Royal Mint)

• Description: The newly empowered arms of the state. They represent the Patrician’s reclamation of power and are symbols of modern, “civilised” Ankh-Morpork.

• Consumes: Energy, Water, Communications (heavy users), Transport (paddy wagons, postal coaches), Staff (trained personnel)

• Produces: Public order (Watch), Trust in government, Economic enablers (Postal service, currency), Symbolic legitimacy

• Sensitivity to disruption: Catastrophic. A failure here is a direct failure of Lord Vetinari’s new model of governance.

• Trust decay rate: Instantaneous. The narrative is set by the opposition (e.g., Lord Rust) immediately: “See? The state can’t run a mint, why trust it with anything?”

• Failure Modes:

  • Operational Error: A mis-sorted bag at the Post Office delays all correspondence for a day; the Mint accidentally mints coins with the wrong face.

  • Criminal Interference: A ransomware attack on the Watch’s personnel files; a heist at the Mint.

  • Degradation & Neglect: The foundations of Pseudopolis Yard, a formerly disused building, prove unsound.

  • Public Service Failure: A Watch patrol is delayed, and a prominent citizen dies. The political fallout is immense.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Fix the problem immediately, whatever the cost.

  • Accountability Actions: Moist von Lipwig must personally apologise and fix the mess. Commander Vimes must be seen to be in control. A scapegoat is found.

  • Resilience Investment: After the crisis, a new, more secure system is funded (e.g., a new clacks tower just for the Watch).

• Narrative Hooks: “Post Office glitch loses an aristocrat’s invitation; he takes it out on a servant,” “Pseudopolis Yard’s new cell block collapses, freeing dozens of petty criminals,” “Mint produces ‘Vetinari’ coin with unfortunate typo.”

The Palace / Patrician’s seat¶

• Description: The political heart. Not just a residence, but the centre of administration, intelligence, and absolute, if veiled, power.

• Consumes: Energy, Water, Communications (the most secure clacks link), Security (elite guards), Information (from every corner of the city)

• Produces: Governance, Laws, Strategic direction, Stability, The ultimate guarantee of the guild system

• Sensitivity to disruption: Apocalyptic. An attack on the Palace is an attack on the idea of Ankh-Morpork itself.

• Trust decay rate: Immediate and terminal. If the Palace is compromised, the entire social contract collapses into civil war or coup.

• Failure Modes:

  • Strategic/State-aligned Interference: An assassination attempt (a constant, managed threat).

  • Ideological Disruption: A coordinated uprising by multiple guilds, effectively a siege of the Palace.

  • Degradation & Neglect: Unthinkable. Vetinari would never allow it.

• Available Remedies:

  • Accountability Actions: This is the remedy. The Patrician will find out who failed and make an unforgettable example of them.

  • Technical Restoration: Repelling the attack, securing the perimeter.

  • Resilience Investment: The Palace’s security is already in a state of constant, paranoid investment. Any failure leads to another, deeper layer of security.

• Narrative Hooks: “A sewer tunnel collapses beneath the Palace, revealing a previously unknown route into the heart of power,” “Vetinari is ‘indisposed’ for a week; the city holds its breath and functions perfectly, which terrifies everyone,” “A new, polite, and reasonable political party requests an audience.”

Water source¶

(e.g., Shades Pumping Station, Small Gods Municipal Pump, Cockbill Street Tap)

• Description: Physical infrastructure supplying water to district residents and businesses. Usually ancient, privately chartered, and chronically under-maintained. The operator is legally obliged to provide service; practically, this obligation is observed selectively.

• Consumes: Energy (to run pump mechanisms), maintenance staff, communications (minimal monitoring)

• Produces: Water, sanitation, public health, the foundation of every other service

• Sensitivity to disruption: Very High. Public tolerance for water disruption is extremely low.

• Trust decay rate: Rapid. Shortages are noticed within hours. Residents know what it means.

• Detection time modifier: 0.6x: outright failures spotted quickly; slow pressure drops can hide.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Seals fail, pipes rust, pump mechanism wears out without maintenance budget. The most common cause.

  • Operational Error: A “routine” repair leaves sediment in the pipes; a chemical treatment goes wrong.

  • Criminal Interference: Illegal tapping, deliberate contamination, sabotage to pressure rivals.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Fix the pump. This is always the priority.

  • Compensatory Measures: Water carts dispatched; temporary supply. Buys hours, not days.

  • Resilience Investment: New pipes, redundant supply routes, pressure monitoring. Expensive; transformative for low-wealth districts.

• Cascade: Loss of water dependency propagates to brewery, healthcare, and residential buildings. Failure cascades fast in poor districts with no storage margin.

• Narrative Hooks: “Cockbill Street tap runs dry; residents refuse to ask for help,” “Small Gods pump sabotaged; nobody admits seeing anything,” “Water tastes of something new and unpleasant in the Shades.”

Power source¶

(e.g., Unseen University Power & Light Co., Merchant Quarter Steam Exchange, Shades Community Generator)

• Description: The district’s power generation facility. Ranges from UU’s experimental geomantic engines to a steam plant with three bolts missing. Every other building depends on this.

• Consumes: Fuel supply, maintenance staff, communications

• Produces: Energy: which underpins almost everything else

• Sensitivity to disruption: Catastrophic. Darkness and cold are noticed within minutes.

• Trust decay rate: Rapid. Rolling blackouts are immediately visible and blamed on whoever is in charge.

• Detection time modifier: 0.4x: operators and meters spot failure fast; slow degradation hides longer.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Ageing equipment, deferred maintenance, no backup capacity.

  • Operational Error: A reconfiguration during upgrade brings down the network unexpectedly.

  • Strategic Interference: Target the power source, and everything else follows.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Immediate repair. Budget-intensive.

  • Resilience Investment: Redundant generation, backup circuits. Expensive but transformative.

  • Operational Workaround: Emergency generation for critical buildings only; everyone else waits.

• Cascade: Loss of energy propagates immediately to clacks towers, water pumps, workshops, hospitals: everything. The most powerful cascade node in the dependency graph.

• Narrative Hooks: “UU Power & Light alarms develop opinions about when to trigger,” “Rolling blackout in the Merchant Quarter costs more per hour than the pump that caused it,” “Generator sold for parts; district has candles.”

Clacks tower¶

(e.g., Grand Trunk relay towers, district clacks nodes)

• Description: The semaphore relay nodes that carry messages across the city and beyond. When they work, they are invisible. When they fail, everything that depends on coordination starts to unravel.

• Consumes: Energy, maintenance staff

• Produces: Communications backbone, emergency coordination, information flow

• Sensitivity to disruption: High. Communications loss amplifies every other incident.

• Trust decay rate: Moderate. Missed messages are noticed quickly; coordination failures compound over days.

• Detection time modifier: 0.3x: the tower goes dark; operators and users notice within minutes.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Mechanisms seize, lenses crack, staff shortfall leads to unmanned operation.

  • Operational Error: Botched upgrade brings down the network segment.

  • Strategic Interference: Targeted, repeated outages designed to exhaust confidence without obvious cause.

• Cascade: Loss of communications propagates to Watch coordination, hospital dispatch, guild operations, and workshop supply chains. Amplifies every concurrent incident.

• Narrative Hooks: “Third clacks outage this month in Small Gods: pattern, or coincidence?” “Tower operator not at post; messages queue for six hours,” “The Watch sent the message. There was no reply.”

Food supply¶

(e.g., Shambles Meatmarket, River Wharves, City Granary, Sto Plains Depot)

• Description: Markets, warehouses, and distribution points keeping the city fed. Just-in-time. No margin for disruption.

• Consumes: Energy, water, transport (deliveries), communications (ordering)

• Produces: Food supplies for residents and dependent buildings; brewery supply; employment

• Sensitivity to disruption: High. Shortages appear within a day. Price signals are visible before officials notice.

• Trust decay rate: Moderate to Fast. Empty shelves and rising prices compound fast if unresolved.

• Detection time modifier: 0.8x: market stallholders and warehouse managers notice shortages quickly; contamination can hide longer.

• Failure Modes:

  • Supply Chain Failure: Sto Plains crop failure; logistics disruption; dock strike.

  • Degradation & Neglect: Storage failure (flood, rot, pest), cold chain breaks.

  • Criminal Interference: Hoard and price-gouge; spoilage for competitors.

• Cascade: Low-wealth districts feel food shortages first and hardest: no margin to buy alternatives. Loss also hits breweries, which hits taverns, which hits public morale.

• Narrative Hooks: “Shambles closes; meat supply suspended,” “Grain warehouse fire: insurance dispute to follow,” “Price of bread doubles in Small Gods; tripling expected by the weekend.”

Brewery¶

(e.g., Ankh Brewery)

• Description: The primary source of Ankh-Morpork’s most critical social lubricant. The brewery’s supply chain feeds directly into the city’s tavern network, its economic activity, and its mood.

• Consumes: Energy, water (critical), food supplies (grain, hops), transport, communications

• Produces: Brewery supply for all taverns; employment; tax revenue

• Sensitivity to disruption: High. “Ankh-Morpork without beer?” is not a hypothetical.

• Trust decay rate: Rapid. A beer shortage is noticed immediately. Morale decays fast.

• Detection time modifier: 0.5x: workers monitor vats constantly; contamination can take a day to manifest.

• Failure Modes:

  • Supply Chain Failure: Ingredient supply (grain, hops) disrupted; water source contaminated.

  • Operational Error: Batch ruined; vat misconfiguration.

  • Criminal Interference: Contamination, sabotage, extortion.

• Cascade: Loss of brewery_supply hits all taverns, which affects public morale, social cohesion, employment, and Thieves’ Guild fee collection.

• Narrative Hooks: “The beer tastes wrong: and it’s been wrong for three days,” “Brewery shuts; Thieves’ Guild immediately ‘concerned’ about tavern revenues,” “Mended Drum serving ‘imported alternatives’ at triple the price.”

Transport infrastructure¶

(e.g., Brass Bridge, Isle of Gods Bridge, Treacle Mine Road Gate)

• Description: Bridges, gates, and chokepoints controlling physical movement through and between districts. When they fail, they strand workers, halt supplies, and force dangerous alternatives.

• Consumes: Energy, maintenance staff, communications

• Produces: Mobility, labour flow, goods movement, trade access

• Sensitivity to disruption: High. Transport failures have visible, immediate impact on daily life and business.

• Trust decay rate: Moderate. Disruption is felt at once; economic cascade takes days.

• Detection time modifier: 0.6x: outright closure spotted immediately; structural degradation can hide much longer.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Structural decay, ageing materials, deferred inspection.

  • Operational Error: A repair exposes a worse problem; a temporary closure becomes permanent.

• Cascade: Isle of Gods artisans cannot reach workshops; Small Gods market traders cannot reach customers. Economic secondary effects arrive within days.

• Narrative Hooks: “Brass Bridge inspector finds something; won’t say what,” “Emergency boat service overwhelmed after bridge closure,” “Treacle Mine Road blocked; entire district cut off before dawn.”

Communications office¶

(e.g., Grand Trunk Company Office, Talking Drums HQ)

• Description: The organisations that manage and coordinate the clacks network, licensing, and commercial communications contracts. Distinct from the towers themselves: an office closure means coordination failure even if the towers stay lit.

• Consumes: Energy, water, communications (depends on its own product), staff

• Produces: Communications governance, vendor contracts, employment, tax revenue

• Sensitivity to disruption: High. If the company cannot coordinate, service quality collapses even with towers standing.

• Trust decay rate: Moderate to Fast. Billing failures and dropped contracts surface gradually, then abruptly.

• Detection time modifier: 0.8x: an office closure is less visible than a tower going dark.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Staffing shortfall; contract chaos; licensing disputes.

  • Criminal Interference: Extortion; hostile takeover; records destruction.

  • Strategic Interference: Capturing the coordination layer gives control of the network without touching the towers.

• Cascade: Loss of communications governance does not cut messages immediately but degrades coordination capacity, accelerates clacks tower failures, and removes the ability to respond to outages.

• Narrative Hooks: “Grand Trunk Company director resigns; nobody admits knowing why,” “Talking Drums licence revoked pending ‘investigation’,” “Clacks contract disputed; three districts’ service suspended.”

Apothecary¶

(e.g., Shades Street Healer, Small Gods Apothecary)

• Description: District-level herbalists, back-alley physicians, and licensed apothecaries. The first, often only, point of medical contact for working-class and poor residents. Not glamorous, not well-funded, but irreplaceable to those who depend on them. Usually operating on the edge of Guild tolerance.

• Consumes: Energy (minimal), water, medical supplies

• Produces: Public health (local), local trust

• Sensitivity to disruption: Medium to High. Harm is district-level, not city-wide, but acutely felt by those with no alternative.

• Trust decay rate: Moderate. Residents notice when medicine runs out, but the political reverb is local and slow to reach the papers.

• Detection time modifier: 1.2x: small premises; failures surface when a customer arrives and finds it shut, which may not be until the next morning.

• Failure Modes:

  • Supply Chain Failure: Medical supplies interrupted; Guild of Physicians restricts licences.

  • Degradation & Neglect: No budget for restocking; premises become unusable.

  • Criminal Interference: Extortion; diversion of supplies to black market.

• Cascade: Loss of apothecary service increases disease burden on adjacent healthcare buildings. In districts without hospital access, its failure is the only failure that matters.

• Narrative Hooks: “Shades healer runs out of fever bark; residents doing their own,” “Guild of Physicians inspector arrives; apothecary closes for ‘review’,” “Old Widow Aching’s remedies are better, but not licensed.”

Healthcare¶

(e.g., Lady Sybil Free Hospital, Klatchian Embassy Clinic, Omnian Medical Mission)

• Description: Medical care facilities. Trust in the city depends partly on the belief that injury and illness will be treated. When this fails, the implications are both immediate (people die) and long-term (confidence in the entire system collapses).

• Consumes: Energy, water, communications, staff (specialist, 24/7), food supplies

• Produces: Public health, emergency response capacity, legitimacy, social stability

• Sensitivity to disruption: Catastrophic. “Immediate trust collapse, regulatory spike, long-term legitimacy scars.”

• Trust decay rate: Instantaneous. People die. The political fallout begins before the body is cold.

• Detection time modifier: 0.3x: staff present 24/7; monitoring equipment; failures spotted immediately.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Chronic underfunding leads to double shifts, equipment failure, supply shortfalls.

  • Operational Error: System outage during patient care; record-keeping failure leads to medication error.

  • Supply Chain Failure: Medicine supply disrupted; key specialist staff unable to reach the building.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: Restore power, fix equipment, pay for emergency supplies: fast.

  • Resilience Investment: Backup power, additional staff, redundant supply chains.

  • Accountability Actions: The Regulatory Committee demands an explanation. Commander Vimes has been seen pacing the corridors.

• Cascade: Healthcare failure removes the ability to contain disease outbreaks from other cascades. Also creates regulatory pressure and legitimacy damage that compounds all concurrent events.

• Narrative Hooks: “Lady Sybil forced to turn away non-emergency patients for the third time this month,” “Hospital generator fails at 2 a.m.,” “Klatchian Clinic offers to take overflow; Watch not sure this is legal.”

Security post¶

(e.g., Watch houses, Shades Watch House)

• Description: Public safety and law enforcement infrastructure. Watch posts keep order, deter crime, and provide emergency response. Absence is felt within hours; presence is taken for granted until it is gone.

• Consumes: Communications, energy, transport, staff

• Produces: Public order, crime deterrence, emergency response

• Sensitivity to disruption: Very High. Watch absence is felt immediately; crime rises within hours.

• Trust decay rate: Rapid: but varies sharply by wealth. Poor districts expect neglect and do not register it as a change. Rich districts react immediately.

• Detection time modifier: 0.4x: Watch staff notice internal failures fast; patrol gaps show up in crime reports quickly.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Understaffing, budget shortfall, equipment not maintained.

  • Criminal Interference: Bribery, intimidation of officers, organised crime mapping patrol patterns.

  • Strategic Interference: Selective removal of coverage from a specific area at a specific time creates a window.

• Cascade: Loss of public_safety allows criminal interference events to spike. The Thieves’ Guild tests boundaries. The cascade is social and behavioural, not mechanical.

• Narrative Hooks: “Shades Watch house closed for ‘maintenance’: fourteenth time this year,” “Vimes requests budget. Declined. Again,” “Someone has mapped the patrol gaps.”

Intelligence service¶

(e.g., Dept. of Silent Stability)

• Description: The Patrician’s intelligence and internal security apparatus. Nobody says that out loud. Operates at home and abroad. Its failures are invisible until the consequences are not, by which point something that should have been prevented quietly wasn’t.

• Consumes: Energy, communications, financial reserves, loyal staff

• Produces: Threat intelligence, political stability, regime continuity, foreign intelligence, internal security

• Sensitivity to disruption: Extreme. When it fails, the city doesn’t know it has failed. The consequences arrive later, from directions nobody expected.

• Trust decay rate: Delayed. Nobody outside the building knows it has stopped functioning. The political reverb arrives weeks later, obliquely.

• Detection time modifier: 3.0x: operates in deep cover; failures surface very late, at one remove, and usually via their consequences rather than their cause.

• Failure Modes:

  • Strategic Interference: Penetration, asset compromise, disinformation campaigns against its own intelligence picture.

  • Criminal Interference: Co-option of loyal staff; the loyalty is the critical dependency.

  • Degradation & Neglect: Budget cuts, talent loss, operational isolation, the service becomes blind before anyone notices.

• Cascade: Compromise of the intelligence service removes the early-warning capacity for all other threat categories simultaneously. The cascade is indirect: the city becomes more vulnerable to everything, without knowing why.

• Narrative Hooks: “The Dept. of Silent Stability is looking into it,” “Someone has mapped the patrol gaps, and the Dept. already knew,” “Three operatives transferred to ‘diplomatic positions’ in the same week. The Dept. does not comment on staffing.”

Tech business¶

(e.g., Golem Trust Data Office, Purple Lantern Systems)

• Description: Specialist IT/OT contractors holding data, managing infrastructure records, and providing continuity services for guilds and city departments. Invisible when functional; catastrophic when compromised.

• Consumes: Energy (continuous, no interruption tolerated), communications (critical), staff

• Produces: IT services, infrastructure security, data management, business continuity

• Sensitivity to disruption: High. Vendor monoculture risk: one firm holds data for the Patrician, the Bank, and three guilds.

• Trust decay rate: Rapid. Clients notice service outages immediately. SLA breaches become political events.

• Detection time modifier: 0.4x: technical staff monitor systems continuously; alerts fire before humans notice.

• Failure Modes:

  • Operational Error: Botched upgrade corrupts records; test environment hits production.

  • Strategic Interference: Compromise here gives access to guild records, patrol schedules, and treasury data simultaneously.

  • Criminal Interference: Data theft; ransomware; extortion of the data custodian.

• Cascade: Tech business failures do not currently propagate a mechanical cascade (the data_infrastructure dependency has no consuming buildings in the city). The consequences are felt indirectly: guild records inaccessible, warrants unverifiable, payments delayed, but these arrive as narrative and metric effects rather than as building-to-building cascade events.

• Narrative Hooks: “Golem Trust ‘scheduled maintenance’ window extends indefinitely,” “Purple Lantern director unavailable; three guilds’ data inaccessible,” “Someone knows who the Watch’s informants are.”

Hackerspace¶

(e.g., Scarlet Semaphore)

• Description: A semi-informal collective of technical practitioners operating outside guild structures. Often involved in unofficial resilience work, vulnerability research, and keeping city systems running when official channels fail. Not always strictly legal. Always useful to someone.

• Consumes: Energy, communications, food supplies (it runs on clacks access, surplus components, and optimism)

• Produces: Threat intelligence, security research, vulnerability disclosure, informal network capacity

• Sensitivity to disruption: Medium to High. Loss of this asset is invisible until something it would have caught is not caught.

• Trust decay rate: Variable. Depends entirely on whether their activities are considered helpful or inconvenient this week.

• Detection time modifier: 1.5x: operates covertly; disruptions surface slowly and obliquely.

• Failure Modes:

  • Strategic Interference: Someone with an interest in keeping vulnerabilities unfixed.

  • Criminal Interference: Extortion or co-option: “work for us or stop working.”

  • Operational Error: They patch a live system at the wrong moment.

• Cascade: If compromised, Scarlet Semaphore’s knowledge of city systems becomes a liability rather than an asset. Also loses the informal resilience capacity that has quietly kept several clacks nodes running.

• Narrative Hooks: “Scarlet Semaphore has discovered something; not ready to say what,” “Someone is pressuring the Semaphore to share their access logs,” “Three members also work elsewhere: the conflict of interest is the point.”

Workshop¶

(e.g., Tanners’ Yard, Treacle Mine Road Workshops)

• Description: Small manufacturing and artisan production sites. Employment for local workers; goods for local and city markets. Individually minor; collectively the industrial backbone of the city’s economy.

• Consumes: Energy, water, transport (raw materials and deliveries), food supplies

• Produces: Manufactured goods, employment, tax revenue, trade goods

• Sensitivity to disruption: Medium. Local failure; not city-wide. But a week without power means bankruptcy.

• Trust decay rate: Moderate. Employment loss builds slowly; compounds if multiple workshops fail together.

• Detection time modifier: 1.0x: baseline; fires are obvious but structural decay and contamination hide longer.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Ageing equipment; failing power supply; deferred maintenance creating fire risk.

  • Operational Error: Industrial fire (a major cascade node: triggers public_safety dependency).

  • Supply Chain Failure: Raw material unavailability; transport disruption stopping deliveries.

  • Criminal Interference: Extortion; protection racket; arson.

• Cascade: Workshop fires trigger public_safety dependency: if Watch coverage is degraded, criminal activity spreads to adjacent buildings. Loss of production also creates unemployment and economic crime pressure.

• Narrative Hooks: “Tanners’ Yard fire spreads to three adjacent buildings before engines arrive,” “Workshop closures in Small Gods: first the power goes, then the orders, then the workers,” “Guild licensing office says the paperwork is ‘under review’.”

Fire service¶

(e.g., Shades Fire Post, Isle of Gods Engine House, Merchant Quarter Fire Station)

• Description: Fire posts, pump engines, and emergency responders. Their failure is invisible until it is not. In a city built of ancient wood and chronic neglect, the fire service is the difference between a contained incident and a district lost.

• Consumes: Water (critical), energy, communications, staff

• Produces: Fire suppression, emergency response, public safety

• Sensitivity to disruption: Very High. Fire response is a force multiplier for every other disaster; absent coverage is invisible until it is not.

• Trust decay rate: Rapid. Slow response to a visible fire is immediately apparent to everyone watching.

• Detection time modifier: 0.3x: station staff notice equipment failures and missed call-outs fast.

• Failure Modes:

  • Degradation & Neglect: Understaffing, equipment failure, pumps without water, horses without feed.

  • Supply Chain Failure: No water available (cascade from water_source failure): the critical dependency chain that turns a pump failure into a conflagration.

  • Operational Error: Response to one fire leaves another district uncovered.

• Cascade: Fire service degradation means workshop fires and other fire events in the district go uncontrolled. The cascade is physical and immediate, other buildings adjacent to the fire are at risk.

• Narrative Hooks: “Shades fire post: engines dispatched, pump inoperable on arrival,” “The inadequate pump was located after the fact,” “Isle of Gods fire station inspected; report classified.”

Media¶

(e.g., Ankh-Morpork Times)

• Description: The city’s press. Shapes public narrative, amplifies crises, applies accountability pressure, and: critically: is itself a detection mechanism for events the authorities miss or conceal. When it fails, rumour fills the void.

• Consumes: Communications, energy, staff, paper supplies

• Produces: Public narrative, media pressure, information flow, trust modifier (positive or negative)

• Sensitivity to disruption: High. When the press is absent, rumour fills the void faster than the facts.

• Trust decay rate: Variable. Can raise or lower trust depending on what is printed. Silence is also a choice.

• Detection time modifier: 0.6x: reporters notice things; their own failures surface gradually.

• Failure Modes:

  • Strategic Interference: Pressure to kill a story; bribery; direct suppression.

  • Criminal Interference: Threats to editors; destruction of evidence before publication.

  • Degradation & Neglect: Staff cuts reduce investigative capacity; stories go uncovered.

• Special case: The Ankh-Morpork Times is simultaneously a building type and a detection mechanism. Its suppression removes media amplification of other crises: a mixed blessing, since that amplification cuts both ways. It also removes accountability pressure on city institutions.

• Narrative Hooks: “The Times runs nothing today; something is wrong,” “Editor unreachable; press run cancelled,” “A polite note arrived at the Times’ offices. The story was not printed.”

Unseen University (UU)¶

• Description: The magical and oldest core of the city. A city-state within a city-state, governed by its own arcane laws. Its relationship with the Patrician is one of careful, mutual non-interference.

• Consumes: Energy (vast amounts for magical research), Water, Communications (wizards love gossip), Rare & Arcane Supplies (dragon’s blood, etc.), Food (in vast, high-quality quantities)

• Produces: Magical knowledge, High-status graduates, Occasional world-saving (or world-endangering) events, A major source of employment (servants, groundskeepers), A massive consumer economy for the city’s merchants

• Sensitivity to disruption: Low, from the University’s perspective. They are self-sufficient and powerful. From the city’s perspective, it’s very high, as UU is a major economic engine and a source of unpredictable danger.

• Trust decay rate: Paradoxical. The city doesn’t trust UU; it tolerates it. A disruption is met with fear (“What have they done now?”) rather than a loss of faith.

• Failure Modes:

  • Operational Error: A student’s thaumic experiment goes wrong, causing a localised reality fluctuation (e.g., it rains frogs on the Isle of Gods).

  • Degradation & Neglect: The Tower of Art, the oldest structure, begins to shed masonry, threatening the surrounding streets.

  • Ideological Disruption: An internal power struggle between faculty chairs spills out into the city, with wizards hexing each other across the rooftops.

• Available Remedies:

  • Technical Restoration: The Archchancellor orders the Senior Wrangler to “un-make it so.” It may or may not work.

  • Accountability Actions: The Bursar is sent to apologise to the Patrician, who will extract maximum political capital from the event. The offending wizard is sent on a long, unpleasant research trip.

  • Compensatory Measures: UU pays for all damages, promptly and without argument (using ancient gold they have in abundance).

• Narrative Hooks: “The Tower of Art is leaning,” “Wizard experiment causes all the beer in the Mended Drum to taste faintly of sulphur,” “UU requests the city council fund a new library wing, citing ‘rising book costs’.”