Most people aren't supposed to know the city is built on top of... something

The previous city. Earthquakes are a bitch.

An older city
The real problem is what THIS older city was built on top of

An even older city? Are we going into a Troy scenario where there's like 6 Troys built on top of each other?

Is this an Urban Unease thread?

9 actually. And Homer's Troy was the 7th

The city is built on top of an ancient and artificial leyline network created back when magic was around.

Nowadays most people have forgotten the legends of wizardry that used to happen. Perhaps if one were to find their way under the city, they could discover something about this bygone era.

Nothing.
When everyone became too tied up in their lives to think about what lies below, it all disappeared.
There is only nothing there.

This is actually the case for a lot of ancient cities.

The Indian Burial Ground isn't haunted itself though. It was built on and therefor haunted by the much older Raptor Burial Ground and inherited the curses from there.
Now your city is technically built over the Raptor Burial Ground so the raptor ghosts are pissed at you now.

The city wasn't built over anything too important.

Just...
you know...
MY FUCKING HOUSE!

The entire city is built on top of a dormant volcano that hasn't been active for the last ten thousand years. Recent mining activity and tectonic shifts have reactivated it, and the volcano would blow off a little bit of lava and a lot of ash and have done. Unfortunately, there's a bloody city blocking it from erupting, and the pressure is building. Can the PCs evacuate the city or stop the eruption in time? No, no they cannot. And when the volcano erupts, the city will be instantly obliterated and the entire continent is pretty much going to be in the shitter for the next 300ish years

Poor Bugs Bunny.

Most people aren't supposed to know that New New New New York was built on the ruins of Old New New New York, which was built on the ruins of New New New York, which was built on the ruins of New New York, which was built on the ruins of Old New York, which were built on an Indian burial ground. Or possibly Jersey.

The problem is actually not that the city was built on top of anything, but rather, the opposite. There's nothing under the pavement and foundations of the city, not even the ground.

All cities are built on Troy.

Troy tells cities that they are cities, it only in comparison to Troy that a city can be a city and not a town.
That's why if you dig down beneath a city you find the other cities, all permutations of Troy and cities, over and over again, endless cities, the endless curves of Infinite Street, Gropecunt Lane and it's eternal smiles, The Alley Between The tTowers, the rank gutters of All Bowels Way, pavements covered in cobblestone, slabs, concrete with cat paw prints in it, glass etched by sunlight, canvas side walks, mud roads, tarmac, screaming horses, yelling market sellers, the alarm rings and The Preservers with the Street Lamps bobbing before their mouths bring their glowing peace to any poor souls trapped in here.

What does it mean for a city to sleep? To dream?
To awaken anew.

I feel like that painting is ruined if you actually put shit ahead of him. The whole point is that you can't see anything out there, and he's staring because finding out what's there is an adventure in of itself.

I agree
but manipulating art is always fun and interesting.

It's built on top of the site gods are born. Prepare for the advent of the next.

Undead Ends

The city it could have been
Paths not taken
Choices never made
Strangers we could have loved
Losses we never had.

It is all there
In the places you don't look
In the forgotten corners
Undead ends

Beneath us
It resides
The city of have-nots and were-nots
Infinetely greater
At its inexistance

It is all there
In the places you don't look
In the forgotten corners
Undead ends

It is all there
In the places you don't look
In the forgotten corners
Undead ends

All your yous
Dead, alive and in-between
Remember her?
Remember him?
It could have been different
It could have been you and me.

I hadn't been able to write anything for weeks now, much less a song of all things. Thanks for the random stimulus OP.

Deep in those ancient caverns a great city was lost, long before we Humans. Long, long before.

The proud city of Ehn'gha - decadent and trusting, and it was their downfall. When the Darkness came and the Guardians slaughtered them, their existence was but a dying echo, shrieking from violated mouths resounding within their homes, their tombs.

If you stand alone, in one of those halls, quietly... ever so quietly... you can hear the cries of the people of Ehn'gha, rent apart by the unseen claws of the Guardians. Their echoes still linger, as do their souls.

MY DICK.

A demon king.

Demons are chaotic and destructive, often used as pawns and soldiers in the hells by their more clever cousins, devils. But once every epoch, a wise and exceptionally powerful demon arises and bands together many of its brethren. This demon king wages war on the mortal realm, and if slain, merely returns to the hells to begin its long regeneration process. But a great hero centuries, if not millenia ago had the foresight to hideously wound and imprison and bind the great demon so that it could never rise again.

The hero and his followers built a fortress to guard the burial site of the demon. In time, families of the warriors came to live out their lives at this fortress, farming, crafting, raising children. A small town developed and grew relatively quickly due to the love of the great hero. All this time later, the fortress has become a great city, and the force of men guarding the slumbering demon is not thought of much by local nobility or peasantry. Some even write it off as a strange cult. But the demon is eternal and patient, and within its shattered body is an intact mind, speaking to the guards through its dreams, and with the tradition of the hero long forgotten, no one really notices the gradual change in behavior of the guards of the demon king.

Then, one night, the city is awoken by a great quake.

I get the feeling this would sound terrible if sung.

a well cared for series of sewers, maintenance tunnels, and underground trains, which are all built on top of the giant underground vagrant camp, ruled by hobo king Pierre Tin-Hat XVI. May his people prosper for a thousand years!

I would be surprised were it any other way.

A swamp.

Almost every building has serious foundation problems, but the city council is covering it.

They can just build another city on top after the first one sinks.

A concentration camp.
That couldn't Gas this one Jew.

...