Greetings, fellow GM.
todays workday was not a workday, since my whole team way layed low due to some mistake in our ERP System Migration (hail the IT!). Anyway, I had time to kill. I was inspired by Tabletopgames "Into the Woods" "Into the Mountains" which provided small descriptions of sights and sounds for name environments to help along a harried gamemaster.
In this mind, here something you can throw at your pc as "descriptive colorite" in a hive or city environment
[Things you can see in a hive]
The high domed hive section your are in is governed by enforcers walking on gantry ways running along and across the streets and places half a dozen meter above your heads. Grim and leather clad men and women totting shotguns or sniper rifles, some of them are watching the crowd with magnoculars.
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The already crowded street you move through fills with more and more workers. It seems like work shift has ended in some of the major manufactories. After a couple of minutes you are a just a drop in an ocean of sweaty bodies, being pushed along by the stream. You have to take not be thrown of your course.
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In the middle of the street (or place) you move through stands a preacher on top of some hardplast boxes. He is preaching fire and damnation against all kind of sins and denounces all passer-bys as unworthy sinners that should redeem.
The air is moist and a fine drizzle and a hissing sound hang in the air. As you lock up you see workers hanging from the ceiling in front of a giant Aquila relief carved in to the hive walls. With pressure washer, they clean the relief and the moisture sinks down on you and the other pedestrians.
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From the far opposite wall of the hive section comes deep humming as the huge ventilation systems awake and start to set the air into movement. A stale reeking breath washes over your face and grows somewhat less stale as fresh air is piped into the section and the used up is pushed out. Paper waste is chased over the rockcrete floor and allocates at the feet of obstacles.
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The big corridor you are following is astoundingly clean and dominated by a chemical smell reminiscent of a hospital floor. After a while, you notice huge yellow warning signs which are stamped across the floor [“Warning! Entering sector with infection level V!”]. The chemical smell you noticed earlier becomes more dominant. A head of you, you see a big basin installed in the floor which is filled with a clear liquid. The wall-ward edges of the floor are just a finger wide, the basin is two about two meters wide and a foot deep. A digital sign is hanging from the ceiling above it. The moving red letters proclaim “Feet ware disinfection basin - Treat slowly - No splashing – Disinfection is mandatory”.
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A horrible stink fills your nostrils as you move forward. The crowd you are traveling through divides in front of you, and you see the source of the stink. A small sea of raw sewage covers most of the street. Obviously, it must be swelling from a manhole below. The sewage system of this section needs maintenance for sure!
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You pass down the metal stairways to the next level. The free standing construct is squeaking and shuddering under your every step. Half way between the two levels an iron gate with an accessor guard blocks the way [pc need to hold a cognomen with access legitimation against the accessor guard or need to climb around the gate. Ordinary climb/agility test with the chance of dropping to your death]. At the end of the rust stairway a servitor welcomes you with a static-ridden electro voice to the section and lists the location of the important communal offices and facilities to you.
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Far away in the dim twilight ahead you see a red light dizzing around, like a mad firefly. It is a servoskull darting above the crowd, zick-zacking across the heads of the citizens. It abruptly dives down into the crowd, then it ascends back up after a couple of minutes and soars to another position to repeat the procedure. While proceed your way, you come close to the erratic pass of the skulldrone. As it goes down nearby, you catch some harsh sounding orders issued by the skulls vox module. [Perception / Awareness test. “Stop! Identitiy control. Hold your cognomen in front of you and wait for further orders!”]
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Suddenly something bumps into you and you stumble half a step backwards. It is a young boy, about 10 years standard, wearing the badge of one of the courier guilds and holding a electro-sealed tube container in one of his hands. The boy is about to utter a sorry and to dash on. [This might be a thief in disguise or just an honest courier boy. The pc might harass him or not. It will not have any consequences one way or the other].
The flow of the crowd comes to a stop. Irritated and annoyed muttering forms into a background noise as the questions “what is going on?” spreads. After al while, the answer ripples back: the street has been locked at both ends, a genetic screening takes place. The crowd stays where it is and complaints, like cattle moved through a small rail opening. After a perceived eternity (or an endless series of pushes from the pc against the surrounding crowd) the pc reach the impromptu barricade made of segments iron bars wielded into free standing grates. At a small opening in the barricade, the pc are held back by leather clad brutes in crude loin cloth masks demanding to take a blood sample with small device similar to an auspex.