One of the things every story needs is an Antagonist. Since I write mystery novels, criminals provide the most obvious antagonists. Since antagonists need to be the second most developed characters in your story, developing a rich and diverse Underworld is an important aspect of world building.
Like most other subcultures, the criminal elements of the setting aren’t monolithic. Most cities of any size will have more than one crime lord, since if there’s something worth stealing, more than one person probably wants to steal it. Street gangs may operate independently of the more traditional organized crime groups, or they may be part of them. Rivalries, turf wars, and even alliances make the setting more believable and fun to operate in.
As with other aspects of world building, look at how things work in our world, then tweak it as necessary. For example, in Myos, there are syndicates that operate in a fashion similar to the mafia. They control illegal gambling houses, prostitution rings, extortion rackets, smuggling operations, and the like. But, they don’t deal in things like burglary, robbery, or vendetta killings. There is no assassin guild, but they employ people like that for when they need a surgical strike on someone. They don’t operate street gangs or the like. Sometimes, paying protection isn’t a threat, but an actual service.
Any time a society creates a law, there are people who will break it for their own advantage. So, if your setting restricts or outlaws magic, wizards are suddenly criminals and therefore are part of the Underworld with the thieves and cutpurses. Beggars may organize into a guild where the guild master assigns people to areas based on how much of a cut they get (this actually has happened). Perhaps people with fighting prowess are drafted into the military, so people actively hide their prowess. Cults and other forbidden religions should also be represented.
In the Underworld, what laws someone is willing to break will turn into a Heirarchy of Social Estates. There may or may not be a Ruling Agent, such as The Kingpin from Marvel. There may or may not be a Ruling Agency, several crime lords who have carved up the setting to control who is doing what, where. But there is always some sort of organization. Criminals love exploiting anarchy, but they likely follow a strong leader of some sort.
Even if this element of the setting isn’t always relevant, it is useful to have an idea of what is going on here. As always, detailing this aspect of the setting can make the difference between a good setting and a great one. If you are finding you are going too much down the rabbit hole, think about how much you will actually use of this. 90% of my world-building hasn’t made it into my books. But, they might. The important thing is to make it detailed enough to be useful and maintain consistency.
Next week, I’ll be writing about how NaNoWriMo is going and other stuff about my stories. Let me know what you want to see posted in the future. See you next Sunday!
