Sports

The Arena isn't the only entertainment in the metropolis, and other games and sports have their own following.

The Pit Circuit
Pit Circuit, know to fighters simply as "The Pits", is the road every fighter must walk on their way to the Arena. Until they get their Big Break and they enter The Guts for the first time, every fighter starts in The Pits - all the various fighting venues outside the Arena itself. A few are actual pits, but every tavern with a ring or privately owned courtyard can become a venue for low-level fighters to gain a reputation and a few coin. More eccentric organizers may even claim an abandoned tower or decommissioned gondola for fights.

Some are all about the pageantry; others are notoriously brutal. One thing separates The Pit Circuit from the Arena: fights to the death are illegal. Without the enchanted sand of the Arena, a fighter that sees the Kingdom of Death can't cross back.

Marvelous Marathon: Racedis Towers
24 Teams. Checkpoints hidden around the city. The last team to reach each checkpoint is eliminated. This is... Marvelous Marathon: Racedis Towers!

Checkpoints are hidden all throughout the city, each requiring a test that challenges the teams' cunning, might, or finesse. Each Marathon will usually have a theme (some more popular or successful than others) tying the checkpoints together, and the teams are often characterized by their own theme: Arena Fighters, Frontier Folk, etc.

Each checkpoint is sponsored by a business or group that bid to be featured on the route. The Marvelous Marathon is a widely publicized city-spanning affair, with lots of money going into its production and advertisement. Featured sponsors can expect a serious boost to their business after being featured at a checkpoint.

Boomerangtang
A street-sport played by the rough-and-tumble youth of Racedis Towers. Each player rides a Boomstaff, a thunder-powered pogo-stick enabling them to launch themselves (and others) great distances up, down, and sideways through the criss-crossing skybridges of Racedis Towers

The rules are unclear, as matches may travel across multiple districts over an hour - rules may even be different depending on which underground league initiates the match.

A Boomstaff is a rough-hewn staff made of the wood of a tree struck by lightening. Striking the end of the staff releases some of the trapped thunder within, with a deafening and forceful BOOM!

Menagerie
The most common form of a game of Menagerie takes place on a long, narrow court, recalling its origins on the city's skybridges. At each end stands an anxious team of 12, guarding a large iron cage, eyeing the rough-stitched leather ball in the center between the two teams. When the bell rings, each team will launch into action - because when the bell rings, that ball will transform into a beast at random. It could be anything; a chicken, a basilisk, an owlbear, a silverback gorilla, a sturgeon. Each team must coax, coerce, or fight the beast into their cage and lock it inside, ending the round and gaining a point for their team.

The Ball
A Menagerie ball is an enchanted ball made of stitched leather, stuffed to a soft, squashy consistency, about a meter across. When it transforms, it grows or shrinks to depict a life-size beast. The beast itself also appears to be a stuffed dummy, but it is fully animated and behaves in the same way at the depicted beast. It transforms at random, but the particular magic of the maker may influence how frequently it transforms, or certain types creatures it's more likely to become - such as favoring aquatic animals, or poisonous ones.

Positions
Each team contrives their own balance of positions: not all teams have the same composition.


 * Turnkey
 * Carries the actual key required to lock the cages, ending the round.
 * Lure
 * Specialists in attracting all manner of beasts, usually using food. They crisscross the court with buckets of meat or vegetation to guide the beast's path.
 * Keeper
 * Big, burly folks who go head-to-head with beasts to physically move them.
 * Curator
 * Studious folk that often double as team captains, Curators identify more exotic beasts and call strategies for their team based on the beast that appears.


 * Kite
 * By various means, from mounts to machines, Kites handle flying beasts.


 * Others
 * Menagerie positions evolve constantly, and teams may seek strange specialists to develop new strategies.

Coop's Mill Run
Although the entire event is simply called "Coop's Mill Run", the Run itself is just one day of a months-long competition to build and race flying machines. Arcanists and mages, even mundane mechaneers will come together into teams to build gadgets, equipment, and machines to help traverse the city on the day of the Run.

Each race has a different starting location, announced far in advance of the Run, and the finish line is always the Arena. Teams may use all manner of gadgetry to get from Point A to Point B, and although flying machines are popular, diverse machines find success in the race and in the various other competitions held at the Run. Some teams prefer to compete for beauty, spectacle, or eccentricity, and there are ribbons to be had for all sorts of categories.

The race stems from the old legend of Coop, the eccentric mill-owner of the Chaffburn Gardens district. One day, the sails of his windmill turned skyward, and emerged as a flying machine from the top of his tower. He flew the damn thing straight into the Arena and landed to thunderous applause.

Burn the Goat
We don't literally burn an actual goat. We used to; now, a team loads onto a floating gondola and defends it against another team bent on bringing the gondola down. I don't know why we kept the name.

Flock of Bubbles
Magical bubbles containing prizes: mobs of people hunt the bubbles as they float through the district to pop one and get a prize. Many scales of this: tiny ones for kids parties, BIG ones for larger celebrations

Tower-Sparring
A campy sparring competition with all competitors on stilts! Participants each represent a tower - very literally, using costumes ranging from rudimentary to elaborate to look like their favorite tower. Pageantry is QUEEN in this high-stepping competition!

Hench
An entirely mundane sport for the tough and the strong - no magic allowed! The absolute biggest folks come together into a square court (though some courts may have more sides for novelty matches) for a simple purpose: retrieve the stone block from the center and bring it back to your side of the square. It's not as simple as it sounds, though. Each side has its own competitor, and this is a full-contact sport. Hench courts (and the surrounding spectators) are some of the sweatiest action in the city!

Parkour
Though not an official sport, parkour is a widely popular pastime in the Towers. Groups run the spectrum of experience and daring. Beginner groups may require feather tokens, while hardcore groups may kick you out for running with a feather token - you survive on skill alone.