Dragon City is the biggest city on Draconis, the world where the Dragon Booster show takes place. The city is built in different layers in an almost vertical fashion and extends for 20kms (12 and a half miles) up into the sky. In general, the higher areas of the city are the more modern and high-class, whereas those further below are more industrial, poor and ancient.
Sun City[]
Built only over the last 200 years, Sun City is a sight to behold. Filled with ultra-modern, almost impossible dragon-inspired structures, Sun City pierces the tangle of the mid-city levels as it reaches high into the sky above. Comprising only the top kilometer of the city, it is truly the only place in Dragon City where the direct sun shines. Sun City is home to the most powerful and influential of Dragon City's inhabitants and contains all of the government, corporate headquarters, university and science and technology centers in Dragon City. This is also where the very top of the Paynn Incorporated spire is located.
Sun City is also home to the Elite class racing track which twists and turns throughout the city for literally hundreds of kilometers. Cradled and suspended across the very rooftops, it resembles a mad jumble of ribbons and belts dropped onto the spires and shoulders of the upper city. A fall off the edge of one of the turns can send you plummeting straight down through the city the full kilometer to the abandoned and lightless bottom. That is if you aren't lucky enough to land on the cross streets, bridges or ramps of one of the lower levels. Here the drama of city versus city sport is played out by the professional Elite Class racers, who battle like the modern day gladiators and inspire the other racers of Dragon City to follow in their footsteps.
Mid City[]
Below the exclusive Sun City sits the cramped and overpopulated "Mid-City". Constructed mostly 300 or so years ago, the vast majority of Dragon City's residents live somewhere within these deeply shadowed and densely packed five vertical kilometers of city. As with all things in Dragon City, up costs more and down is less desirable.
Unlike the upper city, here in mid-city the architecture is a very liberal mixture of styles and ages. Sometimes it looks ancient and unchanged and other times it is a kludge of old and new. Mid-city also encompasses hundreds of different retail and business areas that are stitched throughout the various different "communities". Here, corporations use entire electronic building facades for video ads or for live racing feeds. Advertising is more prevalent here, primary because it is here that the consumers live and work. Mid City is also home to the Penn Stables and the Penn Racing Crew.
Mid City is also home to the famous All City Racing circuit, the place where all the teen wannabes of Dragon City hope of being discovered by the powerful Elite Class Racing teams. All City Racing takes place almost exclusively in the cramped side-streets and alleys of Mid City with some use of larger Elite Class style tracks. Races often go through malls, side streets, alleys and down access roads, ventilation shafts and such. Racers know the route because the electronic street surfaces change colour under them to show where the track is headed.
Work Town[]
Existing for over 500 years, Work Town is part of the vast industrial revolution of Dragon City, a second age of power and commerce long after the almost magical and forgotten times of Gold Draconium power and ancient dragon temples. Nearly three kilometers deep, Work Town is alove and vital and extremely blue collar. Most of the workers who work here come from down-city and most of the kids in Down City and Squire's End can expect to end up working somewhere on this level.
Work Town is the home of industry and hard goods manufacturing. This is where dragon racing gear is built, not all of which makes it to the legal markets, and where huge factories sprawl in every direction and where huge hydroponic farms supply food for the upper city through a vast system of elevators and access shafts. Some of these Agri-pods have access to sunlight from above through a system of mirrors and light grids but for the most part, Work Town is in the dark and lit almost exclusively by the fires of industry.
Work Town is very much like a living machine. Many of the huge support structures that hold up Mid City and Sun City are prominent in Work Town which reinforces the symbolic function of the people working here; that is, serving and holding up the bigger machine that is Dragon City. Here, everything is huge in scale next to people.
Precinct[]
Built throughout a part of the ancient Shadow City, that is nearly 1000 years old, Precinct occupies the area that once served as a security buffer zone between the lawless lower depths and the under-construction Work Town and Mid City. Today, Precinct is an ultra-modern fortress of law and order. Built within a central core of walls and fences, Precinct looks like a giant spider and it beats like a steady heart deep at the center of Dragon City.
It has spires of tunnels that radiate out from it and feed up and down into Dragon City and out to distant satellite outposts to allow Dragon City Security forces to deliver Gargoyle Pursuit Dragons and mammoth Station Class Jail Dragons wherever needed. Precinct is the home of Captain Faier and his dedicated team of security officials.
Lit like a Christmas tree, Precinct can be seen like an eerie glow in part of both Work Town and Shadow Town. Precinct is only about a mile from top to bottom but spreads its long arms of the law for hundreds of miles in every direction.
Shadow Town[]
Deeper under the city and nearly three miles from top to bottom, is the almost-forgotten Shadow Town. Here, massive magma-electric plants hum and thunder to supply the entire city with its non-draconium power. While nearly 1500 years old, these plants are well maintained and are huge in scale. Turbines the size of a small downtown and gigantic gears, winches and cables move all around this level, creating the sensation that a visitor is inside a machine rather than working next to one.
The sparse but severely dedicated population of Shadow Town are like the engineers on a large passenger ship- you hardly ever see them. They are the custodians and operators of these vast and ancient power plants, which are a technological bland of natural planetary heat and water power. The inhabitants of Shadow Town are dirty and hardened but filled with a sense of greater purpose. There is no light in Shadow Town except for the huge arcs of electricity and lightning created by the vast power plants.
Down City and Squire's End[]
Mostly abandoned, the 2000 year old Down City is the home of Squire's End and the dangerous Down City Crews of Dragon City. It is also where the poor or lower income families live in large blocks of closely built and city run apartments. Like Shadow Town, Down City lies in a perpetual night except for the neon lights and lightning of the Down City Crews who for the most part, douse their "turf" with the predominant colour of their draconium affiliation.
Three miles deep, Down City and Squire's End are full of abandoned buildings, ranging from old broken power plants constantly belching water from broken mains to dilapidated palatial estates that lack any kind of modern conveniences. This strange mix of architecture gives the dirty Down City an air of history to it, although an obviously forgotten history.
This works well since the Down City Crews are the remnants of the splintered factions of Dragon Empires who once reduced the planet to war. They don't realise that their very homes are built upon the very tops of the ancient temples of Dragon City's magical but war-torn past. One of these temple tops, unknown to the very Down City Crews who use it, is the home of the Down City Crew Council Chamber. The tough street racer Kitt Wonn was born and maintains a home here. Several times mentioned in the show is that Squire's End is so dangerous, and the crews here so unruly, that even Dragon City Security does not patrol there.
Old City and the Wastelands of Loan[]
Only the fiery Dragon Flares Crew, Mortis and some of the more dangerous and hidden creatures of Dragon City dare to live down here in the very bottom four miles of Dragon City. The Temple Level houses are the vast network of Dragon Temples where humans and dragons once lived and worked side by side as equals, and also contains the remnants of the golden draconium powered technology that once unified a planet. While almost entirely dark, the now deeply pitted and tarnished golden draconium panels, machinery and artwork glow a cold eerie glow when any lifeform, human or dragon, passes by. This, coupled with what is left of the brightly coloured ceramic tiled streets which are now mostly flooded from broken water mains far above, cast a strange and shimmering flicker throughout the area.
It is here in the Old City and the vast Wastelands of Loan that The Keepers Crew live, hiding away from prying eyes. Also found here is the ancient Shadow Track, along with The Prophets and their Track of Doom. Hidden in deep trenches lie Hydrags and in a larger cave, The Muhorta. Despite being mostly a wasteland, this is the only place in Dragon City that is actually set on solid earth rather than being suspended up in the sky, and as a result does have some flora growing amongst the dirt such as Dragon's Bane and the beautiful Star Flower.
Fully 3000 years old, the original Dragon City contains many secrets waiting to be discovered, hidden races of dragons, dangerous old temple ruins and the terrifying and destructive forgotten dragon Bone-Marks. The Old City is where Artha finds the Dragon Priests' Gold Dragon Temple, sitting several miles below Penn Stables, and where he meets the mysterious Mortis and gains the ancient armour of the Dragon Booster. Here is where Artha and his friends discover the incredible history of Dragon City and its ancient and terrifying Dragon-Human War.