History Main / HubCity

Compare with TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse and BigApplesauce, when ''everything'' takes place in Tokyo or New York; compare also BritainIsOnlyLondon for how this can effect the standing of a city being considered representative of the whole region. See MerchantCity for the capitalist version, and HolyCity for the religious equivalent--either one could overlap. Often has shades of ShiningCity. May also be a HubLevel.

Not to be confused with [[ComicBook/TheQuestion Hub City]] from Franchise/TheDCU, which is a poster-child for ViceCity.

* Despite the local axiom that all roads lead ''away'' from Ankh-Morpork, especially if you run fast enough and are determined enough, events on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' all seem to start or get resolved here. for a city which cultivates a deliberate air of being poor, shabby and broke, it is the largest human city on the Disc and is getting bigger almost by the day. Carrot points out that Ankh-Morpork is also the biggest ''dwarf'' city on the Disc, although the other residents hardly realize this due to how little fuss the dwarves generally make.

* Sharn, the city of towers, in the continent of Khorvaire and Stormreach in Xen'drik in the setting of ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' act as this. It's worth pointing out that Stormreach is the one city by which all traffic to Xen'drik transits, and most of that traffic usually leaves from Sharn. Before Cyre blew up, it's capital city, Metrol, used to be the largest Metropolis, in no small part thanks to hosting the HQ of the most powerful [[MegaCorp Dragonmarked House]].

** ''Classic'' had the six capitals of the playable races (trolls and gnomes didn't have any): Stormwind, Ironforge and Darnassus for the Alliance and Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff and Undercity. By its end, they all had the same amenities, and the same is true in modern ''World of Warcraft Classic'', but early in the game, only two capitals (Ironforge and Orgrimmar) had auction houses, meaning that most players congregated there. Once auction houses were added elsewhere, the playerbase became more evenly spread across all capitals, with Orgrimmar (once again) and Stormwind being the most popular as world buffs from killing raid bosses could be received there.

** ''Legion'' saw the return of Dalaran, which was moved to the expansion's new high-level zone of the Broken Isles (we even see how it teleports in-game). Due to the expansion's focuses on playable classes, every individual class also got its own "Order Hall"[[note]]Acherus for the death knights, the Fel Hammer for demon hunters, the Dreamgrove for druids, the Trueshot Lodge for hunters, the Hall of the Guardian for mages, the Temple of Five Dawns for monks, the Hall of Shadows for rogues, the Heart of Azeroth for shamans, the Dreadscar Rift for warlocks and the Skyhold for warriors[[/note]], which functions similarily to the ''Warlords'' garrisons but is shared.

* ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'' has ''four'' Capital Cities, each one of the capital planet of the Houses: Manhattan, New London, New Tokyo and New Berlin. In terms of where the player can actually go, however, they have the same four locations as every other planet, station and outpost in the game: the Landing Pad, the Bar, the Ship Dealer, and the Trader.

* ''VideoGame/DragonsDogma'' has Gran Soren, which is oft described by Pawns as "the beating heart of all Gransys". It's the royal capital of the realm and has several amenities, including an inn where you can rest and handle your vocations, a Pawn Guild, bulletin boards with job listings, and a fair number of stores and venders. [[spoiler: Subverted, the city would eventually collapse once you killed the dragon, and the true nature of [[VeryDefiniteFinalDungeon Everfall]] [[WhereItAllBegan would be revealed]].]]

* ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' has Jita, which is so busy that it has its own dedicated nodes to run it and special rules to manage the traffic. Other market hubs include Amarr, Dodixie and Rens. Putting some numbers to this, Jita regularly tops 1000 people. It usually has about 2% of the entire active population at any given time, while there are some 7500 other systems.

* [=YouTube=] in ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm''. It’s the largest city in the game, and the one that you’ll be revisiting after each of the next few chapters. It’s also the home of the eBuy department store and the Battle Arena.

* Not even an RPG, ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' has Station Square. This is where you start out (with most characters), and it has three full Action Stages in it (the first of which is quite large) -- Speed Highway, Emerald Coast and Casinopolis.

** New Reno got all the developer love in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'', but the New California Republic's capital city was also very important in terms of the story since it belongs to the largest faction in the game universe, and there are much more shops there. San Francisco was pretty important in the last quarter of the game as their shops offer many end game high-tec equipment that you can't get from anywhere else.

** For the first game, it's mostly self-contained mission areas, but Hell's Kitchen, Hong Kong and Paris act like this, as well as the UNATCO HQ [[spoiler: until JC turns against them]].

** In ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', there are essentially two hub cities: Detroit in the United States and Lower Hengsha in China. Although Montreal and and Upper Hengsha were supposed to be hub cities as well, they were DummiedOut and reduced to single levels at the last minute.

* Millenium City in ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' is this, as well as a CityOfAdventure. The trope mostly focuses on Renaissance Center, which is the one stop shop for everything in the game. Other zones have conveniences as well, but nothing comes close to [=RenCen=].
* In ''Videogame/{{Borderlands}}'' the town of New Haven is the closest thing to civilization you'll find, and you'll frequently return there for new quests or to buy/sell loot. In ''Videogame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', there's the much more prominent hub of Sanctuary, which serves as the Crimson Raiders' base, as well as your own, and it contains the largest concentration of vendors, certain respawning [=NPCs=], a buttload of quests, a safe for storing extra money and items, Claptrap's secret stash (which lets you transfer items between your characters), a Quick-Change station for changing your look and reassigning your skill points, and several unique vendors (including Crazy Earl's Black Market and the Golden Chest). It's your home on Pandora. It also happens to be the only area that levels up with you during the main story, so the vending machines will always be worth checking. ''Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' has the slightly-less prominent Concordia, which functions much like Sanctuary but with some new additions: a Grinder to combine unwanted items, a bar with cocktails that give you special effects for a while, and [[AntiFrustrationFeatures a station to enter SHiFT codes and redeem their rewards]]. Unlike Sanctuary, it loses plot focus about halfway through the game, and since all vending machines level with you this time around, there's not as much incentive to keep coming back.

* The first three home console ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' games have each a rural or coastal hub village for the offline campaign, and a larger, more populated city for the online campaign. The handheld games prior to the fourth generation have only one hub village for both campaigns (since those games only have local multiplayer support; the multiplayer quests are accepted within an indoors gathering hall). In both cases, the locations serve as residences for most of the non-playable characters, and are also places authorized by the Hunter Guild to host quests for hunters to accept. The trope is averted in the fourth generation games, due to the presence of multiple villages and cities, meaning that there's no actual central hub.[[note]]Story-wise, each area has its own set of quests, but in practice ''any'' single-player quest can be accepted from anywhere. In contrast, the multiplayer quests can only be accepted in the gathering halls that support their corresponding ranks.[[/note]] The names of the hub villages and cities are:
** Kokoto Village (all first-generation entries, single player; multiplayer in ''Freedom'')

** Yukumo Village (''Monster Hunter Portable 3rd'', single player; multiplayer in PSP and online in [=PS3=])

** London, England is a commuter city to an extreme -- more people work there than actually live there, and a large amount of towns are known as satellite towns due to many of their residents commuting to London for work and a lack of local industry. The place is much more concerned with modern infrastructure than elsewhere. In addition, when meeting people from overseas, it is common to cite your town's proximity to London. This is somewhat in contrast with the north of England where a number of cities have made their marks in their own right.

* A medium-sized university town called Hattiesburg, Mississippi is also known as "Hub City" or simply "The Hub," but mainly because of several historic train-routes which once met there. To call it that is stretching the definition of "city" a bit, but the central location means it does fall within driving distance of several larger cities, including New Orleans.

** Kamura (''VideoGame/MonsterHunterRise'', single- and miltiplayer)

** Yukumo Village (''Monster Hunter Portable 3rd'', single player, multiplayer in PSP and online in [=PS3=])

** The ''[=L5R=]'' spinoff LegendOfTheBurningSands is almost entirely based around Medinat al-Salaam, the [[{{Irony}} City of Peace]]. Travelers from all over the world eventually find their way here.

** L5R spinoff LegendOfTheBurningSands is almost entirely based around Medinat al-Salaam, the [[{{Irony}} City of Peace]]. Travelers from all over the world eventually find their way here.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has capital cities for almost every race, but only two on each side are ever visited in any large numbers:
** For the Alliance there's Stormwind (the Human capital) and Ironforge (Dwarves and Gnomes), and for the Horde there's Orgrimmar (Orcs and Trolls) and the Undercity (Undead). The other racial capitals are rarely visited unless a player is questing, due to their remote locations (though some players prefer the less popular capitals if they're running on a slower system, especially during peak hours). As a result, the new races in ''Cataclysm'' will simply be given districts in existing cities: Darnassus (the Night Elf capital) for the Worgen and Orgrimmar for the Goblins.
** Sizable [[TruceZone neutral cities]] also exist, notably Shattrath, Dalaran, the Temple of Earth, and most Goblin cities, with Ratchet and Booty Bay being the most popular.
** The extended palace complex in the Vale of Eternal Spring offers services to both factions in their own areas, access to high-level quests, and the final raid of the expansion.
** The former capital of the fallen nation of Lordaeron used to be either called Lordaeron or the Capital City prior to its destruction by the Scourge. Ten thousand years ago, the capital of the [[OurElvesAreDifferent Night Elves]] was Zin-Azshari, which was swallowed by water during the Sundering. Thanks to a DealWithTheDevil, the city was not destroyed but sank to the bottom of the sea intact.
** For reference, the other major current capitals are Exodar (Draenei) and Gilneas City (Worgen) for the Alliance and Thunder Bluff (Tauren), Silvermoon (Blood Elves) and Bilgewater Harbor (Goblins) for the Horde.

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* The cities of [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Celadon, Saffron]], [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Goldenrod, Ecruteak]], [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Mauville, Lilycove]], [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Jubilife, Hearthome]], [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Castelia, Nimbasa]], and [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Lumiose]] from the various ''Pokémon'' games.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' muddles this trope. Whiterun ultimately fits the description best as it is the HubCity of Skyrim due to its central location. However, due to the Civil War, the political hub cities of Skyrim are Solitude (for Imperial-aligned) and Windhelm (for Stormcloak-aligned) and both are large cities with port access to the other side of the country. Add into this the fact that all the Hold Capitals are Hub Cities for their holds... well, it's complicated.

* Slightly averted in ''VideoGame/RavenmarkScourgeOfEstellion''. While the political center of the Empire of Estellion is the city of Atium, where the Obsidian Perch (TheEmperor's throne) is located, the economic and social hub of the Empire is most definitely in the Twin Cities of Whitewater and Istoni (connected by bridges across the Deverra river). This is where the four Queens (think of them as department heads) rule. There are other fairly-sized cities in the game, although you only know that from the in-game [[AllThereInTheManual Codex]]: East Isle (a rebellious recently-conquered island city), Halfling Quarter (a [[{{Hobbits}} Jackdaw]] city built into a huge crack in the ground), Silvergate (capital of the Commonwealth of Esotre), New Carsis (capital of the Kaysani), Redemptor’s Watch (a smaller Kaysani city; HQ of the Redeemers).

* Each game in the ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' series has one, and it's from there where the player's party can access the inn to rest and save the progress, the shop to buy and sell goods, the bar to accept sidequests and talk to non-playable characters, the office of the city's political ruler to accept story missions, the explorer guilds' gathering hall to recruit and manage party members, and the exit that leads to the Yggdrasil Tree (or the overworld leading to it, in the case of ''Legends of the Titan'' and ''Nexus'') where most of the adventure takes place. The names of the cities are: Etria (first game and ''Millenium Girl''), High Lagaard (''Heroes of Lagaard'' and ''The Fafnir Knight''), Armoroad (''The Drowned City''), Tharsis (''Legends of the Titan''), Iorys (''Beyond the Myth''), and Maginia (''Nexus'').

* ''Franchise/{{Ys}}'' series:

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* It's not primarily from a game, but Coruscant in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe fits this trope well. The entire planet is a big city and inevitably important for any galactic civilization -- it was the Republic's capital [[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic four thousand years before the movies]], the Empire kept it and [[PleaseSelectNewCityName renamed it Imperial Center]][[note]]though it's pointed out in the third ''[[ComicBook/XWingSeries Rogue Squadron]]'' novel, which mostly takes place there, that only a handful of the most fanatical Imperial loyalists actually call it that[[/note]], the New Republic took it back and restored the name, the Vong took it, terraformed it, and renamed it again, on and on. It is described in ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' as a world that can only rule or die, as it has an enormous population, has to import everything but people, and in effect exports only politicians, soldiers, and laws.
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* Each game in the ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' series has one, and it's from there where the player's party can access the inn to rest and save the progress, the shop to buy and sell goods, the bar to accept sidequests and talk to non-playable characters, the office of the city's political ruler to accept story missions, the explorer guilds' gathering hall to recruit and manage party members, and the exit that leads to the Yggdrasil Tree (or the overworld leading to it, in the case of ''Legends of the Titan'') where most of the adventure takes place. The names of the cities are: Etria (first two games, and by extension their ''Untold'' equivalents), Armoroad (third game), Tharsis (fourth game), and Iorys (fifth game).

* It's not primarily from a game, but Coruscant in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe fits this trope well. The entire planet is a big city and inevitably important for any galactic civilization -- it was the Republic's capital [[KnightsOfTheOldRepublic four thousand years before the movies]], the Empire kept it and [[PleaseSelectNewCityName renamed it Imperial Center]][[note]]though it's pointed out in the third ''[[ComicBook/XWingSeries Rogue Squadron]]'' novel, which mostly takes place there, that only a handful of the most fanatical Imperial loyalists actually call it that[[/note]], the New Republic took it back and restored the name, the Vong took it, terraformed it, and renamed it again, on and on. It is described in ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' as a world that can only rule or die, as it has an enormous population, has to import everything but people, and in effect exports only politicians, soldiers, and laws.

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts'' has Traverse Town.

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsDreamDropDistance'' has Traverse Town again.

* The cities of [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Celadon]], [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Goldenrod]], [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Lilycove]], [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Jubilife]], [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Castelia]], and [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Lumiose]] from the various ''Pokémon'' games.

** Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, and Ul'Dah of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', which are also the starting points of the game depending on your starting class.

* It varies in each ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' game. ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}'' had The Hub as the largest population and trade center of the wastes. New Reno got all the developer love in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'', but the New California Republic's capital city was also very important in terms of the story since it belongs to the largest faction in the game universe, and there are much more shops there. San Francisco was pretty important in the last quarter of the game as their shops offer many end game high-tec equipment that you can't get from anywhere else. VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}} was more decentralized, with no real cities. Megaton and Rivet City were the biggest, with Rivet City being bigger and having a better market, while Megaton had more plot and player housing. Like in the second game, the Citadel was big after The Waters of Life. In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', the eponymous city is in almost all ways. While it's only the center of political power for Mr. House and the Families, all the major factions have an interest in it. ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' has two such cities: one is Diamond City, the "green jewel of the Commonwealth", built in the ruins of Boston's real-life Fenway Park baseball stadium, hence its name. The other is Goodneighbor, which seems like a WretchedHive in comparison with its population of addicts and grifters, but is a safe haven for all who enter, even ghouls ([[FantasticRacism who are barred from entering Diamond City]]).

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series gives us several examples:

*** ''Oblivion'' partially subverts this by starting the main character out at the Imperial City prison sewer exit. While this does place the character closest to the Imperial City on the main map, the usual progression for a first-time player is to follow the first quest, which immediately takes you to Weynon Priory, just outside the city of Chorrol. The Imperial City is available to travel to at any time, though.
*** Also subverted in the form of Kvatch, which is nearly as large as the Imperial City and even has an arena. It's subverted because the city gets [[KickTheDog razed to the ground by the invading Daedra]] before the player ever gets to see it. When you do get inside, it's nothing more than burning buildings and rubble.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'':
*** ''Skyrim'' muddles this trope. Whiterun ultimately fits the description best as it is the HubCity of Skyrim due to its central location. However, due to the Civil War, the political hub cities of Skyrim are Solitude (for Imperial-aligned) and Windhelm (for Stormcloak-aligned) and both are large cities with port access to the other side of the country. Add into this the fact that all the Hold Capitals are Hub Cities for their holds... well, it's complicated.
*** Whiterun ultimately is this city for players though because it contains much of the main plot, BoringYetPractical layout, 2 blacksmiths, the Companions, and is hub for most of the quests in game. Not to mention it has Breezehome, the cheapest and most readily accessible [[AHomeOwnerIsYou Player Home]] in the game.

* Bowerstone from the ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}'' games. Partially subverted in both games in that the player visits Bowertone fairly early on.

* Pretty much any city from ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'', but you'll find the place that your leader hides out will be the most commonly visited because sucking up to him is a great way to keep your place in your faction.

* Millenium City in ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' is this, as well as a CityOfAdventure. The trope mostly focuses on Renaissance Center, which is the one stop shop for pretty much everything in the game. Other zones have conveniences as well, but nothing comes close to [=RenCen=].
* In ''Videogame/{{Borderlands}}'' the town of New Haven is the closest thing to civilization you'll find, and you'll frequently return there for new quests or to buy/sell loot. In ''Videogame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', there's the much more prominent hub of Sanctuary, which serves as the Crimson Raiders' base, as well as your own, and it contains the largest concentration of vendors, certain respawning [=NPCs=], a buttload of quests, a safe for storing extra money and items, Claptrap's secret stash (which lets you transfer items between your characters), a Quick-Change station for changing your look and reassigning your skill points, and several unique vendors (including Crazy Earl's Black Market and the Golden Chest). It's pretty much your home on Pandora. It also happens to be the only area that levels up with you during the main story, so the vending machines will always be worth checking. ''Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' has the slightly-less prominent Concordia, which functions much like Sanctuary but with some new additions: a Grinder to combine unwanted items, a bar with cocktails that give you special effects for a while, and [[AntiFrustrationFeatures a station to enter SHiFT codes and redeem their rewards]]. Unlike Sanctuary, it loses plot focus about halfway through the game, and since all vending machines level with you this time around, there's not as much incentive to keep coming back.

** Lumiose City is based on Paris. If the Eiffel Tower expy didn't tip you off, maybe the fact that it's the biggest and most important city in a France-based region will.

* Millenium City in ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' is this, as well as a CityOfAdventure. The trope mostly focuses on Renaissance Center, which is the one stop shop for pretty much everything in the game. Other zones have conveniences as well, but nothing comes close to RenCen.

* Trantor in Isaac Asimov's Literature/{{Foundation}} saga, which was the primary inspiration for Coruscant.

* ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' has the Imperial capital world of Kaitain, where all the galactic politics is centered. The prequels reveal that, prior to Kaitain, the capital was situated on Salusa Secundus, until a rogue House nuked the planet, turning it into a {{Deathworld}} prison planet, while House Corrino moved their seat to Kaitain.

** Rabanastre from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', also the first town. Archadia's capital Archades is also quite large, but not on the same scale and not as friendly.
*** More importantly, there aren't nearly as many places to go in Archades due to its taxi system and being impossible to get around otherwise, cutscenes show it to actually be quite large.

* Similarly, ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' has a few for most of the games:

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has capital cities for almost every race, but only two on each side are ever visited in any large numbers: for the Alliance there's Stormwind (the Human capital) and Ironforge (Dwarves and Gnomes), and for the Horde there's Orgrimmar (Orcs and Trolls) and the Undercity (Undead). The other racial capitals are rarely visited unless a player is questing, due to their remote locations (though some players prefer the less popular capitals if they're running on a slower system, especially during peak hours). As a result, the new races in ''Cataclysm'' will simply be given districts in existing cities: Darnassus (the Night Elf capital) for the Worgen and Orgrimmar for the Goblins.

* Meltokio in ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' and Midgard in ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia''.
** Every ''[[VideoGame/TalesSeries Tales]]'' game has at least one. ''VideoGame/TalesOfEternia'' had two, one for each planet the player can visit.
*** ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' also had two. Zaphias, the Capital of TheEmpire and Dangrest, the capital of the [[TheAlliance the Guild Union]].

* Most of the action in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' takes place in Paragon City, while most of ''City of Villains'' takes place in the Rogue Islands. Occasionally the two sides cross over.
** Despite the fact that the entire game takes place in cities, each one has a Hub District that fits this trope: Atlas Park for heroes, Cap Au Diable for villains, and Imperial City for Praetorians.

* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' has three of these, one for each continent. Lion's Arch in Tyria, Kaineng Centre in Cantha (Which is only the administrative centre of Kaineng City, which covers roughly half of Cantha, making Kaineng the best example of this trope in Guild Wars), and Kamadan, Jewel of Istan in Elona. these three places are the centres of player trading and chat in their respective campaigns, and are distinguished by being the places you have to go to have access to travel to the other continents.

* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'', set in Neverwinter, is a [[GameplayAndStorySegregation relatively large]] city. Not only is the first entire section of the game set ''exclusively'' in the metropolis, but one comes back to it for the final battle.
** Hordes of the Underdark, meanwhile, subverts it: you start off in Waterdeep, which plays this role to the ''[[TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms setting]]''... with only a (small) city block available for exploration, and not that much to do; the main part of the chapter is about exploring Halaster's Undermountain.

* ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' has Jita, which is so busy that it has its own dedicated nodes to run it and special rules to manage the traffic. Other market hubs include Amarr, Dodixie and Rens.
** Putting some numbers to this, Jita regularly tops 1000 people. It usually has about 2% of the entire active population at any given time, while there are some 7500 other systems.

* The huge, multi-layered Ceres City seems to take up nearly half the game in ''VideoGame/AlterAila Genesis''.
** In the original, the Slums serve as a hub for most routes; among other benefits, technological genius Tinder lives there.

* The first three home console ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' games have each a rural or coastal hub village for the offline campaign, and a larger, more populated city for the online campaign. The handheld games prior to the fourth generation have only one hub village for both campaigns (since those games only have local multiplayer support; the multiplayer quests are accepted within an indoors gathering hall). In both cases, the locations serve as residences for most of the non-playable characters, and are also places authorized by the Hunter Guild to host quests for hunters to accept. The trope is averted in the games from the fourth generation onwards, due to the presence of multiple villages and cities, meaning that there's no actual central hub.[[note]]Story-wise, each area has its own set of quests, but in practice ''any'' single-player quest can be accepted from anywhere. In contrast, the multiplayer quests can only be accepted in the gathering halls that support their corresponding ranks[[/note]]. The names of the hub villages and cities are:

** Hordes of the Underdark, meanwhile, subverts it: you start off in Waterdeep, which plays this role to the ''[[ForgottenRealms setting]]''... with only a (small) city block available for exploration, and not that much to do; the main part of the chapter is about exploring Halaster's Undermountain.