The Haunches is a district just above the water line before the husk’s tail disappears underwater. Its side has been chiseled open by industrious laborers, fifteen archways each twenty yards tall leading in and out of the city proper. Five of them lead from private piers to a reputable and walled-off section of the Haunches reserved for esteemed guests and deliveries meant for the upper levels of the city. The rest of the piers connect to the Blue Esplanade, Lathe’s beating heart of petty trade.
Where the Jade District is more about exquisite wares, the Haunches is the place for mundane commodities. Cobblers and flute-makers hawk their wares next to the stalls of fishermen and fruit pickers from the nearby islands. Cheap bunk houses cater to the clients of street prostitutes as well as poor travelers in need of sleep and the crowds are seeded with cut-purses and orphans who pester newcomers for coin. The vast majority of ordinary people in Lathe live in the Haunches, its residential areas built in multiple stories to accommodate everyone. Street kitchens and noodle bars are mixed with open-front workshops and seedy sailor bars and though poverty runs rampant the people here tend to smile more than frown.
One of the local inns of note is called Little Dreams, set aside from the docks but still quite popular. The inn is run by a wily shark-headed beastman who goes by the name of Foshoro. Foshoro was reasonably wealthy and important under the old satrap’s regime until Cathak Ogata seized power and stripped the mutant of everything he owned. Luckily the beastman had a few secret stashes set aside for such an occasion and he used them to get back up on his webbed feet. He makes a modest living with the inn, but his real income comes from the secret gambling den and tea house one can access from the inn’s basement. Foshoro secretly plots the downfall of the satrap with a few select disgruntled peers, and is therefore quite happy to let in the Realm’s enemies and offer them shelter. He is locally known for his euergetic ways as he tries to enrichen the poor communities of the Haunches by funding schools, healers and starting entrepreneurs from his own pocket.