The name of this ward come from the many portals leading to the Lower Planes that are found here. This portals caused smoke, cinders and steam fill the air more than in the other ward. The Lower Ward is the source of most of the industrial smog and sulphurous gas that choke the city. Staying too long outside in the ward often causes cutters throats to get raw and their eyes teary; a sickly pallor is visible on the faces of sods that have absorbed the foul miasma for too long, and sometimes pustules and boils dot their skin. Some Cagers have named the different types of smogs: coffinsmoke (better named "coughin'", is the stench of very cheap pipeweed), ironfumes (is the smoke from smelters and smithies), eyesting (are the fumes from alchemists' laboratories), and meatsmoke (is the smoke from curing houses). Every surface of the Lower Ward is covered by the grime and sulphur of the fires. Most statues and roof tiles will be completely eaten away in 40 or 50 years, so statues must be enchanted against corrosion.

The center of the Lower Ward is the Great Foundry (the Godsmen headquarters), perhaps the main cause of the almost unbreathable air of the ward. Lightless warehouses, smoky mills, ringing forges and a host of other workshops fill the area around it. The ruins of the Temple of Aoskar are a distinctive mark of the ward and a memento of the power and rage of The Lady of Pain: eons ago, the power Aoskar dared to challenge The Lady, now it's presumed dead and drifting on the Astral Plane. The Athar, who say all gods are frauds, set up their headquarters in the ruins of the temple, that now is called the Shattered Temple. Many folks of the Lower Ward are secretive and stubborn and craftsmen seem to have got mysterious trade secrets, so they are always peery of their customers. The back alleys of the ward are haunted by fiends and populated by the sods who slip out of the Hive by night. Few are the Harmonium patrols, and not very strong, and most of the citizens think they have to take care of themselves.