Shopping Mall
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Basic Information

A shopping mall is a building or set of buildings which contain retail units and which are connected via walkways. They also contain miles and miles of service passages, loading bays, cable ducts and air vents that the shopping public rarely, if ever, get to see but which can come in surprisingly useful if you need to do anything … non standard … in the mall.

Out of town malls could conceivably have their own combined heat and power syste and water processing and purification (and the more 'environmentally friendly' the mall, the more likely this is) as well as extensive storage facilities.

It is also not beyond the bounds of possibility for a mall developer to have been forced to add public amenities to the site as part of their planning consent.

The mall is pretty much the direct descendant of the ancestral marketplace.

See Also

  • Dead Mall - a shopping mall at the end of its life cycle
  • Mall Ninja - badass security guard or deranged lunatic? You decide!

Sources

Bibliography

Shopping Mall Maps (External Links)

Game and Story Use

  • Shopping malls can become instant dungeons - just add some kind of menace, such as zombies, demonic invaders, or just a street gang or a group of terrorists trying to hold out there. And the familiarity of such places can bring the horror closer to home to the players, as this "safe place" is invaded by others.
  • The Night Mall scenario for Delta Green is an excellent example for a horror adventure set in a shopping mall.
  • In an after the end scenario - or even just a civil war - a mall might well make a good base for a faction.
  • A really large mall might even approach (non-residential) arcology status.
  • You might even posit a mall that serves as a micronation - even in a fairly functional (but libertarian) nation; some kind of "free port" state on a boundary between other nations where people meet to trade.
  • Also fairly popular in cyberpunk corporate states.
    • Indeed a lot of near future Sci-fi, especially cyberpunk, features the mallplex - a combination shopping mall and residential block. Similar things already exist.
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