DontEvenAsk
2016-12-15, 04:13 PM
http://i40.tinypic.com/29gkkn8.jpg
...but with more mountains. And the city should properly be on both sides of the river. It's not a perfect fit, fine. But it's pretty durned close, ya dig me?
A crisp early spring morning makes the city of Dalachros, fed as it is by the River Morgen, green and vibrant. Whatever land around the Morgen Road is flat enough to make camp on is carpeted with colorful tents and caravans; flower urchins, children of indeterminate origins who pass out wreaths and necklaces of the spring's first flowers, dart between the camps.
It's festival season in Dalachros, and performers from all over the continent are flocking to its gates in droves. Viasus is the month of Wee Jas, whom the Luxites called Viasa, and its first market week is a celebration of her and her husband Obad-Hai's triumph over winter and the entropy god Nerull. In Dalachros, the week following that makes up the Dalachdan, eight days of celebration in honor of the founder of the city, King Dalach, and his journey east to found the city now called the Jewel of the Midlands. Hordes of entertainers come as part of the festivities, making the journey as soon as the mountain passes open; the Dalachros harbor is busy as foreign dignitaries from distant Cadia come to offer gifts of the New Year to their royal 'cousin' King Aydan and other nobles.
Your small circus troupe, as a band of locals, is able to make it in early with the first wave and claim a choice camp spot near the city gates. This isn't your first time participating in the New Year festivities, and you have a respectable reputation as a cut above the majority among the usual local troupes and itinerant merchants who arrive about when you do. Shortly after your arrival, a priestess of Wee Jas (Divine Bard 4) stops by, as usual, to ward your caravans against theft. New Year's performers are sacrosanct, so stealing from them is insured against and strictly forbidden by the Jasite Church. You vaguely recognize the woman as the usual priestess assigned to this stretch of land. Her name is Initiate Sorcha, and she greets you cordially.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cd/a2/a7/cda2a796c280512e27f6a5d242116d3f.jpg
"Good day," she says with a genuine smile, taking out two small silver bells that chime softly in her hand. "The Mother Superior extends her blessings of the season to you on behalf of Our Stern Lady. Happy New Year!" Without another word she kneels in the heather and begins to perform the warding rites. She murmurs a verse of a traditional protective chant, her voice low and crooning - Otto recognizes it as a common lullaby in the area. Power builds in the air, like a light breeze that yet doesn't ruffle the grass. At last she rings the first bell, and the sound, though small, gives off unearthly echoes. She repeats the process for the other caravan, then stands and dusts off her skirts.
To Adi and Otto she hands each a length of silver wire, twisted into an elaborate knot. "The password is jilraaluth," she says. "Keep these with you, and you'll be able to hear the ward go off from anywhere in the city. Please, make yourself comfortable in Dalachros. We are honored to have you as our guests this year." She bows and makes her way to the next campsite.
The citizenry will flood out to the performance greens or congregate in public squares to watch the shows come afternoon, but for now, the first half of the day can be safely spent in the city. There's always something interesting happening in Dalachros; its location makes it a nexus for peoples of all lands and all races, so there's bound to be adventure in every alley. The gates are open!
Operating under the assumption that Eldrun speaks Draconic - I don't see her languages listed in her sheet, but as a DFA I think it's a safe bet - she would know that julraaluth means rebirth. Passwords for New Year's wards are usually along the same theme of spring and rejuvenation. Last year's was camlib, which Eldrun would recognize as bloom. Every troupe gets a different password, some in Draconic and some in Celestial. They're thought to be reused from year to year, but shuffled around and mixed in with new ones.http://i.imgur.com/dbyEXmh.png
The river mouth/top of the map is east. The city districts shown on this map are further divided by neighborhoods, such as Dockmarket (the merchant district on the north coast in the shadow of Dalachsfell,) Hallowhall (the temple district, at the top of Dalachsfell,) Spidertown (the drow lightwalker district on the south face of Svartalfell,) and the Academy Quarter (the lowermost parts of the gold upper-class district, where schools arcane and academic are situated.) The mountains are Dalachsfell (the one with the noble district,) Solvensfell (the lower-class one,) and Svartalfell (the one with the rich merchant district on the south side.)
Dalachsfell is the site of the original human settlement in the city, where the founder, King Dalach, and his company first set their shields on the edge of the mountain and built homes of timber on the slopes. To this day Dalachsfell has the most wooden houses of anywhere in the city - most districts use stone, which is much easier to come by hereabouts. Solvensfell has a lot of vergent and silver mines; Svartalfell is where the Undercity opens up - the second layer of Dalachros, a drow city originally known as Chaledor. Drow are generally Chaotic Neutral in this setting, although let it not be said there are no Evil or Good ones. Svartalfell hosts a Temple of Lolth, in direct contrast to the Temple of Corellon on the peak of Dalachsfell (built by the Luxites when they conquered the city; Dalachros is and has always been a very much Jasite and Hain place, and the original highest point of the city was the king's hall, on the secondary peak of Dalachsfell - see that pointy bit right next to the top of the mountain? That's the end of a rock shelf where the royal residence sits.) Chaledor celebrates the Festival of Silks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21221303&postcount=50) in late Viasus; for this reason, many caravans here for the New Year and the Dalachsdan remain throughout the month.
That merchant area west of Solvensfell arose to cater to foreign travellers; most visitors stop by there, and it has the highest concentration of inns and taverns in the city bar Dockmarket. (Dockmarket is where the sailors and dockworkers go to get a drink, so you can see why there'd be taverns there.) The Market Bridges are also good for visitors - the businesses get more upscale the closer the bridge is to the center of the city, but newcomers who arrive by ship generally consider the Market Bridges their first stop. Local gossip more or less keeps the city running, and can be found absolutely anywhere. Yes, even in places you didn't think anybody actually was. Chances are, there's an urchin sleeping in even the most abandoned-looking alley.
Some inhabitants of Dalachros in your 10 Minutes contact lists are:
Lady Lacey Cooper - a madam with whom Avery has an understanding. Her place of business is on the west side of Svartalfell - classier than the plain, function-over-style places you might find on Solvenfell or down by the docks, but not on the level you'd find on the south side of Svartalfell or even the upper-middle-class reaches above Dockmarket. Her employees hail from all over Avitia and represent various races; one ambiguously reptilian woman apparently hails from the distant province of Narsur in the empire of Ri'Huang - the main civilization on the continent of eastern Cadia. Dalachros, as one of the only seaports to offer safe harbor on a coast mostly dominated by the Baerlingen Mountains, is home to many Cadian immigrants.
Tranis Lightlode - a dwarven smith who lives and works in an airy forge/bakery/residence on the south side of Svartalfell. The bakery part belongs to his wife Morrundi, a local Baerling nee Graniterise who married Tranis as part of an interclan treaty. They have three daughters, the eldest of whom, Fimzadi, is Tranis's apprentice. The younger two, Ovana and Bazili, are Morrundi's apprentices. Bazili, unbeknownst to her mother but suspected by her father, works as an amateur detective on the side. Eldrun and Otto, visiting the forge every so often as Tranis worked on their commissions, are familiar with the family and considered welcome houseguests at any time, barring some catastrophe. Tranis owns a mine outside the city, meaning that he pays less for his raw materials than smiths who must purchase vergent and silver ore from the miners on Solvenfell.
Teyver Danholme, a middle-aged halfling fellow and former circusmaster for the troupe. His son, Eric, died tragically several years ago while performing an underwater escape act newly introduced for the New Year. Escapology was not his specialty - he was much more accomplished in adagio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adagio_(acrobatics)), performing with his fiancee Tammeril Redleaf - but the troupe's escapologist, a slippery Darfellan named Thu'kii who had introduced the act, was ill for most of the festival season that year, recovering only a week before the accident. The idea was for a performer to quickly wriggle his way out of a morass of locked chains while submerged in a curtained tank. The chains were wrapped such that they would be slack enough to slip given a bit of time. The tank had an extra door for emergencies, and the performer was provided with three lockpicks in case he found himself unable to free himself in time. However, all these safety measures somehow failed one night after several successful performances - both sets of hinges were apparently accidentally left locked, and when searched, Eric appeared to have forgotten his lockpicks. The boy drowned, trapped in the tank and still bound in chains. Teyver was heartbroken. He had lost his wife to an illness some years before, and his son, still not an adult by halfling reckoning, was all the family he had left. He retired, and now works in a store in the lower slopes of Dalachsfell, overlooking Dockmarket.The knots tied in the wire are what's called josephine knots. Here's what it looks like when you tat a line of them:
http://www.thisntat.com/images/lessons/node.gif
Here's the main caravan
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/e1/7e/3b/e17e3b6ece416df30bcfe01f933b15c7.jpg
http://cyberneticzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/french-steam-horse.jpg
and Adi's caravan
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-TKCpGqKs7QY/UmpDRsJTtWI/AAAAAAAACdQ/gFPG7fX_--4/w720-h639/IMG_41510245819251.jpeg
https://img-new.cgtrader.com/items/129315/large_3drt_-_fantasy_mounts_3d_model_28b88d33-4755-4915-8e4d-40e82dd591e4.jpgRecruitment Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503505-(D-amp-D-3-5)-Performers-and-Entertainers-We)
OOC Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?509036-OOC-Performers-and-Entertainers-We)
...but with more mountains. And the city should properly be on both sides of the river. It's not a perfect fit, fine. But it's pretty durned close, ya dig me?
A crisp early spring morning makes the city of Dalachros, fed as it is by the River Morgen, green and vibrant. Whatever land around the Morgen Road is flat enough to make camp on is carpeted with colorful tents and caravans; flower urchins, children of indeterminate origins who pass out wreaths and necklaces of the spring's first flowers, dart between the camps.
It's festival season in Dalachros, and performers from all over the continent are flocking to its gates in droves. Viasus is the month of Wee Jas, whom the Luxites called Viasa, and its first market week is a celebration of her and her husband Obad-Hai's triumph over winter and the entropy god Nerull. In Dalachros, the week following that makes up the Dalachdan, eight days of celebration in honor of the founder of the city, King Dalach, and his journey east to found the city now called the Jewel of the Midlands. Hordes of entertainers come as part of the festivities, making the journey as soon as the mountain passes open; the Dalachros harbor is busy as foreign dignitaries from distant Cadia come to offer gifts of the New Year to their royal 'cousin' King Aydan and other nobles.
Your small circus troupe, as a band of locals, is able to make it in early with the first wave and claim a choice camp spot near the city gates. This isn't your first time participating in the New Year festivities, and you have a respectable reputation as a cut above the majority among the usual local troupes and itinerant merchants who arrive about when you do. Shortly after your arrival, a priestess of Wee Jas (Divine Bard 4) stops by, as usual, to ward your caravans against theft. New Year's performers are sacrosanct, so stealing from them is insured against and strictly forbidden by the Jasite Church. You vaguely recognize the woman as the usual priestess assigned to this stretch of land. Her name is Initiate Sorcha, and she greets you cordially.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cd/a2/a7/cda2a796c280512e27f6a5d242116d3f.jpg
"Good day," she says with a genuine smile, taking out two small silver bells that chime softly in her hand. "The Mother Superior extends her blessings of the season to you on behalf of Our Stern Lady. Happy New Year!" Without another word she kneels in the heather and begins to perform the warding rites. She murmurs a verse of a traditional protective chant, her voice low and crooning - Otto recognizes it as a common lullaby in the area. Power builds in the air, like a light breeze that yet doesn't ruffle the grass. At last she rings the first bell, and the sound, though small, gives off unearthly echoes. She repeats the process for the other caravan, then stands and dusts off her skirts.
To Adi and Otto she hands each a length of silver wire, twisted into an elaborate knot. "The password is jilraaluth," she says. "Keep these with you, and you'll be able to hear the ward go off from anywhere in the city. Please, make yourself comfortable in Dalachros. We are honored to have you as our guests this year." She bows and makes her way to the next campsite.
The citizenry will flood out to the performance greens or congregate in public squares to watch the shows come afternoon, but for now, the first half of the day can be safely spent in the city. There's always something interesting happening in Dalachros; its location makes it a nexus for peoples of all lands and all races, so there's bound to be adventure in every alley. The gates are open!
Operating under the assumption that Eldrun speaks Draconic - I don't see her languages listed in her sheet, but as a DFA I think it's a safe bet - she would know that julraaluth means rebirth. Passwords for New Year's wards are usually along the same theme of spring and rejuvenation. Last year's was camlib, which Eldrun would recognize as bloom. Every troupe gets a different password, some in Draconic and some in Celestial. They're thought to be reused from year to year, but shuffled around and mixed in with new ones.http://i.imgur.com/dbyEXmh.png
The river mouth/top of the map is east. The city districts shown on this map are further divided by neighborhoods, such as Dockmarket (the merchant district on the north coast in the shadow of Dalachsfell,) Hallowhall (the temple district, at the top of Dalachsfell,) Spidertown (the drow lightwalker district on the south face of Svartalfell,) and the Academy Quarter (the lowermost parts of the gold upper-class district, where schools arcane and academic are situated.) The mountains are Dalachsfell (the one with the noble district,) Solvensfell (the lower-class one,) and Svartalfell (the one with the rich merchant district on the south side.)
Dalachsfell is the site of the original human settlement in the city, where the founder, King Dalach, and his company first set their shields on the edge of the mountain and built homes of timber on the slopes. To this day Dalachsfell has the most wooden houses of anywhere in the city - most districts use stone, which is much easier to come by hereabouts. Solvensfell has a lot of vergent and silver mines; Svartalfell is where the Undercity opens up - the second layer of Dalachros, a drow city originally known as Chaledor. Drow are generally Chaotic Neutral in this setting, although let it not be said there are no Evil or Good ones. Svartalfell hosts a Temple of Lolth, in direct contrast to the Temple of Corellon on the peak of Dalachsfell (built by the Luxites when they conquered the city; Dalachros is and has always been a very much Jasite and Hain place, and the original highest point of the city was the king's hall, on the secondary peak of Dalachsfell - see that pointy bit right next to the top of the mountain? That's the end of a rock shelf where the royal residence sits.) Chaledor celebrates the Festival of Silks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21221303&postcount=50) in late Viasus; for this reason, many caravans here for the New Year and the Dalachsdan remain throughout the month.
That merchant area west of Solvensfell arose to cater to foreign travellers; most visitors stop by there, and it has the highest concentration of inns and taverns in the city bar Dockmarket. (Dockmarket is where the sailors and dockworkers go to get a drink, so you can see why there'd be taverns there.) The Market Bridges are also good for visitors - the businesses get more upscale the closer the bridge is to the center of the city, but newcomers who arrive by ship generally consider the Market Bridges their first stop. Local gossip more or less keeps the city running, and can be found absolutely anywhere. Yes, even in places you didn't think anybody actually was. Chances are, there's an urchin sleeping in even the most abandoned-looking alley.
Some inhabitants of Dalachros in your 10 Minutes contact lists are:
Lady Lacey Cooper - a madam with whom Avery has an understanding. Her place of business is on the west side of Svartalfell - classier than the plain, function-over-style places you might find on Solvenfell or down by the docks, but not on the level you'd find on the south side of Svartalfell or even the upper-middle-class reaches above Dockmarket. Her employees hail from all over Avitia and represent various races; one ambiguously reptilian woman apparently hails from the distant province of Narsur in the empire of Ri'Huang - the main civilization on the continent of eastern Cadia. Dalachros, as one of the only seaports to offer safe harbor on a coast mostly dominated by the Baerlingen Mountains, is home to many Cadian immigrants.
Tranis Lightlode - a dwarven smith who lives and works in an airy forge/bakery/residence on the south side of Svartalfell. The bakery part belongs to his wife Morrundi, a local Baerling nee Graniterise who married Tranis as part of an interclan treaty. They have three daughters, the eldest of whom, Fimzadi, is Tranis's apprentice. The younger two, Ovana and Bazili, are Morrundi's apprentices. Bazili, unbeknownst to her mother but suspected by her father, works as an amateur detective on the side. Eldrun and Otto, visiting the forge every so often as Tranis worked on their commissions, are familiar with the family and considered welcome houseguests at any time, barring some catastrophe. Tranis owns a mine outside the city, meaning that he pays less for his raw materials than smiths who must purchase vergent and silver ore from the miners on Solvenfell.
Teyver Danholme, a middle-aged halfling fellow and former circusmaster for the troupe. His son, Eric, died tragically several years ago while performing an underwater escape act newly introduced for the New Year. Escapology was not his specialty - he was much more accomplished in adagio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adagio_(acrobatics)), performing with his fiancee Tammeril Redleaf - but the troupe's escapologist, a slippery Darfellan named Thu'kii who had introduced the act, was ill for most of the festival season that year, recovering only a week before the accident. The idea was for a performer to quickly wriggle his way out of a morass of locked chains while submerged in a curtained tank. The chains were wrapped such that they would be slack enough to slip given a bit of time. The tank had an extra door for emergencies, and the performer was provided with three lockpicks in case he found himself unable to free himself in time. However, all these safety measures somehow failed one night after several successful performances - both sets of hinges were apparently accidentally left locked, and when searched, Eric appeared to have forgotten his lockpicks. The boy drowned, trapped in the tank and still bound in chains. Teyver was heartbroken. He had lost his wife to an illness some years before, and his son, still not an adult by halfling reckoning, was all the family he had left. He retired, and now works in a store in the lower slopes of Dalachsfell, overlooking Dockmarket.The knots tied in the wire are what's called josephine knots. Here's what it looks like when you tat a line of them:
http://www.thisntat.com/images/lessons/node.gif
Here's the main caravan
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/e1/7e/3b/e17e3b6ece416df30bcfe01f933b15c7.jpg
http://cyberneticzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/french-steam-horse.jpg
and Adi's caravan
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-TKCpGqKs7QY/UmpDRsJTtWI/AAAAAAAACdQ/gFPG7fX_--4/w720-h639/IMG_41510245819251.jpeg
https://img-new.cgtrader.com/items/129315/large_3drt_-_fantasy_mounts_3d_model_28b88d33-4755-4915-8e4d-40e82dd591e4.jpgRecruitment Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503505-(D-amp-D-3-5)-Performers-and-Entertainers-We)
OOC Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?509036-OOC-Performers-and-Entertainers-We)