Port Liure

If I don't get around for a while to drawing a Port Liure map, well, I found this image on my hard drive that I downloaded from somewhere weeks or even months ago. It'll serve quite well.

Don't know why I'm particularly interested in Port Liure right now, when I just posted that Curse of the Corsair Coast would be the last 5x5 Front Campaign that I'd run. Probably because I'm doing the Freeport Trawl, and Port Liure is kinda sorta analogous to Freeport.

Anyway, I'll take this image, and create another version with some keyed numbers on it to indicate the different neighborhoods and stuff. I'd still like to draw my own, but it won't be as pretty as this anyway, and I probably won't for weeks or even months.

Corsair Coast names and Port Liure districts

The Corsair Coast is a pretty cool name, but I doubt anyone who actually lives there would refer to it as such, just like the Barbary corsairs didn't call themselves either Barbary or corsairs, but rather residents of whatever city-state or tribe that they belonged to. The actual name of the Corsair Coast as a region, would be Baix Pallars, based on a Catalonian word; Pallars being a region in Catalonia, named after the historic Frankish County of Pallars in the same area. Baix (pronounced with a long I sound and the X as a J and an SH jammed (jshammed?) together) is the Catalan word for lower, referring of course to the southern orientation of the Corsair Coast relative to the rest of the setting. Baix is the Catalan cognate to Spanish Baja, except that it retains the old usage of x whereas in Spanish, the X, which was like an SH in Medieval Spanish started to become pronounced like the Spanish J, and eventually was replaced by the Spanish J in most words other than older names, like Mexico. Linguistic spergy interlude over, but its worth pointing out that this name for the region replaces my previous attempt to call it Porhomok. That latter name might possibly still stick for the deeper jungle interior, but I'll probably quietly let it fade away and be forgotten.

Baix Pallars, then, is the entire region, including the Corsair Coast itself, a few outlying islands nearby, and the interior, to some degree. There will be a few city-states on the Corsair Coast: Razina, Alcassar, St. Haspar, and Segria and numerous smaller ones as well. Some of those, in earlier versions, had diacritics (Alcàssar, Segrià, Sènt-Haspar) but that's too much trouble and too foreign. Getting rid of the accent marks means that I'll probably pronounce Alcassar and St. Haspar, etc. differently, but that's OK. Of course, the most important city in the region is Port Liure. Port Liure is located on Gandesse Island, which is only a mile off-shore from the mainland, within sight and even within swimming distance for most. The following is a list of the major neighborhoods or districts within Port Liure. The Watch has formalized these to some extent; each of these neighborhoods has a Watch barracks, and most Watchmen have a regular patrol that is limited to just one neighborhood.  

Academie: Named for the Academy which takes up most of this area; a rather staid university district, which strives to be taken as seriously as the institutions in Mittrmarkt or elsewhere, but which has a long way to go still in terms of gaining prestige, longevity and funding. Still, the Academy at Port Liure is a popular one for wealthier students around the area who are more interested in the experience than necessarily their education—it's widely seen as a "party school" compared to its competitors. Young sons of minor nobles and merchants make up the majority of the student body. In addition to the halls of the Academy itself, this district has the dormitories of the students, staff and faculty, and a number of small shops that cater to the students, staff and faculty, and other hangers-on.

Castle Gardens: Named for the large "castles" that fill the district, this is a wealthy one, where the summer homes of nobility from around the area, as well as the local nobility and wealthier merchants, are found. With private docks, opera houses, and high class accommodations and services, this is a fairly quiet and peaceful neighborhood, and the Watch's relationship with various private security forces is sometimes somewhat tense.

Chersky Quarter: More broadly a middle class neighborhood, but Rue des Hamazins, which is renowned for its hamazin restaurants and small ethnic neighborhood is responsible for the name of the entire district. Infamous as a hold-out of the Chersky Mafia—the Watch here is suspected of being thoroughly corrupt.

Old Town: Jacob Bernat's original keep, and a great deal of the old money and old power of Port Liure make their homes here. In reality, few people actually "live" here, though—this is a busy quarter during the day, with the running of the business and administration of the city-state's government, but goes very quiet at night. The Watch presence is strong and implacable, by reputation.

Foghorn Park: A lower-class neighborhood far from the waterfront and nestled in the arms of the foothills at the edge of town, many of the people who live here are laborers in the farms outside of town, or hunters in the mountains, or otherwise have occupations that keep them busy away from the commerce of the city. Overland smugglers are said to thrive here, and people walk relatively carefully due to suspicion of gang activity. Much of the woodwose population of the city lives here; even so-called "urban woodwoses" are consumed with enough wanderlust that they feel more comfortable being able to leave the city quietly, unobtrusively, and relatively frequently.

Little North: Little North is actually on the south end of town, but because it gained character as a Hillmen and Timischer ethnic neighborhood, it became known as Little North. Curiously, it's not particularly settled by Northerners anymore—it's a low class laborer neighborhood, and a hotbed of gang warfare; a crossroads of various gang's territory, as it were. The Union of the Snake† headquarters are located here, near the docks.

Les Corts: The origin of the name is lost to history, but no Courts hold sway in this neighborhood anymore. Both the Watch and private security don't wait for sentencing to mete out punishment to anyone who violates the peace here, as Les Corts is primarily a warehouse district, and goods worth a king's ransom move through this district almost routinely.

Little Kurushat: The last neighborhood named for an ethnic component, this one lives up to its name, and the neighborhood is famous for its Kurushan architecture, signage, cuisine and more, although Kurushan presence is more muted than you'd expect. The neighborhood in general, though, has become a slum for all kinds of expatriates living in Port Liure, and it could as easily be named for any of them. Gang violence (and other violence, for that matter) is not unusual here, and the Watch sergeants who work this beat are reputed to be unflappable and highly used to all kinds of terrible things. Kaz's Crew‡, a gang of mostly drylanders, curiously, has much of the district in its grip, but other gangs work the area as well.

St. Vincent: An almost "anti-ethnic" neighborhood, the residents here are proud of their Pallaran heritage and have little patience for immigrants and the troubles that seem to follow them.  The Watch is firmly in the pocket of the Castiadas crime family here, who maintain a respectable façade.

Soddens: The poorest slum in the city, Soddens is supposed to be nearly lawless. In truth, the Watch keeps a strong presence here, but no matter what they do, it's insufficient. Firmly in the grip of crime families, all of the industry of this district is illicit—smuggling, drug dens, prostitution, slave markets—if it's illegal, or even frowned upon, it happens here. Life is cheap, and dead bodies in the street are hardly enough to spur the Watch to become concerned. Named for the thick fogs that roll off the hills and blanket this district, it's also notorious among those who tell these kinds of tales, as a haunted district, and much of the supernatural activity that rumors and ghost-stories love to regale are centered around Black Maria's Square, where old Jacob Bernat's daughter-in-law was supposedly executed in the early days of the city.

White Stones: Infamous as the headquarters of the Fuzeta da Ponte crime family, this neighborhood is named for the pale granite flagstones that make up much of its streets. Boats slip in and out of this neighborhood at all hours, and nobody asks too many questions of their neighbors, which keeps this a relatively peaceful neighborhood most of the time; although one infamous for things happening which are not supposed to.

Liure River: The Liure river runs right through Port Liure. Although it is not truly navigable beyond the city, small ferries, gondolas, and other small watercraft ply the river, as well as the many canals that spring off from the river and penetrate deeply into the city.  Because cool sea breezes blow in after dark, the river and the many canals are the source of frequent blankets of fog and mist that rise from the waters as the temperature changes.  This thick blanket of mist helps to cement and encourage the many legends and stories of hauntings and ghosts that have given Port Liure it's nickname as Port of Ghosts, but the persistence of the rumors and legends and stories... as well as the disquieting frequency with which new stories seems to be added to the corpus suggests to many that they are not merely quaint urban myths, but indicative of a much more serious condition.

Many such stories originate on the infamous Rua de Xavier.  The Rua is, strictly speaking, a bridge rather than a street, but the name persists regardless.  The Rua is almost a half mile long, and bridges the Academy to the Old Town district to the north.  Built on a series of stone starlings, the Rua is fairly wide, and has developed almost into a mini-neighborhood in its own right.  Buildings—houses, business, and more line both sides of the bridge, and hang out over the river to a considerable degree.  Many of them also overhang the street, so walking along the Rua is often compared to walking through a dim, man-made tunnel.

One of the most infamous buildings on the Rua is the vacant Church of Starry Wisdom.  Once a business owned by a locksmith, later converted into a pub, and later again into a meeting place for said church, this building is now often claimed to be haunted.  Five years ago, a cult was rousted from the Church after allegations of kidnappings, sacrifices, and odd summonings of unearthly, unnatural creatures.  After a closed trial, there was a very public execution of twenty-one individuals associated with the church.  Rumors hint at ten times that many members who slunk away quietly to disappear into the city.

Since that time, the ghosts of the executed members of the Church of Starry Wisdom are among the least of the stories that still remain.  Strange and furtive individuals are still said to lurk about the church at night.  Disquieting behavior from rats in the area is often reported, including a persistent rumor of a rat that has the face of a noted assistant of the executed "high priest" of the cult.  This fellow was know as Brown Jenkin, and a large rat with Brown Jenkin's face has been reported by no less than five people who live in the area nearby.  There are rumors that something that was summoned remains in the area. Perhaps trapped in the building of the church itself (hopefully) but perhaps not.  Residents nearby close and lock their doors on moonless nights, especially if the mists are up.

Strange sounds, often disembodied, are heard in the area.  Chittering sounds, or the chanting of many voices (although no source for the chanting can ever be found).  Sounds of uncertain provenance are frequent in Port Liure in general, and this is to be expected for a city that is frequently blanketed in thick mists, but the frequency of which they are reported in the Rua de Xavier is higher than anywhere else in the city.

Gradually, many people who live or work on the Rua itself have been selling out, often at a loss, and moving to other neighborhoods.  Sometimes this means new neighbors—an always troubling prospect in a city like Port Liure, but sometimes it simply means that buildings go vacant for months at a time as new owners attempt to figure out what to do with real estate that hangs over a bridge.  It is estimated that over the last five years, almost ten percent of the former inhabitants have left, and of that ten percent, probably about half have been replaced.  Five percent of the buildings on the Rua are vacant... but troublingly, not necessarily abandoned or empty.  Because the Rua is a bridge that connects to neighborhoods, it did not have an assigned Watch, but the Watch has since added the bridge to the route of the patrols for Old Town, and the Academy Guard also keeps a wary eye on the place.  This has improved the feeling of security for many in the area, but dark rumors persist.

† In St. Haspar, anyone who sells anything; a good, a service, a slave--no matter what—risks the wrath of whatever applicable guild governs his actions if he doesn't first buy a membership in the guild. This often isn't much money, especially for those who want to sell fruit from a cart, or be available for temp labor, or something like that—a single noble or other local gold coin for a year-long membership, for example—but because the Lord Governor gives these guilds tacit authority to police their industries, anyone who risks dodging guild membership is setting himself up for a severe beating and confiscation of his money and merchandise at best, or a permanent stint as shark food in the harbor at worst.

Some guilds, however, are more than simply shakedown rackets; some of them have a great deal of power, influence and money even beyond St. Haspar's borders. The Union of the Snake is one such guild. Because the Lord Governor has not deigned to outlaw or control any substance in St. Haspar, it has become the poison and drug capital of the Corsair Coast, and because the poison-maker's guild has decided to define drugs as long-term poisons that frequently have pleasant short-term effects but certainly poisonous long-term effects, the same guild monitors both poison and drug manufacturing and sales in St. Haspar and beyond. This wasn't always the case, but when almost all of the important guild heads of the drug producer's guild died in a single night, the poison maker's guild had made their point. Since St. Haspar is the capital for such activity throughout the Corsair Coast, that makes the colorfully named Union of the Snake one of the primary movers and shakers of the local economy, with a cash flow to make kings weep. Named for the deadly and subtle serpents that the poison-makers aspired to be compared to, the Union of the Snake has secret agents and assets in every major urban center in the entire Corsair Coast beyond.

Union members are much less casual about their affiliation than many other guilds in St. Haspar; most have a small tattoo of a poisonous asp or cobra on their wrists or ankles to identify themselves, they pay much larger dues, but in return get a great deal more support from the guild, especially in terms of contracted security for major shipments or deals. Although closely allied with the assassin's guild, outside of St. Haspar, expatriate Union of the Snake members often are themselves assassins, and can command a premium in many other markets such as Port Liure and elsewhere, known for their subtle use of poisons that sicken or kill their victims and make it appear like a completely natural death. Other contract killers, especially those associated with the Chersky Mafia are more brutal and appropriate when a message wants to be clearly communicated, but the Union of the Snake is infamous for its subtlety. 

‡ Port Liure has a reputation as a lawless, anarchic place. That's not entirely true. One of the conceits for its very existence; a necessary caveat for its powerful neighbors to the north accepting its bid as an independent city-state in the first place, is the establishment and enforcement of a rule of law in Port Liure, and agreeing to do so was old Jacob Bernat's key compromise in his bid to establish himself as the newly minted Lord of Port Liure at the end of the Pirate Wars 150 years ago. How seriously that endeavor has been taken over the years has, of course, waxed and waned. At its most stringent, the streets were nearly as clean as in any Timischer or Hillman city, and at its most lax, the Lord of Port Liure was little more than among the most prominent gangster warlords in the city, with the City Watch as his personal enforcers. Naturally, most of the time, it's somewhere in between.

But even at its most strident, the streets of Port Liure have never really been clean.  t's just not in the nature of Liurans to roll over and accept too much authority, and the result of that is that organized crime is one of the most enduring and notable features of the city.

Currently, the following are among the most prominent elements of organized crime in the city.

• The Chersky Mafia. Headquartered "overseas", this mafia was formed and remains run to this day by kemling crime bosses. Originally meant as a method to raise money and resources for a resurgent "glorious revolution" and revitalization of Baal Hamazi itself, as the years have passed, the patriotic zeal has proven fleeting. Most likely, the organized crime business is simply more profitable. Although nominally run by kemlings, in reality, they tend to be distant and rarely seen authority figures. Much of the actual muscle of these gangs are made up of shaggy urban woodwoses and local humans. They deal in the usual vices: prostitution (not strictly illegal in Port Liure, although discouraged in some locales), smuggling, drugs, protection rackets, bribery of officials, and the occasional contract killing.
• The Union of the Snake. A small group in Port Liure, this is actually a Hasparan outfit that specializes in assassination and poisonings. Because their reputation is so good, the business is incredibly lucrative, and they can charge so much, the Union has surprising clout given their small numbers. They are much more specialized than most, however.
• The Castiada Crime Family. A local Pallaran family business with estates on the mainland, which has grown over the years to be a major player in the city. Ruled by the "Old Gray Lady", it's not entirely clear who this person is. It's not entirely clear that it is in fact a single person, or even a person at all. Commonly, it's believed that the Old Gray Lady is a leader in disguise, and the actual running of the family is confined to a small group or triumvirate who take turns donning the Old Gray Lady's robes when the occasion demands. Some have made wilder claims; that the Old Gray Lady is the ghost of an ancient Castiada matron who still rules the family from beyond the grave being one popular tavern story, but if anyone knows the truth, they're not saying. In addition to playing in the usual vices, the Castiadas have made a concerted effort in the past to corral all the cat-burglars and pick-pockets in the city under their umbrella.  They haven't been completely successful, but they've managed to take a cut from a fair amount of them, and freelance operatives better learn to take very small, discrete steps around town or risk their brutal wrath.
• The Fuzeta da Ponte family. Another local gang, but one with tendrils extending throughout the Corsair Coast.  Old Man Heitor, the capo emeritus of the family, spent many of his younger years at sea as a pirate, and only retired to take over the organized crime business from his father when the sea lanes got too hot for him. He's now stepped aside for his own son, Leonardo, who plied the seas with a little more legitimacy, sailing with a letter of marque issued by the Lord of Port Liure himself. Fantastically connected, both locally with the nobility, abroad with various important VIPs throughout the region, and with a number of old pirates and smugglers on the waters as well, the Fuzeta da Ponte family might be the most potent player in the city, although their strength is difficult to estimate. Although they dabble in everything, their specialty is smuggling and piracy, and many pirates on the clear blue waters of the Kell Sea are sailing with debts owed to the Fuzeta da Ponte family, which they ensure they use as leverage to take a cut.
• Kaz's Crew.  Kazimir Bartunek's ancestors were drylanders from the north, as a casual glance at his name suggests. However, his family has lived in Port Liure for generations.  Seen by many as a newcomer, and therefore with some disdain, Kazimir's success derives from his reputation for potent, dangerous, and cursed witchery, which he learned from an old vampire hag he took as a lover while traveling in Timischburg. At least, so say the rumors. Regardless, his rise has been meteoric, and his crew have an almost unnatural, off-putting mien to them.  Few can say to have directly witnessed any action of witchcraft, but everyone whispers about it nonetheless.

Porto Liure on the Corsair Coast... and RATS!

I was poking around old posts of mine, and discovered this one, from almost five years ago. The point of it was reimaging past assets that no longer quite fit into the DFX setting (which, at the time, was still at the DH5 level). Porto Liure had been a major asset that I'd done quite a bit with, and with some supplemental help from stuff like the Green Ronin Freeport book or the Privateer Press Five Fingers book (or even a few other products of pirate-like cities in various D&D products over the years), but it really belonged quite strongly to the DH4 version of the setting, and never really completely found any kind of place in DH5, which became the DFX setting after an effort in rebranding. Now that the Corsair Coast is going to be officially "Terassan" in ethnicity, Porto Liure, of course, has a new home in DFX, bringing one of my older assets back into play. I feel like I'm gradually getting there with all kinds of stuff. Baal Hamazi was incorporated as a third region, when DFX was originally supposed to be Timischburg + The Hill Country. Kurushat kinda sorta makes an appearance in the form of Lower Kurushat, although exactly how much of this will actually be renewed details from DH4 is unknown still. The Plateau of Leng has been back, and has some of the Forbidden Lands vibes... and details. Although many of them were shameless pastiches of Lovecraft to begin with.

I do need to spend some time deciding how the various cities of the old Terassan Empire can figure in the new Corsair Coast paradigm. Most of them can be converted to Barbary-style city-states easily enough, by removing any lingering Imperial trappings from them, I suppose. In some ways, this makes them all analogs to Porto Liure, but I want Porto Liure to stand out still. I actually doubt that I'll do too much with the other city-states, or have much interest in utilizing them. Calça was probably the only one that I still had a lot of interest in, and possibly Baix Pallars, but everything interesting from Calça has largely already been pilfered and added to the Hill Country. Baix Pallars as a pseudo-civilized place falling into colonial ruin, like the waning years of the Crusader States or European colonial empires amongst Third World savages could possibly still restore this as an idea, but I'm not entirely sure how. Maybe, as I start to work out exactly how the Terassans are related to the Tarushans, and I'm sure that it is somehow, means that I can sandwich the part of the Terassans between the Hill Country and Timischburg on the southern part of their border, with the Terassans stretching further south from there into the Corsair Coast; and maybe that's where Baix Pallars can still fit. Maybe Eltdown is the northernmost outpost of the Pallarans, even; a kind of Bree farther removed from the more southerly bastions of their distant relatives like the mountainfolk of Gondor or the Dunlendings. 

Anyway more to come on that. But speaking of shameless pastiches of Lovecraft (and Warhammer) I want to discuss briefly the Master of Vermin, one of the more notorious Heresiarchs of my setting, and his greatest (or worst) creations in the setting, which seethe outwards from Leng at times, the ratmen. Starting with wererats, an already rare monster in the setting, Master of Vermin experimented on ways to "mass produce" more of them. This didn't work out exactly as planned, but from his perspective, it no doubt is actually better. In trying to create "mass produced" wererats, he got, instead, two varieties of man-rat hybrids, as noted below:

Ratmen are about four feet tall, and look like hunched humanoids with rat tails, rat heads, rat fur and clawed hands and feet. For those of you familiar with skaven, they are basically exactly that, except without some of the specifically skaven clan politics and stuff. But there was an unusual side-effect of the creation of the ratmen; whereas the ratmen are mostly human-like with rat heads, for each ratman created, there was also a rat thing, ratling, or brown jenkin, named after (allegedly) the first one. These are like large rats who have human-like faces and hands. Not really intelligent, ratlings or rat things, are, at best, somewhere between smart dogs and toddlers at their most intelligent; they can understand simple commands and even communicate extremely simple concepts, but they aren't really able to rise much above that. They do have their uses, however, as spies, and as familiars. And even, to the ratmen, as a food source. Mostly ratlings, if they can do so, like to leave the communities of ratmen, and create their own packs somewhere else, but they are still rare and horrifying when found in human or near human lands. 

I don't think that I actually have rat thing or ratling stats in the game, although I did find them on a blog post, where I think I just took regular giant rat stats, maybe made a minor modification or two, and called them nuzzle rats, based on H. P. Lovecraft's own repeated description of Brown Jenkin "nuzzling horribly". I don't like that name anymore, so I won't reuse it, but giant rat stats are good. Even though giant rats are described as the size of a large dog, the stats are still fine for a rat-sized, but more dangerous than a rat like creature. 

Speaking of familiars, I do briefly talk about the animal companion player feat as a way to get familiars, but that doesn't really explain much of what they are. I imagine that the player (and only the player) that has a familiar or animal companion can communicate with it, more or less like a person, although simpler (unless the GM allows you to take, say, a person as an animal companion) and it acts kinda sorta like an NPC that's semi under the control of the player that has it as a class feature. From a "cosmological" perspective, familiars aren't exactly just the animal that they were before they were picked as a familiar; they get "augmented" by some kind of spirit from beyond which is what makes them familiars.

Keep in mind; I don't have cozy, nice wizards in DFX. Magic is witchcraft, pure and simple, or transhuman scary sorcery. Familiar spirits that take over and possess the bodies of some animal are evil creatures, and for the most part, people who use magic are evil as well. Occasionally there is a "good" sorcerer who tries to use the tools of the enemy against him, which is where PCs using magic comes in, but that's usually a pretty iffy bargain to make, and the sorcerers who do this are usually biding their time, using it as little as possible, hoping to get through life before corruption catches up to them. 

But given that PCs are often reckless or desperate or both, I imagine that plenty of characters can use magic and even have familiars without being "evil"... but it's a slippery slope and they're already sliding on it.

Porting Porto Liure

In looking to make better use of "my assets" I've decided that I'd like to do away with having Porto Liure as a Spanish-like island city and bring it into the mainstream of DH5 somewhere. Because, honestly, by shunting it off to the side away from where I'm working, I've pretty guaranteed that it will play no role in anything in DH5 ever again. On the other hand, I've got a number of cities that need developing in DH5, and I do have one in particular that's supposed to be a little seedy, with all kinds of shady goings-on in the background. A kind of fantasy "Washington D.C." so to speak, in the form of Waychester. In reality, conceptually a little bit more like the London of King George whereas its southern rival Upwater is more all that's good and admirable about British culture, especially and specifically including its breakaway spin-off, American culture. So yeah; it's got ambitious tyrants running around stabbing each other in the backs in the form of the Grand Duke and his rivalry with his Duchess, but more to the point, he's trying to extend his dominion over the entire area and proclaim himself King. He's not a nice fellow; he's ambitious and driven and in a way that has little concern for the rights and way of life of the people in the southern portion of the Hill Country. Basically, he's like the Puritans of New England, who 150 years after their war of aggression against the South are still trying to stamp out and eliminate any vestige of the South that they aggressively and unprovoked went and conquered militarily. In other words, the epitome of a secular, normal villain.

This is a little bit in contrast to how I've seen the Lords of Porto Liure, who are more insular. Rather than ambitious, they're ruthless and decadent, but their games are played with their own cadre of local nobility, and their view is inward rather than outward. This gives plenty of opportunity for noble sponsored skulduggery while maintaining Porto Liure's status quo. That said, I never developed either of those ideas beyond a vague inclination, so making the Grand Duke of Waychester remain as he is while Waychester itself becomes, to some degree, the assets I developed for Porto Liure is fine. The reality is that while the Grand Duke has ambitions on militarily conquering the South, he's got problems closer to home with regards to corruption, sedition and open rebellion, starting with his own wife, who he's locked in a tower, but who's loyal supporters have not forgotten her. So the change is even more subtle.

I'll also have to rename everything, although that doesn't mean that I need to reinvent everything. Porto Liure was originally designed to be a kind of fantasy Tortuga, and it therefore had a lot of pseudo-Spanish nomenclature. Waychester is a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon endeavor, and there isn't any Spanish anything that would give a background of such names, so they'll all need to go. But just because the names of neighborhoods like Castello or Ciutat Viexa are vaguely old-fashioned Spanish sounding (or more likely Catalan, since I heavily used that dictionary to find suitable alternatives to straight up Spanish) or the Castiada crime family can't be used doesn't mean that everything about them except the name isn't still good.

So, for another post in the near future, I'm going to take a few of my older Porto Liure posts and adapt them to Waychester, which will be my new go-to wretched hive of scum and villainy in DH5.

The Academy at Porto Liure

The Academy is one of the districts, or neighborhoods, of Porto Liure, the signature setting of DARK•HERITAGE.  It is, of course, a place of learning, but it is also more than that.  It is also an entire community.

Established by a charter almost 150 years ago, when Porto Liure was still a newly christened independent city-state, having won its independence through attrition from a tired and disinterested fading Terrasan Empire, the Academy is one of the oldest institutions in Porto Liure.  The "Father of Porto Liure," Jacobo Bernat, saw the Academy as one of a few key elements necessary in the long term to establish the legitimacy of Porto Liure as something more than a pirate haven, a "wretched hive of scum and villainy," and he made very generous offers to notable academics and experts in various fields to emigrate to the city to help found it.

In addition, he saw the Academy as a tool that could benefit the city more directly.  The children of young elitists, the core of the new nobility of Porto Liure needed to be taught in Geography, History, Military Theory, Politics, Theology and more.  There is also a cadet department, where the soldiers and sailors who represent the city itself are trained.  For the most part, this is now where the officers of the Watch and the Navy are trained.

Each of the subjects above has their own Hall on the Academy grounds, which are surrounded by a wall, and are secured by armed guards.  Each Hall has offices, lecture halls, and a library.  Most of the faculty live attached to their Hall as well, in spacious dormitories.

In addition to these facilities, there are a number of dormitories for students.  More and more, students are elitists, the children of rich industrialists, shipping magnates, or the nobility, and more and more they come from all over the Terrasan sphere of influence to study at the Academy.  To be fair, most of these students aren't necessarily interested in furthering their education, but going abroad to study is a prestige activity, and signals to their peers that they have the money and influence to send their sons--and sometimes even daughters--to Porto Liure to enroll in the Academy.

In addition to the departments, there are a handful of "independent" professors and researchers on staff, many of whom teach one-off courses in more esoteric fields of knowledge.  And there are even some who teach nothing, but who have managed to become almost "celebrity scholars" who do research that brings a great deal of prestige to the university. One example of the latter is the explorer Barral Pessagnoz, who spent six months trapped in Isin, first described the Wose Basin and the Tether and explored ruins near Eltdown.  His colorful travelogues have been published all over the Terrasan sphere and have been very popular.

Although it's kept officially quiet, rumors persist that there are "hidden colleges" within the Academy; a college and faculty devoted to sorcery and witchcraft, for instance, with a Hall that is based underground in spacious tunnels and caverns.  To most, this is part of the charm of Porto Liure, the Port of Ghosts; the notion that superstition and rumors abound.  Of course, to others, the threat is best taken more seriously.  It is true that spoiled and entitled students are prone to get involved in all kinds of things that should be left alone, and that the dregs of Porto Liure are lives not worth much to the officials of the city, or anyone else, but are sacrifices really made in chambers below the Academy meant to summon daemons from the Realms Beyond?  Despite official denials, the rumors persist.

X is for Rua de Xavier

The Liure river runs right through Porto Liure.  Although it is not truly navigable beyond the city, small ferries, gondolas, and other small watercraft ply the river, as well as the many canals that spring off from the river and penetrate deeply into the city.  Because cool sea breezes blow in after dark, the river and the many canals are the source of frequent blankets of fog and mist that rise from the waters as the temperature changes.  This thick blanket of mist helps to cement and encourage the many legends and stories of hauntings and ghosts that have given Porto Liure it's nickname as Port of Ghosts, but the persistance of the rumors and legends and stories... as well as the disquieting frequency with which new stories seems to be added to the corpus suggests to many that they are not merely quaint urban myths, but indicative of a much more serious condition.

Many such stories originate on the infamous Rua de Xavier.  The Rua is, strictly speaking, a bridge rather than a street, but the name persists regardless.  The Rua is about a quarter mile long, and bridges the Academy to the Ciutat Veixa district to the north.  Built on a series of stone starlings, the Rua is fairly wide, and has developed almost into a mini-neighborhood in its own right.  Buildings--houses, business, and more line both sides of the bridge, and hang out over the river to a considerable degree.  Many of them also overhang the street, so walking along the Rua is often compared to walking through a dim, man-made tunnel.

One of the most infamous buildings on the Rua is the vacant Church of Starry Wisdom.  Once a business owned by a locksmith, later converted into a pub, and later again into a meeting place for said church, this building is now often claimed to be haunted.  Five years ago, a cult was rousted from the Church after allegations of kidnappings, sacrifices, and odd summonings of unearthly, unnatural creatures.  After a closed trial, there was a very public execution of twenty-one individuals associated with the church.  Rumors hint at ten times that many members who slunk away quietly to disappear into the city.

Since that time, the ghosts of the executed members of the Church of Starry Wisdom are among the least of the stories that still remain.  Strange and furtive individuals are still said to lurk about the church at night.  Disquieting behavior from rats in the area is often reported, including a persistant rumor of a rat that has the face of a noted assistant of the executed "high priest" of the cult.  This fellow was know as Brown Jaume, and a large rat with Brown Jaume's face has been reported by no less than five people who live in the area nearby.  There are rumors that something that was summoned remains in the area. Perhaps trapped in the building of the church itself (hopefully) but perhaps not.  Residents nearby close and lock their doors on moonless nights, especially if the mists are up.

Strange sounds, often disembodied, are heard in the area.  Chittering sounds, or the chanting of many voices (although no source for the chanting can ever be found).  Sounds of uncertain provenance are frequent in Porto Liure in general, and this is to be expected for a city that is frequently blanketed in thick mists, but the frequency of which they are reported in the Rua de Xavier is higher than anywhere else in the city.

Gradually, many people who live or work on the Rua itself have been selling out, often at a loss, and moving to other neighborhoods.  Sometimes this means new neighbors—an always troubling prospect in a city like Porto Liure, but sometimes it simply means that buildings go vacant for months at a time as new owners attempt to figure out what to do with real estate that hangs over a bridge.  It is estimated that over the last five years, almost ten percent of the former inhabitants have left, and of that ten percent, probably about half have been replaced.  Five percent of the buildings on the Rua are vacant... but troublingly, not necessarily abandoned or empty.  Because the Rua is a bridge that connects to neighborhoods, it did not have an assigned Watch, but the Watch has since added the bridge to the route of the patrols for Ciutat Veixa, and the Academy Guard also keeps a wary eye on the place.  This has improved the feeling of security for many in the area, but dark rumors persist.

R is for Rumors

Porto Liure is one of the signature towns of the DARK•HERITAGE setting, and I envision many if not most of my potential games will take place there.  It is also extremely cosmopolitan, being both a destination and a refuge for all kinds of folks from all over the region, due to its policy of not asking many questions.

The following are rumors that can be heard in and around Porto Liure, and (mostly) have to do with local affairs, although some really bizarre expatriate rumors do make the rounds from time to time.  The truth of most of these will have to reside with the discretion of any particular game master (although for my money, most of them are mostly true.  Mostly.)

When (or if) players are specifically looking to hear rumors, or if they're in a position where they might, feel free to use this table.  Roll 1d20 as many times as you need to determine which rumors they will be hearing.

1. Baronette Montazin de Galard is a witch, and has designs on the Lord's throne.
2. One of the guards at the Lord's palace is a spy for a band of pirates.
3. The Lord's chief contender for the title of Lord-Consort, Segnore Bonolva, is land-poor and his family is nearly penniless.
4. The Lord's chief contender fo the title of Lord-Consort, Segnore Bonolva is immensely wealthy, with an unguarded fortune tucked away in the cellars of his house here in town.
5. The owners of the Dog & Drake tavern are former assassins, and still have connections if you need to hire one.
6. The clergy at the cathedral in Low Tide plaza have been infiltrated by demon-worshippers.
7. A guard at a warehouse in Foghorn Park dropped dead a few days ago during a scuffle in a tavern with two local, well-known ne'er-do-wells.  But... I saw the guard again the next day, and the bodies of the two scalawags were found on the edge of town, slashed and burned to death!
8. I once saw a butcher in Qazmir Park fire a shower of flame out of his hand right into a thief's face!  The poor ruffian fell over into the street, dead.
9. A child was bitten and killed by a gigantic rat near the well in the center of the square in White Stones.
10. The Emperor in Terrasa is really a vampire, in thrall to overlords from Tarush Noptii.

11. I once saw what looked like a walking, talking human skeleton down by the docks, directing the unloading of a casket that looked suspiciously like a coffin!
12. This town isn't nicknamed the Port of Ghosts for nothing!  Beware the ghost of Black Maria, the drawn and quartered daughter-in-law of Jacobo Bernat, the founder of the city.
13. The dead walk the land near Rocky Hill, outside of town.
14. I have seen the archbishop of Terrasa come to town himself on occasion!  I don't know why he'd be in Porto Liure.  He was traveling incognito, but when he saw me looking, he covered his face and gestured to his plain-clothes guards.  I beat it quick before they could rough me up.
15. Something weird is going on up north.  Refugees from the far northern cities of the old Baal Hamazi lands have been fleeing southwards.
16. The Condor Cliffs is a haven for bandits.  Watch yourself in the woods outside of town.
17. The woods around Bald Top Hill is a common camp ground for folks who prefer the woods and are not bandits.
18. There is a pack of fierce, hyena-like animals with dark fur and glowing red eyes that wander the woods to the south of town.
19. I couldn't believe my eyes.  There he was; larger than life--Dog, drinking from a stream, near the Rockswaddles.  Then he sauntered into a small, hidden defile in the rocks, and disappeared.  I think it might be his mysterious den!
20. The banks of Pebble Creek is a safe place to make camp if you're ever in the area on the island, outside of town.

N is for Neighborhoods of Porto Liure

Like most cities of sufficient size, Porto Liure is frequently broken up into informal chunks for easy reference.  The Watch has formalized these to some extent; each of these neighborhoods has a Watch barracks, and most Watchmen have a regular patrol that is limited to just one neighborhood.  These are the districts of Porto Liure.

• Academy: Named for the Academy which takes up most of this area; a rather staid (for Porto Liure) university district, which strives to be taken as seriously as the Universitat in Razina, or the Grand Academie in Terrasa, but which has a long way to go still in terms of gaining prestige, longevity and funding.  Still, the Academy at Porto Liure is a popular one for wealthier students around the Mezzovian area who are more interested in the experience than necessarily their education--it's widely seen as a "party school" compared to its competitors.  Young sons of minor nobles and merchants make up the majority of the student body.  In addition to the halls of the Academy itself, this district has the dormitories of the students, staff and faculty, and a number of small shops that cater to the students, staff and faculty, and other hangers-on.
• Castello: Named for the large "castles" that fill the district, this is a wealthy one, where the summer homes of nobility from around the area, as well as the local nobility and wealthier merchants, are found.  With private docks, opera houses, and high class accomodations and services, this is a fairly quiet and peaceful neighborhood, and the Watch's relationship with various private security forces is sometimes somewhat tense.
• Cherskii Quarter: More broadly a middle class neighborhood, but Rue des Hamazins, which is renowned for its hamazi restaurants and small ethnic neighborhood is responsible for the name of the entire district.  Infamous as a hold-out of the Cherskii Mafia--the Watch here is suspected of being thoroughly corrupt.
• Ciutat Veixa: Jacobo Bernat's original keep, and a great deal of the old money and old power of Porto Liure make their homes here.  In reality, few people actually "live" here, though--this is a busy quarter during the day, with the running of the business and administration of the city-state's government, but goes very quiet at night.  The Watch presence is strong and implacable, by reputation.
• Foghorn Park: A lower-class neighborhood far from the waterfront and nestled in the arms of the foothills at the edge of town, many of the people who live here are laborers in the farms outside of town, or hunters in the mountains, or otherwise have occupations that keep them busy away from the commerce of the city.  Overland smugglers are said to thrive here, and people walk relatively carefully due to suspicion of gang activity.  Much of the changeling population of the city lives here; even so-called "urban changelings" are consumed with enough wanderlust that they feel more comfortable being able to leave the city quietly, unobtrusively, and relatively frequently.
• Little North: Little North is actually on the south end of town, but because it gained character as a balshatoi ethnic neighborhood, it became known as Little North.  Curiously, it's not particularly settled by Northerners anymore--it's a low class laborer neighborhood, and a hotbed of gang warfare; a crossroads of various gang's territory, as it were.  The Union of the Snake headquarters are located here, near the docks.
• Los Corts: The origin of the name is lost to history, but no Courts hold sway in this neighborhood anymore.  Both the Watch and private security don't wait for sentencing to mete out punishment to anyone who violates the peace here, as Los Corts is primarily a warehouse district, and goods worth a king's ransom move through this district almost routinely.
• Qazmir Park: The last neighborhood named for an ethnic component, this one lives up to its name, and Rue des Sultains is famous for its al-Qazmiri architecture, signage, cuisine and more.  The neighborhood in general, though, has become a slum for all kinds of expatriates living in Porto Liure, and it could as easily be named for any of them.  Gang violence (and other violence, for that matter) is not unusual here, and the Watch seargents who work this beat are reputed to be unflappable and highly used to all kinds of terrible things.  Kaz's Crew, a gang of northerners, curiously, has much of the district in its grip, but other gangs work the area as well.
• Sént-Vincenç: An almost "anti-ethnic" neighborhood, the residents here are proud of their Terrasan heritage and have little patience for immigrants and the troubles that seem to follow them.  The Watch is firmly in the pocket of the Castiadas crime family here, who maintain a respectable façade.
• Soddens: The poorest slum in the city, Soddens is supposed to be nearly lawless.  In truth, the Watch keeps a strong presence here, but no matter what they do, it's insufficient.  Firmly in the grip of crime families, all of the industry of this district is illicit--smuggling, drug dens, prostitution, slave markets--if it's illegal, or even frowned upon, it happens here.  Life is cheap, and dead bodies in the street are hardly enough to spur the Watch to become concerned.  Named for the thick fogs that roll off the hills and blanket this district, it's also notorious among those who tell these kinds of tales, as a haunted district, and much of the supernatural activity that rumors and ghost-stories love to regale are centered around Black Maria's Square, where old Jacobo Bernat's daughter-in-law was supposedly executed in the early days of the city.
• White Stones: Infamous as the headquarters of the Fuzeta da Ponte crime family, this neighborhood is named for the pale granite flagstones that make up much of its streets.  Boats slip in and out of this neighborhood at all hours, and nobody asks too many questions of their neighbors, which keeps this a relatively peaceful neighborhood most of the time; although one infamous for things happening which are not supposed to.
  

The Game­ in Porto Liure

I've already talked previously about crime families in Porto Liure, and the skulduggery that they are up to.  Crime families and their skulduggery seem so gauche somehow, though.  The rich in Porto Liure don't really have their hands any cleaner, but somehow they make even their skulduggery sound high-brow.  They've even given it a label: the Game, and indulging in the twisted politics and machinations of the wealthy is their primary source of both livelihood and entertainment at the same time.

It's sometimes difficult to remove the criminal organizations from the nobility and parvenus who--let's face it, are also technically criminals, although they tend to consider themselves (and not without warrant) as somewhat above the concerns of the law.  There are a lot of crossover plots and connections; nobles who hire the Union of the Snake for an assassination, for example, or bourgeois parvenus who smuggle goods through the Fuzeta da Ponte family's enterprises.  But, as much as possible, this list of potential sources of intrigue is kept separate from the entries on the earlier post.  Just to give you more options to play with.  This isn't meant to be comprehensive and more will probably be added in future posts.

Segnore Claude Bonolva: A young, rakish, and handsome lord with an obscure title granted by Terrasa to estates in the south, but who has lived his entire life in Porto Liure, Claude Bonolva is notorious for both his ambition and his numerous, decadent, and even obsessive erotic dalliances with many, many ladies about town.  While his title is modest, his wealth is not, and his family has prospered greatly from the trade of hashash.  Trade of hashash into Porto Liure is controlled, but not illegal, but trade to the rest of the Terrasan sphere is highly illegal smuggling.

Motive:  Claude's overt posture is that he wants to ensure his fortune by protecting his ability to smuggle hashash throughout the region, and then spend it as fast as he makes it in riotous living.

Ulterior motive: In reality, Claude is a more shrewd and calculating person than he lets on.  He seems a dissolute man, who lets his subservients run his business, while he spends all of his time partying, but that's an act.  He actually knows and has direct control over his entire "empire" and aspires for more.  He's actually working on a plot to maneuver the ruling Lady into marriage, at which point he plans on marginalizing her and becoming the de facto Lord of Porto Liure himself.

Damiata Aldonça Bernat: As the current Ruling Lady of Porto Liure, on paper, Bernat is the most prominent and important and powerful people in the city.  However, on paper is tempered by reality; while Damiata is popular and puts a lot of stock in her popularity with the people, she is checked by a number of special interests and other powerful lords and ladies.  In addition, she has become addicted to a poisonous drug called brackbane, which she smokes from a thick wooden pipe, or rolled in brown paper.  This addiction was not of her own choice; Reimond Saulescu spent an exorbitant amount of gold with the Union of the Snake to arrange for her poisoning, knowing that the addiction would put her under his power.  The addiction is fatal if not fed--and in the long term, fatal anyway.  This addiction is, however, extremely secretive.  Brackbane is illegal even in Porto Liure.

Motive: Run the affairs of the city-state, play the various other factions from outside and inside the city against each other to maintain a prosperous status quo.

Ulterior motive: Find some way to remove the poisonous addiction and then cruch Saulescu for daring to put her under his thumb with it in the first place.

Reimond Saulescu: Reimond is a middle-aged, quiet nobleman with holdings in Icclezza (although he's rarely there), a fine villa in Terrasa and a posh row-house in Porto Liure--where he spends most of his time, when he can.  He seems quiet and unassuming, but in reality, Reimond is the hub of a great deal of intrigue in the city.  Conspiring with Bonolva to put the Lady of the Port under their power, he arranged for her to become addicted to brackbane via the poison-dealing Union of the Snake.  Despite this, he is not Bonolva's friend; he would like to see Bonolva become the true master of the city, with Bernat as his puppet so that he in turn can manipulate Bonolva into becoming his puppet in turn.  But Saulescu is not his own master; he is in turn a puppet of greater forces.  He appears to be powerful and wealthy, with wide holdings in the Mezzovian region, but in reality, he is financially insolvent.  Paying the Union of the Snake has completely broken him financially, and put him in the debt of a shadowy patron.  He doesn't know for sure who this patron is, but he is both terrified of him, and anxious to find a way to pay him back and not owe him any favors.

Crime syndicates of Porto Liure

Although it was my plan to do G is for the Garriga Mountains today, I find myself in need of some detail about the criminal organizations of Porto Liure for the "all rogues" game I'm going to be running online, which I mentioned briefly in my last post.  So, let me whip something up there, real quick.

Porto Liure has a reputation as a lawless, anarchic place.  That's not entirely true.  One of the conceits for its very existance; a necessary caveat for Terrasa accepting its bid as an independent city-state in the first place, is the establishment and enforcement of a rule of law in Porto Liure, and agreeing to do so was old Jacobo Bernat's key compromise in his bid to establish himself as the newly minted Lord of Porto Liure at the end of the Pirate Wars 150 years ago.  How seriously that endeavor has been taken over the years has, of course, waxed and waned.  At its most stringent, the streets were nearly as clean as in any Terrasan city, and at its most lax, the Lord of Porto Liure was little more than among the most prominent gangster warlords in the city, with the City Watch as his personal enforcers.  Naturally, most of the time, it's somewhere in between.

But even at its most strident, the streets of Porto Liure have never really been clean.  It's just not in the nature of Liurans to roll over and accept too much authority, and the result of that is that organized crime is one of the most enduring and notable features of the city.

Currently, the following are among the most prominent elements of organized crime in the city.

• The Cherskii Mafia.  Headquartered "overseas", this mafia was formed and remains run to this day by bosses amongst the hamazin.  Originally meant as a method to raise money and resources for a resurgent "glorious revolution" and revitalization of Baal Hamazi itself, as the years have passed, the patriotic zeal has proven fleeting.  Most likely, the organized crime business is simply more profitable.  Although nominally run by hamazin hellkin, in reality, they tend to be distant and rarely seen authority figures.  Much of the actual muscle of these gangs are made up of shaggy urban changelings and local humans.  They deal in the usual vices--prostitution (not strictly illegal in Porto Liure, although discouraged in some locales), smuggling, drugs, protection rackets, bribery of officials, and the occasional contract killing.
• The Union of the Snake. A small group in Porto Liure, this is actually a Sarabascan outfit that specializes in assassination and poisonings.  Because their reputation is so good, the business is incredibly lucrative, and they can charge so much, the Union has surprising clout given their small numbers.  They are much more specialized than most, however.
• The Castiada Crime Family.  A local Terrasan family business, which has grown over the years to be a major player in the city.  Ruled by the "Old Gray Lady", it's not entirely clear who this person is.  It's not entirely clear that it is in fact a single person, or even a person at all.  Commonly, it's believed that the Old Gray Lady is a leader in disguise, and the actual running of the family is confined to a small group or triumvirate who take turns donning the Old Gray Lady's robes when the occasion demands.  Some have made wilder claims; that the Old Gray Lady is the ghost of an ancient Castiada matron who still rules the family from beyond the grave being one popular tavern story, but if anyone knows the truth, they're not saying.  In addition to playing in the usual vices, the Castiadas have made a concerted effort in the past to corral all the cat-burglars and pick-pockets in the city under their umbrella.  They haven't been completely successful, but they've managed to take a cut from a fair amount of them, and freelance operatives better learn to take very small, discrete steps around town or risk their brutal wrath.
• The Fuzeta da Ponte family.  Another local gang, but one with tendrils extending throughout the western Mezzovian region.  Old Man Heitor, the capo emeritus of the family, spent many of his younger years at sea as a pirate, and only retired to take over the organized crime business from his father when the sea lanes got too hot for him.  He's now stepped aside for his own son, Leonardo, who plied the seas with a little more legitimacy, sailing with a letter of marque issued by the Lord of Porto Liure himself.  Fantastically connected, both locally with the nobility, abroad with various important VIPs throughout the region, and with a number of old pirates and smugglers on the waters as well, the Fuzeta da Ponte family might be the most potent player in the city, although their strength is difficult to estimate.  Although they dabble in everything, their specialty is smuggling and piracy, and many pirates on the clear blue waters of the Mezzovian are sailing with debts owed to the Fuzeta da Ponte family, which they ensure they use as leverage to take a cut.
• Kaz's Crew.  Kazimir Lagebøter's ancestors were from the north, as a casual glance at his name suggests.  However, his family has lived in Porto Liure for generations.  Seen by many as a newcomer, and therefore with some disdain, Kazimir's success derives from his reputation for potent, dangerous, and cursed witchery, which he learned from an old vampire hag he took as a lover while traveling in Tarush Noptii.  At least, so say the rumors.  Regardless, his rise has been meteoric, and his crew have an almost unnatural, offputting mien to them.  Few can say to have directly witnessed any action of witchcraft, but everyone whispers about it nonetheless.

Black Maria

Porto Liure is infamous as a haven for pirates and privateers, but in truth, its infamy is even deeper still.  Known as particularly—and even peculiarly—picturesque, it has drawn artists, poets, the idle rich and other "sensitive" types for generations, who wander—hopefully carefully, given the towns' somewhat exaggerated (but not entirely) lawless reputation—its cramped narrow streets, and its sultry seaside views.

Black Maria in life

While the Mezzovian is warm, particularly the smaller Chistau Sea which makes up the shores of the port city, cool sighing winds blowing off the hills west of the sea, and when the cool air from the heights meets the warmer air of the harbor, it coalesces into a drizzling rain or persistent fog.  Strange voices are often heard in this fog.  Skeptics say that that's just what happens in a busy city when you can't see and sound is either muffled or curiously amplified and carried in turns, but the locals who live in the poorer parts of town are not skeptics.  People disappear, or are found dead and curiously bloated, mummified, slashed or drained of blood or otherwise mutilated and desecrated.  Again; skeptics point to the lawless nature of the town and find explanations for these bizarre murders in gang warfare or other more mundane solutions.  And soon enough, the murders are officially closed and forgotten; there is enough mundane murder done in Porto Liure as it is, and few miss folks from the poor neighborhoods anyway.  But the locals know that Porto Liure's infamy as a nest of pirates is secondary to its less well-known but eternal nature as a haunted place, ruled in secret by ghosts, spectres and other supernatural entities.  This had led to the nickname many locals give to Porto Liure; Port of Ghosts, or Ghostport.  Anyone who uses this nickname is almost certainly a local from one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city, but as a picaresque nickname in literature, folklore and stories told abroad, it is also gaining popularity.

One of the most famous of these in old tavern tales, beside that of Dog, is Black Maria.  Although her original identity is unclear and there are many claims, most see her as the today unrecognized first daughter-in-law of Jacobo Bernat himself, the architect of Porto Liure's free city-state status.  Maria, the fifth daughter of an ancient Terrasan house, was as decadent as they came, and the story goes that she kidnapped, tortured and killed up to 500 young girls, drinking (or even bathing in) their blood.  When the hue and outcry came to be more than old Bernat could ignore, she was put on trial, hanged, drawn and quartered, and her spiked head was put on the city gates—her "quarters" thrown to sharks in the harbor.  Nonetheless, the story of Black Maria doesn't end there.

Claims of sightings of Black Maria's ghost were intermittent throughout the next few hundred years, and a few deaths were even ascribed to her—especially young, female victims who died without apparent cause or motive, especially if they complained before their deaths about being unnaturally frightened or disturbed in some way—usually by advance sightings of the ghost, it is presumed.  But twenty years ago, when the face of the moon became a skull, things changed.  Now, whenever the moon is full and passes directly through the triangular configuration of the legs of the constellation Herne, Black Maria is said to make a much more substantial revival.  In whispered voices, the locals will say that once the legs of Herne were another constellation known as the Black Pharoah's Crown, and when the moon is thus "crowned" the brides of the Black Pharoah—the ghosts of witches and worse the world over—walk the earth to kill again.

It is unclear if this superstition has any basis in reality or not.  True, nights when the full moon is in the crown (which happens on average three times every two years) a number of girls go missing.  But since they are usually unreported, only those who have eyes to see and pay attention to the signs believe there to be any pattern.  Associate lecturer Enrico Sançez at Porto Liure's small Academy is the foremost expert on local folklore.  He's a taciturn, bookish fellow—suspicious and uncommunicative, and prone to easy frights.  But when drunk, he occasionally talks in private of his suspicions, theories and speculations about many of the supernatural goings-on in Porto Liure.  His pet theory about Black Maria is that the torture and murder of all those girls wasn't just to satisfy her sadistic urges, but was a ritual designed to grant her eternal life.  It wasn't ever completed before she was put to death, but it had been sufficiently advanced that the grave had only a tenuous hold on her, and when the moon died, as the expression goes, she was able to transcend her death at certain times.  Her goal now is to finish the ritual as quickly as possible and return in full to horrible unlife as an eternal predator on the lives of mankind.

Dog

In Porto Liure, there's a very unusual cult: the worship of Dog.  Dog is a "god" that's actually fairly apparent to the residents of Porto Liure.  Everyone knows about him.  He lives on the island of Gandesa, not far from the city.  He appears to be immortal--he's been there since the city was founded at the very least--and undefeatable.  In the early days of Porto Liure, soldiers and sailors tried to hunt or kill Dog, but most were killed and eaten for their efforts.

What exactly is Dog?  He's... well, he's a very big dog.  About the size of an elephant.  His shaggy fur glistens like the shadows of darkest night, and his teeth shine like polished silver.  His eyes glow a fiery red.

Mostly Dog sleeps on the island, unseen and hidden from view.  Nobody knows where his lair is, despite many efforts to find it over the years.  When Dog walks, he leaves dark footprints behind that ooze shadowy tendrils of darkness like oily black smoke, but if one tries to track Dog, the tracks always seem to end in a confusing maze, or circle back on themselves, or otherwise lead one to naught.

Nobody is exactly sure when worship of Dog started.  It became apparent that Dog needed to eat.  Three times a year, human sacrifices are left for Dog.  Usually they are convicted criminals or enemies of the state, but if none are available, occasionally a citizen will be sacrificed.  Dog prefers young maidens, but will take anyone that's not too old and stringy.  If Dog isn't satiated through sacrifice, he will slip into Porto Liure at night and eat anyone he can find in the streets, leaving nothing but bloody tatters in his wake.  In the summer of 421--almost 150 years ago now--Dog massacred no less than 43 men, women and children in a single night and was seen by many more, before slipping off again before sunrise, leading to the last attempt to hunt and kill him.  Unsuccessfully, of course--he wasn't even found after the Bloody Saturday Massacre, as it came to be called.

Another curious Liurism is that portegnos frequently swear by Dog, even if they don't belong to the admittedly small cult of Dog.  "By Dog!". "By Dog's rancid breath!" or "By the fleas of Dog's greasy pelt!" and countless other variations pepper the speech of most native portegnos.

NPCs of note (Bara Gairo)

Continuing my description of Bara Gairo, a small seaside town near to and associated with Porto Liure that is a good, small environment in which to start a DARK•HERITAGE game.  This post is on a handful of important local NPCs around town that the player characters might wish to interact with.  Clearly, its not meant to be exhaustive.

Alfonso Galland — A middle-aged, sturdy fisherman.  He owns a boat that he operates with his son, Éttiene.  He's widowed and also lives with his daughter, Vittoria, who is an accomplished tracker and trapper of small animals, preferring to avoid the company of the village-folk for the solitude of the woods.  Despite his rather taciturn children, Alfonso himself is friendly and kind, and among the villagers, is the most likely to be convinced to help in a tough spot.  Bring danger or trouble to his children, though, and you'll see a dark, ugly side of Alfonso.

Braz Vargas — Owner of the Lima's Spirits, the inn, tavern, and general store for Bara Gairo.  Braz is a large man, who displays a degree of wealth unusual for this small village.  His common room is nearly always full, while his rooms rarely are.  In addition to running the inn, he also is the local brewer, and most of the folks in the island drink small beer brewed by Vargas as their day to day drink.  Friendly on the surface, Vargas is also notoriously untrustworthy and cowardly.  The locals like to hang out in his common room and drink his spirits, but otherwise don't trust him with much.

Inés Peixoto — Although she purports to be a simple assistant and serving woman at the Lima's Spirits; a distant relative of Vargas' taken in by his charity, it's a fairly open secret that Inés is actually an agent of the Castiada crime family.  Rumors are thick in town about how Vargas got saddled with her, the most popular being that he was deep into debt with the mafiosos.

Cesar Gonzalez — An extremely skilled crafstman, Cesar claims to be able to fix anything that comes through town, and make most of what else is needed.  His skill with his tools makes him a popular person in town.  Idle talk around town occasionally refers to rumors that he honed his skills working with the Castiadas, and has "retired" to the country--with a head full of secrets.

Jaufré Marcuçez — The "mayor" and semi-official town leader, Jaufré is notorious for being somewhat indecisive, and its no secret that Camilla, his sturdy farmwife and a highly religious person, actually calls the shots.  She is greatly respected, but has little patience for fools.

Evike von Rajecz — As a Tarushan "Gypsy" Evike is one of the most exotic townsfolk.  She lives simply, long having given up her roaming days, but is famous for her fortune-telling—which is only taken half-seriously by the townsfolk.

Kemal Hajdari — This brusque wildman is the town's primary source of non-seafood meat, furs and leathers.  In addition to hunting and slaughtering, his house doubles as a small tannery and leatherworking facility.  He's taken a liking to the similarly taciturn Vittoria Galland, calling her his "little niece."  He knows more about the islands nearby—once you're beyond the beach, anyway—than anyone else around.

Gisati Tahhi — A middle-aged hamazin woman, who lives in a large house with a bunch of children, none of them her own.  Most of them are orphans—or presumed to be—who shipwrecked with her eleven years ago just north of the harbor.  They were brought into the town, the house made for them with the wreckage from their ship (mostly by Alfonso Galland and Cesar Gonzalez), and her services as a small orphanage were seen as good for the town.  A few more children were moved in after a bout of plague swept through the town.  Curiously, she claims no knowledge of who her charges were or what the mission of the ship was that brought them.  The captain was killed in the wreck.

Although I haven't yet committed it in writing, I'm also developing a number of secrets associated with most of these characters.  Giving campaign elements secrets is one of the best ways to keep a campaign setting feeling rich, robust and alive, as well as being a potent driving force for the campaign overall—assuming you drop enough hints that the players start getting curious enough to investigate them.  I'll either commit those in writing in another post, or in the comments section of this post, and I'll write a FRPG post about secrets sometime in the future.

Bara Gairo

Bara Gairo is a small farming town on the island of Cala Gairo, just a few miles to the northeast of Porto Liure.  There's about half a dozen such small towns located near Porto Liure, and Bara Gairo is representative, in many ways, of what all of them are like.

The inhabitants of Bara Gairo are Liurans, mostly, but they live in a kind of self-imposed exile of sorts.  While Gandesa--the island on which Porto Liure sits--is fairly large and contains a fair amount of arable land, Cala Gairo and its sister-villages provide much of the agrictulture that keeps Porto Liure fed; Gandesa by itself and the Liuran city-folk are incapable of doing so on their own.

There are about fifty homesteads on the island, and probably 350 or so people who live in Bara Gairo.  Ten of the homesteads operate small fishing boats that plough the shoals near the town for fish and shellfish.  These boats tend to be fairly old and somewhat rickety, although reasonably well maintained.  They are slow and adequate for the two day long milk runs to Porto Liure required to sell their stock, as well as prowling the local waters for fish.  At any given time, seven or eight will be in the area, while the others will be in Porto Liure or en route.  Another thirty to thirty five homesteads are farmers who grow olives, peppers, figs, grapes, and other crops, or who tend sheep and goats for wool, milk and meat.  The remaining families tend to gravitate towards other crafts--there's a blacksmith, an innkeeper, a couple carpenters, etc.  The basics required to keep a rural town operating reasonably self-sufficiently.

Bara Gairo harbor

The population rarely grows or shrinks significantly.  While plenty of children are born to the families in Bara Gairo, only a few of them will remain to take on their family's occupations, while the others will make their way to Porto Liure to find their fortune, apprentice to a craftsman of some kind, or take to sea on the crew of a merchant or pirate ship.  Since many of the adults are retired old sea dogs, this is seen as not only acceptable, but even desirable.  This also means that at any given time, a substantial portion of the population are veterans of some kind of combat experience.  They keep themselves relatively well armed and trained, just to ensure that an eager or desperate pirate crew doesn't find them easy enough pickings to be tempting.

A number of the people in Bara Gairo can also be seen as retired or reserve members of the Castiadas crime family.  Castiadas smugglers occasionally stop through the town, and Castiadas agents who find Porto Liure getting too hot temporarily occasionally hide out in Bara Gairo, living a quiet, unassuming life until it's safe to get back into town.

So, despite the fact that Bara Gairo is fairly sleepy and quiet, it's not completely cut-off or insular.  About 20% of the time, there's a non-local boat in the harbor, usually a semi-regular visitor from Porto Liure, but sometimes other traders or sailors with different motives.  And at any given time, probably 8-10 people will be in town who do not normally live there, two or three of which will be strangers; the rest of whom will be semi-regular.  Lima's Spirits is the inn in town; the largest building, and place where the farmers, fisherfolk and strangers alike are likely to congregate in the evenings.  And there's a small but cozy stone chapel maintained by Pare Haśteu, an Easterner with a strong accent despite having lived here now for decades.

Just outside of town, amongst the farms, is a run-down old stone building which has been sealed shut for years.  Nobody lives there, but it's commonly believed to be haunted, and strange lights and sounds can occasionally be seen after dark.  Local urban myth suggests that a sorcerer, looking for isolation, came to Bara Gairo years ago and somehow managed to curse the building, or was perhaps himself cursed to haunt it in some manner.  In fact, the haunted Osini house has become locally famous, and is the subject of a number of urban myths in Porto Liure itself.

Bara Gairo is designed specifically to be the kind of relatively quiet and quaint starting place so many RPGs like to begin in, but unlike some of the other such examples of the genre, there should be a slightly sinister cast to it.  Since many of the inhabitants are former gangsters or pirates, there are still ties to both coming through regularly--although quietly and discreetly, since it's also an important supply point for Porto Liure itself, and official notice can be brought to bear qiuckly if things look bad in town.  Furtive strangers could therefore be smugglers, assassins, hiding crime bosses or cultists--or they could merely be Liurans looking to escape from the ragged urban lifestyle, if they can manage to get away.  Some of them, in fact, are former residents who left as youths, but who return later, occasionally matured to unrecognizability, to see what has become of their former homes.

Aside from the village of Bara Gairo (and neighboring farms) itself, the island is rocky and steep, and covered with thick forest.  While it's a small island, and therefore doesn't hold very much in the way of large game, but some small white tailed deer and javelinas do make their way through the brush, hunted by rare cougars and some feral dogs that have lived untamed on the island for generations.  Occasional sightings of weirder things are reported, and in general, those of the village who like wandering the woods are looked at in askance; the villagers turn their faces towards the sea and away from the forest.

Deep in the interior, nestled among volcanic stones and hills, are the remnants of some past mysterious inhabitants--small stone cairns and carved standing stones, with brooding, weathered features and unreadable runes.  Disquieting half-heard noises can be heard near them on occasion, and there are persistent rumors of villagers who have disappeared near these standing stones, never to be seen again.

Coming soon: More specific hooks for things to have happen in or near Bara Gairo, and some discussion on how a campaign could start there, where it could go from there, and which themes and tone elements it would best serve.

Sarabasca

The exotic jann have a powerful island and coastal state in the caliphate of al-Qazmir, but it mostly exists outside of the Mezzovian Sea region. The Golden Peninsula is more and more becoming an important part of the caliphate, and it does have at least one major Mezzovian port city in the form of Qarizaq. The island town of al-Marraq is the westernmost seafaring settlement of al-Qazmir, but it still falls well beyond the sphere of inluence of any Terrasan city, even Sènt-Haspar. Nevertheless, that wasn't always true, and Terrasan influence used to stretch all along the coastline of the Mezzovian, reaching to the Shipwreck Strait and beyond to the northern shore. The farthest east major settlement of the Terrasans was Basarabeasca.

Basarabeasca was only reachable by ship, since the vampire nation of Tarush Noptii cut it off from the mainland on the north. Because of that, it was only ever at best a fairly wild frontier region, and not heavily settled. The natives of the area spoke a language that was obviously closely related to Terrasan, but difficult if not completely impossible to understand for the Terrasans. Under the influence of Terrasan traders, soldiers, and even settlers, many of these "East Terrasan" speakers found their language gradually migrating to something more similar to standard Terrasan, as it picked up loan words and even loan structure from its relative. But by and large Sarabascan exists as a separate language, still common in the far eastern region of the Mezzovian, especially on the north shoreline. On the south shoreline, it's being rapidly replaced by Qazmiri, as the jann's kingdom expands that direction.

As the Terrasan Empire's might faded, far-flung areas that were under its influence found themselves left to their own devices. Calça is the most notorious of these areas, earning the subtitle of the Forgotten Province, but the far eastern lands were abandoned even earlier. Technically, they were never incorporated into the Empire in the first place; they were merely areas that had some Terrasan influence, trade, settlers, or perhaps they gave a nod of recognition to the Empire in Terrasa without surrendering any actual local authority. Basarabeasca was the most important and largest of these north shore cities, but several neighbors sprang up over time as well.

As Terrasa retreated westward, many of the actual Terrasans (or their descendants) remained in the area of Basarabeasca, now shortened after decades of use to Sarabasca. Independent Sarabasca saw many of its trade relationships dry up, but to encourage the further influx of money, the ruler of the city repealed a number of anti-smuggling and piracy statutes and opened the city to trade that was perhaps gathered in more ilicit ways than before. While many Sarabascans naturally did not welcome this change, most were indifferent, and the wealthy were happy to see goods and gold flowing into the city again. Jobs were available, on the crews of ships, on the docks, or working in the growing security industry--making sure life and property weren't threatened by the rougher crews. For a time, Sarabasca enjoyed a sometimes friendly rivalry with its far western spiritual brother, Porto Liure, which was also a haven for pirates, privateers and other frequently less savory traffic on the Mezzovian Sea. Many captains who's activities ranged the entire inner sea were, of course, familiar faces in both ports. But at about the time Porto Liure was undergoing its gradual transition from lawless pirate haven to legitimate and independent city-state, Sarabasca was undergoing a completely different kind of transformation.

As al-Qazmir consolidated its position on the Golden Peninsula and founded (or conquered and renamed) the cities of Qarizaq, Tayyebat and the island port of al-Marraq, only naturally they greedily looked at the shores of the northern Mezzovian sea as well. Their armies and navies, heavily supplemented by mercenaries from amongst the eastern peoples who were similar in language and customs to the Terrasans (although never part of the Terrasan empire) thus founded the province of "North al-Qazmir." However, North al-Qazmir was never as thoroughly "Qazmirized" as the Golden Peninsula and some of the eastern islands were. A political crisis, partially brought on by the strained budget of paying this conquering army, seized the Qazmiri capital of Qattara. Finally, most of the troops were recalled, and the province largely left to its own devices. However, this compromise was orchestrated by a number of Qazmiri who remained in the area, including the sultan installed at Sarabasca (called just Sarab by the Qazmiri.) For the benefit of paying a "tribute"--not a tax, which would imply a more direct and centralized relationship than exists, al-Qazmir would leave Sarab alone.

Many Qazmiri, both jann and human, migrated into the area as all this happened, and in the years since. al-Qazmir has not made a concerted attempt to bring North al-Qazmir under direct control again, and as long as token tribute comes from Sarab and some of the rest of the major settlements in the area, that status quo has not been challenged. In fact, many of the locals do not use the name North al-Qazmir for the area at all, and many of the backcountry locals have never even heard of al-Qazmir or seen a jann in their life. The coastal regions have gradually become a hybrid of Qazmiri, Terrasan and local culture, however, and most Sarabascans speak all three languages fluently just to get through their day to day routine. The sultan of Sarab is the most important figure in the area, and he plays a sometimes dangerous political game, trying to ensure his independence and safety from reprisals of both al-Qazmir and Terrasa, and to keep the rivalry with Porto Liure from boiling over into hostilities, and ensure that Tarush Noptii keeps quiet as well.

The entire area has recently acquired the nickname of the Barbary Coast, and corsairs from Sarabasca and other cities in the region range all over the Mezzovian Sea and even beyond Shipwreck Strait on occasion. These barbary pirates are more likely to indulge in the slave trade, raiding ships and even coastal regions for captives to sell in the markets of Qarizaq or Qadat, while the pirates who operate near the Tolosas are more likely to steal ships or cargo and ransom the prisoners, or even simply leave them stranded on some lonely coast to make their way as best they can back to civilization. For this reason, they are more likely to be feared by the Terrasans who are their targets. However, the Barbary corsairs are also not as likely to be as dangerous to larger ships, as they have few square-masted vessels and much lighter armaments and smaller boarding crews.

Many pirates, of course, recognize no port as their home, and travel freely from Porto Liure to Sarab, and other ports besides. In fact, there is a growing number of expatriate Terrasans who are moving to Sarab, and occasionally even from there to other ports that are even more thoroughly entrenched in Qazmiri culture. As Terrasa's power and influence wanes, al-Qazmir's waxes, at least in the far eastern shores of the Mezzovian, in many respects there are more opportunities there than in remaining in the west.