New Garris

     The continent of Austeria in the realm of Relic had two main areas of interest in the Third Age. Beyond the Jorna River lay the Wild-Scarred Lands, and the Great Expanse between the Jorna and the Lehr?. One of the most interesting bits of the Great Expanse straddled the Lehr… the twinned cities of Garris and Elenium.

     In the time of the Trader Imperium?, Garris was an extensive trade center and fabled for its ore mining – particularly silver and blood iron?. The Traders had built on top of older ruins which had been built to take advantage of these rich metal deposits by some long-forgotten First Age civilization. Their excavations ran deep under the city using a series of hidden portals to get around.

     Then the War Of The Wild saw Old Garris swallowed by the Warlocks’? magic, just its tallest towers and parapets showing above the ground. Once the siege was over (and thankfully the Warlocks were defeated) New Garris was built directly on top of that, a vast shanty town of Caladonian? refugees with assorted barbarian mercenaries, Trader survivors trying to form nomad tribes, and Valon? legions awaiting new orders.

     It was the Valon who took control from their settlement across the river, Elenium. A governor was appointed, the legions assigned to maintaining law and order, and construction begun on suitably noble areas for the new rulers. Unfortunately for them, while Elenium flourished and became a lovely ordered Valon city, New Garris remained a sprawling shantytown on the brink of lawlessness amid the rubble and ruins of Old Garris. The Valon retreated to walled enclaves, built up above the stench, and eventually constructed a series of elevated roads to link their enclaves together. They handed the rest to Caladon. When adventurers started digging to look for Trader relics, it completed the multi-layered, multi-cultured city of 50,000 souls that existed in Yr208. It was a place of relic hunting and adventure, but also a large amount of crime the city authorities struggled to control.

Ups and downs - the city in Yr208

     Garris sat atop a tall riverside cliff on the Riseward side of the Lehr River, where the Garris River ran into it. Upriver were the Hylin Falls and the huge statue of Raxoal the First Trader, that stood watch over the city. The Falls were majestic but stopped all navigation further up river, though two sets of Trader locks worked to bring small craft up and down. Together with its link to Elenium and the Valon empire beyond, this made New Garris an important trading crossroads.

     At river level you had the docks, both old and new. Then you climbed to get to the rest of the city. Much of Garris was built up-and-down as well as being spread out at the top of the headland. The cliff face had many small terraces and steps and these had been enhanced over the centuries to be more amenable to building. It was not an uncommon thing for the street of one level to be the roofing of the next one down. Switchbacks and stepped streets were common. People tended to live where they worked with the bottom floor either being a shop, or an opening onto the street with a fold-up awning and display area. Some larger buildings went down to another level as well as up, and some dug back into the stone of the cliff-face.

     Garris had more stonework buildings than any other city its size. Not only was there a quarry nearby, but there was also the broken stones from centuries of city-building. It was a rare building in New Garris that hadn’t incorporated stonework from a previous era, and if you looked past the awnings and lean-tos you’d see fragments of history all over the city.

Inns and outs

Garris had walls, but not like most cities. The height of the bluff were wall enough for most. The district boundaries of the city were marked by the former walls of the old Trader defenses, mostly poking up through the ground by 5 to 10 meters. They were maintained to keep out any incursion by the worst of the ruins dwellers, and the amount of blood iron ore in all the stone of Garris provided a natural barrier to the dwarven stonewalking ability. The tallest walls were the tips of the huge landside parapets which were the official end of the city until people started building up against them… both inside and out. The city spread outside amid the rubble of Old Garris.

In this main wall, the city gates of Garris were monstrous affairs that had mostly been bypassed with new passageways knocked into them to provide straight-throughways. Originally, all the gates were double gates needing two 90-degree turns so that no enemy force could push past in a single charge, but those plans were compromised decades ago. Later, the outer gates held a Valon supervisory station and tax officials’ homes, as well as squads of Caladon militia guards. Some gatehouses had become inns and taverns for new arrivals – there were people who never went further than the Filthy Duck in fact, drowning their sorrows rather than entering the main city.

The lift

The lift was a large series of pumps and tanks stretching from the river to the top of the city, where it fed into a large reservoir that used to be an arena, centuries ago. Windmills ran the pumps, but a backup-system was in place: a large series of screws that raised water into emergency cisterns linked by pipes and aqueducts. A common punishment was to be sent to ‘turn the screws’ when the winds from the Great Expanse died down, and it was backbreaking work.

Within the walls

     Among the many districts and informal zones of the sprawling ramshackle street level, the following bear special mention.

     The Whitewalls: Apart from the Valon enclaves, the Whitewalls was where ‘the quality’ dwelled. Its name was taken from the practice of regularly whitewashing the walls and using white plaster molds on the facades. This district was part of the cliffside communities… the part high up, with the most exclusive part having been on the side with the best views across the river and Steppeward to Hylin Falls. They had the largest homes, often with a garden in the front, with extensive space cut into the rock under and behind the house for cold storage. Most homes had one or two wooden water reservoirs on the roof. Almost all of them were tall enough to actually have entrances on the next street above, which was commonly the trade or servants' entrance.

     There were very few shops in this district, although a keen eye might have found a few of the most exclusive antiques emporia, the ones that auctioned the most impressive of the relics found by adventurers with a license to venture under the main city streets.

     The Rookery: A half-moon court strewn with awnings and stalls was a noisy front to the main guild offices. Guilds were an important part of Caladon life, and the guilds got an important central location to be important together. Clerks, runners, lawmen and lower-echelon merchants hashed out the daily business of the city while being served various cups of stewed leaves and sugared fruits. Behind the scenes, the imposing buildings had many private offices and meeting rooms – which was where the real business of business was done.

     The Rookery also boasted the largest public bath in the city, with multiple levels of hot and cold plunges. The agreements that were made in the steam room shaped the fate of the world, or so they said.

     Godspeakers Street: The raised temple area of the city was mostly given over to the gods of the Valon. The richest temple was to Usez and his cohorts as one might expect. The largest temple, though, was to Saphron who occupied an almost unique position in Garris. The Lord of War was the predominant deity among the soldiers who used to be the main occupants of Garris and he was vastly popular. Several cults had arisen around famous or particularly skilled soldiers or generals, the most famous of which was the adventurer Keiman; many of the commoners wear one of his scarlet sword icons in honor of their local hero. At ground level were imposing churches and houses for various Caladon sects, in the shadow of the Valon temples but much busier, with a day-and-night bustle of visiting worshipers.

     Several crafts that were uniquely suited to supplying the needs of the religious were based around the border between the Street and the Fumes: chandlers, incense-vendors, paper-sellers, ink-makers, and artists of various stripes wer the most numerous. The candles and incense also help cut the smell from the alchemists and anatomists next door.

     The Fumes: The area where wizards plied their trade, a warren of dingy alleyways. Named after the alchemists, it was also home to the anatomists, enchanters, and assorted spellcasters. If you play through the adventure in Bitter Fumes, you’ll learn all about the Fumes.

Content Type > Approved Content
Features Of Realms > Geography
Features Of Realms > Culture
Features Of Realms > Politics
Realms > Mortal Realms > Elements > Relic > The Great Expanse

Created by: 67.241.7.56. Last Modification: Friday 03 of July, 2009 10:22:58 UTC by MMK.

Wiki

Forums