An Unmailed Letter

Dear Mother Superior:

You may never receive this, for I am writing it from a village called Tinker’s Dam, somewhere in the interior or Dag’s Moor. If you have received my previous letters, you will understand how I have come too this condition, but if not, suffice it to say that I found myself on the eastern shore of Lenay with no money and no way to return home, and so have decided to put my training to use, and earn my way back through adventuring.

I was in a village called Whelker’s Deep when I heard of 4 men who had defeated a party of goblins that was menacing the outlying farms. I found these men being feted in the village, and heard many tales of the troubles emanating from the moors. Goblins have been raiding; orcs have been seen; and piracy and other criminal endeavors are legion. A dwarf who works for one of the lords hereabouts was telling how the coach was robbed, and a magic user had lost many valuable goods - it became clear that the men who killed the goblins were becoming enflamed with a desire to go into the moor to seek their fortunes.

I noticed, however, that though there were 4 of them, none of them were priests. It occurred to me that they might be willing to take me along as a henchman (or hench-woman I suppose), for spiritual guidance and medical assistance. So I approached them, making it clear that I could not fight with any effectiveness (for all I could afford was a very old and ineffective suit of padded armor and a half broken shield), but I would gladly offer what services I could in exchange for a partial share of the treasure. They seemed pleased to have me join them, for it saved them the trouble of finding a priest on their own. They are, I think, all strangers to this area. And so we set out.

I say men, though only one is strictly speaking a man. 2 are elves: one a wizard, the other a fighting man, though one with religious affiliation - he may be a paladin. There is one human, a soldier, and one who I think still fancies himself in uniform - in battle, he moves as though he expects the others to form a battle line with him. The fourth is something I have never seen before, though I have heard of such creatures - a kind of dragon looking creature, all black (and calling himself Inky), who is even able to spit a kind of corrosive fire at his enemies. I keep my peace and do as needed, though I do not fully trust these men, especially the dragon creature - he barely speaks, but when he does, he seems determined to shock the rest of us with his cruelty. The others do not seem shocked - I don’t know if they are used to such badinage, or if they are as bad as he is - though none of them seem all that bad. We have been dragging an orc around with us for two days now, for example, when it would have been very simple to kill him or throw him into a river to drown. They may have sinister motives, but so far they have treated this orc with surprising decency.

I should tell you how things have happened. We left Whelker’s Deep - good heavens - it is but yesterday morning! You see how much has happened! We travelled along a coastal road heading north to a place they cal Clamdigger Cove - which is occupied by pirates and smugglers, from all I have heard. We had gone an hour or so on this road when we heard strange noises on the other side of a ridge. We sent scouts ahead - the drgaon-man and the fighting elf (I will call him a paladin; I think that is what he is). They circled up the hill and spotted the source of the noises - a bug-bear and 2 goblins! There was a fight: I have the most confused memories of it. One of the monsters broke through the rest of the party and reached me - I tried to defend myself, but he knocked me down; I think I was knocked out for a while, though I soon car around. I think the fighting might have been over then. I recovered, and was able to help one of the others - though I swear, now, I can’t remember who it was. I was terrified, reverent Mother - not as much while it was happening as afterwards - thinking about it. Later, as we were walking on the road, I could not stop thinking about what had just happened to me, and how close I had come to having something truly terrible happen. I could die: I have been in danger before, but not like that. To see something coming at me, determined to kill me - I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I should add here that we saw a Hill Giant in the distance - I think he saw us, I don't know. No one wanted anything to do with him. Not then at least.

So we went on down the road. I remember as we travelled we saw other things - we were charged by a group of boars - I suspect they had been hunted by the giant, or possibly the goblins, earlier - for they seemed very angry, from the beginning. We killed them; we cut off some of the meat for supplies, though we could hardly carry all of it. There were other things on the road - old ruins; the rotting carcasses of animals; bones; ruined wagons and other detritus - but none of it was interesting to us. We were eager to reach the town; we hastened on our way.

We came to the village at last. Clamdigger Cove is a small village, on a hillside overlooking what I think is a fine, deep harbor. The town, now, is a wasteland - most of the houses are burned out, or stripped to the beams; only the buildings by the water remain intact and apparently occupied. Before we could enter the town we were set upon by orcs, who were laying in wait at the bridge into town. This fight went well for us - the wizard was able to render one of the orcs unconscious immediately; the fighting men quickly brought down the other two. I healed the wounded and we took the unconscious orc with us, down to the waterfront, where we occupied one of the buildings. We made a fire and roasted the boar and kept watches over night and were unmolested. The others tries to question the orc; they batted him and kicked him, but he didn’t say much; I know now he speaks common, so it wasn’t incomprehension - I think he was simply stubborn. But I think too they didn’t care what he had to say, they just felt like knocking him around. He is a vile creature, I must say.

In the morning we went out and were accosted in the street by two men who inquired as to our business. We inquired as to theirs as well. No one seemed to answer these inquiries though. After some time, they went to one of the barrooms that were still standing, and apparently still operating in this town - there, we had an interesting incident. The orc spotted two men inside and immediately began straining at the bonds that held him, shouting insults at them in orc and common, while one of them attempted to get to him and run him through. It was obvious that he and they had crossed paths before, and from the sounds of it, the orcs came off the better. But this was very confusing.

We did not tarry with these men, who were not friendly, and indeed, struck me as hoping for a chance to do us harm. We went instead into the village, a very sad and unpleasant place. The feeling was intensified when we passed the cemetery, for we were set on - in broad daylight - by the undead. I shudder to think of this horror - but we were victorious in this clash, and were preparing to go on when a man emerged fro the church to thank us for saving him. He then told a tale - confused and confusing - about seeing the men from the waterfront fighting orcs; some of them dying, some of them chased away - and some of them pursuing the orcs, the main body of whom seem to have gone up the river with their captured mules. That is where we were bound - the others seemed pleased to know that is where the orcs were going too, so they could fight them. Or recover whatever the men had on their mules. I suspect that loot is the real goal of these men. I can’t complain - the more they make, the more I will be able to get for my services, and thus I hope to be able to return to you soon.

We proceeded up the river then. This brought us into the moors - a spectacular sight. The hills rising up, all covered in green, in grass and moss and stunted trees - it is a beautiful and daunting sight. We were reminded of its perils, too - we had traveled an hour or more and were suddenly set upon by two ogres! I thought - we have no chance, they will kill us - but the others were eager to give battle. And we slew the ogres, surprisingly easily. But the dragon-man fell into another hazard - he charged the monsters, and suddenly seemed to disappear almost without a trace! He had fallen into a mire. He got out - he is strong and agile, he is a warrior after all - but the moment gave all of us pause. The land itself is against us, we thought. We were more careful afterwards.

We came at last to this place. I called it a village at the beginning of the letter, but that is very kind. It is, now, a ruin, and seems to have been ruined a long time ago: there is a ruined mill; there are one or two ruined buildings, that look tike they might have been storehouses, barns, that sort of thing. There are houses, all of them ruined - burned out, or half fallen in. Open cellars and the like. Much of this seems to have happened a long time ago - some of it is more recent though. There are houses where someone has clearly attempted to rebuild a kind of shelter on top of a ruined house - though these are now mostly knocked in as well.

We found signs of fighting - skeletons, stripped of all their flesh; half-rotted - and often, it seemed, half devoured, bodies - horrible! And then - we were attacked, here, by undead - by zombies, they were. We dispatched these - but while we were fighting them, suddenly, we were ambushed by goblins.

The dragon-man killed one of the goblins, who had been sniping from a cellar; we saw another dashing into another cellar, and we went after him with all dispatch. This was a fairly intact cellar where the superstructure of the house was gone - there were some half-wrecked walls, but nothing more. But the floor was intact, and the cellar seemed quite intact. Well - we went there and plunged down into the cellar in pursuit of the goblin - when we did, we were set on by more goblins, waiting for us! They were waiting in ambuscade - and as we went after them - hobgoblins emerged from hidden chambers, and for a moment, things were very frightening. I was not involved in this, not directly - I could see it was a close run thing, though. But again, we survived, and defeated them.

This brought us to the present, more or less. We have taken an hour or so to regain our composure and to prepare for the next step. We can see a kind of road leading up the side of the hills - we know there is an old mine in this area - it seems likely this is the approach to it. So we are preparing before we go to find what we have come here to find.

I am using this time to write these thoughts down. I want a record of things. When I return, I will try to mail this to you - though the condotion of the country these days makes me think it is more likely to arrive if I bring it myself. Though seeing what I have seen these two days, I am fearful for my life - will I return alive from this? I do not know; I fear. But I have come this far, and now I will go on. I will do what I promised these men I would do - I will go with them, offer what assistance I can, and that is all. I will say that having come this far I feel much stronger - more confident - I am afraid, perhaps, because I know the trials we are likely to face - but I am also, perhaps contradictorily, more prepared to face these trials. As if - every fight we survive makes me feel stronger, braver, more ready for more trouble to come.

I must add - I have donned the chain mail worn by one of the hobgoblins. This might have been a mistake - it is a vile smelling object; these monsters are not clean. (Though I can say this: the goblins are almost unspeakably foul, covered in grime, smelly and greasy and horrible; the hobgoblins, while hardly clean, seem almost civilized in comparison - indeed, the stench of this armor seems more like rotten blood, and - various natural functions - as well as the long hard use it must have had - than the natural awfulness of the monster. This is not a time for a mediatation on the relative cleanliness of brutal monsters - but I it were: the goblins are the worst; the orc nearly as bad; the hobgoblins are barely worse than some men I have seen. Though the true horror are the zombies - who carry the stench of death and offal with them to a point that can make you almost dizzy to be close to.)

I will close for now: we are preparing to move on. I will add what I can when I have the chance.

For now - your faithful and loving servant - Novice Claire.

Whelker's Deep

Whelker's Deep is a small town on the eastern coast of Lenay, a dozen or so miles north of Warrenville (the largest town in the region), 7-8 miles south of Clamdigger Cove (a very small fishing village.) Whelker's Deep gets its name from its harbor - a nice, deep, sheltered harbor, big enough for oceangoing vessels to put in, though most of the traffic is smaller. It is mainly a fishing village, but there is a fair amount of coastal trade. The harbor is at the mouth of the Cardiff River, which flows eastward from the moors to the sea. After falling out of the highlands, the river runs through a small valley running west to east. South of the valley is there is a ridge separating it from the Calderon Valley, where the Calderon River runs down to Warrenville. The area between Whelker's Deep and Warrenville is rolling country, fairly low, scored by low, rocky ridges that separate fields, bogs, marshes, and small stands of trees. It is a land of small farms and hamlets, down to the Calderon Valley, which is fairly populated, being the most fertile ground in the area.

Dag's Moor rises north and west of Whelker's Deep and the Cardiff river. If you go up the river, you will climb into the heather, then into the moor itself, where the river runs fast and ragged. The moorland runs roughly parallel to the coast north of Whelker's Deep - the moors themselves are marked by steep hills or even cliffs, several hundred feet higher than the coastal shelf. The farther north you go, the closer the moors come to the coast. The road to Clamdiggers Cove runs straight north from Whelker's Deep. It runs a mile or so inland from the coast, generally keeping to the higher land between the moors proper and the coast. Several small rivers and creeks run out of the hills to the sea in this area - close to the coast, the land is very broken. There are deep river valleys, hills, ridges, but also marshes and fens as you approach the sea. This is very difficult country (close to the sea), generally avoided by decent people. The land between Whelker's Deep and Clamdiggers Cve is fairly empty - there are some small farms here than there - more toward the moors (which are more amenable to sheep grazing) - but not much. There are, however plenty of ruins - centuries worth of keeps and castles, farms and buildings, most long abandoned. The emptiness of the region has gotten worse in recent years, due to the troubles.

Whelker's Deep itself consists of a village built around the shoreline and along the river, plus a number of houses and farms around the outskirts of the town. The Cardiff valley is a reasonably fertile place - there are a number of hamlets and manors and farms along the river, though they tend to become more uncommon as you approach the moors. In the town itself, there is a fairly active downtown, along the waterfront. There is just enough commerce to support a fairly active economy there. There are three or four bars, a couple inns, boarding houses and so on located near the waterfront, along with a variety of the usual kinds of businesses. The economy is mostly from fishing, but there is some trade - this is something of a meeting place between the moors and the sea and the Calderon valley - the gateway between these three areas. There is a fair amount of seaborne traffic through the town - mostly coastal traffic (and the fishing boats), but some big ships come in once in a while. Along with sailors, there are often adventurers hanging around.

There are also some businesses outside the village. The road up the river is fairly busy, even now - there are a number of farms and such up the river, with a modest amount of traffic passing up and down the river. The river itself is not exactly navigable - small craft can move up and down these lower reaches, though you don;t have to go far up the river for it to become too fast for traffic. It is useful for mills and the like though. There are a couple taverns out along this road, some stores and the like. Going toward Clamdiggers Cove, the main establishment is The Gypsy Arns. This is a small tavern, with a couple rooms available for sleeping, off the northern road. It is a quiet place, removed from he main traffic, but still seas people coming in from time to time. The taverns and inns in town tend to be occupied by people associated with the sea - the Gypsy Arms, as ell as a couple places along the river, cater more to the inland side. Farmers, shepherds, and travelers down from he moors tend to frequent these places.

Bono has taken to hanging around the Gypsy Arms. He is a landsman, from the west of Lenay, who has come to the other coast seeking his fortune. He does not want to go to sea, exactly; he is hoping to find opportunities to go inland. The moors seem promising - he has heard enough of the stories of the trouble around here: the smugglers and bandits, highwaymen, pirates, outlaws of all kinds, monsters to have a good idea that men of his talents (a trained soldier, a pole arm specialist) can find plenty of employment.

Revised map

I added a scale and index of town names. I think Fireball Gulch is in the right general area. I labeled the two that didn't have names as Gresham and Elfsheim. I think an Elven port in that area makes sense. I've thought about scattered wood elves living in these hills and forests, and it makes sense they'd have gathered together in a port town.
I once started a backstory about Elves from this area going on the warpath through the mountains to the north in order to attack Dassal downriver from the hills. This group got lost somewhere unknown, and their homeland scattered in the power vacuum. With the advent of trade routes and sea travel, it makes sense the elves would materialize in their own small harbor near the hills and forests of their heritage.

Greater Bayport & Twin Forks

This is a rocky and treacherous land, rising steadily and directly out of the deep ocean to towering mountains full of cliffs, heavily wooded ravines, and extremely difficult travel. Still, the shoreline around most of Barmet Bay is of a much gentler nature, with broad expanses of open pasture and rolling hills nestled snugly between the deep waters of the sheltered bay and the ring of cliffs looming over the entire area. The southern shores of the bay feature rolling moors stretching south for miles, but abruptly dropping within meters of the water’s edge to a shelf just above the tides. This shelf houses regularly dispersed fishing villages along the bay, with alternating beaches and rocky shores along the jointure of land and sea. In the stretches between them are cliffs riddled with caves.

To the east, the Willow River winds through the long valley stretching east, narrowing as it rises away from the sea and disappears into the forests and hills southward. The rolling farmland around the city of Bayport, located near the mouth of the Willow River, is fairly heavily settled, and features regular trade within the city itself. There are regular trade routes upriver, overland across the moors to the south, and out of the port itself across the open sea. Local transports connect the southern fishing villages with the city, and larger ships commute passengers and goods out of the bay, across the sea to Sidney and Lenay to the west.

Most of the trade with Bayport comes from across the bay with Lenay, and with the greater southern kingdom through the ports of Mussel Harbor at the southern edge of the great sound. Bayport rose to significance by connecting the lucrative overland routes out of Waynesburg, Farmington, and Dassal safely with the ports of Oceanside and the Kingdom. There is also a brisk trade with the fjords of Northern Wingmar, located over the towering mountains north and west of the city. While the distance over the mountains is not great, the terrain is extremely severe and constantly endangered by beasts of the wild, making the longer sea journey around the mountainous peninsula preferable and more profitable. Unfortunately, the mountains are home to many fringe outlets of society that relish the wastelands and unmanaged paths. Also, the waterways are vulnerable to piracy crossing barren waters bounded by open sea and immense, uncharted cliffs.

Two day’s journey northeast of Bayport, along the High Road that leads up into the mountains towering over the valley and bay, lies a long valley following the East Branch of the Willow River. Leaving the valley, the road winds upland through scattered copses of trees, along and through several ridges and valleys that divide the seemingly flat area of the lower hills. Following the east branch of the river, the road runs to the village of Twin Forks, nestled in a small valley. Rising over the village of Twin Forks to the northeast, the Monastery of Kord commands a view of the surrounding valley from high on Monk Hill, and overlooks the Mill Lake and Hammer Falls.

Twin Forks is a small village, named after the two branches of water that join at its shores to become the main river. One bright, young stream rushes down out of the western hills, which steeply rise into the mountains. A rough track follows it up into the desolate peaks, leading miners and adventurers alike into the dangerous and wild reaches of the high mountains. The other branch is the Hammer Stream, and stems from the Mill Lake further up the valley, crashing down the Hammer Falls before slowing and broadening above the fork.

The village is small, tough, and sparse. There is one inn, one general store, and one trading post. The store caters more to the mining crowd, offering foodstuffs for all, and basic adventuring kit along with the usual mining gear of shovels, picks and rope. The trading post attracts more hunters and river men than miners, and features hides, ammunition and simple weapons. The inn is a catch-all melting pot, always on a slow boil.

Mining and trade keep this town alive. Their traffic and business are essential for bringing people and gold together within it. Anything threatening the safety of travel and activity around the town jeopardizes the safety of the city itself. Since Bayport is the primary downriver connection with the rest of the area, the livelihood of much more than Twin Forks relies on safe passage through the valley.

Lately there has been an increase in nefarious activity throughout the valley surrounding the town. Ambushes have occurred between Twin Forks and Bayport, as well as on the other feeder roads leading into town. Take your pick on the identity of the bandits… some claim river pirates, some claim orcs, others insist they are dark elves, failed adventurers, etc. Who knows? Maybe they’re all right?

Trouble has come to the valley. There is unrest everywhere, and it is spreading quickly. The trails are threatened, the mill pond is threatened, the monks are shutting out the world, and dark things move in the night.

Townsfolk - talkative, but not much information.

“Sure its rough out here. Always death and crime. Always some new hotheads rushing through to clean things up… just like you. Always new ones coming in soon.”

They offer a few nuggets though, mostly common sense.

“Stick to the road… don’t wander around the warehouse after dark… purify the water before you drink it… be careful around the monastery, weird doings out there.”

Adventurers - mining look. There is a certain naiveté about them. New to the life, in all likelihood. They want danger & excitement. Much talk of roads and mines and hitting it rich. 

“It’s odd though… the raids seem to be centered around the monk’s mountain. You’d think it would be more in the hills, around the mines. There’s nothing exciting about a bunch of monks, right?”

Magic - two dark elves, sticking to the shadows, very secretive. Likely they will learn more about you from you than vice versa. They are dismissive of most topics, but will pay careful attention to any talk of magic or the monastery.

There are three things situated north of Twin Forks, the Monastery of Kord, the Dwarven mills at Hammer Falls on Mill Lake, and a whole lot of unexplored wilderness! As a result of this, the road is not heavily travelled as a rule, but because of its importance remains in good repair. It is wide and firm, enough for two carts to pass along most of its way, but one can travel for miles without encountering anyone. At least, they hope to be able to…

After five miles out of Twin Forks, the road leading to the Monastery of Kord splits off to the right, crossing a pleasant meadow, filled with wildflowers, before rising gently up the side of the lone hill where the monastery sits. Once it starts to slope upward, the road disappears into the heavily wooded sides of Monk Hill. Unlike the main road to Hammer Falls, this is barely more than a trail. The road itself is heavily overgrown, and narrows significantly as it crosses to the trees. The monks maintain a solitary life, seldom venturing far from their own walls, and only rarely coming off their mountain to interact with the greater world. Much of what they need they produce, and the rest can be traded for weekly with passing supply wagons. Even so, they are known to be vigilant in defense of their isolation, and will not allow access unchallenged. They are averse to fighting, but will ask intent of any visitors, and defend against assault or particularly egregious actions.

The fifteen miles from this branch into Hammer Falls is a dangerous road, with many bandit attacks along the way. Mostly, these are goblin and orc raiders, but occasionally they will be the result of highway robbers who move back and forth throughout the countryside preying on exposed travelers. Consequently, wagons running from Twin Forks into Hammer Falls and the return travel in groups as much as possible. Otherwise, they recruit any willing sword-arms to ride along as protection. If this were a busier route, officials from the greater Bayport militia would be sent out to locate the goblin hideouts and rout them all, but as important as the trade route is to Hammer Falls, it is low on the priority list of the greater region. There are far more concerns in the city about pirates and river smugglers than inland bandits. On land, they are more interested in keeping the roads open from Bayport to Waynesburg and the traffic on the Great River.

The Monastery of Kord sits atop a slight peak rising above the surrounding ridge. It is nestled among the natural pine trees crowning the hill, concealed from obvious notice from the High Road running around the base of Monk Hill. There is a small, but clearly used, path leading away from the road, criss-crossing the exposed stone face of the hillside for several hundred feet before its slope levels. At that point, the path swings back across the hill in a broad gentle track, disappearing into some oak trees and scrub brush set back from the edge of the cliff. Access to the monastery is allowed during daylight hours with a donation to the gate wardens. These wardens remain hidden in the cover of the brush, with one sentry placed at the top of the switch-backs.

The monastery inhabits an abandoned castle situated atop the mountain peak rising above the town of Twin Forks. The original builder of the castle is lost knowledge. It has a dark and foreboding exterior that speaks to a possibly sinister demise. There are rumors of its destruction in some cataclysmic act, and hints that a dangerous magical power once was held within its walls.

“Consarn it! There’s supposed to be gold in them there hills… so why can’t we find it?”

The road out of Twin Forks is a fairly narrow, rough track, but it is heavily travelled, and well worn. The weather has been very wet of late, and the road is deeply muddied. The underbrush is heavy, and branches overhang the road. 

The road east is a wild and dangerous trail. It passes through a narrow and steep valley, overlooked on the north by the Monastery of Kord, before winding up into the mountain passes. The road leads up and over the mountains, eventually running into the Golden Lake on its western shore, where it intersects with the roads running north to Fireball Gulch and south to Dassal. The passes are known as the Mage’s Vale.

Bayport revision

I reshaped the bay north of Bayport a little for a better coastline. I think it makes it more like Barmet Bay in the books as well, with a sheltered bay a few miles across before the open sea. It's a more natural looking shape as well.

Maps - Northlands

Here is a map. This is everything in the north - Oceanside in the southwest, Lenay above it, then the bay where Bayport is - and Waynesburg and such on the river on the right hand side. Oceanside and Lenay are pretty well detailed - Waynesburg, Farmington etc. are sketchy here, but I have plenty of detail (especially Waynesburg) elsewhere. The gulf east of Lenay is pure sketch, though. I drew in the coastline, but just to have something; Bayport is marked as the red dot at the end of the horseshoe bay - but again, that's more a placeholder than anything.

The colors are meaningful - black is coast; I think I did rivers in blue; the browns are elevation markers - light brown hills, dark brown mountains; pink are political borders; green are major roads. Red dots are cities. Scale is roughly - 400 miles from Bayport to Waynesburg (the red dot by the lake on the eastern river) and from Bayport to Sidney (the dot straight west of Bayport, behind the little neck on the coast. Waynesburg's location relative to Lenay seems about right - but where Bayport should be between them, how big that water should be, etc., has always been something I've left to figure out. Everything between Lenay and Waynesburg is something of a blank.



Looking at this - I think Bayport should be closer to Lenay, probably - that extra bay looks a bit too big. I think I forgot the scale I was using when I drew it; I think I was using 20 mile blocks and thought I was using 10. But that's as may be.

Lenay

Lenay is a kingdom, located on a big peninsular, west of Bayport, a couple hundred miles away by water. It's a good sized country, divided roughly into two geographical regions. The northern 2/3 or so are highlands - the southern third called lowlands, though it is more mixed, with coastal plains separated by hills and moors in the middle. The north though is really highland: a very high mountain range runs through the middle of the country, dividing the highlands from the lowlands. Around these high mountains are foothills running to the sea on all sides. The far north, almost an island, is a wild place, its people fiercely independent, clan based, fond of their greatswords, pipes and haggis. South of this is the main bulk of the country, dominated by the mountains, though with good land and forests by the sea, especially on the west coast (where the rain and snow tends to fall.) Both east and west of the mountains, there are peninsulas, hilly places, wooded, cut up by rivers and little lakes, and so on. The coasts all around support decent farmland, and a rich maritime life. The only major city north of the mountains is Lenay City, the capital, located at the end of Lenay Sound, a long, deep bay separating the western peninsular from the mainland. It is a major port - a center of shipping to the far south (the Kingdom and beyond), to Oceanside, to Storm Island, and so on. In the last decade, or so, Bayport has begun to rival it, thanks to the increased trade from Waynesburg. There are no other major cities north of the mountains - there are plenty of towns and estates, especially along the coasts, but no areas that have developed into a real city.

The lowlands lay south of the mountains. (The Lenay Mountains, as they are called.) This area is lower, and in many places, a good deal less dramatic than the north. The west coast in particular is a pleasant land, a coastal plain giving way to rolling hills, that extends 30-50 miles inland, before rising into higher hills. (That are well short of being called mountains.) The west here is also wetter and more fertile than the east - it is good farmland along the water, and well into the hills, which also tend to be fairly heavily wooded on the west side. The east coast is a bit less inviting. Drier, the land less fertile - it tends to be moorland and heather on the east. The highlands run in long flat ridges almost to the sea, separated by low valleys, marshes and fens, as well as grassy and mossy plains. On both coasts (and in the interior) the land falls away to real lowlands in the south and east - much of the borderland of the country is plain swamp. There are 3 large cities in the lowlands. Newport is on the west coast, across Wickham's Bay from Oceanside. It is a port city - second to Lenay City (at least before the Bayport trade exploded), with strong ties to Oceanside and parts south. On the east coast is Sidney - another port city (located inside another big inlet, Sidney Gut, with Sidney Neck on the seaward side) - that has grown in importance with the increase in Bayport traffic. Finally, in the far south, is the city of Cinevia - it lies in the marshy lowlands where the inland countries like Regar and Troy meet Lenay and Oceanside. It is something of an anomaly in the land - the most recently conquered part of the country, and sometimes rather hard to fit in.

That is Lenay. Politically it is a kingdom, and has been for 150 odd years. Before that it owed fealty to the King in Norwich, due to some long ago conquest by the southerners - that had long ceased to be anything but a word by the time they put a king on their throne and declared themselves as good as anyone. Their location, on the sea, and protected by those mountains from land powers, has made them fairly impervious to outside trouble - but they tend to make up for it with domestic difficulties. They are in such a state now. There is a king - Nikolai II - who had the appearance of a fine king - a soldier, a hero, a would be conquerer - which got him in trouble. A couple years back he headed south to interfere in the affairs of some relatives - and got himself taken prisoner and held hostage. His brother Rudolfo is serving as his regent - and the story goes that Rudolfo has no intention of bringing his brother back any time soon. But he is meanwhile taxing the country to bankruptcy, in the name of paying the king's ransom. And this has brought about a terrible crisis. Rudolfo's men have been going around raising money; they have managed to alienate many of the barons (though others have joined in, hoping to use Rudolfo against their rivals), breaking up the country as they did; central authority has broken down - most power lies in the hands of factions, very little in the hands of the government. The main effect of this is that the navy - an almost completely national institution - has gone to seed: which has dire consequences on any efforts against piracy. (And of course, the result is that local authorities - merchant guilds and barons and the like - commission privateers to fight the pirates - though privateers are basically pirates with licenses.)

For all its troubles, Lenay is still fairly powerful and prosperous place. Though it is also a wild place - the highlands are often howling wilderness; the lowlands is fairly settled on the west coast, but the hills in the middle are still quite wild. The east coast is much less populated, and though perhaps not as likely to shelter dragons and giants as the mountains, there is plenty of cover for monsters and troublemakers of all kinds. The east is also plagued by piracy, all the way up the coast. This coast faces the waterways leading to Bayport, and, in the north, the high Oceanteeth mountains - it is a tempting place to hide. In the highlands, there are many deep, secret harbors, plenty of hiding places, and all of it not that far, by sea, from the barbarian coastlines of the Oceanteeth. The lowlands are a bit less inviting, especially for the big ships. The sea is shallower in this area, and tends to be very treacherous - there are only a few good, deep harbors, and even those tend to require pilots to get in and out. This area is also a bit out of the main shipping lanes, that run further north. Still - this is an almost open coastline for smugglers, and not that far from Bayport and the Waynesburg roads overland - there is a good deal of traffic back and forth, not much of it honest.

Piracy and Smuggling

Life on the water is a dangerous affair at the best of times, but the added test of protecting yourself and your goods from pirates and smugglers raises the danger level significantly.

There is an unspoken understanding amongst most of the river men and dockworkers that a certain percentage of goods and wares evaporates on any river passage. As long as the losses are minimal, they all look the other way. Occasionally, too much goes missing, or a particularly valuable or important bit of cargo disappears, and action is expected against the culprits. Generally, this is a tolerated interruption of activity, and quickly calms down to business as usual within a matter of weeks.

But how is it done? Such activity requires organization, far-reaching organization. This is the territory of the Thieves' Guild. They have chapters in most large towns, and tendrils in every town. They have developed a system where goods are siphoned off most transports and redistributed for their own gain. This is a sophisticated system that is highly structured centrally, but dispensed to loosely associated groups in every town or area. In this way, the system is protected when individual bodies get greedy or careless and overstep their mandate, drawing the attention of the law.

It is also a protection against an unraveling of the entire operation by the capture or exposure of any individual cell. As such, these river pirates tend to operate fairly openly, blending in with the normal citizenry of the town. They take care to conceal their nefarious activity, working late at night or early in the pre-dawn hours to avoid exposure. They generally tend to utilize fords and bridge landings to swap cargo between land and sea routes, and a rotating dock assignment to randomize the losses to traders in port. The goods are often stored in secret areas of abandoned or overstocked warehouses to avoid detection.

Open sea piracy tends to be carried out by organized gangs of well-trained and disciplined groups holding no ties to a greater organization. There are always those pirates powerful enough to command more than one ship, but even that is rare, as it requires too great a strain to maintain control over too many individuals. It is far easier to bind one ship and crew to their will than many, and likewise easier to manage dissent. These pirates tend to operate out of well guarded, heavily concealed harbors and cave locations on the many islands and coves around the bay. A popular area are the natural caves along the Shore Road leading east out of Bayport. These are popular because they allow the pirates to connect with networks of smugglers and bandits operating on land throughout the countryside. These groups work independently of each other, but in cooperation so as to properly fence stolen merchandise.

These groups are more direct in their thefts, as well as more apt to take everything they can get their hands on. They store goods in secret and fence them as wholesalers or any way they can. As a result, they tend to sit on greater stores of goods at any time.

Bayport

There are few things like a port town for variety. Bayport features a busy waterfront with a row of warehouses on shore mirroring a row of docks and wharves on the water. These handle many boats of trade coming from upriver and across the bay. The warehouses also deal with the many wagon trains running overland from town to town, connecting land routes with sea routes.
Centrally located, Bayport has become a hub for activity of all kind, drawing in traders from every compass point, by land or sea, as well as every race and class across the social strata. There are merchant stalls with a wide variety of goods from the entire surrounding countryside, as well as guild halls to cater to the needs and interests of the separate classes.
In addition to its healthy core of merchants and goods, the town has also become a gathering point and launch off for adventurers of all ilk. The easy access to any other part of the map is one drawing point, as are the promise of risk and reward offered by the forbidding mountains that tower over the low river valleys. Much gold has been found in those hills, as well as gems and other precious metals. And much of it has been retrieved at great cost, with vile monsters drawn equally to it, along with outlaws and bandits of all sorts.
The town is fed by two main waterways flowing into the bay, the Willow River and the Northflood. The Northflood is a strong, swift flowing river that crashes down out of the northern and eastern hills, rushing to the sea. The Willow River, on the other hand, winds lazily through the flat pastures and swamps south of the town. It is a broad, slow moving stream at this point, but its origins stretch far up  through Pleasantville into the high mountain valleys, and it claims many branches for its head, some as wild as the mouth is calm.
The Northflood rises quickly into the hills above the town, across the moors to Dassal and Waynesburg, the Golden Lake and beyond to Hillsburg in the far north.