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THE
MANTHRIAN
PORT
CITY
MARDURAN |
Marduran, a bustling city on
the Mithral Coast, is the biggest human
settlement east of the Mithral Mountains,
holding approximately ten thousand people. It is, in a number of ways, a
traditional Avennorian town.
This is most obvious in the architecture of Marduran which shows an extensive
use of hulk-roofing and oyster-shell decorations, but can also be seen in the
character of the people and their ostentatious modes of dress. Its chief
industry is as one of the major providers of
pearls to Santharia; it is also the main port
and markets for the few towns on the Mithral Coast of
Manthria. Marduran is also regularly used as a base for hunters: hunters of
many different things…
Description.
Marduran sprawls across a broad valley which slopes down on both sides to its
harbour. Due to the city’s history, it was never planned, so a jumble of
labyrinthine streets – some paved, some little more than muddy alleys – is the
setting for a mish-mash of different styles of houses. Tall granite hulk-roofed
constructions, which sparkle more brilliantly than the sea with their
oyster-shell paint and ornamentations
adorning their light grey sides, sit cheek-by-jowl with rickety flat-roofed
wooden buildings which are barely more than shacks. While it is true that the
edges of town sport more of the former and the centre more of the latter, this
is certainly not a hard and fast rule in the city’s chaotically organised
streets. The city is, very roughly, divided into seven sections:
The Docks
The first section is the docks; a well organised and maintained place by day
but much more the province of the unsavoury by night. Tall cliffs of a grey
stone meet the water at Marduran’s seaward
edge, and at their lowest point these are equipped with large, well organised,
well maintained piers at which to dock the many seagoing craft that berth at
Marduran. The cliffs are tall enough even at the docks to protect the city from
getting wet feet, especially with the protection of the offshore islands,
except in the worst storms. Boathouses, storage buildings, manufacturers of
fishing and whaling equipment and guard
stations weigh down the jetties and sprawl shoreward.
The Administration
District and the Taverns District
The second and third sections are the administration and taverns districts.
These two blend together to an unusual degree so that one should not be
surprised to find a roughly-built tavern right behind a sturdy
Erpheronian-styled bureaucratic
post. Roughly speaking, however, administrative complexes tend to be built
closer to the water, on the south-eastern
side, while the taverns tend to be built toward the north-western side of the
city and further up the hill. The less salubrious the establishment, the
further away from the official buildings it will usually be.
The Inner City
Further up the hill is the city proper. Here a jumble of warehouses, homes and
businesses - including a year-round fish market - crowd for room, buildings
overhanging the narrow streets in places. In the central district you can find
many people whose families have lived in Marduran as long as they can remember,
and it is, apart from the tavern district, the best place to hear stories about
the history of the city. Some of the original shops and houses of Marduran,
dating back hundreds of years or more, can be found in this part of town. Shops
of this type include cobblers and tailors, a smith and an apothecary whose
families, they say, have been here since Marduran’s foundation years. New
arrivals with dark pasts can often be found here as well as at the docks,
slipping through the shadowy lanes causing trouble and avoiding detection.
Buildings in this area are securely locked after dark.
From a ship on the harbour or from the low hills above the city, the ruined
remains of a city wall can be discerned circling the inner city and docks,
covered in many places by the rambling buildings.
The Outer City
The housing district, where most of the more wealthy people of Marduran have
their homes, is also known as the Outer City due to its location mostly outside
the old ruined wall. This area runs in a wide half-circle band around the
outside of the central city. Again, shops and taverns mingle quite heavily with
the homes of the people of Marduran but the streets are noticeably wider here,
and beyond the old ruined wall they almost seem to follow some sort of
intelligible pattern to the point that one does not get lost too regularly,
unlike in the central city. The further one moves from the centre the grander
the homes become, as a general rule. The most luxurious houses are found
outside the ruined wall in the north, past the lip of the dell which holds
Marduran, and closest to the market and gardens. In some instances, larger
pieces of the old wall have been incorporated in to these buildings.
Lawman’s Death (Market
District)
The markets of Marduran are in a section all their own; the sixth. They are
held in a wide grassed space which is next to a public garden, in the north
side of the housing section. The green and the garden are collectively called,
disagreeably enough, “Lawman’s Death”. The market green has a few permanent
shops which open all year round dotted here and there under ancient eur’oak and
baych trees, but it is by far the
most pleasant place when it opens in the spring and early summer when it is
filled with many merrily coloured tents, some peaked, and some of the old round
whalebone hut style seen more often in the
south. The aromas of jhelee and roasting sunseeds mingle with the sweet smells
of roses,
lady fingers and other flowers
which are carried by the sea breeze sweeping across the garden. Sold here are
products from all over the Mithral Coast.
Thergerim trade at this market in the spring, often through a
human agent but sometimes manning their own
stall, and dyes from Holt are a popular item –
many people prefer to buy them from here than to have to travel to that
village, despite the increased prices. Races and games are often held here on
Folkday or Restday, or at festivals. Strange and wonderful items and
curiosities are occasionally sold or shown here too, brought by the
Stormcloaks from far off places.
The Rural District
Further out again is the seventh section – the farms and orchards which supply
the city with fresh grains and supplement the seafood caught by the fishermen
with beef and other meats, for the right price. The buildings here, too, are
built in the Avennorian style
and circle Marduran much of the way to Starmiran, so that there is little wild
country between the farms of the two towns. Inns are spaced at convenient
distances along the road.
A huge, stunningly beautiful white marble temple of
Grothar is situated on the cliffs to the
north of the city. Two long corridor wings extend from a tall central dome and
the walls of these wings are carved with whorls and spiral patterns, echoing
the shape of the wind. These act like soft
horns, catching the wind and turning it into
music. Inside the corridors the clerics who reside there have their rooms. The
dome section is open to the weather on the ground floor, and a round altar in
the centre is where petitioners can leave their offerings of wine for the God,
along with food or the products of their labours for the clerics who live
there. The second storey of the temple is open only on the western side so as
to catch the last of Injèrá’s rays, allowing
Grothar’s beloved sunset to stain the
white marble room in beautiful pinks, oranges and golds as it shines briefly
through the nearest peaks of the Mithral
Mountains.
The temple has always been there, say the residents when asked, although there
is a legend of its creation, which can be read in the Lore
section below. Perhaps because of this temple’s presence,
Grothar is the patron God of Marduran
(although looking at the chaotic design of the city, one wonders if the
whimsical Wind God had more than that to do with this place!). Both Rain-Beg
and a Winter Solstice celebration with a particular focus on the
Grey King are held as festivals here.
Baveras is, of course, also revered in
this city, although unlike most other coastal settlements, especially here in
what was once Avennoria, She is
not the main deity.
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Location. Marduran is
located on the eastern coast of the Santharian
province of Manthria, between the
Mithral Mountains and the coast. This puts
it in the Duchy of Huiscen, in the Capstan Coast fief. It is one hundred
strals from the centre of
Marduran to the middle of Starmiran, a journey of two and a half to three days,
although the journey between the most outlying farms of the two towns takes
only one. It takes three days to get to Clendor
Tower or Fanghenge, six to reach the ruins of
Karthmor, and between three and five days’ sailing to arrive at
Dead Fisherman’s Grotto.
People. The ten
thousand people of Marduran are a diverse bunch, much as the
Avennorian tribe as a whole is.
Its history as an outpost of lawlessness is certainly apparent in the spirit of
the city, although not always in a negative way. The people are often the first
to speak out against unjustness in the Thanes or Gravens they are beholden to,
but will hold to those they deem worthy more faithfully than most towns.
The Avennorian spirit is
noticeable in the people of Marduran’s clothes. Most people in this city dress
as wealthily as they can, seemingly weighing themselves down with the
pearls for which the city is famous,
amongst other splendid ornaments and the most luxurious fabrics they can afford.
It is also visible in their predilection for acquiring wealth and fame through
whatever means are necessary, their enjoyment of competition and adventure, and
their cunning in any sort of financial transaction. Many is the time an unwary
traveller in Marduran has found herself on the raw end of a bargain or bet,
leaving her muttering the old saying, “Never lay odds with an
Avennorian”!
The enterprising Avennorian
spirit can also be seen in the number of hunters of various sorts the city sees.
Boar, deer and other game animals live in the
forest and hills to the south-west of the city. For the more adventurous, it is
said that a type of dragon called the blue
drake lives on the islands off Marduran’s coast. For those more daring still,
the ruins of Karthmor,
Clendor Tower,
Dead Fisherman’s Grotto and Fanghenge
all wait to be explored from Marduran, most with rumours of great treasures for
those who can survive these places.
Marduran is a port city, but it is not a major one. Most goods come through
Ciosa unless they are bound for the
Thergerim in the mountains, or a small town.
The many offshore islands sea-side and the soaring
Mithrals on land make it difficult to move
cargo over the sea to the port, and from the port to the rest of
Manthria. This does not, however, seem to deter the
many smugglers the town seems to play host to. It is well known in the less
reputable parts of town that they regularly buy off guards, or make use of
sea-caves in the cliffs to hide their stolen or dangerous importations, before
lifting them to the tops of the cliffs by whatever agency they have at their
disposal.
For the markets in spring, in part due to the closure of
Broken Dream Gap over this season,
Thergerim come from their cavernous homes in
the Mithral Mountains. There are usually
some of the dwarven race, mainly “Kavoninn
Yabarrah” (which translates from
ThergerimTaal as “travelling unwed males”) who live permanently in Marduran,
often as smiths or building advisors. Other than these, the city’s permanent
population is mostly human and for the
greatest part, Avennorian.
This tribe is so well represented here that there are even quite a few of that
rare type of Avennorian person
who, instead of ears, has slits which they can close – these are here, as
everywhere, most often employed as divers for the
pearls and seafood which can be found on
the offshore islands. Many of these people are very rich; they are well-paid
when employed by a captain as their diving skills are highly sought-after all
over Santharia. These divers are also often members of the blond, fair-skinned
Glandorian-descended Avennorian
upper class, so many can afford to run their own vessel to take out diving,
rather than diving for another captain, becoming richer still as they get the
best prices for their catch.
One might imagine that there are a number of unflattering “nicknames” for those
who have these ear-slits as opposed to “normal”
human ears. As a matter of fact, the typical names one might hear for these
people in other Provinces (from the least offensive “slit-ear” to the highly
offensive names “gill-face”, “fish-man”, or “redfish” for their usually pale,
easily burnt skin) are only ever heard rarely in Marduran or, in fact, in
greater Avennoria. In fact, a
much more common insult in Avennoria
and Marduran is the opposite: people with non-Glandorian ancestry are often
called “Tarep-ears”! This may be a large
part of why these people are most often seen in
Avennoria when they could command
high prices for their services in any province of
Santharia.
While there are no derogatory sayings about these people, there is a saying
which is often used to explain the ear-flap peculiarity to those from other
parts of Caelereth before they rashly offend a
person with this characteristic. It goes: “Big slits – big lungs – big house –
big pouch”. This attempts to illustrate that having ear-slits means that they
can dive for a long time and this, along with the high probability of
connections to the nobility (or a noble "house", as it states in the saying),
means they are rich, and therefore powerful people.
The professions best represented in Marduran are those which involve gathering
the bounty of the sea. Sailors, fishermen, whalers and the slit-eared divers
mentioned above are regular fixtures in taverns when they are not out at their
work. Traders of all sorts are perhaps the next most regularly found, especially
in spring and summer when the markets are opened. Less common, but found more
regularly in Marduran than in other places are the adventuresome types –
hunters, rangers and those who study the old ruins in the area, trying to
understand the magic of the old sorcerers… or
worse. Similarly there is a high number of people living in the centre of the
city who seem to be involved in nothing good – thieves, itinerants, those
wounded in shipwrecks off Marduran’s coast and stranded with no money. The
middle of this city is no place for the weak or unwary, particularly at night.
The Gravens of the Capstan Coast have a residence here, but they usually seem to
stay away from Marduran, taking residence on a large estate in the smaller town
of Starmiran, just inland. When asked, Gravens usually say that this is because
Starmiran is more peaceful. Whether they mean in ambience or merely for them,
given the reputation of the people of Marduran to speak out against unliked
leaders, has been called into question by the people here.
Coat of Arms/Sign.
The coat of arms for Marduran is a
karikrimson
toran eagle spread-winged on an
ancythrite blue shield. The head of the
toran is turned to the left and it wears a slim silver band around its neck.
These two aspects both signify that Marduran now looks to
Santharia's rulers for guidance, rather than using
its strength on its own terms. Above, below and to each side of the eagle a
perfect pearl is depicted, showing off
Marduran’s wealth. The toran
represents both their pride in their
Avennorian Mithral Coast heritage and the proud, martial nature of their
ancestors. The blue background represents the ever-present, life sustaining sea.
Climate. Marduran’s
weather is characterised by variation. Spring is cool, with occasional gentle
rains which never seem to deter the marketers from their business. The breeze
from the sea means that a lot of the rain falls further inland, toward the
Mithral Mountains. Summer is hot, although
the winds off the sea keep the city’s people
cool enough, especially in the evening. Autumn is clear, with warm days, crisp
mornings and cooler nights. Winter brings high
winds, heavy rains and regular storms. Snow can cover the ground briefly in
mid-winter, but it is usually quickly trampled to slush in the city proper, and
scooped up by children to make snow-elves or
throw at one another at Lawman’s Death on calm days. Hail and sleet are much
more common than snow, driving people indoors and occasionally punching holes in
roofs of shacks in the central city. Late at night during the hours of nightsban
or daybreak in any season, sea fogs occasionally obscure the docks and shroud
the taverns and administrative areas in a murky haze.
Flora. The areas beyond
the farms around Marduran are mostly grassland, with the occasional thickets of
bushes and stands of trees. The only real exception to this is the wood to the
south of the city. Despite the occasional complaints from farmers who wish to
work the land, these large woods – fifty
strals long and eight wide
at their widest point – have been kept as they are. The opinion of the town is
that they and the grassy hills beyond make an excellent hunting ground for the
various fauna which can be found there, for both locals and visitors who enjoy
hunting as a sport. Pines and coastal
redwood trees feature heavily in this forest making it an
airy, spacious wood with little undergrowth in
most places, although toward the centre are more thickets.
The man-made plantings around the area are much more varied. Along the
clifftops, pines and cedars act as windbreaks for clifftop farms. Near the
Temple of Grothar groves of
willows wave in the
wind, awaiting their branches’ use as
headdresses or ornamentation for the temple. The Lawman’s Death gardens are
planted in what seems to be every imaginable type of flowering bush, tree,
shrub, vine or herb, along with some of the more beautiful non-flowering plants.
Willows are favoured here, too. Out on the
market area, a small number of huge old
baych and eur’oak trees ornament the lawn.
Fauna. Many sorts of
tame animals – cats, dogs, and
occasionally birds – live in the city as pets, and many other sorts dwell as
pests. Horses are common, although there
are some lanes none but a shire-pony could fit through. On the farms cattle,
sheep, fowl and other livestock are as
common here as anywhere.
Banded ricau and
gulls are a familiar sight on the
cliffs and shoreline, and many types of fish are found offshore, including the
tasty barsa. In the
waters off the islands, crabs, lobsters,
trysters and
oysters are caught by the divers of
Marduran.
In the woods to the south many small birds and animals can be found, like
rabbits, rats,
kuatu, ferrets and others. Hunters come for the bigger game of
deer and
wild boar. Foxes and wolves can be found
here too, as well as in the hills further south.
Toran eagles are seen here
occasionally, although their homes are much further inland in the
Mithral Mountains.
All these are well enough, but what the hunters really wish to find is the
secretive, elusive blue drake. Occasionally spotted by diving boats that sail to
the islands, the drakes are said to
live on all of the islands off Marduran at one time or another – Gaurgoroth’s
Claw, the Cliffs of Hyndillan, the islands of the Strait of Kharamm, and the
Nightfog Cliffs. For a fee, some diving or fishing boats will take adventurers
out to look for the beautiful lesser dragons.
Resources.
Pearls are, and have always been the main
export from Marduran. As a port which is comparatively difficult to access from
both land and sea, it was never going to be as commonly used for sea traffic as
Ciosa or even Lorehaven.
Early on, therefore, the people began to focus on harvesting the
pearls which are available in abundance, as
compared to most other towns, on underwater rocks at the base of Marduran’s
cliffs and the islands off the coast. Marduran also trades with Starmiran and
the Thergerim, sending live fish and other
edible sea creatures by fast coach in exchange for money or resources.
Some locals, notably tavern owners and stall holders, consider the ruins around
the area a resource. These “curiosities” bring travellers from far and wide –
travellers who must eat, sleep, and provision themselves, spending their good
coin. Others, however, find the travellers that these ruins attract to be a
nuisance, arguing that they are violent, ill-intentioned and unscrupulous.
Myth/Lore. Marduran
is full of stories; it seems you only need to turn a corner to discover a new
one. Karthmor, Clendor,
Dead Fisherman’s Grotto, Fanghenge, shipwrecks aplenty
over the years, murder, oppression – Marduran has it all. Part history, part
embroidery, some of the most important stories which relate to the city itself
are recorded here.
Of the beginnings of Marduran: The first people to settle in Marduran are
popularly said to be the remnants of the fabled settlement at the base of
Clendor Tower. This is unconfirmed, although the fact that the town was called
Clendor when it was “discovered” by agents of the
Avennorian Kingdom supports
this line. Others espouse the view that the Darian people (ancestors of today's
Shendar) were the first to live
here, later joined by Avennorians. It is possible that both are true; however,
the Mitharim affirm that
humans have always lived at Marduran – at least for as
long as they have taken an interest in above-ground affairs. Explorers, wrecked
seamen of varying respectability, travellers, adventurers, and those fleeing
from things such as justice, or conscription in the times of war have over the
millennia stumbled upon Marduran and settled there, unrecorded by the rulers of
Avennoria:
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Of the Temple of Grothar. One settler who
came to Marduran in the earliest years, millennia ago, is said to have
been an ex-cleric of Grothar. People tell that he was ousted from his
faction and the God no longer heard his prayers for rain or to calm the
sea, as punishment for evil deeds he had done. These deeds had made him
very wealthy indeed, although it is not known exactly what he did.
Different versions of the tale expound different ideas of what it may have
been, usually at great length, but no two versions seem to be the same. He
is said to have found Marduran in his shamefaced wanderings and stayed on
there. After a time, following a long period of meditation, he received an
inspiration and set out to use all of his ill-gotten money to build the
most magnificent Temple of Grothar he could design, carved out of white
marble, to try to please Grothar. Years passed and the building was
completed. Having spent every last san, the man lived in abject poverty
for forty years, praying to the Rainlord to forgive him. Eventually the
Grey King listened again to the old cleric's prayers; some have said that
this was Grothar at his most capricious, as the man led a mere – but
joyous! – three days of re-blessed existence before he died of his old
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