02 - Iron Kingdoms W.. - Captain Spud Is Amazing

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Docks: Blackwater’s lifeblood and infamy are tied
to the vast network of docks spreading out across the
dark water like giant bony fingers waiting to sieve the
collected wealth of the mainland from the fleet of
ships making landfall here everyday. The docks can
accommodate ships of any size ever built regardless
of their draft—the bottom of the fjord measures over
one hundred fathoms deep. The docks closer to shore
are supported by elephantine piers of dark wood, but
farther from shore the docks float on iron pontoons.
Dockmaster Jorlis Helcraft (male Scharde Ftr8/Rog6)
commands an army of tallymen, enforcers charged with
collecting Lord Morvaen’s tax from vessels entering
port. Anyone caught cheating ends up nailed through
the throat to a post on the dock and left to rot.
Ghetto: The slums of Blackwater are filled with
unknown thousands of dispossessed and desperate
poor from all over the island. Living conditions are
abhorrent and its populace is plagued with starvation,
rampant crime, lethal epidemics, and the predations
of unspeakable horrors. Life is so cheap it has no value
at all within the ghetto, and the dead provide a steady
supply for the Meat Market.
Lamprey’s Kiss: Just off the salt-encrusted docks is
the infamous Lamprey’s Kiss. Owned and managed by
the captain of the sunken warship Windperil, Kofi Hatrod
(male Thurian Ftr10), this tavern serves cold stew and
warm drinks in dirty glasses and on filthy plates. It is a
dark place slapped together from the planks and hulls
of sunken ships (some actually sunk by the Windperil
herself) and looks like a dark and seedy version of
any typical dockside tavern. Bar brawls between ship
crewmen and city patrons are common and often
ignored, but a good and bloody murder is never without
reward. A proven kill earns any patron a free meal and a
night in the arms of Hatrod’s several “ladies.”
Meat Market: The most horrific aspect of the Final
Port’s notorious market district where assassins and
mercenaries sell their services is the idle acceptance
by its inhabitants of the gruesome Meat Market.
Continually cloaked in a vast swarm of corpse flies,
this is the center of a thriving flesh trade where slaves
and cadavers alike are sold to the highest bidder.
Necrotechs, slavers, and other perverse inhabitants
gather within the bloodstained tents and canopies to
peruse the macabre Meat Market wares.
Smolders: Located in the floating section of the
city, this is Blackwater’s center of alchemical industry.
The dark water here is so thick with alchemical sludge
and necrotic effluent that it is actually possible to
walk on the thick crust that forms during the dry
season. The air is heavy and caustic with the fumes
of a thousand alchemical processes, and because the
wind rarely blows through the deep fjord, the choking
haze hangs motionless in the air. Even the most hardbitten
fiends wear goggles and a wet scarf or filter
mask around their mouths while passing through the
Smolders—that is if they need to see and/or breathe.
Temple of the Dragonfather: A masterpiece of
Cryxian engineering, this darkly beautiful structure’s
construction was clearly a painstaking labor of love
undertaken by fanatics of the first order. The exterior
of its main spire, known locally as Toruk’s Tower,
is covered with myriad draconic carvings as well as
haunting images of the tortured dead. The temple
is the tallest structure in Blackwater and boasts a
mammoth bell that rings in the dead of night to
summon the faithful to worshipful services in Toruk’s
honor. Though most of the inhabitants of Blackwater
fearfully shun these services, they are still attended by
large throngs coming to pray for the Dragonfather’s
dark blessing. The temple is overseen by Tsserik Blathe
(male Scharde Clr15) and his dark initiates.
Dreggsmouth
In Power: Lord Captain Derevnia Vrace
Population: 40,000 human (primarily Scharde),
8,000 trollkin, 5,000 bogrin, 5,000 black ogrun, 1,500
ogrun
Military: Dreggsmouth has a moderate garrison of
mercenary troops.
Imports: Textiles, timber, wheat
Exports: Coal, manufactured goods, necrotite
If Skell is Cryx’s devious brain and Blackwater
its open, sore-covered arms, then the port city of
Dreggsmouth is its pestilential heart. Perpetually
covered by an ashen pall of suffocating toxic clouds
reeking of burnt oil and unburied flesh, it is a place of
dark industry: thralls swarm the docks laboring around
the clock under the guidance of their overseers to
build the dreaded blackships, smoke pours into the
World Guide 321