The city of Bayport is a seaport, located between the mouths of two rivers, the Willow and the Barnet. The Willow flows down from hills in the north, the Barnet from the south - the area between the hills is a large low floodplain. The Willow river drops abruptly from the hills, which are higher and harder in the north. The break with the plains is sharp, marked by cliffs and waterfalls, and the highlands are rough and wild, heavily wooded and dangerous. The southern side of the plain rises more gradually to the hills, which are marked by a line of chalk downs. These too rise steeply, especially where they abut the ocean - straight cliffs rise from much of the southern coast. Inland, they are less dramatic, with the alluvial plains rising to meet the higher land.
The flood plain is just that - low and wet, fertile and green, criss-crossed by many small rivers. This is particularly marked to the south, where the web of waterways converge near the Barnet river. The plains stretch for many miles east of the city (and the bay that gives it its name), slowly rising to the east, though largely a mix of ridges (sometimes rocky), and lowlands,some quite marshy, for a long distance inland. It is good land, though, a mixture of forest and farmland, interspersed with lakes and rivers and streams. 30-40 miles inland, the plains merge into the range of hills north and east of the bay, forming a saddle between higher ground north and south.
People have lived here since time immemorial. There was a ridge near the mouth of the Barnet river, and that is where people settled, on this higher ground, above the river mouth, tide flats,and small anchorages. A handful of other small settlements appeared in the area, mostly further inland where there was some dry ground, but none of them grew beyond small farming hamlets for a very long time. But people did move into this area - migrants from further east, occasional adventurers, looking for land to claim for their own. Slowly the farming villages grew, and as they did, they interacted with one another, and goods began moving up and down the rivers,and that is what made Bayport important. Local trade developed; then trade with towns and settlements on the Bay and Sea - Bayport was at the mouth of the rivers,and Bayport was the best harbor on the open water. Time passed; outside influences formed the area - southern invasions, Viking raids, orc raids from the hills, the development of countries, like Lenay; Bayport became a significant town and seaport.
It led to major changes in the land. The land near Bayport was mostly wetland - but as the town grew, farmers began to drain the wetlands, building dikes and canals, and reclaiming the land for farming. In time, this reached the town, as well. By the end of the 1300s, there were significant drainage systems in the hinterlands; the town began working on similar same projects. They built dikes around the tidal flats and along the edge of the Barnet river, they dredged the anchorages, they started filling in the old flats, to create stable land for building. They built a series of canals to drain and protect the dry land. They dug underground tunnels and canals to drain the higher ground, preventing erosion, and moving both fresh and dirty water in and out of the city. They built windmills to operate pumps to move water in and out of the town. By the time they were done, they had turned the last couple miles of the Barnet river into completely man-made canals, they had created large areas of landfill, mostly in the south, where the town could expand, they built large ports, they built a massive shipyard, and they surrounded the city with canals in the place of walls, for defense. Much of this as built to support the first major international sea-going boom in the late 15th century; it laid the ground work for the explosion of traffic in the early 17th.
By the mid 1500s, the city had taken on its current (1610s) form. To the west is Horseshoe bay - chalk cliffs to the south, granite hills to the north, and beach, marsh and farmland - and the city - between. The city is bounded north and south by large canals and fortresses. Between, the western edge is almost all port - docks and slips for ships on the water; a strong dike protecting the city (which is very low on the waterfront), with warehouses and all the usual waterfront buildings on land. The old part of town rises on a hill, half a mile or so inland, separated from the waterfront district by the Magnus Canal. The ridge rises quickly, a steep bluff a few yards inland from the canal, the hill rising less abruptly beyond that. A series of streets run lengthwise (north/south) on this hill, and others go up the hill east/west - most of these start at the top of the bluff, though; on;y a couple come down to the canal. North of the ridge,the land drops gradually to the northern canals - a lot of this land is open, used for pastures, with lines of windmills built in exposed areas. South of the hill, there is another large canal, the Grand Canal. South of the Grand Canal, almost all the town is built on landfill, with many canals interspersed throughout the city. Finally,south of the city, beyond the southern canal, the land starts to rise - to farmland southeast of the town, and to steep chalk cliffs southwest, along the shore.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Monday, January 15, 2018
Bayport Intro
During the "present" of the campaign (roughly 1610-20, "Common Time" - CT, dated from the creation of the kingdom of Norland - another post is surely called for explaining the kingdom of Norland,and why they got to establish what was common time...), Bayport might be the most important city in the north. This was not always the case - until the 1590s, Bayport was a modest, if prosperous, seaport on Horseshoe Bay at the eastern edge of the Viking Sea. But then, in 1593, George Blighton had Duke Frederick IV of Regelsburg murdered, and claimed the Duchy for himself. This touched off war - war that lasted almost a decade, pitting Regelsburg against everyone - free cities to the north; Kingdom to the south. Regelsburg, however, neatly straddled the Great River, and during the war was able to stop trade fro north to south dead. The cities of the north (Waynesburg and Hillsburg, Dassal, Farmington) scrambled to find new trade routes - and one of these was overland to Bayport (200 odd miles west of Waynesburg), and thence by sea to the wide world. It was a difficult route - overland, and over hills (no rivers connected the areas), through land barely tamed - but the distances proved to be manageable enough to allow the trade to go through. And the rewards for getting goods to Bayport were immense - it connected the north to the rest of the world again.
That made Bayport exceedingly rich. Bayport had been a seaport for as long as ships were sailing the ocean (about 200 years), so they were ready to carry this new trade, and quickly established their dominance. Lenay also benefitted - they were a shipping power as well, and had a navy on hand to protect their ships - but even they had to move goods through Bayport to get to them Waynesburg. For a decade, the river was closed to significant trade - by 1605, it was open again, but by then, the overland routes were very well established, and Bayport was able to hold on to much of the trade it had taken. It's ships sailed everywhere - to the Kingdom, of course, to Vinar, but also past Vinar to the Southern Ocean, where they could trade directly for the tropical goods so much in demand: sugar, coffee, spices, tobacco. And they did not limit themselves to carrying goods back north - Bayport merchants established bases in the southern ocean, where they were able to trade extensively through the region, far to the east, to the great desert cities, all through the south, the Jungle Continent and so on. They traded in commodities not allowed in the north - slaves; drugs. All of this made the trading companies immensely wealthy and very powerful. Some of them, as strong as entire countries by themselves.
All this brought gold pouring into Bayport,and with it, people, to sail and build the ships, and to provide everything the sailors needed, the merchants wanted - there was money and work for everyone, at a time when many other cities were falling apart - and so Bayport grew at a tremendous pace. They crammed into its waterfront districts; some built around the edges of the city; the ones who had the means, moved into the old town, filling all of it up. They came from everywhere - so Bayport became a cosmopolitan city, full of every ethnicity, and every intelligent race that could get along at all. They also brought all the problems that boom towns have: crime, strife - all those people brought their grudges and rivalries and wars with them, lawlessness, license - whole chunks of the city became red light districts, thieves quarters, overnight. It never seemed to blow up - probably because the sea was always there as an outlet: tensions got to high, you committed a crime that made you a target, you could find a berth on a ship bound for Norwich or Vinar or San Marcos or Chult and your troubles were over. The sea drew off political ambitions as well - why make trouble in Bayport when you could steal an island or half a continent somewhere in the south? More than one Bayporter found themselves a count or duke or grand Vizier off in the far corners of the world.
But it created a city that bubbled with opportunities. It started to draw adventurers the way Waynesburg always had - men and women who knew they could find work with their swords and spellbooks in the city - and who knew there were riches to be found in the city itself. Like Waynesburg, it was an exciting, lucrative place in itself, and the portal to even greater adventures. Just as adventurers in Waynesburg could always head into the hills to take out an orc or goblin lair, so could you here - the hills and forests were only 5-10 miles away, almost wilderness. The sea was a frontier, and the road to a frontier - to the untamed parts of Lenay, Wingmar - as well as the whole wide world. Bayport, by the 1610s, had the reputation Waynesburg had had for ages - if you were a young, ambitious fellow, good with a sword or your wits, with no obvious place for your skills at home, go to Bayport, and it would all be up to you.
That made Bayport exceedingly rich. Bayport had been a seaport for as long as ships were sailing the ocean (about 200 years), so they were ready to carry this new trade, and quickly established their dominance. Lenay also benefitted - they were a shipping power as well, and had a navy on hand to protect their ships - but even they had to move goods through Bayport to get to them Waynesburg. For a decade, the river was closed to significant trade - by 1605, it was open again, but by then, the overland routes were very well established, and Bayport was able to hold on to much of the trade it had taken. It's ships sailed everywhere - to the Kingdom, of course, to Vinar, but also past Vinar to the Southern Ocean, where they could trade directly for the tropical goods so much in demand: sugar, coffee, spices, tobacco. And they did not limit themselves to carrying goods back north - Bayport merchants established bases in the southern ocean, where they were able to trade extensively through the region, far to the east, to the great desert cities, all through the south, the Jungle Continent and so on. They traded in commodities not allowed in the north - slaves; drugs. All of this made the trading companies immensely wealthy and very powerful. Some of them, as strong as entire countries by themselves.
All this brought gold pouring into Bayport,and with it, people, to sail and build the ships, and to provide everything the sailors needed, the merchants wanted - there was money and work for everyone, at a time when many other cities were falling apart - and so Bayport grew at a tremendous pace. They crammed into its waterfront districts; some built around the edges of the city; the ones who had the means, moved into the old town, filling all of it up. They came from everywhere - so Bayport became a cosmopolitan city, full of every ethnicity, and every intelligent race that could get along at all. They also brought all the problems that boom towns have: crime, strife - all those people brought their grudges and rivalries and wars with them, lawlessness, license - whole chunks of the city became red light districts, thieves quarters, overnight. It never seemed to blow up - probably because the sea was always there as an outlet: tensions got to high, you committed a crime that made you a target, you could find a berth on a ship bound for Norwich or Vinar or San Marcos or Chult and your troubles were over. The sea drew off political ambitions as well - why make trouble in Bayport when you could steal an island or half a continent somewhere in the south? More than one Bayporter found themselves a count or duke or grand Vizier off in the far corners of the world.
But it created a city that bubbled with opportunities. It started to draw adventurers the way Waynesburg always had - men and women who knew they could find work with their swords and spellbooks in the city - and who knew there were riches to be found in the city itself. Like Waynesburg, it was an exciting, lucrative place in itself, and the portal to even greater adventures. Just as adventurers in Waynesburg could always head into the hills to take out an orc or goblin lair, so could you here - the hills and forests were only 5-10 miles away, almost wilderness. The sea was a frontier, and the road to a frontier - to the untamed parts of Lenay, Wingmar - as well as the whole wide world. Bayport, by the 1610s, had the reputation Waynesburg had had for ages - if you were a young, ambitious fellow, good with a sword or your wits, with no obvious place for your skills at home, go to Bayport, and it would all be up to you.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Waynesburg - Intro and Map
Waynesburg is an adventurer’s paradise. It is the largest city of the north, the center of the northern culture, the great magnet of the region, for everyone. Waynesburg is located where the Great River flows out of Lake Byron - it is a perfect site for a trading town, and has always been settled. There are stories of a major settlement there as far back as the great legendary war between the elves an the drow. (Though if that is true, those wars leveled it completely.) There have been villages and towns there as far back as anyone can know, as far back as the early days of the kingdoms in the south. No one can say how many times it was destroyed and rebuilt in the dark ages, but it was always rebuilt, and finally blossomed into a major, and permanent, town in the days of the wars of Unification in the south.
In those days, streams of refugees from the wars sought refuge in the north, and many of them settled in and around the junction of the Great River, the Northflood, and the lake. By the end of the wars, the village had become a significant town, with a name and the beginning of fortifications. Wayne himself - one of the heroes of the wars, a member of the exiled royal family who eventually returned and unified the Kingdom - built fortifications, built a road around the rapids on the Great River, and gave the place its name. Within a generation, his fortifications had grown into a strong set of walls - from then on the city only grew. The northern lands were settled and civilized, with Waynesburg as their core. As minerals and other resources were discovered in the even wilder country north of the city, it grew even more powerful as an economic center. It became the anchor anchor for the political north against the occasional adventures of the south - when kings and dukes grew violent and ambitious, this is where their enemies fled; when orcs and barbarians threatened, this is where people gathered to defend themselves. It was a violent time - but the town grew nd prospered in spite of all.
In time, it out grew it's place as a frontier town, though it never shed its reputation. Parts of the city were, mostly, pacified, but much of it remained as lawless as ever. A reputation as a frontier can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A reputation for danger draws men who wish to fight again (or with) that danger - so it remains dangerous. These days, you might say that Waynesburg is a kind of artificial frontier - certain parts of the city remain mostly unpoliced, as if to keep a supply of mercenaries close for the inevitable feuds that arise, and for the periodic troubles on the real frontier. But that won’t get in our way: that is what makes it paradise for those seeking adventure.
In those days, streams of refugees from the wars sought refuge in the north, and many of them settled in and around the junction of the Great River, the Northflood, and the lake. By the end of the wars, the village had become a significant town, with a name and the beginning of fortifications. Wayne himself - one of the heroes of the wars, a member of the exiled royal family who eventually returned and unified the Kingdom - built fortifications, built a road around the rapids on the Great River, and gave the place its name. Within a generation, his fortifications had grown into a strong set of walls - from then on the city only grew. The northern lands were settled and civilized, with Waynesburg as their core. As minerals and other resources were discovered in the even wilder country north of the city, it grew even more powerful as an economic center. It became the anchor anchor for the political north against the occasional adventures of the south - when kings and dukes grew violent and ambitious, this is where their enemies fled; when orcs and barbarians threatened, this is where people gathered to defend themselves. It was a violent time - but the town grew nd prospered in spite of all.
In time, it out grew it's place as a frontier town, though it never shed its reputation. Parts of the city were, mostly, pacified, but much of it remained as lawless as ever. A reputation as a frontier can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A reputation for danger draws men who wish to fight again (or with) that danger - so it remains dangerous. These days, you might say that Waynesburg is a kind of artificial frontier - certain parts of the city remain mostly unpoliced, as if to keep a supply of mercenaries close for the inevitable feuds that arise, and for the periodic troubles on the real frontier. But that won’t get in our way: that is what makes it paradise for those seeking adventure.
Friday, January 5, 2018
Setting Sail
On a recent journey, several adventurers went ashore to feel the sand under their feet and solid ground. Camped at the base of a small cliff they heard sounds coming from a nearby sea cave that seemed to still have a source of water flowing out of it, even with the outgoing tide. Intrigued by the curious mixture of splashing and dripping within, they decided to investigate. Mostly, they were natural sea cave sounds, but amid them were what sounded almost like fish flopping on the rocks.
Exploring within, they encountered six sahuagin and narrowly escaped with their health intact. They also discovered signs of a greater complex further inside the cave, but escaped to get help before exploring it. On reaching Port Nyanzaru, they reported what they had found, and a party was gathered to return and explore the site, dealing with any hostile sahuagin as necessary to secure the safety of the island as a waystation on the way to Chult.
Monday, January 1, 2018
2018 Gaming Resolutions
Welcome to 2018, New Year's Day. As good a time as any to try to renew my attention to this blog - yep. I did this last year laying out goals - the goals I had for this blog got nowhere, but the rest?
Playing more? I moved, and yes indeed, I play a lot more. We have had some trouble getting a campaign established, but we have managed to play regularly - D&D and other games alike - so I have to take that as a win.
As for D&D - I did manage to run through the fire giant lair I referred to; I have worked up chunks of the jungle/south seas adventure, and played some of it,though it has been a bit hit or miss. That is all. I have not been able to turn any of this into anything tangible- but I created enough material around them, it is not off the table.
As for the background stuff - developing the world: I have continued working on that, as I have for decades. Some of this is quite tangible - lots of maps and such - some of it less so. But all of it is there. The problem with this is that it is all in my head, on my computer, or arranged in piles around the houses - I need to do something else with it. we'll be back tot his point...
As for blogging - no, fraid not. As for audio-visual - no, again. As for writing? yes - I have done a lot of that this year, though somehow managed not to finish a thing.
This is where I hope to change, and this is the whole of this year's resolutions. The general stuff - continues, take most of that stuff as ongoing... Keep playing. I have one campaign in decent shape; I hope to find one or two more that I can run - and hope I can get someone else to run, so I can play too (D&D specifically). Keep writing and all the rest. But specifically:
This year I am going to try to use this blog to start putting the background work - world building, especially, but dungeon building and the rest - into a tangible form. Published here, basically. I will set myself this modest goal: to post one piece every week related to the world building. Maybe sometimes something about other things - D&D theory or reports or observations or whatever - but something. And specifically, at least one post a week about the D&D world. Something - a post about a location; a piece of history; something about monsters or races or classes in this world; maybe something about its culture. One a week - I should be able to do it: I have a ton of material to use.
It's a modest goal, but it's a goal, and if I do it, it would generate 2/3 as many posts as we have managed in 7 years on this blog... It's not been that I don't do the writing - it's that I haven't published it (even in this kind of forum.) Time to start changing that.
Playing more? I moved, and yes indeed, I play a lot more. We have had some trouble getting a campaign established, but we have managed to play regularly - D&D and other games alike - so I have to take that as a win.
As for D&D - I did manage to run through the fire giant lair I referred to; I have worked up chunks of the jungle/south seas adventure, and played some of it,though it has been a bit hit or miss. That is all. I have not been able to turn any of this into anything tangible- but I created enough material around them, it is not off the table.
As for the background stuff - developing the world: I have continued working on that, as I have for decades. Some of this is quite tangible - lots of maps and such - some of it less so. But all of it is there. The problem with this is that it is all in my head, on my computer, or arranged in piles around the houses - I need to do something else with it. we'll be back tot his point...
As for blogging - no, fraid not. As for audio-visual - no, again. As for writing? yes - I have done a lot of that this year, though somehow managed not to finish a thing.
This is where I hope to change, and this is the whole of this year's resolutions. The general stuff - continues, take most of that stuff as ongoing... Keep playing. I have one campaign in decent shape; I hope to find one or two more that I can run - and hope I can get someone else to run, so I can play too (D&D specifically). Keep writing and all the rest. But specifically:
This year I am going to try to use this blog to start putting the background work - world building, especially, but dungeon building and the rest - into a tangible form. Published here, basically. I will set myself this modest goal: to post one piece every week related to the world building. Maybe sometimes something about other things - D&D theory or reports or observations or whatever - but something. And specifically, at least one post a week about the D&D world. Something - a post about a location; a piece of history; something about monsters or races or classes in this world; maybe something about its culture. One a week - I should be able to do it: I have a ton of material to use.
It's a modest goal, but it's a goal, and if I do it, it would generate 2/3 as many posts as we have managed in 7 years on this blog... It's not been that I don't do the writing - it's that I haven't published it (even in this kind of forum.) Time to start changing that.
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