Orham
The Black Gate, the Gateway to the Aendrils, or the City of Sin
Orham, called the Black Gate, the Gateway to the Aendrils, or the City of Sin, has a population of 7,500 and it serves as the home for many outcasts, hybrid humans, and those who fled from crimes elsewhere. The locals don’t ask questions, and money speaks.
Orham was founded in 1222, and they have not attained a charter yet (a fact that rankles the local elite). Its crest is three interlocked anullets, or, on a field of three bendlets, argent and azure. Orham is situated in the County of Gwyfned, the Kingdom of Gwyfned, in the High Kingdom of Myddum, on the shared Gwyfned/Kaldur border.
It sits at the base of the Aendril Mountain’s foothills, and it is girded by agricultural land to the east. Orham is connected by the Brighton Pass/Street to Embricht and Ygarl to the east, and Gwyfned to the west.
Orham was built rapidly by the lowest bidders, so it always looks a little dilapidated and frayed at the edges. It sprung up haphazardly as a trading stop, so it has many warehouses, horse yards and inns. The town has no castle, but developed around St. Claeredon’s Fortified Church. The town is defended by a short wall, about 13’ tall in its first course, but it has sat unfinished for years without being raised to a defensible height. Furthermore, locals have robbed out some of this wall for their own use, leaving indefensible gaps.
There is a smaller, daily market in town where the locals purchase their essential needs, and there is a large, weekly market that is held outside the city gates for horses, livestock and serious trading.
The local church of St. Claeredon’s is known for the Miracle of the Three Holy Blades as witnessed by Br. Chester FitzKing in 1223. St. This edifice is a well-built, battle-scarred edifice that is fortified. Many business dealing take place in the churchyard, so full-on faction battles have taken place here repeatedly, and the priests are used to barring the doors, dropping the portcullis, and manning the walls. The local deacon sells all manner of dispensations and pardons at below market value.
An Ordinarite satellite monastery in town runs a large brothel, one friary is a den of gambling and card-playing, and in another the friars dress in high fashion, have forgone tonsures, and have grown fat on plentiful rich food and the wine they press. Claeredon the Well-Advised is the local saint.
There are two cemeteries attached to St. Claeredon’s church. The older of the two is fenced, gated off and abandoned. There is a revenant within that rises at night to capture interlopers to help fill his cemetery grounds out with fresh corpses. The new graveyard is normal in all regards.
Orham’s officials and guards are corrupt, and in terms of the legal system, this town is a liminal place full of beggars, scam artists and masterless men. If you choose to live here, you have to be tough, well-connected locally, and be willing to take justice into your own hands. Orham’s most recent literary star is Si. Simone Webston, author of The Citadel of Vain Maidens.
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