Town of Saltmarsh

Saltmarsh is a nondescript fishing village tucked away on the coast northwest of Waterdeep. For several generations, Waterdeep was a formidable military power. Its superior cavalry and bold knights pushed the city state's control outward to the north, west, and east. Each successful campaign increased both the city's wealth and power, and each one in turn drew the city’s attention even farther north. Many parts of the coastal regions of the Sword Coast remained a backwater.
The city's benign neglect allowed piracy and banditry to flourish. Saltmarsh and similar towns kept to fishing, content to maintain a low profile and avoid governmental entanglements. Decades ago, the pirates who prowled the waters off Saltmarsh grew strong enough to create their own realm, a loose confederacy known as the Korinn Sea Princes. With the rise of those pirates came increased raids on Saltmarsh and its neighbors. The Sea Princes' raiding ships pillaged the coast for more slaves to support their growing nees, and Saltmarsh suffered heavily. The memories of those times loom heavily over the area, and the locals’ hatred of the Sea Princes runs deep.
In time, Waterdeep's victories in the north gave way to a string of defeats in which its neighbors pushed the city's control back. With the world closing in, the Lords of Waterdeep looked to the west and saw unchecked banditry and a rising pirate nation. The Lords struck peace treaties with its former foes to the north, raised a navy, and dealt a sharp check to the ambitions of the Sea Princes—but the conflict is by no means over.
The Lords have decreed that the pirates must be put down, the sea lanes secured, and trade cultivated. If Waterdeep cannot prosper as a military force, it must grow mightier as a center of trade.
Saltmarsh, remote though it might be, is entering a new phase of its life as it reacts to the great city's plans. The Lords' agents want to expand the village’s port and make it a northern satellite port. In another recent development, a band of dwarves—bearing a decree from the Open Lord himself—have arrived and begun to excavate the hills and seaside cliffs near town, looking for precious metals. If their work bears fruit as expected, the mine stands to become a major factor in the village’s—and, indeed, the entire region’s—prosperity.
Naturally, not all of Saltmarsh’s residents feel the same way about the recent developments in and around their community, which is the key issue that affects their lives and livelihood. Although the recent changes stand to bring new prosperity to the area, many locals don’t want to see their home changed. At the same time, as an undercurrent through all the goings-on, agents of the secretive and mysterious Scarlet Brotherhood of Luskan work to thwart Waterdeep's ambitions while advancing their own.

Map: Saltmarsh