Stilben

Stilben stinks to high heaven. Most sailors who pass through it—be they honest traders of the Clovis Concord in Wildemount or pirates seeking their next conquest—call this dismal burgh the Rotted Lot. The stink and the crime that run through this town make the name an apt one, but things aren’t all bad in Stilben. The largest port on this coast of Tal’Dorei, Stilben is the focal point of international trade with Wildemount. Even though Stilben’s permanent population is a scant ten thousand, its more transient population of sailors who stay for a few days or weeks at a time is just as large, and fully triples Stilben’s total population in the summer months. Predictably, the vast majority of Stilben’s business caters to folk who won’t stay for long. There are brothels aplenty, at least one inn and one tavern each on every street, and countless other comforts for the weary traveler. The town is nestled in the sticky depths of the K’Tawl Swamp, and its putrescent stink mingles with the humidity and the ever-present buzz of insects to produce an air of misery around Stilben’s outer districts. Pushed out of Stilben’s cozy, cosmopolitan heart, its poor and disenfranchised citizens—derisively called muckdwellers by the town’s bigshots—struggle to eke out a living in the K’Tawl’s murky waters. Central Stilben houses most of its businesses, residences, and attractions. Those living in Stilben’s heart like to present a clean, “civilized” view of their town, maintaining it as a thriving commercial hub. The cross-continental Silvercut Roadway leads from Stilben all the way to Emon, and its robust trade of rare goods, textiles, and spices has given rise to a formidable merchant ruling class. Though the aging Margrave Wendle Truss is Stilben’s ruler in name, it is the guilds that hold true power. Their vast wealth and sizeable “protection” force have impelled the bombastic-yet-ineffectual margrave to acquiesce to the guilds’ will in order to maintain peace, as well as to preserve his own station within the city. Order is kept by the Waterwatch, Stilben’s official constabulary, but corruption is common within their ranks. The past few decades have been hard for the Clasp in Stilben. Though the local Spireling has kept a tight grip on the margrave and the Waterwatch, the Myriad has used bribes, intimidation, and every dirty trick in the book to winnow away the Clasp’s power. Now, Stilben is little more than a crucible for the power struggle between the two criminal organizations.

Large Town

Population 10,660 (67% humans, 11% elves, 11% halflings, 5% half-elves, 6% other races

Origins of Vox Machina

The citizens of Stilben do not know that some of Exandria’s greatest heroes, Vox Machina, first met in their humble city and went on their first adventure in the muck of the K’Tawl Swamp. Back then, even the exalted Vox Machina were just two-copper adventurers, quickly forgotten by Stilben’s haughty elite. One dwarf named Heinrich Runescribe, a junior member of the Alabaster Lyceum’s revered Lorekeeper Society, practically worships the heroes that defeated the Chroma Conclave, and has made it his mission to record all of their travels. He has found a wealth of evidence that the heroes of Vox Machina first gathered in Stilben under inauspicious circumstances and were dragged into an unexpected battle against the Myriad.

Stilben Adventures

Game Masters who set their adventure in Stilben can use these plot hooks for inspiration Lost Below (low-level). A Stilben guild known as the Relic Seekers partnered with the Clasp to smuggle a hoard of stolen Syngornian artifacts through the heart of the K’Tawl Swamp to the port of Stilben. The smugglers were last seen by a Clasp agent watching a bridge in the western swamp, but two weeks have passed since their last contact. They should have arrived by now. The characters are approached by one of several groups: an agent of the Relic Seekers in search of the relics, one of the Clasp seeking to find their smugglers, or a Myriad taskmaster who seeks to undermine the Clasp. Their first contact: the bridge guard, a hulking tiefling Clasp enforcer named L’Arkhelle. Ashari Agitator (mid-level). Gang warfare between the Clasp and the Myriad has been a daily affair in Stilben for the past thirty years, but something is changing. A cruel Ashari waverider named Galessi has joined the Myriad and is using her elemental magic to turn the tide of this gang war. The Clasp, the Waterwatch, and even the Air Ashari of Zephrah want to see Galessi laid low, but she has a secret base within the swamp, protected by a charmed giant crocodile and putrid water elementals. Demonblood Vengeance (high-level). A marilith demon using the guise of a blonde human named Iselda has been lurking on the outskirts of Stilben since her defeat at the hands of Vox Machina decades ago. Her demonic ichor has spawned a brood of demonfeed spiders that now view her as their mother. Iselda, sensing an opportunity, dedicated herself to the Spider Queen and attracted a small legion of dark elf fanatics to her side. Aided by all these evil creatures, she plans on conquering Stilben, not for the Myriad, but for herself and her evil god.