Yartar
Situated in the fork where the Rivers Surbrin and Dessarin join near the Evermoor Way, Yartar is a fortified town that, were it not for its own petty, internal squabbles, might wield more influence among its fellows in the North. Currently, it is most remarkable for its barge-building operation (and that industry’s importance to the commerce of other settlements) and its annual fairs.
Yartar is a small, walled city that stands on the east bank of the Surbrin River. Extensive docks line the city’s riverfront. The city bustles with trade, and wagon trains constantly come and go along the Evermoor Way.
The fortified city commands the most northerly wagon bridge over the Dessarin River. On the west bank is a walled citadel under the city’s control. Between the citadel and the city stretches a stone bridge wide enough to accommodate two wagons with room to spare, connecting the Evermoor Way into and through Yartar. Travelers must move through the citadel and pass inspection before continuing west to Triboar or crossing the bridge to the city’s west gate. The Evermoor Way cuts through the heart of Yartar, connecting the city’s western and eastern gates through the market. East of the city, the Trade Road becomes a gravel trail.
Government
Yartar is ruled by a Waterbaron who is elected for life. The current Waterbaron is Nestra Ruthiol (LE female Tethyrian human noble), a shrewd, vindictive woman in her late fifties. Ruthiol is hot-tempered woman and wickedly calculating; though she is free with her words and her insults, she seldom acts against rivals unless she is sure such can be done to the most efficiently painful effect.
Yartar is a member of the Lords’ Alliance, and Ruthiol considers that relationship vital to her city’s survival and prosperity.
Conflicts and schemes between the city’s influential citizens keep Yartar from gaining prominence in the North. If the town could overcome its internal problems, take advantage of what its fellows in the Lords’ Alliance can offer, and find a way to reap greater profit from its position along major trade routes — where it stands as the gateway to all the settlements of the northeast — Yartar might soon grow in size, wealth, and influence.
Defences
To curb and control rowdiness, the Waterbaron employs the Shields of Yartar, a mounted force of guards who police the town, keep order, and chase off the Uthgardt raids that occasionally menace the lands nearby. The Shields are housed in the Shield Tower, a fortified structure on the west bank of the Surbrin, whose outer wall has frequently been torn down and rebuilt. It’s rumored that guardian skeletons rise when unauthorized folk tread the ground between the walls, but no one has tested the area to see if its magic still functions; even if it doesn’t, more than a hundred angry warriors charging out of the tower at trespassers is enough danger to scare people out of pursuing the idea. A fortified bridge connects the banks between the tower and the town proper.
More impressive than either the Shields or the Shield Tower is the Waterbaron’s Barge. This massive vessel can carry two hundred soldiers or seventy-five Shields of Yartar with their horses. Its sides above the waterline are armored with iron. Behind its walls stand multiple crossbow contraptions, each able to fire a dozen bolts at once. When brought to bear against a force on the riverbank, the Shields loose two volleys against their enemies, then bring the Barge ashore and charge. No raiders have stood firm against such an assault.
Industry & Trade
With its location near two great rivers and its proximity to a third (the Laughingflow, forming a trio the locals creatively call the Three Rivers), Yartar is a fishing town, and its tables have fish as fare at every meal. Fresh crabs, eels, and other river life are available both to eat and to purchase and serve as a primary means of income for the fisherfolk of the town.
The other major industry of Yartar is barge building. Most of the region’s river barges are built, or at least begin their service, in Yartar, and the works of the town’s bargewrights are famous all up and down the Dessarin and its tributaries. It is the importance of Yartar’s barges to the commerce of the North that earned the town a place in the Lords’ Alliance, to ensure that Yartar doesn’t fall to enemies and cause upheaval in the trade network along the rivers.
What can’t be transported to or from Yartar by barge comes and goes by caravan instead, and the town’s location makes it a key stop for most caravans passing between Waterdeep and Silverymoon. In Yartar, a caravan can arrange for swift repairs, replacements of wagon wheels, carts, or full wagons, or the replenishment of tack and other accessories.
Because Yartar has so few industries, and fewer close neighbors, its merchants are often in direct competition with one another, and have neither the resources to seek new customers, nor the space or funds to explore new trades. As a result, a good deal of the gossip, thievery, and assault in Yartar has at its roots one merchant trying to get the upper hand on a rival, either through damage of goods, intimidation of workers, or theft of patrons and customers.
Guilds and Factions
The Harpers and the Zhentarim are well established in the city. Both factions have infiltrated the local thieves’ guild, the all-female Hand of Yartar.
The Harpers purchased a villa in the heart of Yartar that was about to be torn down. Behind the dilapidated building is a 40-foot-square garden patio enclosed by an 8-foot-high wall of ivy-covered stone. A hallucinatory terrain spell conceals not only the teleportation circle inscribed in the middle of the patio but also the broken benches, weed-infested flowerbeds, and shattered statuary that surround the circle. While the hallucinatory terrain spell is in effect, the garden looks as it did in its heyday, with statues of frolicking dryads and satyrs situated among the flowers and stone benches. A cantankerous old Harper named Kolbaz (NG male Calishite human mage) dwells in the villa and renews the hallucinatory terrain spell every day at highsun. He uses his cantrips to frighten away squatters and other unwanted intruders.
Points of interest
Yartar is prosperous and becoming increasingly crowded. Some of its old buildings have been torn down and taller ones built — four stories high, in some cases. Except for torches around the edges of the stone hall of the Waterbaron and for signal lights on the river, Yartar is dark at night; by tradition, light lasses are young local girls who know the streets and lead the way.
In the center of town is the Waterbaron’s Hall, a grand structure that is both the ruler’s home and the location where she hears audiences. Feasts are often held here, though more often, the hall sees activity in its side rooms, where merchants dealing in large quantities of goods, or making deals and proposals that affect the entire community, can meet in comfort. The hall is rich with marble stonework, tapestries, and high, echoing chambers. Its overhanging, peaked roof is held up by two ranks of pillars that march down both sides, passing stocks for flogged prisoners; even these items are ornate, carved in the shape of stone lions. At the end of the colonnade, a flight of broad stairs leads to the grand chamber. Servants’ quarters and kitchens are below, as are secret passages linked to the meeting rooms above.
Visitors to this bustling town always find their way to the noisy, crowded, market area in front of the Waterbaron’s Hall. Known locally as the Fishyard, the market always has fish on sale. Even in the depths of winter, ice fishermen bring their wares to the stalls. The market is a maze. Many stalls sell fresh catches from the Three Rivers, while others offer every trinket or small item imaginable.
Surrounding the market area are the bulk of Yartar’s inns and taverns. Travelers looking for a place to stay find two decent choices in the Pearl-Handled Pipe, and the White-Winged Griffon. The Pearl-Handled Pipe is one of the best inns in the north, offering plenty of cozy comfort and privacy. By contrast, the White-Winged Griffon is a creaking hostel that threatens to come down during high winds, letting the chill blow through the bones of tenants. Its only virtue is being cheap. Lastly, if a visitor happens to be an important merchant or affiliated with the Lords’ Alliance, they are welcome at the Waterbaron’s Hall, where they are provided with guest quarters at no charge.
The Wink and Kiss is a large tavern of low repute near the city’s central market square, staffed by a dozen dancers, servers, and cooks protected by two human thugs who serve as bouncers. Everybody working in the Wink and Kiss is friendly toward the Hand of Yartar, and they know their regular clientele. Any suspicious-looking strangers are likely to be spotted at once.
Visitors preferring a drink away from the eyes of the Hand might prefer the Cointoss. A mediocre tavern, the Cointoss is a low-beamed, smoky, poorly lit place with wooden tables and benches. Occupied by locals looking to drink the night away, the Toss is favored by Yartarrans as a place free from intrigue and noisy visitors: neither are welcome. The place gets its name from a helm over the bar. If a patron tosses a coin through the eye slit of the helm, he gets the next glass free.
Visitors with an eye for adventure, however, likely head for One Foot in the Boat. This is the sort of tavern that’s too noisy and too crowded to be as good as you remember it being, but it shines in memory, and it smells exciting. It impresses peddlers all over the North, and native Yartarrans too. If lucky, a patron may overhear something that may lead to adventure, or at least something to talk about in other taverns.
The Happy Hall of Fortuitous Happenstance is a temple to Tymora poised near the Waterbaron’s Hall. Built like a fortress of grim, forbidding stone, its arched windows look down on the town from the temple’s own small hillock. Locals often call it Two Hap Fort Hall, or just the Two.
Those looking for the dangerous underbelly of Yartar look to one of its infamous alleys: The Long Creep, Mindulspeer Lane, Dead Cat Cut, Shadowskulk, and Spitting Adder Lane. Informants, bodyguards, escorts, errand runners, and dealers in potions, poisons, and shady goods live along such walks.
Tourism
Each summer, except in years when Shieldmeet occurs, a vast Hiring Fair is held in Yartar, during which all sorts of undesirable folk gather north of the town looking for work as guards, miners, farmhands, guides, or other unskilled laborers. For the most part, those who attend this fair are brutes, bandits, freeholders whose lands can no longer sustain them, or Uthgardt who wish to be among “civilized” folk for a short time — but occasionally, a strong hand or a skilled warrior can be culled from the bunch. While this event is going on, Yartar is overrun with visitors it would rather not welcome, who steal goods, sell wares in the street (sometimes those they have just stolen), meet unscrupulous contacts to hand off coin, information, or purloined items, and engage in the occasional spell duel. It’s quite common for a new adventuring company to come into being at one of these fairs, when those who stand out from the crowd because they have legitimate skills to sell gravitate toward one another and decide to form a group.
In those years when Shieldmeet falls, the town is instead treated to a great festival on that day, sponsored mainly by the local temple to Tymora, the Happy Hall of Fortuitous Happenstance. The Shieldmeet festival features a number of games of chance, skill, and bravery, from dice and darts to drunken running, to wrestling and other physical contests. Occasionally, the Tymoran priests use this festival to identify adventurers whom the goddess has called to a particular task, selected for a blessing, or otherwise marked for some undetermined destiny. Whether during the Hiring Fair or the Shieldmeet festival, each summer at least one adventuring band seems to get its start in Yartar. Most fall into obscurity, but the Smiling Company — the still-active portion of a larger band of warriors who gathered in Yartar nearly a decade ago — still enjoys moderate success and makes annual contributions to the Happy Hall.
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