Ravengro
At a perfumed arcade known as the Emporium, Governor-Mayor Leonard Clancy rubs shoulders with common labourers awaiting an appointment in the Veiled Corridor. In an adjoining antechamber, snakes and erotic dancers gyre to a weave of cymbals and seductive pipes. A floor below, a gaggle of grasping miners presses against the windowed door of a darkened cell, impatient for a glimpse of a two-headed calf.
A gang of rowdies screams obscenities in the street at a crumpled halfling, kicking him as if scrambling for a ball. Their drunken laughter echoes off shuttered windows and bolted doors.
In a tower-flanked fortress across the shadowy square, filthy men with nothing to lose shout hymns to Pharasma, clutching to their idealism and principles like cornered animals. Their wild-eyed chief minster smiles as he draws a cat-o-nine-tails across his bare back, awash in his god's adulation and spirit.
But it’s just another night in Ravengro.
The Ustalavic settlement of Ravengro is located in the west of the county of Canterwall, close to the contentious border with the Hold of Belkzen. The town crouches in the lowland between three hills and Lake Lias (or The Great Blue Dot as the locals call it), a splotch of mud, smoke, and blood smeared across uneven terrain marked by countless irregular mounds and massive rocks. The oldest buildings pack the lakeshore where fishing vessels dock. Fish are taken from the lake to supplement local diets; however, the lake supports no major fishing industry. Farmers are the backbone of the economy, providing sustenance for Canterwall and the surrounding counties. Many old warehouses have been converted into cheap housing for miners and labourers, and no one is safe outdoors after dark. A creek runs through the town called the Vein and bisects the town. With few exceptions, those living north of the Vein enjoy a much better life than those living below it.
The town’s social classes congregate in the central square. Roughly every two weeks, someone in the town upsets someone else so significantly that the only recourse is a duel to the death at the center of a ring of cheering miners and farmers. The bookmakers of the Emporium and the Feral Dog do brisk business on such occasions, which tend to draw huge crowds. On less violent nights, the square is still home to a thousand pleasures and poisons; if Ravengro is a creature, the Vein’s central square is its excitable, irregular heart.
Demographics
96% Human, 2% Halfling, 1% Gnome, 1% Other Races
Government
The town once had councillors, but after unknown assassins poisoned them and their families, Leonard Clancy was appointed governor-mayor by the Palatine Council of Canterwall. Clancy will most likely remain in charge as long as the town remains profitable.
Defences
A garrison of over sixty members of the Foreguard Militia are stationed here, soldiers tasked with patrolling the western borders for orc incursions, keeping watch over the lizardfolk-infested marshes to the south, and liaising with other communities in the region. For more residential issues, Sheriff Clemence and his deputies see to the general safety of the town.
Industry & Trade
Ravengro is an idyllic self-sufficient Ustalav town supporting local farming and smaller fishing communities. The town predominantly produces wheat, barley and maize, with some fish from Lake Lias supplementing the local diet. Dozens upon dozens of labourers spend weeks underground in the hills surrounding the town, breathing recycled air pumped in via systems worth ten times their combined annual salary as they mine for iron, silver, and precious gems.
In ages past, Ravengro boasted an export more valuable than metal in the form of treasure liberated from the numerous tombs and burial cairns crowding the hills around the town. These remnants of a half-dozen long-dead cultures commanded scandalous prices from the Caliphas elite, whose insatiable covetousness triggered a boom in the local economy. Those days are long gone, though. The last cairn in the region coughed up its treasures decades ago, and few locals pay much mind to stories of yet-undiscovered tombs and unplundered burial cairns.
The monks of the Veiled Lotus Monastery occasionally appear in Ravengro to trade the psychotropic plant known as Aurora Lotus. Proceeds from this trade account for all of the monastery’s activities. While many publically frown on the narcotic, no one is interested in stopping the death monks from trading it in town. Crossing them has also resulted in being introduced to the Veiled Lotus Monastery's Way of the Long Death.
History
Ravengro was founded in 4594 AR as a town for those who worked at or supported the infamous Harrowstone prison and their families. At that time, the county of Canterwall did not exist, and Ravengro lay in the county of Tamrivena, ruled by the unpopular Count Eigen Lorres; it was the Count's idea to build a large prison at Ravengro that could house, for a fee, criminals from anywhere in Ustalav. This plan increased Lorres' popularity as other parts of Ustalav moved their prisoners to Harrowstone, and money flowed into the county in return.
In 4661 AR, a prisoner uprising led to Harrowstone prison being burnt down, and all the prisoners and many of the staff, including the warden and his wife, were killed. The prison was never rebuilt, and shortly after that, in 4670 AR, a bloodless coup occurred in Tamrivena, bringing a new democracy to the county and Ravengro. Many political historians see the fire at Harrowstone and its immediate neglect as one of the catalysts of the move to democracy in the county. A garrison for the Foreguard Militia was built over the prison site as part of the political movement.
Founding Date
4594
Type
Large town
Population
1083
Location under
Included Locations
Owner/Ruler
Characters in Location
