Bilebrine

Nearly 1,400 people live within the sea cave complex of Bilebrine. This town, if it can be called that, is owned by a Torquann princeling—as are most of the lands of the northeast beyond the Trask. For many years, an above ground village was plagued by barbarian coastal raids and attacks from sea monsters, until the weary folk decided their best chance of survival was to stay within the confines of the caves, once they had been explored and mapped and made safe. The ruins of the original village still lie close to the shoreline above the caves themselves.

Bilebrine takes its name from the deepest sea caves where sea water leeches copper salts from the rocks, and additional minerals give the clouded water the color of bile. Craftily, one Torquann princeling feigned an incur able illness which was then miraculously "cured" by immersion in these waters. Gradually, Bilebrine became a health spa for North Province nobility trying to recover from the excesses of depravity at Edge Field or Eastfair, though the wars have sharply reduced the number of such folk coming to be pampered by hydrotherapy, flagellation with kelp fronds, and similar dubious treatments.

Bilebrine is a very curious place indeed. Many of its folk are almost albinos, and centuries of inbreeding has not done the population any favors. Most shun even the fee-paying visitors and simply hope the world and its wars will go away and leave them alone to eat the kelp, cave fish, lizards, and shellfish which form the bulk of their diet. They have learned peculiar new skills, such as weaving heat-treated and oiled kelp baskets and crafting spears from stalactites, so that many ordinary goods are simply unavailable here (there is little trade into Bilebrine).

The Torquann rulers of the nearby lands grudgingly give Grenell what taxes and tithes they can, and hate the barbarians who still raid their lands. Since they don't have orcs on their lands, and since the men of these lands are not those who would have to march to war again (being poor fighting men), they tend to favor Grenell's rulership somewhat by default. They believe that any change probably will be for the worse.