CARAVAN

Social Class: Lower.

Power Center: Never.

Buildings: Temple (Fharlanghn, foreign deities), average lodging (4%), poor lodging (14%), average food (9%), poor food (29%), average trades (8%), poor trades (12%), average services (8%), poor services (14%).

Description: Here, caravans that have traveled to the city gather until the merchants can move their goods to the marketplace or reload their wagons for the outward journey. This district has its own atmosphere, and it is not a pleasant one. The mingled aromas of road dirt, humanoid sweat, horse dung, and stretched leather make other neighborhoods seem beautifully fragrant by comparison. Food and drink are passable at best, and often overpriced. People from many different regions congregate here, and frequent brawls erupt from the mix of disparate customs and tempers frayed thin by long travel.

Plot Hook: On the roads outside the city, bandits are attacking caravans with increasing frequency. The attackers seem to know which caravans are hauling worthwhile goods, and even which specific wagons to hit. Whoever is feeding the bandits information must be haunting the caravan district, where teamsters and guards do most of their drinking and talking.