Dustbridge

Dustbridge is a town of 2,200 people. The main feature is the huge walled castle of Prince Strychan. The town itself lies in the middle of some surprisingly fertile arable land, away from the great river basin of the Flanmi. Good supplies of grains, fruits and livestock still make their way to the town. Strychan's troops patrol the outlying farmsteads regularly and deal summarily with any raiders or bandits. Word has got around among the mercenaries and desperadoes of Aerdi that these are good lands to avoid, for if one is captured one may end up as an exhibit in one of Strychan's entertainments. That is a fate, with its accompanying humiliations, which even a hardened bandit will blanche at.

Dustbridge is a paradox. It appears to be a well controlled small town of moderate wealth, with reasona bly happy and contented people. Under the surface, however, matters are different. Many of the wealthier merchants try to ape Strychan's lavish entertainments with repulsive parties and amusements of their own, while even the poorer folk—filled with tales and lurid rumors of the debauch at the castle—indulge in repellent night-time activities of their own devisings. Animal fight ing is the least unpleasant of these. Unlike Eastfair, there is a manic and violent edge to this debauchery, and visitors here are significantly more likely to end up as victims than witnesses of leisure activities.

Strychan appears often before the townsfolk, granting Brewfest coppers to the poor and strutting about town in outfits of lace, leather, and silk. He deliberately appears as a foppish dandy, but everyone knows that while he may appear supercilious, indeed effeminate, the prince is a man of unsurpassed cruelty. He has eliminated every independently-minded priest from his city, either by imprisonment on trumped-up charges or at the hands of his elite assassins, and he has complete control over the mercantile and artisan guilds of Dustbridge. Their senior guild members have often become dependent on the herbal substances Strychan serves his guests to enhance their enjoyment of his debauches, and Strychan has a monopoly on supply. Strychan is a prince to rival Ivid himself for his wiles and implacable evil.

Strychan makes no public show of his desire for the malachite throne, nor does he disavow it. In conversa tions with important guests and visitors, he expresses the view that Ivid is clearly insane and that Aerdi should be reborn as a federal state with a senate of major landhold ing princes. This is just to reassure other nobles, of course. Strychan seeks dominion as absolute as that of the long line of Ivids he seeks to supplant.

Strychan is a complex individual. Brilliantly intelligent and a superb tactician, he nonetheless has an irrepressible chaotic streak which he has managed to disassociate within his own personality. Dealing with affairs of the city, or in political discussions, he is cool, sharp, and very self-controlled.

However, at his entertainments, the monster shows his true colors. He is a connoisseur of tortures, possessing an unequalled collection of suitable instruments, and his tastes run to the bizarre: one of his masquerades included a cast of slaves and captives who had their tongues extracted to prevent them speaking and were then encased in the skins of great cats. The wretched victims were stitched inside the suits, their hands held within the paws by tarred bandages so that they were unable to get out of them. The application of hot peppered oils shortly before the final stitching ensured that the poor wretches went berserk with pain. And the appearance of a snarling and shrieking assembly of lions and tigers (as it appeared) proved a suitably dramatic conclusion to one of Strychan's evening gatherings. Seated atop his gilt throne, with a wall of force preventing the "animals" from reaching him, Strychan watched the ensuing chaos among his guests with glee.

Such amusements are only self-indulgence, of course. Strychan is a powerful mage. Rumors of his trafficking with fiends are certainly not groundless. Strychan is biding his time, knowing others will come to him for favors as his role as pretender to the malachite throne gains wider acceptance. Of course, his spies and assassins let him know who is a potential ally. And they are well capable of eliminating any serious opposition.

Strychan also boxes clever in the matter of humanoid troops. He does not maintain such armies himself and feigns a distaste for them, which boosts his general popularity. However, he does not worry about his liege men using such mercenaries, which they employ quite commonly. The orcs are mostly of Adri origins, and are usually employed to fight in internecine squabbles, though some still raid the eastern margins of their forest home. The orcs are unusually cruel even by orcish standards, and the commonfolk are especially terrified of them.