Ringkobing

Chapter 1: Bog Lilly Boom Ringkobing is a small fishing village tucked away on the northern coast of the Bal'Gol Fjord. For several generations, the Kingdom of Keel was a formidable military power. Its superior navy and bold marines pushed the kingdom’s borders outward to the north, south, and east from the Rimewood to the Siltslick, and the Dwarf Hold of Bar Buldar. Each successful campaign increased both the crown’s wealth and power, and each one in turn drew the kingdom’s attention even farther north towards the realms of Alfaris. The southern coastal regions of Keel remained a backwater.
The crown’s benign neglect allowed piracy and banditry to flourish. Ringkobing and similar towns kept to fishing, content to maintain a low profile and avoid governmental entanglements. Decades ago, the pirates who prowled the waters off the Solmor grew strong enough to create their own realm, a loose compact known as the Ebon Floe. With the rise of that force came increased raids on Ringkobing and its neighbors. The Sea Princes’ of the Ebon Floe's raiding ships pillaged the coast for more slaves to support their growing empire, and all Keeland, but Ringkobing specifically suffered heavily. The memories of those times loom heavily over the area, and the locals’ hatred of the Sea Princes runs deep.
In time, Keel’s victories in the north gave way to a string of defeats in which its neighbors pushed the kingdom back to its original boundaries. With the world closing in, Leofwine a descendant of King Snorri Keelan looked to the south and saw unchecked banditry and a rising pirate nation. The crown struck peace treaties with its former foes to the north, raised a new navy, and dealt a sharp check to the ambitions of the Sea Princes—but the conflict is by no means over.
Leofwine Snorri Keelan IV has decreed that the pirates must be put down, the sea lanes secured, and trade cultivated. If Keel and Keeland cannot prosper as a military power, it must grow mightier as a center of trade.
Ringkobing, remote though it might be from the center of power in Keel, is entering a new phase of its life as it reacts to the king’s plans. The crown’s agents want to expand the village’s port and make it a prime location for trade with the world beyond. In another recent development, a band of Bar Buldar dwarves—bearing a decree from the king himself—have arrived and begun to excavate the hills and chalky seaside cliffs near town, looking for precious metals and taking with them the white mineral. If their work bears fruit as expected, the mine stands to become a major factor in the village’s—and, indeed, the entire region’s—prosperity. The wave of migrants coming to town to work the boggy mines is known as the Bog Lilly Boom.
Naturally, not all of Ringkobing’s residents feel the same way about the recent developments in and around their community, which is the key issue that affects their lives and livelihood. Although the recent changes stand to bring new prosperity to the area, many locals don’t want to see their home changed. At the same time, as an undercurrent through all the goings-on, agents of the secretive and mysterious Vermillion Ring work to thwart Keel's ambitions while advancing their own. Wanted posters litter the town center and docks, offering 100 gold to anyone who can provide information that would lead to the capture of Vermillion agents. Rival graffiti in scarlet paint and white chalk riddles lesser traveled streets and the cornerstones of houses along the shore. Some of these marks are crude and the typical fare, but others seem to be symbols.

Type

Large town