Jack City: Manglor, Janni and the Skummroad

MANGLOR (pronounced "mangle-or")

(Map of Jack City:

Jack City Districts (rough map)

Open full size

Jack City is broken up into districts with fairly solid borders. These borders are sometimes patrolled by the mafia families that dominate the areas. The socio-economic differences in the districts are sharp and distinctive, ranging from the unimaginable wealth and opulence of Hightower to the the slummy lowliness of Smedj.

)

Standard:
• A black flag with a "nightshade" flower: a nodding yellow flower with purple petals and a blood red tip.
• There are various ancient runes and markings in silver, along the rest of the field.
• Some flags have now turned the flower deep, blood-red purple-black.

A district with a rich history, possibly pre-dating Jack City itself somehow:

• the home of the Mangloria, the "Nightshade," said to be ruled over by the Three Witch-Brides, souls sold to Mammon,

unspeakably old and just as mythical at this point.

Jack City: The Skummroad or other roads south to Tellarus
Jack City: Down a goblin hole, possibly to the Drow
Jack City: goblin holes, information

MANGLOR and the DROW

• 
  The Current Lord of Mangloria is Sessia Lavendra, or "Lady Mangle".
• She is the one who made (or is making)--along with her advisors--the deal with the drow. She is starting to panic in regret.
  

=
Drow undertones, Drow muster a small army in the sewers and tunnels underneath Manglor, with some tunnels extending out into Jack City, especially north to Smedj and Liar's Hill.

The Manglorian Mafia has agreed to share power with the Drow and with the Demon Queen Lolth, after a takeover of the Empire. (They are fools to work with the Drow, but their greed has grown, maybe under a curse of the departed Witch-Brides?)
Nightshade flag; Manglor feels darker somehow; darkness seems to settle in the corners, a kind of shroud
The truth is that Mangloria has made a deal with the Drow that they're finding it hard to back out of.
The Drow (at least several clans of them) have made a pact with the Mangloria, to begin here, and eventually infiltrate High Tellarus and make a bold move to take over the Empire! It is a bold plan, to take many decades. But the Drow are patient.
And the Witch-Brides seem to have disappeared, leaving Manglor with little power. There will be trouble with the Drow... The Witch-Brides have sided with them now.
Manglor is a place of nagging shade and darkness. It seems that everywhere you turn there are dark corners. Night in Manglor is deeper than any other deep night in Jack City. The Imperial soldiiery is wary, and many of the residents even moreso.
THE SKUMMROAD:
The Skummroad begins just north of Manglor, in an area it used to occupy, congealing out of many minor causeways on LIAR'S HILL.
There is no wall around it until the southern edge of Manglor. This is the most direct and safe way to the Gutter of Tellarus, and thus the safer areas beyond it. One cannot pass through without a handful of rumors abour "the Vastness"--an enormous underground world beneath the Tellaran Gutter--and its secrets.

Narrative of Approaching the Square of the Three Witch-Brides / or walking the streets of Manglor

"Manglor is an odd place. There are strange shadows hidden and odd, here and there it seems.
"Walking this main thoroughfare towards the square, something weird creeps you regardless of the movement and the carnival of it all.

"The shops, and inns, and the numerous indistinct buildings, the latter which seem so subtly to lean and bend againstt each other, somehow smother in your peripheral vision in a vague shadow, where it seems no shadow should be.

"As you notice the shadows, they immediately fade to the corners, but not before giving a small anxiety, a small fear. If something does indeed take to the corners here in this district, it lurks intangibly. One cannot put a finger on it without proper skill and effort.

"Do these buildings generate their own purple-black darkness? Is it real, this soft whisper of sinister things?

"In addition to the odd shapes and purple darknesses among the buildings, there are dark creatures lurking about. A group of crow people are in and out of shadows, and likewise shadows hide peculiar elves of fine chainmail and dark purple skin. To be sure, goblins lurk the area as well.
[A Racket? Demand payment for passing through?] [A group of thugs in purple and black step out of the shadows, led by three slender figures in fine, dark chainmail, sleek deep-purple pants and black leather bookts. A closer peer through the gloom of Manglor's street reveals startling elven features and skin of purple ultramarine, and sneers on their narrow faces. Two of the others are crow-men with upright stance but black-sheen feathers.]
"The road south leads forward now through this Manglor, so oddly named, at a slight angle downhill. Ahead, a quarter mile or more you gain view of a busy city square. Many beings mill about, visiting stalls of roasted chicken or dark spicy vegetalbes and pork, or all manner of artistic goods, among other items for sale.
"This is a place of convergence for several well-paved and well-traveled roads. Travelers spill out and fill the square.
"Most notably perhaps, A very tall sculpture, 15 feet high or higher, rises from the center of the space, an unmistable depiction of three elderly women, frozen in the expression of three different actions.
"Thus you approach the area in anticipation of a spectacle, almost a carnival if you will. The festive atmosphere does not disappoint, but there is something... different about this district, this Manglor."
If you are interested in the statuary: THE WITCH-BRIDES of MANGLOR (if you are interested...)

"The center of the open space proudly brags of a large statue of glassy black stone. The monument exhibits the Witch-Brides of Manglor, three figures reaching out, ancient hags in jet robes in varying stances and visage.

"These are the Three Witches of Manglor. Stories of them have come to you during your stay in Jack City, painting the old womenvariously as Evil Hags, Compassionate Benefactors, and pure, empty mythology.

"The stylization of the figures elongates their height, making them arch up and out over the area nearby.

"One hag holds aloft a staff of spidery decoration

"Another old woman works a magic spell with hands outstretched and knotty fingers curled, the statuary illustrating an eruption of vicious arachnids.

"The third witch is frozen in the act of rolling a pair of dice, the pips of which dance tiny spiders. (THE WITCH BRIDES are mythical rulers of the district (of Jack City?), semi-divine they say. If they exist at all, they see the Drow as deliciously deceitful and darkly powerful. THE WITCH BRIDES have sided with the Drow (or so the Drow say)

THE SKUMMROAD ITSELF--ENTRANCE AND TRAVEL

IMPERIAL GUARDS


• The Road itself begins as a modestly cobbled causeway, wider than most other streets in Jack City. Seven imperial soldiers stand at attention in front of a guard house, larger than most.
  
  Five soldiers stand at attention at the gate to the Skummroad, their faces serious and inscrutable, the deep crimson lion posed on both livery and standards fluttering weakly in the breeze.
  
  The other two men cast their eyes about the crowd, until someone steps up the short stairway to the gate. It looks as though some form of questioning happens then, and some travellers are even taken into the guard house for brief, private interveiw.

Mostly, they just take bribes, or with decent looking merchants (especialll humans), or those with official Imperial "Passes" -- documents in good shape, signed by an imperial official, or a merchants' guild of some legitimacy--a Tellaran guild.
Those with a "Tellaran Municipal Form" (TMF) will be questioned to test imperial loyalty. Likewise those with senatorial business will need documentation of some kind.
Those with none of the above are often badgered and bullied into outrageous bribes, given in one of the three guardhouses. Those who are seen as pirates are particularly ripe for bribes and intimidation.


THE SKUMMROAD

• The most significant difference is truly that: the Road has a wall built up around it on either side, and it proceeds on this path, with a 15' wall on either side. The Road is truly a separate place in and of itself, completely self-contained, with no real escape until the other side, which is
• About four miles away
• Skummroad is advertised as the "Quickest Way" for foot travel from Tellarus to Jack City
• Most people can afford it
• Rich people can afford a trip by boat, either way (50gp passage), although it is more expensive (80 gp) back

• PASSENGER SHIPPING FROM JACK CITY to TELLARUS / Back-Again

• Streamlined, comfortable passage, expensive (see above)
• Used only by the wealthy, to avoid the messy and distasteful travel by foot
• Livestock counted full price
• ... Multi-Stock Personal Shipping (specializes / has room for lots of livestock, 40gp human passage / 60 gp back)
• ... Fanfare Luxury Travel-Shipping (60gp human passage / 100 gp back)
• .... Jackerus Comfort Personal Shipping (50gp / 80gp)
• .... Tell-Jack Imperial Transport (50gp / 80gp)
• 
  
  TRAVELING IN JANNI and INTO THE GUTTER
  
• Anyone travelling to the Gutter is suspect in some way or another, so this keeps the riff-raff out of Jani. That's why they built it; a separation of the dangerous from the civilized.
• From the start, the Road itself goes for a mile and makes a steep rise, although you can't see where it's going, except that it's going on an upward climb.



• [In truth, the road is travelling up an embankment of earth, engineered to be incredibly steep and unassailable from below. A its height, the Skummroad rises even 100 meters above the District of Jani. Its descent is fairly swift down to the other end.]
• On the other end, a ways outside the district of Jani, the Party will be relatively free to move on. The only real concern is the people going into Jack City
INTO JANNI ON THE OTHER END OF THE ROAD


• Beyond Jani, down out of the wall, the Skummroad continues through open clear-cut [by the Empire] ountry, greened over in raspberries, lupine, and fireweed, and an opportune aspen here and there. (This area has been logged over dozens of times since the area has been occupied.)
• There are old ruins--a land once lived and loved--even of old towns along the way, now occupied only by squatters and bandits.
• After JANNI, the road will lead to the North Gutter.
• Terralan Gutter--North
  

  FIRST SEEING THE GUTTER IN THE DISTANCE

  
  Getting closer to Tellarus, you can see a high hill, with awesome jumble of sprawl spilling down it. The sprawl goes on across the hills ahead, meeting the ocean in the west and continuing as far as the eye can see to the east. It is a spectacular hodge-podge of oddly-shaped buildings, shanties, and ruins, seeming somehow piled up upon each other. There is no rhyme or reason to it; it is truly a disasterous combination of architecture and time.
  
  
  

  ENCOUNTERS on the SKUMMROAD

  
  

  PROWLA

  Hobgoblins and Bugbears, from the prison in the Gutter... Nabbed a catfolk (Prowla) outlaw in the hills, now returning to the Gutter to imprison her... She is called a murderer for "killing a bunch of the good folk" (a tight way of saying 'goblins' in Goblin)...
  "out of our way! out of the way of true justice, you stinking bastards".... Forcing a march through the mud... Will defend themselves.
  Prowla will know a lot about the Gutter. What do you want to know? The Gutter's my home.

IMPERIAL SOLDIERS on the way to a new duty in the North Middle Jack
COIN / GEM TRADER: Gem Finer Coin or Gem Trader Caravan or Group



• OTHER ENCOUNTERS

• Haulers of Pink Sandstone...
• Hauled by eight draft horses,
• one human driving them,
• and four tending the the rollers,
• one stone-mason
• and eight mafiosa (of the Tamadaria, north middle-jack)
• Livestock trains, headed south... Especially Cattle and Horses
• Adventurers (especially Elves and Halflings and Stryx... Exotic creatures, different)
• Covered wagon merchants, such as Dwarves with gold and gems, and heavily guarded
• Zephyrans on their way in or out, will have plenty of questions for those who might have answers
A serious lot, determined, another caravan like it, down the road... the Tamadaria are building a new castlle in their area

KENNOBRAI IN SHACKLES: A PROCESSION

"A little gaggle of rolicking Goblins, led by a more grim and two sober hobgoblin guards, leading and jerking forward a hunched human figure that stunbles along as best he can.

• "He looks half conscious, yet somehow even stylish and handsome through it all.
• "His half-dead eyes glance up at you, barely registering an unspoken plea for help or mercy, or both. His livery must once have been among the finest, a green velvet suit now in tatters and burns.
• "The goblins behind him have a busted lute that they continually slam against the cobblestones, howling with laughter. Another goblin plays shrill and dissonant notes on a beautiful silver lute, with dents all over it.
• "They have also torn holes in the man's hat, and one has the hat shoved down over his head, howling and shrieking with derisive laughter.
• "Several of the Goblins are banging battered pots and pans and howling with mirth."

KENNOBRAI

• The man is KENNOBRAI, a human bard (6th level) from very, very far away. (See NPC Gallery).. Speaks with an odd accent that no one can trace.
• Has come to seek the hand in marriage of a Mafioso's Daughter, she who visited the royal court in Kingdom Bountiful, where he was the Royal Songster for a time. They fell in love.
• But her father, the head of the Kortico (raven) Family, will not let her go to some lowly mendicant. A 400 gp price has been put on his head, and so he was captured and jailed for a time after landing at the docks in Tellarus.
• Then these goblins picked him up and beat him mostly to death.
• I will push on though. Nothing can stand between me and my true love's heart.
• (KENNOBRAI WAS IMPRISONED IN THE STONEHILL JAILHOUSE).
• Do they have a change of clothes he could use? Or other disguising stuff?
• "For I will not give up on my dear Tania after coming this far." If saved, will give them items or money in return, if he can.

Also mentions the

STONEHILL JAIL,

Crawling with hobgoblins, but there is a man of great dignity imprisoned there, man named Baltoa Binskinus.

A noble soul who stood up one day for a maiden in distress, her dignity challenged by two monstrous imperial guards.... I saw him rise to the occasion, love's true mark upon his heart... But alas, he was stricken down by the minions of this unholy Empire...

I was unable to rescue him at the time, harried as I was.

Here: Give him this, sing to him, revive him, give him my deepest blessing.... [a scroll / music scofre for some kind of bardic spell]

THE NOTE IS ACTUALLY A SPELL FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE (Spell: - - - - - - -)