Lockhinge Notes - Guide to Lockhinge City

Come into the city via a raft on the river. The raft is then able to transition from true river to the swampier, marshier riverlets that run through the estuary outside of Lockhinge. Joining up with busy traffic at the river docks, the raft driver being directed where to go. Porters help unload passengers and luggage, get that all straightened out and direct where to go. Meet with a dockmaster to get paperwork done and clearance into the city. Lots of "guides" and small transportation hovering around the docks, looking to be paid to help. Some legitimate, some less so. Dockmasters can suggest a few that are reliable as well as point out a few nearby establishments that are especially helpful for visitors.
Outfitters (include renting of equipment or rafts), Tourist welcome centers (with merchandise), Tourist vacationing center (can help plan activities, hire professional guides, etc), Licensing center (animals, selling outside of pawning to a shop, hunting or harvesting, etc), Riverside food and lodging

From there, decide where to go.

Mainstreet, market

Riverside

Waterfront

Floating Gardens

Common Quarter, "Centertown"

Mud Quarter, "Mud City"

Drowned Quarter, "Little Blindwater"

Stone Quarter

Guild Row

The Ridge, Civic and Industrial Center

Portside

Lockhinge Keep

Sights and sounds

carriages, rickshaws, where are beasts of burden allowed to be. buildings clustered and stacked, no room, roof space utilized (slanted? flat? always good drainage but are all these roofs that look flat actually slanted?),

Sight impression: The buildings very dense, some very mismatched and clustered, gets more tangled the further from mainstreet you get. walkways as flat and even as possible, again getting less so the further you get from mainstreet. The structures mostly made from dark, dull wood, often with algae or moss growth on buildings that aren't trying to impress, a lot of dull clutter, but over that are changable decorations such as fabric, banners, graffiti, decorative lanterns, etc. Some paint but not a ton because it doesn't seem to stick very well. Mix of very old and very new signs in a lot of places.

People picture a lot of wrong things when they imagine Lockhinge, and one of them is how it's known as the gilded city. Some people imagine grand architecture, which may be true in some parts of the Stone Quarter but not here, or they picture whole buildings or at least architectural elements made of gold. There are temples that are more golden, and royal estates that are ornate and gleaming. Lockhinge is dark and rough but also lavish. The fabrics and punches of color stand out against the dull background, and the gold that Lockhinge is dressed in is more like coins scattered through the whole field of view. Details of gold even on moss green wooden structures. They can make the gold last, either using tricks like filigree and thin gilding, and whatever isn't true gold gleams as if it is. And everyone has gold on them. Even the poor either have a few elements in gold or are making up for it with convincing-enough brass (if you dont inspect closely)

Animals: Stables strictly on Riverside or Portside. Most horses and deer kept there, can only be allowed in town with special permit (more money!). So, some carriages and riders in town, but not many. Vast majority deer, with very few elk, horses, or other riding/pulling animals. Only dogs seen are either mastiff hounds used for riding or pulling by small races, or crying hounds used by ranger types. Cats must be kept indoors, any outdoors must be leashed or familiars. Birds allowed if managed and non nuisance. Crocodiles must be leashed when on the street, and cannot be owned by most outside of Stone Quarter. Crocodiles over a certain size restricted from many places in the city. All pets must be appropirately licensed.

Smells: Cooking and woodsmoke (little bit of a haze over the city on stagnant days). Swamp smell but you get used to it, plus the salt from the estuary and ocean beyond. Whole city has a spiced incense sort of smell from the leechbane. Some areas smell bright and citrusy from burning an oil that keeps biting insects away.

Cultureshock

Food! Different spices, pork is only wild boar, beef is greymantle bull, seafowl in addition to traditional fowl, venison and elk. Lots of leech-based foods and other swamp creatures, such as amphibians, reptiles, and insects. Milk and cheese is either oxen or leech based. Not many fruits, and different from rest of kingdom, fruit tends to be berries or small, hard, not as sugary but some do have very strong flavors. Few, specific root vegetables. breads and flour made of things that are not wheat. Honey not common, but sugars and syrups made from several plants, including sugar reeds. Lockhinge meals often many small plates to be shared, started as food production isn't as bountiful and relying on hearty main courses, more the results of foraging and small-scale farming, now is a known style that is employed even by wealthy or those with access to heartier foods. - (swamp foods: cranberry, water chestnuts, rootlets and sprouts like bamboo shoots and flowering rush rootlets, water cress, taro root, all parts of lotus, all parts of cattails

clothing. furniture style. tieflings and other diversity, esp monster races. lockhinge accent. shoes. morals are a little different. temples and piety. law enforcement w city vs private

Lockhinge is a melting pot in that a lot of different styles have come in from places that either don't reach or are overwritten by elements in the north, and they in turn have a history of distancing themselves from the mainstream elements in the rest of the kingdom. It's likely because Tieflings' drive to have their own culture that hasn't been instilled upon them by people who don't want them around, that they had sped up the cultural absorbtion process, and willingly brought in and assimilated things that were around them in greymantle. Elements from other cultures, resources from the swamp, things that were novelly invented by choice or by happenstance by early Tiefling settlers, and the things that would filter in and become vogue from trade with a very faraway land, all combined to create a "Lockhinge style" that would be emulated and built upon from there.

The Lockhinge relationship with shoes came from how poorly typical shoes fair in a swampy environment.

Rules and norms

lockhinge laws. written vs quiet law. you will not be protected by the law most of the time, get into more trouble if reported. guilds and gangs. animal based rules. how to not look like a tourist or someone with money. expect everyone to know thieves cant and know it better than you. expect everyone here to be able to fuck you up, even nobles and shopkeepers. expect that anyone could be an informant or a plainclothes security force. it's expected you work hard to carve yourself a niche, and though it's tough, everyone has the opportunity to do it, though you probably need to join a guild or gang to do it, or at least find work at the bottom rung of where you want to start working up from. It's also expected that once you reach a certain level of success, unless you have roots you really want to deepen, it's expected that you take your new resources and talent and strike out on your own in the rest of the kingdom.

Things To Do

check in w outfitters to explore swamp. drink, dance, listen to music, gamble at one of the many taverns. take lessons (dance, language, survival, etc). shop. dine. attend a show at the Goblin College or the Platinum Ballroom, go to a gallery, visit a library, etc.. Cultural event. Visit nondenominational temple (or one of the smaller ones). try to attend court as a courtier. join a guild. get a job. visit a landmark like floating garden or the statue/fountain/square in stone quarter. visit market during market day. crash a noble party

Dangers

in the city and outside of it. petty thieves, pickpockets. brawling or upsetting the wrong person. upsetting a noble. appearing like you have or are an asset for someone to extort. getting in good w someone, which pisses off rival. working for or being associated with someone that someone else wants to hurt. swamp threats showing up in the city. supernatural threats. knowing or seeing things you shouldnt and becoming a liability. weird events, like the red snake gang.

Major powers
Houses: Thriyan, Twicefell, Fenborn, Rhoug, Lenn, Redhelm, Goodless, Thrasher
Guilds: Artisans' Guild, Circle of Commerce, The Culture Board, Hall of Mages, The Orphanage, Rangers Aeskethi
Who's Who

introductions and descriptions of the people. different from the regular writeups of the houses/guilds? more of a prose descrption, like how I had imagined describing seeing the thriyan family that they had heard about. don't know if ultimately going to be organized like this, but would be fun to have for however it's used or not used later. (Meet the Thriyans)

Climbing the Ladders

thieves/guilds. merchants/establishements. politics. rangers. start working under a patron of some kind. courtier possible way to start if not intimidated.