Carnival

"I swear. I swear, swear to the gods, something ain't right about that place. They way it draws you in, and keeps ya. I went in there, thought I'd just stay for an hour, have a good time. I didn't go home for two weeks. Some folk I think've been there their whole lives. Years. Decades, maybe."

The Moving Town

Carnival is a mobile settlement that roves all across Old Eitridea that offers many different forms of entertainment and pleasure. Once starting as an actual carnival, it grew so much that it gained a following of merchants and other purveyors that hoped to - and do - benefit from the attention Carnival draws. As it grew in size, its mobility decreased. Now, it usually stays in one place for an entire season before moving on.

The Mysterious Overseer

Even when Carnival was just a carnival, it was far from stereotypical. It focused less on amazing the eyes and body, and more on tantalizing the mind. Psychological manipulation, subterfuge, and artifice were far more prevalent than the run-of-them mill entertainment you would find in normal carnivals. While this has degraded as Carnival became the town it is today, one point has remained.
No one knows who oversees Carnival.
Called by those in the town as the Housemaster, the identity of this organizer is to this day unknown. It is widely believed that Housemaster masquerades as a common caretaker of Carnival, mingling with both clientele and permanent members of the carnival. In times when he does make an appearance - an exceedingly rare occurrence - he is seen to be wearing very fine black clothes, with a featureless white and black mask obscuring his features.
The Housemaster is known to sometimes host great parties, that last for days and span the entire town and beyond. To be invited to the inner circle of partygoers in one of these events is of such great repute and rarity that even the highest up officials rarely receive an invitation.

A Sinister Conspiracy

Carnival is not all that it seems. Everyone knows, or at least feels, this.
Stories tell of a person going into the town, and never coming out. And certainly, when Carnival first opens after relocating, to those in line to enter, it seems as though there are partygoers there are have been there for far longer than a few moments. Other legends say that children enter Carnival, and emerge mere days later as grown adults. Or emerge to find that their parents have been dead for a year.
Even within Carnival, among those that stay for months, content to feed off of the massive amounts of business generated by the pleasure town, there is fear and mistrust. There are rumors that those who begin to dig into the sinister side of Carnival disappear, or are silenced in freak accidents.

Services and Function

Carnival's economy centers around entertainment and pleasure, and it offers a plethora of different services to deliver these functions, as well as to accommodate them.
At any time, dozens of various performances, plays, tricks, and events can be found going in Carnival, as well as elaborate games and treasure hunts that span days or even weeks, and require travel from one side of the town to the other.
Sometimes, these games are more than deadly.
In Carnival, there is no shortage of magic. Illusion, Divination, Conjuration, and fantastic feats of Evocation and Abjuration are a novelty to most, and the shows involving them are some of the larger ones.
Not only are there all these entertainment services, but there must also be ways to further accommodate clients. Inns, taverns, wineries, drinking houses, and brothels are among the multitude of different third party businesses that spring up wherever Carnival chooses to settle.
Carnival, like any town, also has a far less reputable, far seedier side. As an independent establishment, no government holds any jurisdiction in Carnival, and as such it has become a hive of criminal activity. Dozens of small gangs vie for control in its tent alleyways, and larger thieves' guilds strive to gain the alliance and sanction of the Housemaster, who allows - and even encourages - such activities. Strangely, it seems that these gangs rarely actually skirmish. Some postulate that this is a part of a deal struck between the guilds and the Housemaster.
At any rate, the thrill of witnessing - and maybe even taking part in - the criminal activity in Carnival has been advertised, and many of the great games that go on in the town make use of these gangs. This leads many to think that the thieves' guilds are nothing more than an elaborate act, just another form of entertainment. Or at the very least, function as one, the puppets of the Housemaster.
This is untrue.
The crime that goes on in Carnival is palpably real.

Structure

The town, is at its base made of hundreds of tents of varying size. Over time, as Carnival establishes a presence in any one spot, these tents are often augmented with more permanent structures, that are left behind when the Carnival moves.
Carnival makes use of a unique form of construction, involving many wooden platforms surrounded by canvas tent, to give the illusion of a multi-storied building. In the past, there have been incidents of these structures collapsing on themselves, or catching fire and burning - but that just adds to the thrill of the Carnival.

Type

Large town