Stilben

Large Town: Population 10,660 (67% humans, 11% elves, 11% halflings, 5% half-elves, 6% other races)
Stilben stinks to high heaven. Most sailors who pass through it — be they honest traders of the Clovis Concord in Wildemount or pirates seeking their next conquest — call this dismal burgh the Rotted Lot. The stink and the crime that run through this town make the name an apt one, but things aren’t all bad in Stilben. The largest port on this coast of Tal’Dorei, Stilben is the focal point of international trade with Wildemount. Even though Stilben’s permanent population is a scant ten thousand, its more transient population of sailors who stay for a few days or weeks at a time is just as large, and fully triples Stilben’s total population in the summer months.
Predictably, the vast majority of Stilben’s business caters to folk who won’t stay for long. There are brothels aplenty, at least one inn and one tavern each on every street, and countless other comforts for the weary traveler. The town is nestled in the sticky depths of the K’Tawl Swamp, and its putrescent stink mingles with the humidity and the ever-present buzz of insects to produce an air of misery around Stilben’s outer districts. Pushed out of Stilben’s cozy, cosmopolitan heart, its poor and disenfranchised citizens — derisively called muckdwellers by the town’s bigshots — struggle to eke out a living in the K’Tawl’s murky waters.
Central Stilben houses most of its businesses,residences, and attractions. Those living in Stilben’s heart like to present a clean, “civilized” view of their town, maintaining it as a thriving commercial hub. The cross-continental Silvercut Roadway leads from Stilben all the way to Emon, and its robust trade of rare goods, textiles, and spices has given rise to a formidable merchant ruling class. Though the aging Margrave Wendle Truss is Stilben’s ruler in name, it is the guilds that hold true power. Their vast wealth and sizeable “protection” force have impelled the bombastic-yet-ineffectual margrave to acquiesce to the guilds’ will in order to maintain peace, as well as to preserve his own station within the city.

Type

Large town

Location under

Lucidian Coast