Diamond Lake
At a perfumed arcade known as the Emporium, Governor-Mayor Lanod Neff rubs shoulders with common laborers awaiting an appointment in the Veiled Corridor.
In an adjoining antechamber, snakes and exotic dancers gyre to a sonorous weave of cymbals and seductive pipes. Afloor below, a gaggle of grasping miners presses against the windowed door of darkened cell, impatient for a glimpse of a two-headed calf.
Out in the street, a gang of rowdies screams obscenities at a crumpled halfling, kicking it as if scrambling for a ball. Their drunken laughter echoes off shuttered windows and bolted doors.
In a tower-flanked fortress across the shadowy square, filthy men with nothing to lose shout hymns to St. Cuthbert, clutching to their idealism principles like animals. Their wild-eyed chief minister smiles as draws a cat-o-nine-tails across his bare back, awash in their adulation and the spirit of his god.
But it's just another night in Diamond Lake.
Diamond Lake nestles in the rocky crags of the Cairn Hills, three days east of the Free City to which it is subject. Iron and silver from Diamond Lake's mines fuel the capital's markets and support its soldiers and nobles with the raw materials necessary for weapons and finery.
This trade draws hundreds of skilled and unskilled laborers and artisans hoping to strike it rich. In ages past. Diamond Lake boasted an export more able than metal in the form of treasure liberated from the numerous tombs and burial cairns crowding the hills around the town. These remnants of a half-dozen long-dead cultures commanded scandalous prices from the Free City elite, whose insatiable covetousness triggered a boom in the local economy. Those days are long gone, though. The last cairn in the region coughed up its treasures decades ago, and few locals pay much mind to stories of yet-undiscovered tombs and unplundered burial cairns. These days, only a handful of treasure seekers visit the town, and few return to the Free City with anything more valuable than a wall rubbing or an ancient tool fragment.
In the hills surrounding the town, hundreds of laborers spend weeks at a time underground, breathing recycled air pumped in via systems worth ten times their combined annual salary. The miners are the chattel of Diamond Lake, its seething. tainted blood. But they are also Diamond Lake's foundation, their weekly pay cycling back into the community via a gaggle of gambling dens, bordellos, ale and temples. Because work in the mines is so demanding and dangerous, most folk come to Diamond Lake because they have nowhere else to turn, seeking an honest trade of hard labor for subsistence-level pay simply because the system has allowed them no other option. Many are foreigners displaced from native lands by war or famine. Work in a Diamond lake mine is the last honest step before utter destitution or crimes of desperation. For some, it is the first step in the opposite direction: a careful work assignment to ease the burden on debtor-filled prisons, one last chance to make it in civil society.
Despite its squalor, Diamond Lake is crucial to the Free City's economy. The city's directors thus take a keen interest in local affairs, noting the rise and fall of the managers who run Diamond Lake's mines in trust for the government. The city's chief man in the region is Governor-Mayor Lanod Neff, a lecherous philanderer eager to solidify his power and keep the mine managers in line. Neff exerts his capricious will via the agency of the grandiloquent Sheriff Cubbin, a man so renowned for corruption that many citizens assumed the announcement of his commission was a joke until he started arresting people.
The alliance between the governor-mayor and his pocket police might not be enough to cow Diamond Lakes powerful mine managers, but Lanod Neff holds a subtle advantage thanks to the presence of distinguished brother, the scrupulous Allustan, a wizard from the Free City who retired to Diamond Lake five years ago. None dare move against Neff so long as Allustan is around.
Instead of scheming against the government, Diamond Lake's six mine managers plot endlessly against one another, desperate to claim a weakened enemy's assets while at the same time protecting their own. While they are not nobles, the mine managers exist in a strata above normal society. They consider themselves far above their employees, many of whom are indentured or effectively enslaved as part of a criminal sentence. The miners' loyalty tends to map directly to the working conditions, pay, and respect offered to the miners by their wealthy masters.
The most ambitious and manipulative mine manager in Diamond lake is Balabar Smenk, a disquieting schemer who hopes to gain a monopoly on the town's mining patents by forcing enemies into bankruptcy and offering to buy their claims at the last minute for coppers on the gold piece.
Demographics
96% human, 2% halfling, 1% gnome, 1% other races
Government
Authority Figures
- Governor-Mayor Lanod Neff. Appointed by the Free City of Greyhawk to ensure that the mine managers are paying their taxes.
- Sheriff Cubbin. 3 Deputies (Deputy Jamis, Bragor, and Henn), and 6 constables
- Tolliver Trask, garrison commander. Answerable only to the Free City Military. Charged with protecting and patrolling the frontier.
- Allustan Neff. Brother to Governor-Mayor Land Neff. A wizard who also teaches weekly lessons to the children of Diamond Lake
Mine Managers
District Guard
A garrison of sixty militia soldiers stands ready to defend the mines from bandits and rogue lizardfolk from the southern swamps. Rival cults share the same flock of potential converts only because timing is not yet right for outright warfare. They muster their forces for the coming battle. Things are not safe in Diamond Lake, and a right-thinking person would have every reason to want to get out of town as soon as possible.Industry & Trade
Diamond Lake nestles in the rocky crags of the Cairn Hills, three days east of the Free City to which it is subject. Iron and silver from Diamond Lake's mines fuel the capital's markets and support its soldiers and nobles with the raw materials necessary for weapons and finery.
Points of interest
LOCATIONS
Political and Government
Temples and Institutions
- Church of St. Cuthbert on the Vein
Guilds and Industry
Inns, Taverns and Entertainment
- The Feral Dog
- The Hungry Gar
- The Midnight Salute
- The Rusty Bucket
- The Spinning Giant
Shops and Services
- The Captain's Blade
- Red Clover (apothecary)
Culture and Sites
Important Residences
Diamond Lake Hinterlands
Beyond the streets of Diamond Lake is a jagged expanse of wilderness. Wandering bands of militia patrol the region, keeping it mostly safe for the merchants, pilgrims, and travelers heading to and from the Free City. The following locations, while technically outside the town limits, play important roles in local affairs.
Type
Town
Population
1,023
Included Locations
- Able Carter Coaching Inn
- Allustan's Residence
- Bronzewood Menhirs
- Captain's Blade
- Deepspike Mine
- Diamond Lake Boneyard
- Diamond Lake Chapel to Heironeous
- Diamond Lake Garrison
- Diamond Lake Observatory
- Diamond Lake Piers
- Diamond Lake Sheriff's Office
- Diamond Lake Smelting House
- Dourstone Mine
- Dourstone Residence
- Emporium
- Feral Dog
- Gansworth Residence
- Greysmere Diamond Hall
- Hungry Gar
- Jalek's Flophouse
- Lakeside Stables
- Lazare's House
- Midnight Salute
- Moonmeadow Residence
- Neff Manor
- Osgood Smithy
- Parrin Residence
- Rusty Bucket
- Smenk Manor
- Spinning Giant
- St. Cuthbert on the Vein
- Taggin's General Store
- Tidwoad's
- Tilgast Residence
- Venelle's
Owner/Ruler
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
Related Reports (Primary)
Comments