Hwyl-Hwyl (wheel-weel)

Do you have legitimate business to conduct? Do you want a safe and comfortable place to stay? Are you traveling in the company of decent people, perhaps your family? Don't go to Hwyl-Hwyl.
Adjacent to Gorsen, this somewhat man-made island is the dark side of the community. Here are pleasures illicit, those that treat others as lesser, that enslave the mind or the body, or that remove ones resources in ways that seem innocuous, at first.
The citizens of Gorsen have mixed feelings about the place. Certainly it's better for them that these vices not be in their town, but to have them exist at all, and so close, is distressing.

Demographics

This is a place where the wealthy and the poorest of the poor might live. The wealthy because they avoid association with the working classs, the poor because rubbing up against wealth might cause some to fall off for them. The primary professions include gamblers, brothels, thieves, bodyguards, and assassins.

Defences

The primary defense for the place is the surrounding water. There are only a few places where one can enter the island, the shore in most places is sticky mud. The number of bodyguards, assassins, and other powerful people, albeit with low morals, makes it unwise to try to win influence through force.

Industry & Trade

Industry shifts from time to time depending on the power of the dark guilds that make the island their base. Several fairly consistent operations include:

• Prostitution
• Smuggling
• Gambling
• Drugs
• Assasination

History

When Gorsen was founded, the island in the river didn't exist. As the town diverted some of the water for their mills and irrigation and town needs, a buildup of sediment began in the river. Over time it built up enough for people to travel there and they built some breakwaters to prevent the river from washing the isle away.  Some enterprising individuals determined that it would be an excellent place for activities that were not acceptable in a sober, hard-working, family oriented town and so Hwyl-Hwyl was born.

Tourism

People are known to float over from Gorsen, although they mostly do it in clandestine ways as the activies there are not aligned with the town standards.
Traders and others up and down the river will make a stop as well if their business is best done behind the curtain, or under the table.

Natural Resources

Mud, grass, and imported rock. It's an enhanced mud bank in a river, after all.

Alternative Name(s)

Pleasure Island, Smugglers Isle

Type

Hamlet

Population

estimated to be about 1000 people

Included Locations

• Hwyl-House