Remballo
Milestones along the road count down the distance to the city of Remballo for the last five miles. When the city comes into view, it has the look of a fortification rather than a settlement, with high stone walls and substantial towers. Two flags fly over the gatehouse, one of them a mounted merchant on an orange background, and the other a triangle of three coins on a field of black.
Remballo is a small city along the South County Road between the capital cities of Olaric and Manas, where a wide cart-road from the kingdom’s rural interior joins the high road. The town is filled with merchants, petty traders, carters, caravan guards looking for employment, and others who make their livelihood along major trade roads. Much of the area inside Remballo’s walls is given over to warehouses and caravan yards, large inns, and animal corrals, all the requirements of a commercial city.
The priests of Thyr and Sefagreth are generally content with the role of tenants, even though it is a bit unorthodox. The Borgandys do not interfere with religious practices, and handle the sort of administrative tasks that the priests view as a distraction anyway.
History
Remballo is not built upon Hyperborean ruins, as many of the cities of the Borderland Provinces are. It was founded in 3027 — at roughly the same time as Bard's Gate — as a small trading post to take advantage of increasing trade from the southern cart road. The southern trail is usually called the Remballo Road, even though it is not paved in any way and winds drunkenly through the countryside, making sharp curves around woodlands and hillsides. To call it a “road” is quite an overstatement of the facts. Nevertheless, the Remballo Road is one of the longest decent trails through this part of the kingdom’s interior. A fairly steady stream of farm produce and other rural goods arrive at Remballo from the south, except during the mud season when rural travel becomes tremendously difficult for carts and wagons.City of Remballo Map and Key
- County Road Gate
- Remballo Road Gate
- Red Jongleur Inn
- Citadel
- Counting-House of the Borgandy family
- Cathedral of Thyr and Sefagreth
- Corrals and Enclosures for animals
- Warehousing District
- Cathedral Square
- Caravansary (caravans assemble in these fields)
- University of Remballo
- Citadel Courtyard (municipal buildings)
- Public Baths
- Thieves’ Guild
- Dead Fiddler Square
The House of Borgandy
The Borgandy family are a house of investors and bankers headquartered in Remballo. Rather than engaging in trade themselves, they finance caravans, expeditions, and land purchases for others. They do invest in town real estate, not only in Remballo but also in Manas and Olaric, but the only reason they would hold farmland is if they had foreclosed on a noble’s estate. The patriarch of the Borgandy Family is Romero Borgandy, and much of the family’s business is also managed by his daughter, Isobel Borgandy Razaan (the Razaan family is closely allied with the Borgandys).
The Borgandys provide a few services that might be useful to adventurers. First of these is simply to hold money safe for travelers unwilling to carry huge sums with them on the dangerous roads of the Borderland Provinces. The Borgandys do not pay interest on deposits: ensuring the safety of large sums of money is considered value enough in these uncertain times. Second, the Borgandys issue “letters of credit” that can be redeemed with other moneylenders in distant cities on the strength of the Borgandy family’s assets. Such letters of credit are extremely specific, with a description of the holder given in the letter itself, making them useless to thieves (other than shapechangers, perhaps). Moreover, the paper used for the letters bears a very specific magical watermark, difficult to forge even for a high-level spellcaster. The downside of these letters is that they cost 10% of the face value (a 1000gp letter of credit requires a payment of 1100gp), which is how the Borgandys make their profits and pay their distant affiliates for cashing the letters in.
The Counting House is, for obvious reasons, well fortified. A robbery would by no means bankrupt the family since they have extensive realestate holdings, loans to nobles, and shares of caravan cargos, but there is still a formidable quantity of treasure stored away here.
One might expect the Borgandy family to be motivated purely by self interest, and there are unquestionably a few of them that fit the mold of a greedy banker. Most of them, however, are dedicated to the proposition that if they foster a more productive world, one that is governed by Law and mercy (commercially reasonable mercy, at least), their own trade will prosper. For a family that lives a thousand miles from any sea, their oddly maritime motto is that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The family has informants and agents in several of the great cities, and in addition to the commercial information they get from this network, they have been piecing together information about larger-scale criminal activity. Unlike the counts and dukes and kings of the Provinces, the Borgandys assemble information that is not cut off by political boundaries, and they have a much broader picture of the threats facing the Borderland Provinces as a whole. They understand many of the implications of Foere’s withdrawal from the region, and have also discerned that the northern-based Friendly Men appear to be a very far-ranging criminal syndicate. They even surmise that the headquarters of the Friendly Men is probably somewhere in Aachen Province.
Although they cannot pay well for purely altruistic missions, the Borgandys might be willing to hire traveling adventurers for a number of different tasks. They often have foreclosures in distant lands, investments that seem to be going bad for no discernable reason, and people they suspect of being dishonest in business dealings. They handle their own problems in Manas and Olaric for the most part, but always have need of trustworthy help in places such as Kingston, Troye, Alembretia, and even the distant city of Endhome. In particular, they are very concerned about the fact that one of the Borgandy cousins, Savario Borgandy, has disappeared (see Rogues in Remballo adventure).
They do not engage in the opium trade that has started to develop in the area, not for moral reasons but because they want to avoid the violence involved in the opium-related gang wars that are simmering in Manas and elsewhere. “Violence is unprofitable business,” as they say.
Although it is not a common occurrence, the House of Borgandy occasionally does business with Loom Ché, a denizen of Leng who resides in the Unclaimed Lands. Loom Ché captains a ship that can sail through the misty seas between dimensions. For a price, he sometimes ships supplies of gold coin to the family’s offices in Mirquinoc and Endhome. Loom Ché and his associates are very, very dangerous and unpredictable, not to mention bizarre. Lower-level characters would be at great risk to even board the ship. However, a higher-level group of characters might have a chance to interact with Loom Ché through the Borgandy family.
The Borgandys provide a few services that might be useful to adventurers. First of these is simply to hold money safe for travelers unwilling to carry huge sums with them on the dangerous roads of the Borderland Provinces. The Borgandys do not pay interest on deposits: ensuring the safety of large sums of money is considered value enough in these uncertain times. Second, the Borgandys issue “letters of credit” that can be redeemed with other moneylenders in distant cities on the strength of the Borgandy family’s assets. Such letters of credit are extremely specific, with a description of the holder given in the letter itself, making them useless to thieves (other than shapechangers, perhaps). Moreover, the paper used for the letters bears a very specific magical watermark, difficult to forge even for a high-level spellcaster. The downside of these letters is that they cost 10% of the face value (a 1000gp letter of credit requires a payment of 1100gp), which is how the Borgandys make their profits and pay their distant affiliates for cashing the letters in.
The Counting House is, for obvious reasons, well fortified. A robbery would by no means bankrupt the family since they have extensive realestate holdings, loans to nobles, and shares of caravan cargos, but there is still a formidable quantity of treasure stored away here.
One might expect the Borgandy family to be motivated purely by self interest, and there are unquestionably a few of them that fit the mold of a greedy banker. Most of them, however, are dedicated to the proposition that if they foster a more productive world, one that is governed by Law and mercy (commercially reasonable mercy, at least), their own trade will prosper. For a family that lives a thousand miles from any sea, their oddly maritime motto is that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The family has informants and agents in several of the great cities, and in addition to the commercial information they get from this network, they have been piecing together information about larger-scale criminal activity. Unlike the counts and dukes and kings of the Provinces, the Borgandys assemble information that is not cut off by political boundaries, and they have a much broader picture of the threats facing the Borderland Provinces as a whole. They understand many of the implications of Foere’s withdrawal from the region, and have also discerned that the northern-based Friendly Men appear to be a very far-ranging criminal syndicate. They even surmise that the headquarters of the Friendly Men is probably somewhere in Aachen Province.
Although they cannot pay well for purely altruistic missions, the Borgandys might be willing to hire traveling adventurers for a number of different tasks. They often have foreclosures in distant lands, investments that seem to be going bad for no discernable reason, and people they suspect of being dishonest in business dealings. They handle their own problems in Manas and Olaric for the most part, but always have need of trustworthy help in places such as Kingston, Troye, Alembretia, and even the distant city of Endhome. In particular, they are very concerned about the fact that one of the Borgandy cousins, Savario Borgandy, has disappeared (see Rogues in Remballo adventure).
They do not engage in the opium trade that has started to develop in the area, not for moral reasons but because they want to avoid the violence involved in the opium-related gang wars that are simmering in Manas and elsewhere. “Violence is unprofitable business,” as they say.
Although it is not a common occurrence, the House of Borgandy occasionally does business with Loom Ché, a denizen of Leng who resides in the Unclaimed Lands. Loom Ché captains a ship that can sail through the misty seas between dimensions. For a price, he sometimes ships supplies of gold coin to the family’s offices in Mirquinoc and Endhome. Loom Ché and his associates are very, very dangerous and unpredictable, not to mention bizarre. Lower-level characters would be at great risk to even board the ship. However, a higher-level group of characters might have a chance to interact with Loom Ché through the Borgandy family.
Places of Interest
The Red Jongleur Inn
Wealthier travelers in Remballo are directed in particular to the Inn of the Red Jongleur. The Jongleur offers ordinary accommodations to farmers and pilgrims, but their luxury rooms at the top of a large round tower are spectacular. For a (large) price, the Jongleur produces gourmet foods of a quality that would impress even the King of Suilley. The top rooms have their own common room for small gatherings, and the inn is frequently host to diplomatic gatherings of dignitaries from Olaric and Manas, allowing these nobles and luminaries to meet midway and live in luxury while their discussions are in progress.Cathedral of Thyr and Sefagreth
The cathedral of Thyr and Sefagreth is a splendid, graceful stone building with the left side dedicated to Sefagreth and the right side to Thyr. It was originally just a small temple to Thyr, financed by the city fathers at the time of the city’s founding. When the first members of the Borgandy family arrived a hundred or so years ago, they began financing the temple and later arranged for the sanctuary to maintain a shrine to Sefagreth as well. The Borgandys take both of these gods as their patrons, without preference between the two. Since the cathedral has a dual nature, it is not maintained by the priests of either of the two deities venerated in its halls. Rather, it is managed by a Vicar neutral to both gods who is appointed by the Borgandy family. The current Vicar is Gorvais (gor VAY iss) Borgandy, a family member who showed more talent for managing real estate than money. In addition to supervising the cathedral grounds and building, Gorvais manages several of the warehouses and caravanyards in Remballo on the family’s behalf.The priests of Thyr and Sefagreth are generally content with the role of tenants, even though it is a bit unorthodox. The Borgandys do not interfere with religious practices, and handle the sort of administrative tasks that the priests view as a distraction anyway.
Adventure Opportunities
Ghristoph Borgandy is always willing to pay for information, and he occasionally handles the family’s dirty work, some of which is kept secret from the other members of the family. Ghristoph could send a party of adventurers on all kinds of missions, from recovering lost collateral to gaining information about mercantile and political operations in Manas or Olaric, to tracking down rumors about the Friendly Men or the Wheelwrights.
Settlement
Remballo, Town of
Type
Town
Owning Organization
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