Damarib
A small fishing village that sits at the top end of Eriveh Bay, Damarib is frequently visited by trading ships looking to resupply or repair on their way up and down the west coast of Turoza. The majority of the village’s inhabitants make a living either from fishing themselves, or from catering to the needs of passing trading vessels. During the harvest season, Damarib briefly becomes a much busy hub of activity, as representatives of the farming communities in north west Castar make their way to the village, which is their nearest port, to sell and ship their surplus crops to the bigger towns and cities of the country. On the whole, however, Damarib remains a sleepy community just getting on with the business of existing.
Demographics
Damarib Village has a mixed species population made up predominantly of Humans and Halflings. In addition there are a number of Half-Elves and Dwarfs that live in the community, along with a single Gnome resident, Light Master Nineel who operates and maintains the village’s Light Keep.
Government
As it is a relatively small community, Damarib’s inhabitants meet once a month at the Shrine of Hani’ata in the village to discuss business and to make decisions and arrangements on matters that any permanent inhabitant of the community wishes to raise. Motions are then voted on by everyone in the community that is above the age of 16. This is the form of local organisation that is prevalent in the majority of small communities in the Republic of Castar.
Citizens of the Republic who live in Damarib are eligible to vote in the national elections that occur every 10 years of the positions of Protector of the Republic, Warden of the Realm and Warden of the Treasury, but beyond that very few of the decisions made in the Republican Assembly have a great bearing on life in the community.
Defences
Damarib has no proper defences to speak of, and in times of crisis its inhabitants have either taken to the sea in the numerous fishing craft that litter the quayside, and waited out whatever the dangerous situation might have been just offshore. Alternatively Damarib’s residents can seek sanctuary in the Light Keep, whose strong walls and tower like construction allow it to operate as a semi-defensive refuge if need be.
Infrastructure
The largest area of infrastructure in Damarib is the area around the quay, which is a hub of activity for the local fishing activities and provides a reasonable number of berths for ships travelling along the north-south sea route that stop off in the village. There is enough non-local maritime traffic to warrant Damarib having a small Harbour Master’s Office, which in theory is supposed to record any non-locally owned ships that stop in the quay and what cargo they are carrying. Because of the more parochial nature of the village and the area, it is not particularly hard for vessels that want to avoid having their movements tracked to circumvent, or bribe the local system, which is itself very rarely audited by the authorities in the capital. Integrated into the quayside infrastructure are a number of warehouses, usually used to house agricultural products leaving the local area, but occasionally imports as well, along with a workshop to cater to the repair and maintenance needs of the local fishing vessels and non-local visitors.
Due to Damarib’s position at the northern most tip of Eriveh Bay, and because of the shipping infrastructure, the village has its own Light Keep built on a hill in the middle of the village. The Light Keep serves to warn approaching ships of the promontory that the village is based upon, which sticks out further than the land around it into the Ocean of Memaran. In addition, the Light Keep serves as a marker for the beginning of Eriveh Bay to ships travelling down from the north. As Eriveh Bay has a number of hidden sandbars in its shallow coastal waters, it can be treacherous for ships’ crews that have not traversed its waters before.
Beyond the infrastructure linked to the sea, there is a single entertainment establishment in Damarib, the Dead Shark Inn that has a limited amount of accommodation, and there is a single, though large trading post in the village, whose wares are primarily focused around resupplying ships that stop off temporarily in the village. There was once a mill in the village, but the small amount of viable agricultural land in the immediate vicinity of the village meant that it was not sustainable for the community to maintain a mill of its own. The mill has since fallen into disrepair, and the enterprising miller who decided to try his luck in Damarib has long since left.
There is no direct road link between Damarib and the more major settlements of the Republic, including the capital Wardeen. Instead, a network of locally used tracks and dirt roadways meanders its way through the countryside, linking up to the more rural in-land villages in the north-west of Castar. Theoretically, it would be possible to follow these smaller paths and tracks down to the south of Castar, and eventually pick up the major paved roads that run between the larger towns and cities, but it would require an incredibly good knowledge of the local villages and their surrounding geography to do so.
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