Rockport
The main home town for our party and where the dragon masks are currently held.
Government
See Rockport City Government. Currently led by Mayor Brilies.
Defences
A teleport pad that connects to a spot in the Northern Mountains (assuming nothing goes wrong), a small force of well-trained city guards who are questionably loyal to the city, and a large force of lightly to moderately trained city volunteers who are much more reliable. There is also a good amount of infrastructure underground built by the smugglers that could be used as a limited emergency bunker if necessary.
Industry & Trade
Rockport's main industry has been smuggling and other illegal trades. Since the apocalypse, the citizens have focused much more on fishing, farming, and crafts to make up for the lack of goods coming from elsewhere in Faerun.
Infrastructure
The main feature of Rockport is its waterfront. There are numerous piers of all sizes attached to the sheer cliff surrounding the harbor with steps leading from the rest of the town down to the piers. There are a few warehouses on the same level as the piers, but they are all carved into the cliff itself. It is not hard to see how this construction technique would be ideal if you were trying to offload illegal goods and though I haven't investigated the warehouses myself, it is said that there are secret vaults and hidden walls in some of them and that others connect to a series of secret rooms where the smugglers run all their business.
The rest of Rockport is light on infrastructure. The roads are old and narrow, though well-maintained, at least until you get to the newest sections of town. A sewage system was put in about 10 years before Neverwinter did it and it shows its age in some places. When the city was much smaller, it had a wall around it, but that was eventually partially knocked down to make room for more houses. If you wander the streets closest to the harbor, you can still see parts of the wall that they didn't bother to knock down scattered between the houses.
The remaining wall is only on two sides of the oldest parts of the city and the towers aren't regularly manned any more. The wall is still in good shape, though since maintenance is done by the Rockport Historical Society.
Guilds and Factions
See Redspine Smugglers. Currently led by Brynn Redspine.
History
About four generations ago, there were three major smuggling groups competing with supplying illicit goods to Neverwinter. They found themselves constantly crossing wires and being played against each other by the upper classes who purchased their wares. In addition, they struggled to find safe warehouses in Neverwinter to keep their spoils while they found a buyer and their personnel were scattered and constantly moving to avoid the City Guard.
Luckily, the leaders of each smuggling group cared more about draining the nobility of their money than competing with the other groups, so they got together and decided to found a town a few miles away from Neverwinter. They chose a spot along the coast of the Western Reach with a rocky harbor, built houses for their members, safes for their goods and money, and a few legitimate businesses to launder money through. They got a town charter from Neverwinter and officially became a fully autonomous town. Though the City Guard knew that the groups were still smuggling goods into Neverwinter, the political implications of raiding an entire town were too difficult to overcome.
Eventually, the three smuggling groups became one under the name Redspine Smugglers Rockport expanded. People moved in who weren't associated with the smugglers but had other reasons to leave Neverwinter, oftentimes they were running from the law. Before Tiamat rose, Rockport had become prosperous enough to have attracted upper middle class people who wanted the type of estates held by nobility, but couldn't afford them in Neverwinter.
Tourism
Rockport has no tourism to speak of and tourists would probably be pickpocketed in most of the city.
Architecture
The buildings in Rockport start close to the harbor, some built right into the cliff, and then spread out up the hill from there. The oldest buildings are very interesting architecturally because they were originally built to house a lot of illegal activity. As a result, the buildings often have fake walls and hidden rooms. Some of them are much bigger than they appear from the outside simply because they dug rooms out of the cliff and then put the visible, much smaller, building on top of them.
Geography
The city's main geographical feature is the harbor. It's a difficult harbor to navigate because the mouth is narrow and the bottom is rocky. Without a deft hand at the wheel, it would be very easy to crash your ship into one of the many rocky protrusions in the harbor, or even into the cliffs themselves.
The land immediately around the harbor is equally rocky with sheer cliff faces on all sides. The drop is so severe that the city installed steps in the cliff so that sailors could get down to the piers. Once you get past the cliff, though, the land is much more amenable. There is a distinct slope up from the harbor side, but it is gentle enough that you can walk from the bottom to the top without much trouble. Much of the land there was forest before it was cleared to make way for the town and a large forest still sits close to Rockport on the east.
Town Mysteries
The ruins of a strange temple were found underwater near the mouth of Rockport Harbor. Among the ruins were stone coffins containing the remarkably well-preserved remains of what appeared to be priests of the religion. Wizards who have studied it are unable to identify what god the temple was dedicated to. Exploration discovered the caved-in entrance to an old mine in the cliff around the harbor. The mine produced some iron once it was excavated, but there are parts of the old mine that are too dangerous to access. No one knows what could be down those tunnels. Strange flowers suddenly bloomed in the stone around the altar dedicated to Bahamut. Clerics dedicated to that god had no explanation. At one point, mucus fell from the sky. That's gross. Spores that appeared in Phandalin as well as Rockport were slowly turning people to wood. Wherever skin turned to wood, it also was able to grow branches, leaves, and even flowers. A symbiote attached to the brain of a dead man who fell off the cliff into the harbor. The symbiote was able to take over the body and return to Rockport where he lives today. He has taken the name "Bob" and is working on adjusting to his new environment. No one has had a chance to really talk to him about his life and experiences. He must have seen amazing things, living in the ocean for so long. My friend, Artie, lost control of his body and wandered into the woods last winter and a search party had to bring him back. This has happened to him before because Bahamut was controlling him, but Artie feels that this time was something (or someone) different. Divers found a chest of gold in a shipwreck in the harbor. The people who recovered it were cursed into living skeletons. Some members of the community saw a dove land on the apothecary and a ray of light. They have interpreted this as a blessing from a god, but no one really knows if that's true.Maps
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Rockport
Founding Date
420 BT (before Tiamat)
Type
City
Population
approximately 4000
Owner/Ruler
Ruling/Owning Rank
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
Related Reports (Primary)
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