Port Town: Population 19,120 (42% dwarves, 25% halflings, 23% gnomes, 10% other races)
Government: Lord Svikar Gildriver, male dwarf, collaborates closely with his trusted Silverhands, merchant guild leaders. Each Silverhand heads a trading guild with their own businesses, trade routes, and connections.
Defense: A force of Goldguard keep order in and around the port. Silverhands keep bodyguards, and imported defense weapons are employed along watchtowers on the outer walls and along the coast up to the Greater Sheathe Lighthouse.
Commerce: Common supplies and businesses are abundant, as are inns and taverns. Merchants and trading vessels often cycle through the port via the Greater Sheathe Gulf. Gambling halls are commonly inside or adjacent to gathering places.
Organizations: Temples to Beskem, Wolbreuk, and Unknown are popular and central. Smaller temples to the remaining divinities are present. The Silverhands and their guilds are tied to the worship of Zortea. Turn activity is present and steadily growing.
Foreword
Settled at the southern tip of the Greater Sheathe Gulf, Port Ghamd is the trading center of the northern region of Olessar. Wealthy merchant guilds employ dozens of traders and artisans who manage sea trade and crafting of all sorts of fine or functional goods. With a vibrant night life and a spirited haggling environment, gold never stops changing hands and power shifts every second under the watchful eye of Lord Svikar Gildriver and his Silverhands
Lord Svikar Gildriver and his Silverhands lead a quiet war of attrition against The Turn, who has a strengthening thieves guild presence here in town.
Among the Silverhands, no guild is more secretive or discerning than the Rubygrip clan, the fine jewelers guild headed by Silverhand Ondera Rubygrip.
Points of Interest
Rolling Wave Inn, Tavern, Gambling Hall, and Brewery, Tavern, Gambling Hall, and Brewery is the largest building on Fortune Square, and features countless tables and rooms to eat, drink, and relieve your coin purse. It is also the nicest and largest inn in town, owned and run by Handelaar. Four floors of games and rooms, with a brewery in the basement.
All throughout Fortune Square are pop up vendors and traveling merchant stalls. Business only ever pauses here when a pronouncement is given by Lord Gildriver or one of their Silverhands.
A smaller, seedier tavern and inn in Port Ghamd is the Shrewd Shipmate. Run by the barkeep and Master Thief Cachette Stray, the Shrewd Shipmate is one of the few establishments in Port Ghamd that discourages gambling. A smaller, quieter atmosphere and cheaper rooms offer little interest to most who pass through the mercantile town. The tavern stays open most nights nonetheless.
Cachette Stray: A Master Thief, Cachette Stray spends most of her time on assignment for the Turn. When she isn't stationed at the Shrewd Shipmate, she is often intimidating debtors, scouting out new prospects for the guild, and on occasion eliminating threats which are pursuing the Turn and their interests too heavily. Recently, Cachette learned that Gabriel Perrin was alive and hiding out in Rookmore. The Turn has long desired to foster a presence within that walled city. She found Gabriel and agreed to help him free his daughter from the influence of Dismalaravas if he would then relax his Sentinels' overwatch of the city enough to allow some Turn members to establish operations.
- Speed: 40 ft.
- Add Claws. Same as a dagger
- Add Feline Agility. When the tabaxi moves on its turn in combat, it can double its speed until the end of the turn. Once it uses this ability, the tabaxi can't use it again until it moves 0 feet on one of its turns.
- Add Sneak Attack (1/Turn). The spy deals an extra 7 (2d6) damage when it hits a target with a weapon attack and has advantage on the attack roll, or when the target is within 5 feet of an ally of the spy that isn't incapacitated and the spy doesn't have disadvantage on the attack roll.
Near the port is the Temple to the Cloudburster: an open-air pavilion (Greek-style) with marble pillars. Fisherman and merchants may bring offerings of catches or goods before they depart on a journey through the Boreal Channel and beyond.
Further into town is the temple to the Grace Marshal - a square stone-brick building with an assortment of literature encouraging its worship and the faith's teachings.
A few miles north on the western coast of the gulf is the Greater Sheathe Lighthouse, a Cabbalum-era tower which is a sacred site of Beskem, the Grace Marshall. The Knights Duvonte seek to preserve the Lighthouse in its current state: it has degraded with time, but the white flame at the precipice continues to burn.
Carrie Paard makes regular trips on with her horses and carriages, ferrying people between Rookmore and Port Ghamd for 3g per person.
Tabula Rasa: A Celebration
Port Ghamd is a beacon of lights and a cacophony of cheers, yells, and cries as Tabula Rasa is set in full swing from dawn to dusk. A celebration of a "clean slate" for the coming year, Tabula Rasa encourages letting go of past worries and embrace the possibilities ahead of you.
During the day, goods trading slows due to the larger footprint of vendors and
festival stalls which take up a significant portion of Fortune Square. Feats of
strength, performances, and of course, games of luck beckon all who find
themselves in town this to join in on the festivities (Games).
Games are run by local business owners, the Silverhands, and community members.
In the evening, Lord Gildriver plans to address the people. He will give a short address about how Port Ghamd has thrived under his leadership, and that he welcomes bolstered
Snuffed Light (Low Level). While the characters visit Port Ghamd, an envoy of the Knights Duvonte have arrived in town via a ship from Montsevain. They carry no goods to trade, only Officer Cerule Juiste, her company of Knights, and Herald Oraleur Sylwes. Oraleur has traveled from the Montsevain Baronies with a lead on the location of a buried temple of his patron, the Grace Marshal, which he transcribed to a note on his person:
When titans walked, and grounds shook
The most devout of Beskem look
To the heights of steel and soot
Above the lands and underfoot
Oraleur will share this lead with a group of individuals who he sees as competent and trustworthy. He aims to recruit those who succeed at the innocuous festival games being held in Fortune Square (as he believes most criminals or ne'er-do-wells wouldn’t deign to engage in such activities, especially so publicly).
Tabula Rasa: The Fire Flowers
Late in the evening, Herald Oraleur will be addressing Fortune Square at the behest of Lord Svikar Gildriver. The purpose of this speech is to reestablish relations between Port Ghamd and the Montsevain Baronies by encouraging the worship of the Grace Marshal.
In the crowd before taking the stage, Herald Oraleur has his note with the poem and his gold stolen from him by a member of the Turn who was hired by Daxar Darkstone. Fozias Frightforge and Brax Bonebrute, of Daxar's Skallywags, simultaneously throw Oraleur's room at the Rolling Wave searching for other leads or information he has gathered. Fozias Frightforge will use the balcony, facing Fortune Square to the south, to shoot Oraleur with his newly constructed firearm.
After Lord Svikar Gildriver addresses the crowd on the eve of Tabula Rasa, Herald Oraleur is invited to speak and introduce the Fire Flowers, newly invented fireworks brought in from Rookmore via the merchant ship the Sparkler (helmed by Captain Benjamin Butterball). This is when Fozias takes his shot.
The White Flame
The Greater Sheathe Lighthouse is a Cabbalum-era tower in the northern point of the western coast of the Greater Sheathe Gulf. It is a sacred site for the Knights Duvonte and for the faith of the Grace Marshal. This site contains the White Flame, a divine creation of the Grace Marshal and the Flamebearer, given to Al'tehrun before the Rend to provide guidance and security for the people.
The White Flame is a divine creation of the Grace Marshal and the Flamebearer. It is a direct connection to those divinities, and as such, the most devout to those powers commune with the flame when seeking guidance from those beings. Additionally, the flame is known to cure and prevent many afflictions: any creature that touches the White Flame receives the benefits of a Lesser Restoration spell. Those devout to the Grace Marshal and the Flamebearer can also receive the benefits of a Greater Restoration (an offering of 100g diamond dust per the spell cost is also required).