Blackwater

Located at the bottom of a deep fjord where daylight penetrates the moss-laden tree canopy for only an hour or so on those rare days when the sky isn’t overcast, the rotting town of Blackwater is a decayed and decadent haven of death, danger, and deceit—which makes it the most hospitable port one is likely to find in Cryx. The buildings here either cling to the walls of the fjord like fungal growths, float on pontoons, or balance precariously on stilts above the black water that gives the town its name. Although Cryx almost never engages in legitimate trade with other nations, hundreds of ships pass through Blackwater, from small sloops owned by pirates and unscrupulous privateers to the massive vessels of the Cryxian fleet.

Previously ruled by a self-styled pirate king named Craethan Morvaen, the port—along with Morvaen’s ship, Nocturnus—was taken several years ago by the pirate Warcaster Aiakos. Technically master of the city, Aiakos spends most of his time on the waves and leaves the day-to-day running of Blackwater in the hands of the Quay Slayers, the dockside gang he ran with before the discovery of his Warcaster talents. The gang now occupies Morvaen’s former fortress, and its representatives have their fingers in virtually every shady enterprise that takes place within this even shadier city. And despite Blackwater’s reputation for ruthlessness, there are plenty of enterprises to be found. For the many human pirates who ply these waters, even a city ruled largely by an absentee Warcaster pirate and a bloodthirsty street gang is less intimidating than the iron-and-bone monstrosities that one must barter with in other Cryxian ports, such as Dreggsmouth.

As unpleasant as Blackwater is, the slums that have grown up alongside it are worse—stinking, dark mazes of blind alleys where death waits in a thousand forms, from biting flies that carry disease to a knife in the ribs. Yet even these squalid areas are not the worst places in this benighted city. Cut into the rock of the cliff walls are mazes of dark, cramped tunnels that hide the chop shops where necrosurgeons stitch together fresh abominations from corpses brought to them by carrion ships and prepare them to serve the armies of the Nightmare Empire. These are dark and bloody places where the stink of death and decay is inescapable and the sound of bone saws and screams echoes through the twisting tunnels night and day.

Location under

Cryx