K4 Merchant’s Square District of Martelain
Any adventurers who are new to the Merchant’s Square District of Martelain, will want to check out any of the taverns (K4-5 Grey Tortoise, K4-41 Dark Korner Tavern, K4-45 Sandor's 2 Doors Inn & Tavern; or if you have a desire to see the bottom of the barrel first hand, there is always K4-69 Red Sky Tavern).
As is often the case in taverns, it is easy to hear rumors or meet people who are looking to hire mercenaries for work. Among such, the adventuring type may find any of the following as interesting:
Calaria Stieglo comes running into the tavern in a panic. She desperately needs someone to help her with an infestation in her herb garden at K4-25 Stieglos Herbs & Spices, and is willing to pay what she can (or possibly offer a lifetime discount on healing herbs) to anyone who can help her out.
A random NPC merchant is acting depressed and sitting in an out of the way spot, drinking too much. If approached, he will explain that he owes "a lot" to Mallow Toħvec, the money lender who owns K4-4 Merchants Money Shop. He has a moderate amount of funds, but nowhere close to enough to pay off his debt (but is willing to pay most of what he has if the characters can 'make his debt go away'). Any checking regarding Mallow will reveal that he is as 'crooked as a vine' and 'can't be trusted'. But this may involve some less-than-heroic actions on the part of the characters (depending on how the GM spins the story).
Another encounter of note is (only in the K4-5 Grey Tortoise, the characters will notice a chess game going on at the eastern-most small square table (table #1 on image of tavern floor plan) are two very well dressed men giving dirty looks at a woman with black hair dressed in colorful silks sitting at about table #24 or #25, with an ogre (who is actually dressed in leather armor vs the typical loin cloth, and carrying a very large pole-axe)... The ogre and the woman keep giving the two guys playing chess equally dirty looks... What could be going on here??? This is a possible lead-in to one of three possible larger and longer running campaign concepts, not intended as a one-shot, but can easily become one if needed.
Characters may come across Mosreidge Leomcraef, drinking himself into a stupor and acting extremely depressed. If approached, he explains that he owns a 'secure' building (has been in his family for generations) that he has a purchaser for, but when he went to show it, a group of mercenary types had taken control of it and refused to open the gate (J3-10 Old secure apartment building). He is willing to pay the characters a moderate fee for evicting these squatters from his building once the building is sold (or may even be willing to sell it to the characters as a base of operations for a reduced price after the clear out the squatters). Good starting adventure for about Lvl 5 characters.
by Aaron Smalley
Martelain Merchant’s Square- this is the largest open-air market in the Channel Cities area and a hundred years ago was by far the busiest, but due to the depressed economics of Martelain, it is not all that busy as compared to some of those in South Shore and Gorled anymore. However, there are still several dozen merchants who hock their wares here out of carts and tents. Note that blocks that are marked with a "B" are burned out ruins, usually resulting from riots that have occured at times in the past. Buildings marked with an "e" or "E" are empty or abaondoned (for long enough that it is obvious and in need of repair). Builngs that are maked with an "h" or "H" are houses, or in some cases tenaments. Buildings that are unmarked are usually undetailed at this point (my goal is to provide enough detail to make each district a living part of the campaign, but yet always leave room for GM's who may want to use the setting to add their own details as needed for the stories that they create with their own players). As with nearly all buildings in the cities, most have shops on the street level with living quarters (owners of the business, or sometimes workers or even tenaments tha are rented out), except for most of the larger buildings which tend to be home to a business which often utilizes the entire space of the buidling.
The population of this district is roughly 4,000 residents.
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