Byriver

Demographics

Species

• Dwarves: 15%
• Elves: 3%
• Gnomes: 5%
• Hobbits: 40%
• Humans: 35%
• Other: 2%

Government

Byriver is a chartered town with a mayor elected by town council. Taxes assessed by the town are based on property, both fixed and movable, as well as imports of precious metals and wool. Taxes assessed to the town by the county are based on the minting of coins. The town is expected to defend itself.

Defences

There is a city wall, and it's defended by perhaps a dozen lazy guards at a time, but Byriver isn't really expecting a major siege any time soon. More important are the constables who guard the market and the half a dozen night watchmen who patrol the streets. It isn't invasion, but plain theft that worries the citizens of Byriver. Really, if something terrible came to Byriver, they'd come crying to Hilltop.

Industry & Trade

The thing that makes Byriver a town rather than the sleepy goatherder's village it once was is semi-annual tourism, specifically from students coming to and from Hilltop Preparatory Academy. This tourism supports three inns, a much fancier bathhouse than the town would normally rate, an entire street of vendors who do most of their trade four weeks a year, a fleet of riverboats, and a goldsmith who makes nothing but soul anchors. Outside the busy transit periods, a bookseller, a candy seller, and a magical supply shop selling almost entirely genuine articles are supported by students with day passes and faculty on their days off. Of course the usual tradespeople, merchants, yeoman farmers with ambition, servants, small aristocrats, apprentices, priests, and beggars fill out the rest of the industry year round.

Infrastructure

• Riverworks: sewers, docks, watermills. (The sewers are grated at street level and run from the streets to a few open canals leading to the river just downstream of the town itself. Not as good as Dwarvish sewers, but better than none.)
• Streets: Now with cobblestone! (Muddy. Alleyways still unpaved. People who own buildings and shops on a street are expected to pay for and manage the cleaning and repair thereof on penalty of fine. The whole town pays for bridges.)
• Lighting: Most streets lit by candles in glass lanterns hung on posts until Compline in winter, but not summer. On Gimm Street there is gas lighting until midnight year round, due to the dwarven and gnomish population living there. Whenever the lights go out or the sun sets, whichever is later, is considered curfew. (A matter of covering live fires for safety rather than extinguishing all light or staying indoors, though it does have a repressive effect on staying up much later in winter, and nights are much darker in town than you'd expect.) The lights are lit by town employees and extinguished by same.
• Fountains: three public fountains located within courtyards and fed by artesian springs. Safer than the river water for drinking. Fouling a fountain is punishable by flogging, or even execution for repeat offenders.
• Market Square: location of the monthly grand market and the twice weekly farmer's market. Best guarded place in town.

Guilds and Factions

• Town Council: heads of all the guilds, and a few other important persons. Elect the mayor and make most of the rules.
• Various small craft guilds, mostly branches of bigger guilds in bigger places.
• Gimm Street Neighborhood Association: wealthy and powerful in their small pond. Try to get the town laws to favor dwarvish cultural norms. Frequently successful.
• Lighterman's Guild: Controls the docks and river trade. Consists of skilled laborers who work the riverboats and barges, floating them downstream and using teams of draft horses to drag them back up. They're sensible, mostly human, and work to a remarkably tight schedule to avoid crashing into each other.

Tourism

There are three inns in Byriver of varying quality as follows:

• The Meregrot: Finest, oldest, most expensive. Expect carpeting in the halls, plush rugs and broad fireplaces in the rooms, soft canopied beds, and baths and meals available in room by order. The dining room has many small tables rather than a couple of long ones. It is traditional to place a reservation by letter. Used to be much less nice than it is, but being first on the scene when business started booming has given the Meregrot plenty of funding to get pretentious. The wine is imported and watered and the food is a little bland.
• The Salty Cockerel: Unassuming but the favorite of those in the know. There is always one set menu for dinner and it is always delicious. There is one type of ale brewed on site and it will knock you flat. The beds are straw ticks and you're expected to share, but they're always clean and sweet smelling. You can wash dishes or play music for room and board, meaning the entertainment tends to be better than you'd expect. Sleeping on the long wooden tables or inn floor costs very little. Everything first come first serve.
• The Eel: Sleep with your purse tucked in your shirt and a knife under your pillow and check for bedbugs first. Haggle the price down, the innkeeper will fleece you if he can get away with it. If your food or drink is bad send it back and be prepared to get loud, the innkeeper does carry the good stuff if you can pry it out of him. Don't let anyone carry your luggage to your room, there are no porters here. The taproom somehow always has one more dark corner to lurk in than people currently lurking in them. Good place for a bar fight.

Architecture

Large, important buildings made of shingled dark stone or brick, most people's homes and shops made of wooden framed daub and wattle, with thatch roofs. Walls tend to be whitewashed unless the inhabitants are showing off fancy stone or brickwork. Roofs tend to be dark brown or grey. Windows are mostly small, but mostly quite clear, of good new glass, even in cheaper dwellings. Shopkeepers and tradesmen live over their shops, or rent rooms above them to others, so a typical street is mixed use, with wooden signs in Dwarven and Common over the doors at street level. The most colorful things visible at street level are these signs and the laundry hanging from narrow upper balconies. Wood for frames and doors is a good way to judge the age of a building, as it starts golden and ages to almost black. Byriver is a big enough and new enough settlement that its architecture and streets are both designed by default to be accessible to both Small and Medium people, though orcs sometimes have trouble with the doorways.

Geography

Byriver is located in a valley between the foothills of the Staegers, on either side of the Shale River, more to the East than the West. It is a two hour hike from Hilltop Preparatory Academy . There's not much of a view in terms of natural splendor from the town itself, but the activity on and along the river is fascinating, and it's not far from lush green fields, dark woods, and sunny flower-strewn hillsides.

Natural Resources

• Shale River : Named for its dark color, not the material of the riverbed. River fish, eels, stone, but most importantly water for mills, agriculture, and above all, transport.
• Wood: quick growing soft woods such as pine and cottonwood are plentiful and reasonably freely harvested along the river for personal use. More important than felling the occasional tree is the ability to gather fallen branches and deadfalls for fuel, and raise pigs on the forest mast. Hardwoods further up the hills are managed by druids, if they aren't on Hilltop property, and hard to get much of. No major timber industry so far.
• Valley soil: rocky and uneven and inconveniently shaped, but rich with deposits carried downhill. The agriculture here feeds Byriver and the school pretty well, but exports are minor.
• The Staegers : the mountain range and foothills nearby offer some copper and shale but not much in the way of other major mining resources that would have interested a larger Dwarven settlement. It's a good place for goats, medicinal herbs, and fresh air for tired city people, without being too high or frozen most of the year. Someone should build a sanitorium. Named after the stairstep-like easy progressio from one peak to another that also prevented major Dwarven fortress cities from being built.

Alternative Name(s)

Bestaeth

Type

Town

Population

2500

Inhabitant Demonym

citizens of Byriver (official), townies (derogatory)

Included Locations

• The Eel