The Styes
Summary
The Styes is a large suburb of Lopolla that operates as its own city state. It is the second largest settlment in both Ket and the Scorchlands. The Styes is broken into four different neighborhoods: the Alchemist Quarters, the Merchants' Quarter, the High Quarter, and the Low Quarter (which is usually referred to as Flotsam). In better days, the fact that the Styes was sheltered from offshore winds was one of its more desirable qualities. Now, the Alchemists’ Quarter spews a permanent miasma of acrid, rancid yellow vapor that hangs above the district and coats its walls and roofs with a greasy film. The dense population of the decaying district makes the waters around the port swirl with sewage, blood and offal from butchers, lye and fur from tanners, and indescribable chemical mixtures from alchemists. In the eastern portion of the Styes, the pollution is so bad that the river’s flow has been diverted, leaving a large portion of the district’s boardwalks suspended over a wallow of rancid mud.Government
The Styes is overseen by a small group of officials called the Council of the Styes who govern the city from the Styes' City Hall. Ultimately, the Council must answer to Ket if any authority should trickle down from it, however the capitol has shown that it is quite evasive of them. The Council controls the Grimeguard, the city's official militia.Commerce
The majority of the Styes' commerce exists within the Merchant and Alchemist quarters. With no claim to major industry and with a substantial lack of skilled artisans, most items for purchase in this city are of substandard quality. Click here for a full list of commerce opportunities in the Styes.Recreation
Joy is a luxury rarely found in The Styes, so options for entertainment and recreation are fairly scarce. However a small collection of denizens have attempted to make the city a less dreary place. For a full list of recreation options in The Styes, click here.Health
Due to the rancid conditions of the city streets, a slew of diseases run rampant here-- especially redface and sewer plague.History
Once, the Styes was a marvelous port district of Lopolla. Its magnificent buildings crowned an artificial island that was the centerpiece of a broad bay, held aloft on great oak pilings. Those huge beams supported great facades of marble grandeur, connected by boardwalks that thronged with richly clothed merchants, exotic travelers, and the passing palanquins of nobility. Known as the Island of Pleasures, the site was a destination for rich and decadent folk up and down the coast. Time can be cruel, however. Warfare, corruption, famine, and natural disaster ruined many who loved the Island of Pleasures, and as their resources dwindled, so did this once-magnificent district. But even as fortune turned and the region rebuilt from devastation, the Island of Pleasures became an unneeded luxury. New people called the district home: poor, desperate folk crowded beneath fallen gables in hovels tattooed by mildew and damp rot. On their heels came folk whose trade was scorned elsewhere. Alchemists fouled the air and water with poisonous concoctions from failed experiments. Sweat-shop manufactories set up in the Styes and all but enslaved their desperate workers. Tanners and millers and dyers and butchers invaded the district, scraping every penny out of their businesses with no concern over the impact their toxic operations had on their neighbors or the environment. The district bears little evidence of its former glory as it daily sinks deeper into the muck.Maps
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The Styes
A decrepid and squalid district of the great city, Lopolla. The Styes is inhospitable to most, including those who call it home, as most of its denizens are pushed there by fate rather than choice.
Type
Large city
Population
11892
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