Gan River Fort
Life wedged between a mountain range and a marsh can be difficult. Everything wants to either dislodge you or eat you. Storms roll in from the north seeking to test their might against the high snow-capped peaks, swarms of insects emerge from the marsh to bite every inch of flesh, and every unwanted soul that the land spits out ends up there. Gan River Fort is where the good break and the bad survive.
Even the dwarves turn their noses up when they enter Gan River Fort, making sure their business is over and done with as quickly as possible before leaving. For a race that holds charity as its most favoured characteristic, there's something about the fort that turns them cold, to the poverty, the sorrowful state of its inhabitants and the suffering on display. Meet a dwarf beyond the gate and they'll clothe you, lend you their name and carry you on their back but run into one among the festering alleyways and they'll shove you as soon as look at you. To the dwarves, it's a stain on their mountains and they turn their backs as they hurry away.
That the fort survives at all is a twisted miracle. Timbers rot in the humid summers and crack in the freezing winters, crumbling roofs and sagging floors that regularly tip folk from their beds and into the streets. It happens so often that a special watch does the rounds, tapping at the stilts to see if any are rotten. The ground shifts as the mighty Gan River sweeps past, swollen by the snow melt, fed by the spring rains, and angered by the effluent thrown into its path. One of these days it will do what the dwarves lake the courage to do and wash the fort away.
For most it's another stop on a long road, or rather the start of one for to the east is the path to the high plateau, the only route for humans to take across the Intraana Mountain Range. But for others, it's an opportunity. Stores line the docks ready to sell all the gear a prospective miner, hunter, settler, and hopeless explorer might need. Shovels, supplies, even a tame marsh elf to carry your gear and make sure you don't get lost. There's plenty of money to be made in Gan River Fort and more ways to lose it.
Demographics
The Thousand Lakes is home to a diverse range of beings and the humans that lay claim to it despise all of them. The most detested being the marsh elves, a diminutive race that shares no relation to high elves other than the pointy ears. It should be noted that there are a handful of high elves in the entire lake system and those that are present are either lost or there for a higher purpose.
Gan River Fort is mostly human but marsh elves make up a significant if ignored part. All dwarves are transitory, only entering the high wooden walls to sell their wares or take passage on one of the many ferries plying the river. If one gets delayed and spends more than a day in the fort they'll deny it with a vehemence that should stop the line of questioning.
Government
Someone pays the guards and collects the taxes but beyond that you're on your own.
Defences
A single wall, constructed from pines cut in the valleys and dragged down the road. It's not fancy but has withstood attacks from goblins and angry miners alike. One of the gate posts bears the teeth marks of a feral beast and a drunken human, both desperate to get in.
Infrastructure
As far as infrastructure goes there isn't really any. Bridges are rotting planks and the roads serve as the sewer. The harbour is the only place where money gets spent on upkeep. Ferries dock daily, disgorging an endless supply of hopeful faces that soon turn sour and turn back demanding a discount on the return journey. Flat-bottomed barges line the docks while captains haggle with dwarves and sallow-faced merchants, and the crews slink off to the pubs and houses of ill repute.
Districts
The fort can be broken into quarters with the main defensive structure sitting as far from the rest as possible. Two floors with thick wooden walls and arrow slits that look out over the houses as well as the road sloping down from the mountain pass. A muddy track runs along one side, leading from the only gate in the wall all the way to the docks, its directness demanded by the dwarves' refusal to spend more time than they needed in the settlement. The wharf takes in as much of the river frontage as it can while staying within the walls but any attempt to build out into the channel is met with disaster as the timbers are washed away and carried all the way to Arshen.
Lining the docks are the pubs, inns, and back street gambling dens where bodies lie in the mud either too drunk to stand or too full of holes to breathe.
This leaves the last quarter where a temple to Liandra sinks into the mud, its foundations sinking under the weight of the supplicants that stomp inside to beg the priests to heal them. Hovels surround the dilapidated building, hugging its walls in an attempt to get closer but there is only so much the goddess of healing can do.
Founding Date
841
Type
Town
Population
5000
Location under
Included Locations
Owner/Ruler
Comments