Greywall
Greywall is a city in Vithold Falls. It is the built around Garun Blas's large pitgran mine and the city runs on pitgran, refining it and making finished alchemical goods from the toxic substance. The largest facility is a huge spell ink factory where pitgran-infused ink is made. The entire city is constantly in a low-intensity toxic miasma comparable to severe industrial pollution. A fine greenish-gray dust builds up on exposed surfaces and a desaturating haze covers the city.
Health problems are extremely common. One of the worst is the slow erosion of sensory acuity over time. People exposed to pitgran for long enough gradually become blind, deaf, numb, and anosmic.
Because of this, most of the population of the city is not free to leave. Garun Blas has enacted a lot of very harsh and easy-to-violate laws across his barony, almost all of which are punishable by slave labor in the pitgran mines or elsewhere in the city. The overseers wear masks that filter out the pitgran and are periodically rotated out of the city.
Demographics
Most of the population of Greywall is human because that's the population of Vithold falls. There is a smattering of other races, particularly dwarves (overseeing industrial operations) and a few green dragonborn who work for Stalanthrax, a local green dragon and one of Blas's allies.
Government
Greywall is essentially a prison disguised as a city. The majority of the population lives in very sparesely-appointed barracks and work in either the pitgran mines or the factories making alchemical goods from the pitgran.
Laws are harsh, but the death penalty is not used because it was discovered relatively early that those suffering from the maddening sensory loss long-term pitgran causes would attempt to get themselves executed as a release from the despair. Reduced rations, direct magical stimulation causing unpleasant sensations such as nightmares or agonizing pain, and public humiliation are more common.
Defences
Greywall lives up to its name - the city is surrounded by a huge wall of grey stone. Other defenses, mostly aimed at keeping laborers in, include regular guard towers, heavy iron-shod gates, and geographic isolation. There is nothing around the city for at least 15 miles in any direction.
Infrastructure
The city sits along the shore of the Strinth river, relatively close to the delta in the Calandric Sea. A number of waterwheels are spaced along both banks, providing power for the city.
A number of human-powered mills also exist around the city - prisoners in advanced states of pitgran poisoning are set to marching in a circle, endlessly driving the huge gears that operate various industrial machinery.
The city is full of factories for making alchemical goods. The largest makes spell ink. Pitgran ink has a distinctive dark green color and is significantly less expensive than other types of spell ink. Other factories make pitgran steel ingots, enchanter's gold, alchemist's fire, and other alchemical goods.
The city is crisscrossed with a very regular road system laid out in a precise grid. This is to make it easier to march prisoners who are losing their senses to work assignments.
Assets
In addition to all the goods made by the factories and the refined pitgran itself, the wretched victims of this city are used as resources by their jailors. Referred to as The Senseless, they are used in three ways.
The first is nightmare engines - once a person's senses are gone, they can still be used as a kind of horrible psychic battery for forbidden magical purposes. These are strapped into sarcophagus-like structures and subjected to horrible visions and force-feeding until they perish from the strain.
The second use is the creation of Unfeeling. Unfeeling are Senseless that have been given to an alien parasite as a host. The parasitic organism attaches itself to the upper face of the senseless, supplying its own eyes and ears. It then "pilots" the still-living body until it's destroyed. Unfeeling serve as an elite unit of shock troops in Garun Blas's armies.
The third use and final fate of a dead Senseless is animation as an undead.
Geography
Greywall sits in the middle of a barren, featureless plain. The climate is semi-arid and most vegetation is scrublike except on the flood plain of the Strinth.
Natural Resources
The biggest natural resource of Greywall by far is the pitgran that's mined there. There are other resources in the area, but most are ignored beyond limited use in constructing the city.
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