Providentia

Providentia is a small town which straddles the Old Gore River as it flows down out of the Vacheron hills. The town lays at the back of a large,wide bay and is nicely sheltered from most of the bad weather that the Southern Ocean has a tendency to throw at this coast. The bay is a little craggy in places, like most of this coastline, but also boasts some stunning sandy stretches which make for wonderful places to spend lazy summer days.

The town flows up the small hillside on which it has grown, developing over hundreds of years since the first settlers to this region decided this would make a good place to live. Providentia grew organically, never really planned, and has expanded as needed with no real direction. But in recent times the Earl has modified and organised the settlement. Lord Caer Ferrand, has added fortifications to the town since he became Earl of Providentia some thirty years ago. The fortifications are only simple wooden walls which surround the town. They are wide enough to support a thin battlement on which watchmen can patrol. Every few hundred yards the Earl has added a small wooden tower, where more guards can be stationed and weapons and provisions stored in times of need. He has also built dividing walls through parts of the town, again only wooden and this time just large fences really, but they have the effect of channeling traffic from one part of town into another through the wooden gates which have been placed strategically in various locations. This is a source of minor inconvenience to the population but the Earl saw the benefits should Providentia ever come under attack. At the top of the hill overlooking the town is the Iron Fortress, home of the Ferrand family, the Iron House. Made of grey local granite the fortress is an imposing building. It was not built for show but for defence and is a dour and dreary looking structure, but an impressive one none the less. A high stone wall surrounds a courtyard which contains many wooden buildings and the keep. The keep, three stories high, is dominated on one side by a huge stained-glass window depicting a smith at work on a great forge – the symbol of the Iron House. The window is a masterpiece and is one of the most beautiful pieces of art anywhere in Lucarcia. The builder of the Iron Fortress, the founder of the Iron House, Lord Hiberus Ferrand, the first Earl of Providentia, commissioned it. That was over three hundred years ago.