Dockside
Located at the foot of Dawnlight, the name Dockside does not truly represent the shelf.. A narrow, curving bit of flat rock certainly exists, cut in to the Cliffs of Talbourne at a height that keeps three spans above the bay at high tide. Like other shelves, it boasts a single wide street with narrow alleys separating the buildings along its side. Unlike other shelves, however, this street, with its uneven cobles and has no stone buildings on the bay's side. Ramshackle wooden structures, ephemeral in feeling and weathered gray by the salt air, hold customs officials, temporary warehouses, and a few offices that ship's captains and merchants let by the hour to conduct business. Across the street, cliffside, the a single row of these rickety wooden structures stand, though some reach as high as a crooked three stories. They house cheap taverns and flea filled in where sailors and dockside ladies let them by the hour to conduct a different kind of business. The street between, cluttered with street vendors and a half-dozen small fish markets, throngs with people at all hours of the day, coming and going from the docks, offices, and taverns to support one of the Inner Seas busiest ports.
After Verdun crashed into the old city, Phelandria found itself the proud owner of one of Tarien's best deepwater ports. With the impact scouring the cliffsides strait down an unfathomable distance, ships of any size can easily pull into Dockside and tethered themselves to the maze of floating platforms that more than double the Shelf's surface area. Tied to this network of timber one can find ships of all flags, trafficking in goods from Azermathia Subcontinent, the Northwest Fingers, and, of course, from closer ports around the Eldorian and Storm Seas. Such is the scale of this network that as Dockside ran out of real estate, rather than build up, as other districts have done, more ramshackle huts were simply built at the confluence of platforms that now support the same sorts of offices and taverns that one might find on land. Stretching beyond the shelf itself to the west for nearly a quarter league, they also accommodate several shipbuilding operations.
Dockside at Sunset - Oil on Canvas, Artist Unknown
Skeptics claim that the entire jury-rigged district lives on the edge of disaster - one good storm away from destruction. Despite these dire warnings, Dockside's precarious lattice keeps growing, counting on either the shelter of the Andorran Mountains that guard its mouth or simply prayers to Jendredi to keep it safe.