Meersleuven

Welcome to Meersleuven

Shrouded in mists and blanketed by rain, the metropolitan city of Meersleuven is located at the heart of the Storm Coast. The city holds great cultural value to the Landverhuizen, as their first city established following their exodus across the Broadhollow, and as the former center of worship of their patron, Sabelian.
Though lacking the riches and coastal prominence of Kos, Meersleuven serves as the heart of the Storm Coast's Hanseatic interests. Many trends of modern industry have arisen in Meersleuven, and scholars from across the world visit the renowned Lyceum, a library of inimitable thoroughness.

Guildfolk & Visitors

The city of Meersleuven hosts a staggering number of foreigners, at any time making up roughly one-fourth to one-fifth of the city's population, and as such it is one of the Storm Coast's most heterogeneous cities.
Humans are the most common species, whether the Storm Coast's common Landverhuizen or native Ardeleni, Cadota's fuliginous Cindered, monochrome Karta, or the fulvous Azovians from across the seas. Nearly as common are their cousins, neighboring Cadota's orcs, who thrive within the city's Hanseatic system.
Less common are other cousin species to the humans, the scaled and mysterious Sorvashi from the jungles of the distant north, and the nearly-extinct Murkalten elves, formerly the world's most daring and prodigious navigators and explorers. The feathered Tynou from the Tanah Mountains are treated as favored guests, and are welcomed one and all by the Lyceum Rectorate, while even the outcasts of the world, nomadic and distrusted ogres, uncommon and inhuman golems, and the grotesque and fearsome ghouls, may find their welcome in a number of the city's niche communities.
Aslatians are accepted in Meersleuven, though residents and tourists alike are warned to keep their doors and dreams warded in their presence, and they are invariably sought as the first suspects for crimes of any caliber.

Law & Order in a Stateless Society

The Storm Coast is the birthplace of the Hanseatic Union, a system of economic treaties and contracts that lends itself to stateless societies, where instead of dictators or elected officials the people are able to represent themselves, and do so through a series of entrenched guilds representing the major local industries. In Meersleuven these guilds are the Ateliers Guild, Artificers Guild, Blackcoats Guild, Candlemakers Guild, Delvers Guild, Navigators Guild, Stonemasons Guild, and Vintners Guild.
The guilds assemble numerous times each season via the Hanseatic Central Committee, with rotating representatives drawn from the adepts and masters of each guild. Rather than acting as a head of state for Meersleuven, this committee exists primarily to settle matters of dispute and contract negotiations between the various guilds, ensuring that relations between any of the guilds remain cordial enough for the city to function as it has since the death of Sabelian. Without the calming influence of the Hanseatic Central Committee on the inhabitants of the city it would no doubt be only a matter of time before the hypercapitalism of Kos or the social Darwinism of Aslait claimed their footholds and led the city to ruin.
The other organizations represented on the Hanseatic Central Committee are the Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge, monster hunters and caretakers of Meersleuven's adjacent roads and waterways and the Lyceum Rectorate, caretakers and scholars of the Lyceum.
Each guild is expected to police their own members and maintain the peace in their holdings, but are expected to cede jurisdiction to members of the Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge on contract to combat the occasional threat that manages to skirt or subvert patrols and enter the city. The Lyceum is, as always, sovereign territory, belonging solely to Sabelian and administrated by the Lyceum Rectorate in her absence, which includes the duties of maintaining the peace and maintaining the grounds within the Lyceum's walls.
Business between the guilds, and between the guild folk and visitors of Meersleuven, is dictated by a needlessly complex snarl of legal contracts and ancient obligations, enforced to some degree by the Hanseatic Central Committee. Given the obtuseness of these contracts, they are generally discarded in day-to-day interactions, in which case guildfolk and visitors alike are expected to abide by the Sabelianist doctrines that guided the development and establishment of the modern Storm Coast.

Common Law: Sabelianic Doctrines

In addition to guild bylaws and the stipulations of inter-guild contracts, most guild folk and visitors to Meersleuven follow a set of doctrines inherited from the days of Sabelian. Once these guided the daily affairs of the entire Storm Coast, but Meersleuven remains the only city to make vestigial use of them.
They are:
I. The Law of Kinship
Treat not the stranger as anathema
yet consider them as your blood
II. The Law of Sanctity
Infringe not uninvited upon the personhood of your blood
nor disrupt their workings
III. The Law of Unity
War not among your blood
yet cast your wrath upon injustice
IV. The Law of Prosperity
Steal bread not from the hands of another
yet give half to your blood
V. The Law of Axiom
Use not the words of god for your own gain
but to build a sanctum for your blood
VI. The Law of Solitude
Steal not within the tower of god
yet treat it with the respect due your blood
VII. The Law of Need
Drink not from the body of the meer
yet take vessel to it when you thirst
VIII. The Law of Reity
Tarry not among dolmens
for they are eternal

Esoteric Law: Axioglyphs

There is a fundamental basis to the power of Meersleuven's guilds beyond their political influence. These are the axioglyphs, relics left behind by Sabelian and adopted, stolen, or discovered by their current owners. They are primal words, resonating with the very fabric of reality to perform massive feats. Though small in scale compared to the great guilds that dominate many international markets, these axioglyphs are what give the guilds of Meersleuven their edge.
Only one axioglyph is publicly known: the Binding axioglyph possessed by the Stonemasons Guild, used to root buildings in Meersleuven's foundations and seal them against the rain. Other guilds are expected to have their own, and the Lyceum is suspected to be hoarding and safeguarding the vast majority left behind by Sabelian. Every now and then one is found in the wild, sequestered or manifested somewhere Sabelian once frequented.

Guilds & Industry

The Ateliers Guild

Infesting the Vaderveld district like flamboyant mice are the artists and artisans of the Ateliers Guild. They are sartorialists and fashionistas; painters, poets, singers, and actors. Their works drench the district in festivities each and every night, lending a life to drab tenements found nowhere else in Meersleuven. From lavish garments to grand productions, their evocative works continually push the envelope of the Storm Coast and birth trend after trend, infecting the world at large and serving to further drive on their guild's reputation of irreverence and incomprehensibility.
Unlike the Vintners Guild, dealing purely in alcohol, or the Guild of Coachmen & Innkeepers, operating eateries and tap houses across the city, the nooks and crannies of the Ateliers Guild's Vaderveld hold the promise of a genuine and incomparable experience, one in which good company, good comestibles, and good entertainment are a given.
It may not be the first thing that crosses one's mind when thinking of the Ateliers Guild, but they also function as the more public organizations of Meersleuven that could be considered a mages guild. Dramaturgy is a common practice among the members of the Ateliers Guild, and their dramaturges are often sought after for smaller works subverting reality, or larger works when the Lyceum may not be taking new patrons. If you ever wondered why tuning forks are considered criminal possessions in the Storm Coast, look no further than the Ateliers Guild.

The Artificers Guild

Generations ago, the Lyceum Rectorate was even more reclusive than it is now. At that time a group of practically-minded philosophers and inventors split off from their scholarly peers, founding the Artificers Guild and joining the rest of Meersleuven's renowned guilds. Today, they are who you go to when you need a better steam engine, when the joints of your leg brace are acting up, or when you want a ring that turns your hand and forearm purple when twisted counterclockwise.
While practicality has been one of their tenets from the very beginning, it should never be forgotten that these Onderberg artisans are descended from the eccentrics of the Lyceum, and one should expect little more than chaos when approaching them with an idea. An alarm clock that keeps itself tightly-wound by leeching ambient energies from the Dream? A prosthetic nose that works just as well (kind of) as the original? These are things the Artificers Guild can help you with.
Their offices and guild hall are a sprawl of disconnected flats and warehouses, home to dozens of individual inventors and their crews at any given time. They most commonly produce smoke, with profanity and little, clanking contraptions coming in at close seconds. Do you want help? Visit the Artificers Guild. Do you want help with your new problem? Visit the Blackcoats Guild.

The Blackcoats Guild

The Church of Sabelian was forcibly disbanded after the death of Sabelian, having tried and failed to hold the reins of power left empty in her wake. The remaining clergy picked themselves up from the ashes of their church, noted the direction of the wind, and reformed under the mantle of the Blackcoats Guild. Today, they still follow the doctrines of the Church of Sabelian, but channel their faith and desire to help toward their community, rather than their former position atop Meersleuven's hierarchy.
The Blackcoats Guild is the finest establishment in Meersleuven, and perhaps across the entirety of the Storm Coast. Unlike other premier institutions, the guild operates primarily on tithes and donations, accepting contributions from the community they serve and grateful patients they've saved. Whether you're in need of a minor procedure, a consultation, a check-up, or life-saving surgery, their doors are open and there will be a medical professional ready to receive you. Should you die beneath one of their knives, rites will be spoken and your soul shall peacefully depart your steaming corpse; they proudly hold an unblemished record when it comes to victims of circumstance not becoming twisted eidolons after their death.
Mental aid is far from beyond them, and in conjunction with the Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge members of the Blackcoats Guild have been involved in a great many nocnitsa hunts. Ideally, they are able to reach their patients before such an unlucky transformation should occur, helping them to come to terms with the blight burning through their cortex before it's able to swallow them whole. Among their ranks are truly some of the world's finest therapists and psychiatrists.
At home and abroad, the Blackcoats Guild are well known for their philanthropy. While there are contracts upheld between members of the Hanseatic Central Committee as to the status of the guildless, truly destitute individuals, whether locals or foreigners, are always welcome to take shelter among their guild folk. They act as impartial assistants in a great number of matters, helping those in need find a way back to their feet, while seeking justice when those wronged come to them for help.
Their guild hall and establishments are largely in Blackalley, but can be found across the entire city.

The Candlemakers Guild

Acting as the morticians, timekeepers, and lamplighters of Meersleuven, the Candlemakers Guild represents a particularly taciturn assembly of the population. Their business is in waxwork and combustibles, rendering tallow from the fat of the soul-drowned dead and maintaining the levels of kerosene in the city's eclectic and variegated streetlamps. They operate primarily on the sidelines, most visible when atop ladders, lighting or snuffing clusters of lamps, or when collaborating with the members of other guilds toward the invention of better and brighter light sources.
Their guild hall and greatest gift to the guild folk of Meersleuven is in Stillhaven, beneath the majestic and crucial clocktower that sets the standard for timekeeping across the entirety of the light-starved Storm Coast. How they maintain the clock tower, how it remains such a precise and unyielding device for the telling of time, is a closely-guarded secret kept protected by the Knights-Chandler, a militant order of silentiaries nestled deep within the inscrutable structure of the guild.
The aloof nature of members of the Candlemakers Guild has lent itself to gossip, inspiring frequent and fantastical rumors and folk tales about their rites, most well known in the popular tales told of wax men, of beasts with candlewicks burning in empty eye sockets, and of dark magicians with the power to turn back the hands of time. Masters from the Candlemakers Guild have attested frequently that they would never dare tinker with the workings of their clocktower, even if allowed access by the Knights-Chandler, and that affecting the flow of time runs counter to the oath sworn by all members of the Candlemakers Guild.

The Delvers Guild

One of the three guilds calling Onderberg (the Drossworks specifically) home is the Delvers Guild. They are a collective of miners, foundry workers, and engineers who focus on the extraction and processing of raw materials from the rich stone beneath Meersleuven.
Whether ingots, gemstones, kerosene, quicksilver, or petrified honeycomb, they dredge a bevy of valuable resources from their primary vein, a great pit drilled deep into the crust of Meersleuven called the Well. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Delvers Guild apprentices and journeymen live at different strata of the mine, and the part of Onderberg inhabited by the guild is only the surface level of a society that extends far below, carving out endless tunnels, warehouses, and living quarters. Some members see the surface only rarely, escorting shipments of processed materials to the waiting people of the surface, while others never again ascend from the Well.
Members of the Delvers Guild tend to be odd, quiet people, stained by the grime of the depths and uncommonly pale, even among the elf-blooded Landverhuizen of the gloomy Storm Coast. Many of them are wracked by obsessions, manifesting itself through the accumulation of odd trinkets, tales, or numbers, or in more generalized obsessive behavior.

The Navigators Guild

Who dares plumb the depths of the Shallow Sea? Nobody, for that is tantamount to a listless suicide, but among the guilds and organizations of Meersleuven only the Navigators Guild dream of someday learning what awaits in its depths. Their territory is the gloomy harbor of Stillhaven and the docks of Belegen, but their hearts belong to the treacherous and menacing Shallow Sea.
Shipping is a powerful industry in Meersleuven, as by taking advantage of several of the Shallow Sea's outlets one can bypass a fair length of the region's dangerous roads, escaping the cruel shadow of the nearby Broadhollow. Travelers rarely take these ships to and from safety, for the threat of going overboard and losing your mind to the depths dissuades most visitors when they could simply take the mostly safe roads into or away from the city, but it remains the safest and most efficient way to move cargo.
As bravos, dedicated to glory and excellence more than personal safety, the Navigators Guild doesn't appeal to everyone, but among its members are the truly ambitious, who fear nothing and seek to make that fact known. Losses of apprentices and masters alike are no uncommon occurrence, but in collaboration with the Lyceum, these death seekers become more and more likely to survive, in a sense, their deadly tumbles into the deep.

The Stonemasons Guild

If the Artificers Guild claim to be pragmatics, turning their philosophy toward actual production, then the members of the Stonemasons Guild are single-minded industrialists who live for naught but their craft. To most stonemasons, function is the ultimate goal of a construction, edging form out by an inconceivably great margin. And they are, truly, pragmatists, for the whole of Meersleuven depends on them when it comes to construction feats of any scale, the installation or maintenance of steam engines and sewers, the cutting of canals and shoring up of docks, and so many more vital tasks.
There is little fanciful about the Stonemasons Guild. Their guild hall is in Onderberg, along with their sister guilds in the Artificers Guild and Delvers Guild, and like everything else they touch, the workshops and lodges they inhabit are functional over elaborate, though even in solid, functional construction a great deal of coziness can be had.
Most of their external contracts come in the form of ongoing maintenance work, the occasional installation of machinery best handled by invested professionals, and the erection or renovation of great works of architecture. However, most of their work is in the daily function of Meersleuven; the Hanseatic Central Committee has a number of contracts without specified end dates for the continued functioning of the city, from the smooth operation of the sewers to the tending of Meersleuven's black gravel streets. Flooding is a constant risk, and only by the efforts of the Stonemasons Guild are most buildings even remotely habitable.

The Vintners Guild

As miserable an environment as Meersleuven, or even the whole of the Storm Coast, will inevitably give rise to a spectacular amount of alcohol. It's a given that people will want to match the dreary, rainy palette outside with a similarly drenched and quenched inside, and in Meersleuven the people to slake that thirst are the members of the venerated Vintners Guild.
Working alongside their fellow guilds, they are able to harvest the ingredients and flavors native to Meersleuven into a medley of wines, ales, ports and stouts and bourbons, into rye whiskeys and vodkas, into nearly everything the mind can comprehend and many drinks beyond common rationality. They are true artists, and their canvas is dying livers. From their specialty wines -- the pale wine beloved by the Aslatians, the fishwine that requires a lifetime of acquired taste, the lamp wine that will send you on a hallucinatory adventure, or the ash wine that will actually kill you if you order seconds -- to their alcoholic confections, wine taffy and many others, there can be no doubt that they love their alcohols. Specifically, they love their distinct, bizarre, and utterly unique atrocities that could exist nowhere else but Meersleuven.
It should be noted that their distilleries, and most of all their wineries, exist as a dedicated and beloved hobby to cover the bills of their true work: the members of the Vintners Guild are dedicated alchemists. Some come to them for this trade, but clients needing work that will pay the bills are few and far between. While some of their number pursue truth in the form of esoteric decoctions, so many more pursue truth at the bottom of a glass, and cater to the guild folk and visitors to Meersleuven to find that truth together.
Like the Blackcoats Guild, they operate out of Meersleuven's oldest and most established district, Blackalley.

The Guild of Coachmen & Innkeepers

Rather than being a guild native to Meersleuven, the Guild of Coachmen & Innkeepers is a decentralized guild originating in Kos and operating in Meersleuven through contracts maintained under the Hanseatic Union, much in the same way as foreign branches of the Hanseatic Central Committee's represented guilds operate.
It fills the local need for comestibles, sundries, lodgings, and transportation, catering just as much to the local guild folk as the visitors and foreign merchants temporarily present in the city. The Guild of Coachmen & Innkeepers collaborates with Meersleuven's endemic guilds in many things, operating a number of coach lines through the various districts, and hosting numerous cafes, restaurants, eateries, and bars throughout the city in which works by the local guilds are showcased.
Members of the Guild of Coachmen & Innkeepers often tread the thin line between providing a service and broader access to the wares provided by local guilds, and infringing on those guilds' jurisdiction by circumventing or laxly enforcing the restrictions placed on their provisions. For this reason, establishments tend to be short-lived, and are often shut down and reopened by the same individuals in order to dodge Hanseatic Central Committee judgements, or to better conform with the dictates of the guilds.

The "Scriveners Guild"

The Lyceum Rectorate is not a guild, nor is it represented on the Hanseatic Central Committee, but many of Meersleuven's guild folk still consider it at least an honorary guild. Regardless of its status, it is one of the oldest institutions of Meersleuven with a long and storied history, having been personally founded by Sabelian in the early days of Meersleuven's founding.
The Rectorate is the pseudo-organization that exists within its walls, similar to the Hanseatic Central Committee in that it represents a united face for the numerous, and often fractious, schools of thought inside the Lyceum. This lack of true cohesion renders deals with the Lyceum Rectorate as a whole impossible, and instead it is highly advised to find an individual relevant or sympathetic sect within its walls to deal with. From librarians and secretaries to mages, scientists, philosophers, and oneironauts, there is most certainly a group of rectors to be found aligning with your interests.
As a united whole, the Lyceum Rectorate would represent perhaps the most powerful political entity in the Storm Coast, possessing a staggering and not entirely catalogued wealth of knowledge that could easily turn the tide in wars. However, and perhaps luckily for the outside world, the rectors seem content to pursue their studies, only occasionally leasing out their services or select parts of their archives to curious inventors, scientists, and magicians outside their walls.

The Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge

The Storm Coast is a dangerous and untamed place, but few cities are so endangered as Meersleuven and Osterode, each settled near the very edges of the Broadhollow. Osterode is kept safe by the zealotry of their holy knights, willing to throw their lives away at the drop of a hat; in Meersleuven, the dubious honor of guarding the streets and external roads falls to the Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge.
Since the end of the Interregnum, without a war to fight, the Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge has turned its dedication and pride to the protection of the guild folk and visitors of Meersleuven, laying down their lives to keep the roads safe and caravans relatively protected. Unlike the zealots to the south, these brave soldiers aren't idealistic to the point of suicidal, and instead operate based on a dedicated and rigorous regimen of training and the use of tactics and equipment tailored to foes.
Similarly to many members of the Navigators Guild, they risk death daily in their work, but the Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge is willing to take in a majority of the guildless inhabitants of Meersleuven, whether or not they're able to fight. Those with able bodies are subject to rigorous training, with the hopes and fears of the city pinned on them, while those unable to take up arms are inducted into the critical logistics engine that keeps the city from falling to beasts. It is through this welcoming nature, not to mention the value placed on those who might otherwise be seen as valueless, and the critical nature of their work, that engenders such loyalty and gratitude to the Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge.
Though they are akin to a guild, operating out of Blackalley and Belegen, and though they are a native organization to Meersleuven, they are contracted by the Hanseatic Central Committee rather than being members. Their standing contract involves the defense of the city from external threats, and while they are more than welcome to seek respite inside the city, they are prohibited from acting against suspected threats within Meersleuven's walls unless specifically contracted, or unless the threat of bodily harm or death to anyone inside the city is imminent and apparent.

Districts & Landmarks

Blackalley

The oldest of Meersleuven's districts is a tightly-packed assembly of elaborate Gothic structures extending into the fugue of the sky. In Blackalley, these behemoths are anchored deep into the city's black marble foundation, resisting the winds prevalent at higher altitudes, and a tangle of flooded, dark gravel roads flanked by deep runnels wind between them. Maintenance of the constant rainfall has been built into the very core of the city, and only with careful engineering are the ground floors of these old structures viable for life and livelihood.
Passing between hollowed monoliths, the streets are awash in dim lamplight, sagging posters and moldering placards advertising goods, services, and residents, and the constant crunch of gravel beneath heavy boots or the turn of metal-rimmed wheels. Blackalley is not the most populated district, but it is the first true district of Meersleuven one will reach after passing through Belegen and across Eastbridge, and as such it is well populated and traveled by visitors and guild folk alike.
The Storm Coast eternal gloom does not fade on the streets, attended by cloaked and sodden figures and somber hounds, fur plastered to their bodies, but upon entering the antique buildings of the district the atmosphere abruptly changes. Cafés are everywhere, often doubling as bars and showcasing the works of the Vintners Guild, and in a pinch a clinic is never more than a stone's throw away. Even the crueler apparitions of the Storm Coast have little sway here, for as soon as the cry goes up you'll have hunters rallying from every direction.
burning knuckle brewery

Face: Rien, a headstrong youth and recently appointed journeyman of the Vintners Guild.
Blackalley is home to breweries and taverns new and old. None combine both facets so well as the Burning Knuckle Brewery, a brewery several decades old that still produces new and shocking beverages like they're trying to save themselves from bankruptcy. They are not, and yet they pump out endless oblique concoctions, each with potential to be The Next Big Thing. Assuming they don't run out of taste testers, of course.
The Burning Knuckle Brewery is traditionally helmed by a relative newcomer to the Vintners Guild, and once they become a candidate for promotion to adept they are expected to pass the reins on to someone else. In the Lyceum, operating the venue would be akin to a graduate project.

the lyceum

Face: Sabelian (former), the patron of Meersleuven. Her lodgings are within a short tower on a small islet in the middle of a small lake in the center of the Lyceum's green. The door is locked, and attempting to pick or ensorcell the lock has become a ritual of passage in the Lyceum Rectorate. She was the premier scholar of the Lyceum and retains that position even in death.
The Lyceum is a heavy structure of black marble, looking oppressive and impregnable from the exterior, but sporting a lavish green with gardens and groves within. The buildings lining the green are monolithic, providing housing, facilities, classrooms, laboratories, and libraries to the occupants. Several of the libraries are open to the public, so long as some basic rules of decorum are followed, and others can be visited by those with the relevant permission or escorts. Others yet are entirely off-limits to the outside. There is a large gift shop and bookstore near the primary Blackalley entrance.

Belegen

Some districts across the world are industrial in nature, some little more than shantytowns. Others are yet altogether wealthier, showing off decadent architecture and freestanding manors while elsewhere in the city the poor suffer. Belegen is somehow all of these at once, a ramshackle district consisting of warehouses and docks, taverns and brothels, garish and grand manses. It is the only district in Meersleuven where outsiders are allowed private property, the leases to all buildings on the far side of Eastbridge held by members of the Hanseatic Central Committee or the Lyceum Rectorate.
It can be said that Belegen isn't truly a district in its own right, holding no consistent identity from one side to the other, and that it is instead a compromise: a pen where visitors are corralled, walled in to keep them from the horrors without the city. This ignores the reality within Belegen, that the district is essentially an endless arrangement of raucous parties and underhanded business deals, existing as a brief inconvenience to the more moral of Meersleuven's guests, while offering all the temptations of home to those with hardier, less discerning constitutions.
Doubtless, Belegen is where you'll most easily find yourself among the outcasts of the Storm Coast, ghouls and ogres, Aslatians and the living dead. Should unearned coins be burning a hole in your pocket, should your pack find itself filled with the belongings of others, or should you wish to pass the night away in the throng of immaculate violence, Belegen exists as a pearl in the grimy oyster of your life.
les fleurs magnifiques

Face: Gramia, a quiet, muscular, and pleasant woman of good repute and suspected ogre ancestry. A placard propped up in front of her stall, in the very center of the market, reads:
WE ACCEPT CURRENCY
AND SECRETS NOT
HANSEATIC SCRIP
Les Fleurs Magnifiques is a popular flower market for locals and foreigners alike. It opens daily, during the brief period of wan sunlight Meersleuven catches, a labyrinth of tables and baskets filled with heady flowers of many scents and origins. Waterlogged awnings keep the worst of the rain from the heads of the perusing crowds and tight-lipped vendors.
These flowers are often used as coded signals between spies, and even the act of buying a bouquet can cost lives, if the right combination of flowers is assembled. Aslatian anti-monarchists and royalist agents, orcish abolitionists, and spies from Kos, Osterode, and Vodozémenova all visit the market daily, sending messages and positioning their pieces for another day of political scheming.

interstation een

Face: Khasar, a steppe orc from Cadota and now an acclaimed researcher of the Lyceum Rectorate. He hasn't been seen publicly in close to a decade, but is listed as being in charge of the Interstation Een project.
Interstation Een ("Ain") is a lighthouse overseeing the docks of Belegen operated by the Lyceum's pylonics department. Admittance is highly restricted, but the number of lanterns lit on the shores of Stillhaven and Belegen render it largely ornamental.

the roost

Face: Răzvan, a one-eyed man with a sagely demeanor and a knack for matching drinks to guests.
One of the safer, more quiet, and more respectable taverns in Belegen is the Roost. Operated and overseen by Răsvan, a man who never seems to sleep, the establishment is popular among Ardeleni and visitors seeking to catch their bearings. It regularly hosts popular brawlers from the Storm Coast's circuit, and closes only when Răsvan acts as referee to high-stakes matches in the basement.

gold annex shrine

Face: Cleric, a gold-plated golem of desolate Mycia. They are, appropriately, a priest.
The Gold Annex is one of a number of odd faiths to be found when traversing the world. It has undertones of religious dogma, but their scripture is primarily spiritual, endorsing personal excellence and a metaphorical, or sometimes literal, transmutation of the self into gold. Most people view them as an eccentricity, and one of the more common ways to meet golems outside of Mycia, but others see their faith as an existential threat.

Eastbridge

A long, wide bridge flanked by powerful lamps and festooned with colorful tents marks the true entrance to Meersleuven. This is Eastbridge, wide and long enough to make itself a district distinct from Blackalley. Though individual tents and stalls may fade away into the recesses of memory, the marketplace garnishing its surface is eternal, filled with all the treasures one might seek of the Storm Coast or neighboring Cadota. Even the arid treasures of Temdan's plateaus and grasslands find their way to this market, the ultimate fusion of flea market, farmer's market, public market, and carnival.
Below, the bridge technically floats, buoyed by a truly absurd number of attached floats. In theory this shouldn't work, for the bridge is constructed of solid stone and trod by an immeasurable number of boots, carts, and carriages at any one time, not to mention how laden it is with trade goods and fairground attractions, but those who fear the relapse of reality, dooming the occupants of Eastbridge and leaving the Navigators Guild the other method of ingress and egress for Meersleuven, the dramaturges of the Ateliers Guild constantly caution that putting it out of your mind and going about your business as if you weren't moments from a watery grave is the best way to approach life atop Eastbridge.
underbridge embassy

Face: Cosima, one of few foreigners from the distant Coast of Kirves in the north, is an alumnus of the Kansabuhne Hunters Lodge who has found permanent employment with the Hanseatic Central Committee, tending to the safety, security, and limited comfort of the ambassadors.
Beneath the cobblestones of the Eastbridge are a cluster of small embassy offices catering to foreign nationals representing their state. The premises are not grand, and many ambassadors choose to have a grander location in Belegen for the housing of prestigious guests.

Onderberg

The manufactories, the heavy industry, and the staggeringly large mine, called the Well, are packed tightly together in the northwesternmost district of Meersleuven, the district of Onderberg. It is a place for production, workshops and bunkhouses joined only by the rare, spartan eateries and bars that lubricate the wheels of industry forever turning. Even beneath Onderberg, old basements and cellars are conscripted, turned into storehouses or secluded workshops, or adopted into the tangled nests inhabited by the workers of Onderberg in their off hours. Even in other districts, a great number of subterranean additions have been annexed in the name of industry.
With smoke blotting out the rare northern sunset and strangling the lungs, Onderberg receives few guests, and even those are funneled into a few select buildings made more appealing to outsiders entering the workworld to negotiate contracts or lodge complaints with the Artificers Guild.
One should keep in mind when visiting Onderberg that nothing is so shallow as it seems. Each building is guaranteed to have at least one, but often many more than one, level of cellars beneath it, and it should be expected that one is able to cross the district entirely underground, as the mazelike corridors and twisting tunnels are a labyrinth that lead all across Meersleuven. One should also be very aware that visiting Onderberg with tourism in mind, or at least without an experienced guide, is a losing proposition. Numerous people have vanished in Onderberg, and while some whisper of foul play, the much more likely reality is that they simply descended into the basements and took a wrong turn, dooming them to a slow death wandering distant, unused corridors.
green moon distillery

Face: Isabela, an Ardeleancă who is only a little more forthcoming than the uncommunicative folk who make up the clientele.
In Onderberg, bars cater to those who toil in the earth and forge the raw materials extracted into useful items. The employees of the Green Moon Distillery are no different, refining the materials provided by the Vintners Guild and Onderberg regulars alike into beverages bizarre and unlikely. Lamp wine, the hallucinogenic product of ethanol, plum brandy, and naphtha, is one of these, and is greatly sought after by those coming off a long shift or looking to open their mind to the irregular alike. This drink is as much a fuel source as a beverage, and as such it is highly advised not to down more than one shot in a sitting.

the well

Face: Master Sukarno, one of the Karta from the far reaches of Cadota, currently supervises the Well, and restricts access to the depths to those actively participating in the extraction efforts. They are decently liked in Onderberg, but their obsessiveness over the operations in the Well alienates most outsiders.
The Well is a massive pit, extending deep below Meersleuven, and full of hovels, lodges, warehouses, and refineries cut into the dark stone of the walls. Beginning little different from the surface of Onderberg, it becomes progressively stranger as you descend, approaching the current frontier of mining operations. Many of the folk of Onderberg have adapted to these strange conditions, and few who venture into the lowest levels of the Well choose to return.

Stillhaven

The docks of Meersleuven are quiet, but are far from serene. Something about the malicious nature of the Shallow Sea puts people at edge, and especially so among the shacks, warehouses, and shipwrights that cleave so closely to it. Stillhaven is a district constantly on edge, balanced precariously between the daring members Navigators Guild, gathered together in the gloom and fog of evening to share scintillating and terrifying tales over mugs of ash wine, and the clandestine, grim members of the Candlemakers Guild, hidden beneath voluminous cloaks as they tend to their sacred duties.
In Stillhaven words echo. Those who speak without a locked door between them and the outside do so in huddled groups, in soft whispers, and in protective curtain of firelight, while those who find themselves outside, their crunching footsteps echoing along deserted streets, are filled with nothing but the desire to imminently find an end to their journey, somewhere safe and warm where they can pretend the outside world has momentarily stopped existing.
During the scant day, a fading reflection of the north's dusk, business picks up. People travel on their own, and the fog doesn't seem quite so oppressive. Food stands flank the streets, pressing steaming delicacies into waiting hands, and shipwrights hammer away at their business without need of watchmen to keep them secure. Navigators haul crates, engaged in joyous, anticipatorily raucous, conversation. Even in these passing moments, where some sense of normalcy can be had in Stillhaven, and even with busy Blackalley their northern neighbor, visitors are few and far between near the docks.
lazy whaler tavern

Faces: Saddur, a frail-looking Storm Coaster who tends bar.
Gantulga, a gruff and elderly orcish man who lingers around the bar. He is the bar's resident father figure boucer.
Down by the Stillhaven docks bars breed like rats. The Lazy Whaler, tucked away in a gloomy alley, is one that acts as a meeting place for those dealing in contraband, especially illicit drugs and black market artifacts. Some sort of devil's pact must keep it from being shut down by the Hanseatic Central Committee, but anyone trying would have to wade through a sea of salamandra pirates and local ruffians to clear the place out. It sees the most activity on pit nights, when brawlers are admitted to the fighting ring in the basement to compete for gold and glory.

wreck of the bittern

Face: Honorary Navigator Laurentius, a scarred, cryptic, and very short man working with the Navigators Guild, and an expert in aeronautics and sendrash arcanotechnology.
This site of a recent shipwreck, not of a normal ship of the Shallow Sea, but of an airship from the west. It lingers, half-submerged in the swamp, gathering damp and mold. The Navigators Guild has chartered several expeditions to the Bittern's corpse, but the unbalanced shifting of the damaged hull beneath their feet has made progress slow and careful.

Vaderveld

Much of Meersleuven's population live in towering, tightly-packed tenements, the only way the city can ensure journeymen have a place to call solely their own. It's impossible to know the thousands of neighbors sharing your building, and sometimes even the one now living on either side of you, and so the residents of Vaderveld pick out one of the many cafés, clubs, tap houses, eateries, or venues operated or approved by the Ateliers Guild to spend their time. The choice of one, or perhaps a few, different shops across Vaderveld is an important part of local identity, and it is expected that those looking for you will visit your favorite biscuit shop, as it may be, rather than look for you at home.
At first, Vaderveld was little more than tenements, looming structures of black and gray brickwork, painted with water-repellant seals to defer leaks. Residents were expected to travel elsewhere for their entertainment, but this led to an attitude similar to that of Stillhaven. The arrival of the Ateliers Guild hall changed things, bringing with it a wash of color and life, and leaving the district rife with entertainment of all sorts. Today, it serves as the nearest thing the city has to a theater district, and is overwhelmingly a hub of night life in Meersleuven.
zann academy of the arts

Face: Siobhan, an rare expatriate elf from Albwitu. She has been in charge of the Zann Academy since it's inception after the founding of Meersleuven, and has a curiosity and sense of ethics that would be perfectly at home at the Lyceum.
Rowan, a local and graduate of the Zann Academy and Siobhan's right-hand woman, an ex-Lyceum scholar who had nothing to do with the tuning fork incident and promises it won't happen again.
One of the oldest and most disreputable schools for the arts, from painting and crafts to theater and music, is the Zann Academy in Vaderveld. People come from all over the Storm Coast to petition for a chance to experience the curriculum, and many alumni later become members of the Ateliers Guild. It was intimately involved in a number of past controversies, and foreign institutions are leery about accepting Zann Academy graduates for a reasonable fear that they'll upset natural law on a whim.

the black bee

Face: Fenne, a chain-smoking young woman who spends most of her time on the stoop of the establishment. The Black Bee profits in spite of her management.
Sjaak, a native Storm Coaster but foreigner to Meersleuven who cares more about making weird, and sometimes magical, confections than the selling of them.
Operated by the Guild of Coachmen & Innkeepers, the Black Bee is a very popular shop for local and imported sweets. It features a number of perennial Meersleuven favorites including rock candy, crusty chunks of half-petrified honeycomb mined in Onderberg, and wine taffy, a rich, sweet, chewy, and mildly alcoholic confection flavored and colored with dark red wine.

the orphean

The Face: Mr. Stanley, a well-dressed, lanky gentleman whose pockets are eternally heavy with peppermints.
The Orphean is the second most popular theatre in Meersleuven, second only to not going to the theatre. It has seen a number of exceptional runs, showcasing some of the Storm Coast's most influential plays, and has hosted numerous touring troupes from outside Meersleuven. They will soon be hosting Teatra Indelicata, a popular performing group from the Coast of Kirves.
Of late, the boards inside the Orphean have forgotten that they're no longer alive, and are sprouting as if they were still actively growing trees. The house manager has been discretely seeking help as this sort of thing really isn't supposed to happen.

the silkworks

Face: Kolonel Flutura, a Ljubi approaching three feet in height and considered imposing by her confederates, acts as the point of contact between the Silkworks and the outside world.

In the interconnected basements beneath Vaderveld is a massive sericulture, where silkworms are bred to produce the tough, flexible silk that brings the Ateliers Guild much of its foreign income. The facility is unmapped and unwatched, left to the operation of its overseer, a spider-like elder chimera who sought asylum with the Ateliers, a mercenary contingent of amphibious Ljubi, and a veritable horde of giant frogs.

Founding Date

2E30

Type

Large city

Population

80,000

Inhabitant Demonym

"Meertje"