After various boring complications in my personal life, I'm back to work on the city of Lorden, the setting for my campaign A Wager in Hell and many more adventures besides. I've commissioned a map, and watching drafts come in makes the city seem so real. I've been writing a lot about the city and the adventures therein, so I figured I'd start sharing it.
What is Lorden?
Lorden is the oldest city in the world. At least, that's how I like it. It's a weird place full of weird people who follow strange traditions and hold ridiculous titles. It sits on the river Gwaun, a wide and old river that carries considerable shipping and sees its share of piracy. I'm building it to fit in the history of Rul (the official setting of Shadow of the Demon Lord) in a general way, so I (or you, if you like) can use it there or in our own worlds. Mostly, Lorden is independent of the politics of Rul, though it has plenty of internal politics keeping it busy.
Where is Lorden?
Short answer: anywhere you want. Longer answer: Lorden wasn't part of the Empire for very long, and its history stretches far beyond its time at the edges of the Empire. This suggests a location in the south of Rul. Balgrendia is a good choice, as it has a long pre-Imperial history and was never managed very closely by the Alabaster Throne. It also has a weak central authority in King Frederick, meaning the city of Lorden itself can act more or less autonomously; lastly, Balgrendians are just weird. So that works.
Another possible location would be the March Lands, if we take Lorden to be more involved in the ongoing struggle against the beastmen coming from the Shield Mountains.
My favorite option is to place Lorden on the northern border of the Patchwork Lands-- just close enough to the March Lands and Balgrendia that the Empire could claim it, but also a part of the Patchwork tradition of independent petty states. I imagine the river Gwaun running east to the Auroral Ocean-- maybe it's even the border between the Patchwork Lands and the Empire-- and Lorden is just its own little kingdom, with some of the strange traditions of Balgrendia to the north, and only occasionally dragged into the little wars of the Patchwork Lands to the south.
Give Me An Overview of the City
Okay, pushy, geez!
The city of Lorden is falling apart. For generations uncounted it has occupied a prime location on the river Gwaun, getting rich off busy trade in both directions, but even the wealthiest city cannot resist forever the encroaching chaos of the Demon Lord’s influence. A full third of the city, the southern ward known as Beast’s Landing, has been left to the degenerate hordes of beastmen who overran it, while the once- splendid manses of the city’s great lords and merchants on the central Isle of Lorden now house gangs, drug addicts, and mercenary companies. The displaced of these two wards now huddle in Norwood on the northern shore of the Gwaun, factory workers rubbing shoulders with nobility in the only safe zone left.
Lorden was always far from the heart of the Empire, and after Beast’s Landing fell, the Alabaster Throne decided the distant trade city simply wasn’t worth saving. They cut off all support to their troops in Lorden as the orc uprising raged out of control, claiming the necessity of those supplies for soldiers closer to home. The city has continued on without their oversight— indeed some say they have benefited from the sudden lack of Imperial taxes— but the ancient edifices of tradition that support the city creak in the winds of change.
The Three Wards
Lorden is divided into three major wards: Norwood, the Isle of Lorden, and Beast’s Landing. Each ward is comprised of many neighborhoods, each with its own personality. Norwood covers the northern shore of the river Gwaun; Beast’s Landing is what’s left of the city on the southern shore; and the Isle of Lorden sits in between, connected to Norwood by the Silk Bridge and to Beast’s Landing by the Iron Bridge.
None of the wards is what it was in Lorden’s heyday. In the last twenty years, Beast’s Landing has been overrun by beastmen and other monsters from the south. Proximity to these creatures, and the occasional northward raid across the Iron Bridge, prompted the rich and powerful to flee the Isle of Lorden en masse for the safer northern shore, leaving the glorious mansions and wide avenues of the Isle for those too poor, crazy, or foolhardy to leave. The mercenaries and adventurers who live there now venture into the abandoned streets of Beast’s Landing in search of forgotten treasures, while the merchants and nobles of Norwood try to keep on living as though the city hasn’t changed.
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