Sillport

Sillport is the river-port town situated just above the Helvander Cataracts, at the upper end of the Portage Road that allows trade goods being moved along the great river to bypass the falls. At the opposite end of this road, below the cataracts, lies the much bigger city of Torrune. 
Goods moving downriver are unloaded from their boats in Sillport, carried down around the falls on the Portage Road, brought into Torrune, and there re-loaded onto boats to continue their journey; goods moving upriver follow the same route in reverse. This means that Sillport, despite being much smaller than Torrune, is nearly as important to the Helvander river trade in practical terms. With the exception of goods hauled overland to Torrune and then going downriver by boat, whatever passes through Torrune must pass through Sillport too. Thus the town handles almost as much cargo as its far larger counterpart. 
However, whereas Torrune is a great city with a huge population and grand public works, Sillport is not much more than a crowded jumble of docks, storehouses, and boatyards sprawling for over a mile along the riverbank. Visitors will be struck by the impression that it duplicates all the hustle, noise, squalor, and confusion of the Low City's waterfront districts with little else besides that. Clustered along the edges of this sprawl are a profusion of taverns, inns, cookshops, and brothels that cater to the thousands of workers who come and go from the town on a constant basis. Since their clientele overwhelmingly consists of teamsters, porters, boat crews, and stevedores, these are generally rough and simple establishments with an emphasis on large capacity and cheap prices. 
Sillport's permanent population is relatively small; on any given day, most of the people in town will be transients who are likely soon getting aboard a boat or heading down the Portage Road towards Torrune. Those who do reside in town likely either work in the various inns, bars, and shops where the laborers spend their pay, or practice some trade supported by the constant flow of commerce: Wainwrights, boatwrights or boat-chandlers, rope-makers, barrel-makers, provisioners of wagon trains, and the like. 
The name of Sillport is from the common Tuvai vernacular, unlike many place names in Orithea with origins in the tongue's ancient form. It refers to the fact that the town sits just above the series of rocky ledges, or sills, over which the cataracts flow.
Category:Cities and Towns