The Raker's Village (Torrune)

The Raker's Village, also called the Floating Village, the Water-Village, or the Chabaari Village, is a distinctive neighborhood or district in Torrune's Low City. As some of its names suggest, it is located on the Low City waterfront, built around (and over) a semi-circular cove or inlet on the Helvander's north bank called Raker's Bight. Much of the village stands on wooden piers over the bight itself, with jetty-like walkways twisting between houses and shops perched atop stilts and pilings. Some parts of it actually are afloat on wooden platforms (or are built onto boats that have been more or less permanently entangled in the village's ramshackle construction), rather than resting on the bottom via piers. 
Most of the inhabitants of the Raker's Village are Chabaari people ("rakers" is a semi-derisive local nickname for this group). Like other Chabaari throughout the Helvanderûn, they predominantly work as watermen and boat crews. A number of them also engage in smuggling, either full-time or intermittently along with other, more legitimate, work on the river, which means that the Raker's Village is regarded as something of a disreputable area.