Marisco

Marisco, capital of the Barlovian colony of Topascoa, was built on gold. In the year 1522, Marisco was a tiny village with a population of just a few hundred souls, set beside a harbor on the rugged and little-explored western coast of Saldonia. Two years later, the more than 25,000 people called Marisco home.
For ten years, Marisco was the hub of the earth. Every ship, wagon train, and stagecoach brought miners, merchants, traders, speculators, gamblers, and prostitutes. Saldonians, Barlovians, Dalkhrovans, Seu Kalese, Hazisi, and many others, even the mysterious inhabitants of Fairunloh, poured into the city as fast as they could get there.
The city consumed the multitude and spit out gold. A vast wealth of gold was shipped east during the decade. Miners felt it bad luck to head back to the claim without spending every speck of gold dust. Inflation and expensive pleasures helped them achieve their goal. Hundreds of bars and dozens of gambling houses and brothels dotted the city. A miner could eat a fancy dinner, stroll a few doors down and bet a fortune on a card game, then finish the evening with an expensive visit with an exotic foreign courtesan.
The city's unpaved streets became quagmires in spring rains - sleeping drunks drowned in the mud and mired horses had to be shot. People didn't bother to build anything more permanent than tents and hasty wooden buildings. Abandoned ships became hotels, churches, and even jails. Miners could hardly recognize landmarks from one trip in town to the next.
Many fires have razed the ramshackle city. The first started near the end of 1524, when a man who had been stabbed by a bartender knocked over a lantern as he fell to the flax. The last big fire, in the summer of 1526, destroyed more than half of the city.
Crime flourishes in the filth of the city streets. The city's waterfront is nicknamed the "Burnt Beach". Its prostitutes, gamblers, confidence men, and even its boarding house owners have drug, beat, and rob their customers for decades. Seu Kalese gangs called Ug Mao deal in opium, gambling, prostitution, and slavery. The Pale Cadre, a group of Kreff ne'er-do-wells from Fairunloh, are known for starting fires to loot the city at their convenience.
Category:Settlements
Category:Settlements in Saldonia
Category:Small Cities
Category:Locations in Topascoa
Category:Locations in Saldonia