Styes

The Styes are a decaying port in the mouth of a river flowing from Korinn’s interior. The city has fallen on hard times and is slowly being reclaimed by the sea.  The Alchemists' Quarter spews a permanent miasma of acrid, rancid yellow vapor that hangs above the city and coats its walls and roofs with a greasy film. The dense population of the decaying port makes the waters around the port swirl with sewage, blood and offal from butchers, lye and fur from tanners, and indescribable chemical mixtures from alchemists. In the eastern portion of the Styes, the pollution is so bad that the river's flow has been diverted, leaving a large portion of the district's boardwalks suspended over a wallow of rancid mud.

Most residents suffer from some form of debilitating condition thought to be brought on by the poisonous waste flowing and billowing out of the Alchemists' Quarter, or from the polluted water of the river and harbor.  This affliction causes itching and painful inflammation all over the face, and especially around the eyes. The city is roughly split into 4 quarters:

**Low Quarter** - Also known as Flotsam, the northwest section of the Styes consists  mainly of slum tenements, dubious taverns, rickety warehouses, hovel-crowded alleys, and de-commissioned ships converted into buildings. This entire area is slowly sinking into the sea. As old buildings become unlivable, new ones are built atop them, and the  tangle of structures is four or five stories deep in some places. Many of the lower structures are completely walled off from the outside. making them ideal places for hidden caches and black markets. Swaying rope bridges provide the best avenues bet ween the blocks of this quarter, since the old boardwalks are sinking like everything else.

**Alchemists Quarter** - The Alchemists' Quarter is the northeast section of the Styes. Long ago, it was the seat of the district's scholastic and religious leadership. but its once-fine temples and universities have long been dismantled for construction materials, or converted into dim. smoky factories and noxious laboratories owned by shady alchemists. With no regulation to speak of in the Styes, alchemists are free to conduct whatever dangerous experiments they like. and to cut corners on safety and quality control. Iron chimneys belch smoke and foul vapors into the air. while liquid and solid waste are dumped into the water around the quarter.

**High Quarter** - The seal of local government in better days, this quarter is the southeast section of the Styes. Most of the buildings here were once municipal offices, but only a few are still in operation. All the rest are either deserted or have been rented to strange and furtive eccentrics. This section of the district is the least populated, and its often-empty streets and boardwalks are in stark contrast to the crowds that frequent the other three quarters. Militia patrols are common here, but guards in the High Quarter are nearly universally corrupt.

**Merchants' Quarter** - The southwest section of the Styes hosts most of the district's industry and mercantile efforts. Most of the community's fishers live here, and numerous ware-houses line the edges of the quarter. Most of these places are either abandoned and boarded up. or serving as flophouses. Of the four quarters, the Merchants' Quarter is the most welcoming to visitors, though that's not saying much. It's also said to be the healthiest part of the district, but that's not saying much, either.