Bluelog

Bluelog is the second largest city in the The Divided Regions of Bestaria, smaller only than Old Vashton. Though it has shrunk a lot in the last decade, it still has more residents than either Crownhill or Wollatton. It sits just south of The Northern Fernthen forest, from which the city harvests large quantities of wood which used to supply most of northern Duthgar until the DRB seceded and trade was hindered. This didn't halt all trade across the border, as Bluelog continues to sell to Girdev and North Lowsland, but the taxes and paperwork meant that cheaper options transported up from the south became Tarcheck's primary source of wood. Bluelog is well known as both a place of great financial opportunity, though that reputation is fading, and also for holding many large and impressive festivals throughout the year. These festivals are often centred in Pelleras Square but the festivities and revelry always spread out through most of the other quarters, except the Eastern Fort. The city used to hold around 6000 people, many of whom didn't want the separation from Duthgar, rightly thinking that it would damage trade. However, after Ermin Teffeal was elected as the mayor, he set out, with the backing of the Houses of Old Vashton, to convince the citizens that this extra pressure from Duthgar would be balanced by the added importance the city would receive by seceding along with Old Vashton. Since then, the population has fallen to around 4000 people and there are a number of vacant homes as their value has dropped. There is a detachment from the Bestaria military divided between the two forts but they work closely with Commander Mercer, head of the Bluelog town guard.

### Architecture

Most of the buildings in Bluelog are made of wood, while some of the more expensive properties have plaster covering the wooden frame, and the really expensive and older homes, located mainly in Western Fort and Stowmarket, are made of stone imported from Girdev. Many of the city's private buildings are built with heavy elven influence, most having large images carved into their facades, while the public buildings draw more from Dwarven and human architecture styles with sharp, straight lines in polished stone or intricately carved, interlocking joints in wooden planks, held together by nothing but the wood and friction.

### History

Bluelog was originally a medium-sized town near the edge of The Northern Fernthen Forest, sustained by the gathering, working, and shipping of wood from the forest. However, in around 5460, Ryin fell out with Whittlesbourgh, refusing to allow the continued harvesting of wood from their forest and violently protecting the trees. This led to a sudden crash of the Whittlesbourgh economy, as it was almost entirely based around the forest, and very quickly people began to move to the town of Bluelog, which was close by and already had an infrastructure built around the harvesting and processing of wood. The sudden loss of timber from Whittlesbourgh led to a spike in the price of timber sold from Bluelog and the influx of new inhabitants requiring new homes created jobs for builders and an even greater demand for timber. This cycle then attracted even more inhabitants from Whittlesbourgh, as well as the surrounding area of northern Duthgar, including labourers, craftsmen, and builders, merchants and farmhands, and recreational, hospitality, and civil service workers, plus many more. For about a decade, Bluelog was synonymous with new opportunities and chances of great wealth as the now city-sized town continued to rapidly grow with new houses being erected almost daily. The town expanded ever closer to the edge of the forest and continued to grow with hope, excitement, and reckless disregard for its effect on the forest or its need for defenses.

The relationship between Ryin and Whittlesbourgh eventually improved and they began gathering small quantities of higher value wood, which they crafted into artwork and extravagant wooded products, but Bluelog handled anything wooden needed in large quantities, such as timber planks, cheap furniture, and charcoal/firewood.

In 5523, the forest decided to fight back. After a particularly fierce lightning storm rolled across the forest, a massive number of shambling mounds came out from the forest edge and began consuming the city. Building after building was covered in a mass of vegetation which later spawned even more mounds. The creatures moved slowly and, although they attacked if provoked, seemed quite content to simply swallow up the wooden buildings. As a result, there was a surprisingly low number of fatalities, and many people were even able to save most of their belongings, as it took approximately two months for the attack to take place. A large force made up of House Deneith mercenaries and the Duthgarian army was rallied and a slow but thorough eradication of these mounds began. Afterwards, the now homeless citizens began to rebuild, this time building the city much further from the forest edge. First, rudimentary shelters were set up for the citizens to stay in, then work began on a defensive structure, built between the shelters and the forest. Then came a second phase of intense building and opportunity as the city rebuilt and grew even more. The last time the city had grown, it was mainly poor, working class people looking to find their fortune and cheap housing; this time, those looking to rebuild had more wealth, meaning that the houses built were larger and more luxurious and improved amenities like parks, schools, and theaters were constructed as well.

This defensive structure, the first fort to be built in the city, was manned by the town guard as well as a small contingency of House Deneith fighters that came to help clear the mounds from old Bluelog as the construction of more permanent structures began. Before long, it became apparent that the fort was becoming surrounded and was now at the center of the regrowing city rather than in a far more useful place (like between the forest and the rest of the city). As more and more buildings went up, they crept closer and closer to the forest, since the city's infrastructure and economy were still focused on lumber and forestry. In an effort to incentivize construction south of the fort, the town guard began telling people it was dangerous to continue building north of the fort. To help reinforce the idea that this was the north side of the city, rather than the center or the south, as it was quickly becoming, the fort was officially named the North Fort. This, however, had little effect, and soon the city had to make it illegal to continue building north of North Fort. This worked for a few years but, since there hadn't been any more attacks, and the long walk from Bluelog to the edge of the forest frustrated those who relied on the wood and meat the forest provided, the northward expansion soon resumed. Nevertheless, people were also concerned about the lack of stone used for nearly any of the construction, fretting that if an attack happened again the city would be just as vulnerable. The city didn't have the resources to fund a large, stone construction, since most of its money was going towards trying to maintain the infrastructure of roads, amenities, and sanitation in the rapidly growing and changing city.

This concern led to the construction of the second fort in 5604 when a wealthy noble from Tarcheck, Garreth So'ieth, offered to build a new fort out of stone, closer to the forest. In exchange, he would be granted land rights for some of the new territory the city would gain, allowing him to rent it to people as they rebuilt there. Garreth began construction right up against the forest edge to maximise the extra land he would get, despite the protests of the Bluelog mayor and citizens. He named this second fort The Garreth So'ieth Stronghold, after himself, and employed a large number of soldiers to maintain and protect the fort and the area to its south. Soon, people began calling them the Garreth Garrison since they were separate from the town guard, which then led to people referring to the fort as the Garrison So'ieth and later just the South Garrison. This garrison allowed for another wave of building and expansion; those who knew the forest well expanded northwards slowly, while new investors and people interested in constructing buildings to rent them out or sell them built new properties much closer to the South Garrison. Nearly as soon as the Garrison was finished, the soldiers and citizens began encountering wandering creatures in the forest. Some would simply wander towards the structure and would be attacked, while others seemed to be intentional in their aggression towards the encroachment of civilisation. The garrison continued to fend off these attacks, occasionally letting a few creatures slip through by accident, at which point they would damage those buildings too close to the forest. During the Armilus Festival, just 15 years after the fort was built, a large group of wild animals (including dire variants) charged the fort while most of the garrison was in the city proper for the festivities. The guards were overrun and forced to retreat; by the time they had rallied and returned to the fort with reinforcements, the building was heavily damaged. They chased the remaining animals away but had to relocate to the North Fort. After this, Garreth pulled out and refused to spend any more money on the repairs or upkeep as the fort had already proved more expensive than he was expecting due to the frequent combat with the forest's wildlife. Most of the guards he had hired to maintain the garrison suddenly found themselves without jobs. Many returned to Tarcheck but a number remained in Bluelog.

Without the protection of the South Garrison, creatures from the forest continued to venture into the city, causing property damage and occasionally injuring or killing someone in town. The guards who were stationed at the North Fort then had to travel a long way through the city to help, meaning that even weaker monsters were able to cause significant disruption before being stopped. Slowly, the northern part of town became less populated and more and more buildings, streets, and areas became dangerous nests of wild beasts that the guards didn't have the time to clear out. The attacks continued and caused many disruptions to the lumber industry, further distracting the town guard and preventing them from addressing criminal activity in the rest of the city as their attention was focused on the beasts to the north. The increase in crime also hindered the industry which had become quite necessary for the country. The king decided that, rather than trying to set up another garrison to protect the city, he would simply supply the mayor with a fund to reward adventurers who defeated monsters in the forest. This seemed to work as a number of adventurers came to the city to find their fortune hunting monsters, allowing the town guard to focus on the more mundane issues. As the adventurers took out monsters, they became more scarce and the adventurers got more desperate until, one day, there was an accident and a fight got out of hand - a wizard set fire to a building and the flames quickly spread through the derelict district. There was more property damage than loss of life as the size of the fire was big enough to give people ample warning to move out of the way, though not as much as when the mounds attacked.

This third rebuilding of Bluelog was a bit more reserved and progressed much slower than previous times. There were concerns about the age and structural integrity of the North Fort, which was not built as a permanent defensive structure, not to mention its strategically inferior position to the south of the city. Therefore, most of the funds went into the construction of a new stone fort on the new north side of town, right on the edge of the destruction caused by the fire. Since there was already a North Fort, the town needed a different name for this new structure. Since the construction site was slightly to the west of the center point of town, they settled on the name Western Fort. The town continued to grow but didn't expand north of the fort this time; a healthy balance was struck between the desire to build close enough to the forest to harvest wood and the need to build far enough away to avoid attacks from creatures of the forest. The people built a wall around the city but the city continued to expand and small districts began to appear beyond the walls, driven by the profits that could be earned providing for the needs of the ever-growing city.

Things were going well until 6011 when the next disaster struck Bluelog. A massive earthquake toppled nearly every standing structure on the east side of the city, completely ruined the walls, and took many lives. When the citizens recovered from the shock and devastation, they started to rebuild. They found that the reason the earthquake had been worse for the east side was because the soil was softer there and it had moved and shifted more, meaning that rebuilding would need to start with a lot of additional earthwork to flatten the ground; thus, the city rebuilt towards the west. Stowmarket and Western Fort District are mainly made up of the buildings that survived the quake and were repaired while Craftman's Way was built by the recovering lumber industry. Hayard was built up to house those who would be working in the fields now being planted to the south since to the east the land was full of debris from the quake and the land to the north was not great for farming due to the fire. Finally, in the space between these two hubs of construction, an area designed to be slightly more up-market was built in the green area that acted as a path between them, Causeway Green. The city decided against rebuilding solid city walls like they had had before but instead had thousands of hewn stone blocks brought to Bluelog. These blocks, designed to be interlocked together to create a strong but moveable barrier, enabled the walls to expand and change with the city going forward rather than stay fixed. This new style of wall building seemed to work well, especially since the main enemies the city faced were unorganized wild animals, not armies, and so a second fort was built using the same method since North Fort had collapsed during the earthquake. This new fort was built on the west side of the city but the citizens chose to name it The Eastern Fort, in keeping with the naming conventions for the other forts: North Fort, which had been to the south, the South Garrison, which had been to the north, and now the Western Fort, situated on the northeast side of the city.

The city grew to around 6000 inhabitants towards the end of the 67th century but as the area now known as The Divided Regions of Bestaria began preparing to secede from Duthgar, some of the inhabitants of Bluelog began moving south, expecting the worst for their city and looking for the next good opportunity. After 6730, when the DRB gained its independence, the trade of raw and worked wood across the border began to become more expensive and difficult. With the demand for lumber within the country now less than the supply produced, the attitude that had grown the city so quickly throughout the previous century now led to a mass exodus following these difficulties as almost 2000 people moved south to Duthgar.

### Industry

While Whittlesbourgh continues to craft the high-end wooden products, limited in number, aesthetically alluring, and higher in price, Bluelog has asserted itself as the supplier of all other bulk wooden products. The Craftman's Way is filled with lumber yards, wainwrights, carpenter factories, sawmills, and charcoal burners, but also masonries, stone carvers, and a few forges, all focused on supporting the wood industry and the defence of the city. Large caravans of wagons laden with wood can be seen traveling out of the city on a regular basis, normally to the southwest. To the south are a number of farms, growing quick-spoiling vegetables like lettuce near the city, while up the hill further from town are a number of animal pastures which supply meat and dairy to the city and also live bait for patrols venturing into the Northern Fernthen Forest

### Law

Bluelog has fewer town guards than similar cities of its size but also has a company of Bestaria's military men, stationed in the two forts, who patrol throughout the city and act almost like a second policing force rather than just part of the army. However, they have a bad reputation that, while off duty, many of these men are the very people who need to be calmed down by the guard or military police themselves. Both forts have dungeons to reprimand unruly soldiers while also acting as prisons for the city, along with the much larger Pinewood Penitentiary that sits on the edge of Causeway Green and Craftman's Way.

There are no particular rules within Bluelog that are all that different form the standard laws set out by The Visible Council, although laws against arson and uncontrolled fires are more harshly punished and tracked.

### Religions

Bluelog primarily worships The Seen and Unseen gods; however, like Old Vashton, it too is quite accepting of other religions, even though the city officially holds to the belief that there are only the fourteen real gods and that the others are fake. The largest temple in Bluelog is The Temple House, dedicated to the Seen and Unseen gods, that sits in Stowmarket near to the Grand Lageret. There are also six small temples, known as Pelleras' Suplication, around the Pelleras Square in Causeway Green. The Solva Serene is a temple dedicated to Desna.

### Defences

Currently, the city of Bluelog has a stone wall surrounding it and two large forts, Eastern Fort and Western Fort, found on the west and northeast of the city, respectively. The wall is quite low for a city wall, only around 3.5 meters tall, and is built out of interlocking stone blocks without the use of cement. While such a wall would be quite poor in a siege situation, the advantage of this design is that it can be taken apart and rebuilt (with a large amount of manpower, but still far more easily than a traditional wall). This has been done multiple times over the course of the city's history as the city expanded or moved.

The two forts standing today are the third and fourth forts to have been built.

### Geography

The city is built on a gentle slope which runs downhill towards the north and has good farmland to the south. Between Bluelog and the Northern Fernthen Forest is an entire town's worth of ruined wooden buildings now known as Old Bluelog along with the shell of what was the Garreth So'ieth fort. To the southwest and southeast of the city are two large roads that lead down to Old Vashton and to the eastern side of the DRB, respectively. There are two forts on opposite sides of the city whose main focus is guarding the city from the various creatures that emerge from the forest.

### Districts

Craftman's Way

Western Fort

Stowmarket

Hayard

Causeway Green

Eastern Fort

### Locations the party has visited / heard of

Duthgar Embassy

The Eastern Fort

Frostoak's Forge - Frostoak's house/work space

Pelleras Square