The Market Quarter

Within the frayed protections of the walls of Pirika's Wall, saddled right along the banks where the mist shrouded Merilang meets the murky depths of the Sea of Mir, lies the sprawling open market of the Market Quarter. An unending ocean of multicolored tents, patchwork stalls, and dilapidated booths, the rapid pulse of commerce that takes place within the Market Quarter easily surpasses even the busiest streets of the Harbour Ward. For while the Harbour Ward is flush with the bounty hauled from the holds of the many ships which do business there, when it comes to the trade of magic and Craft, every citizen of Yosthaven knows to come to the Market Quarter. Obscure components, lesser charms, contracts signed in Demon's blood, an endless parade of lesser Craftsfolk, talented alchemists, and even more talented charlatans, all that and more can be found within the bustling Market Quarters.

## Aspects

### Lasting

* Everything for a price
* The Great Houses make for clandestine customers

### Fleeting

* All Roads Lead to House Mortren (The Open Market)
* The Unearthly Ringing of Bells (The Open Market)

## Neighborhoods

### The Open Market

* *Controlled by: House Mortren*

A riot of color, activity, and sound, the Open Market of the Market Quarter is perhaps the most bustling portion of Yosthaven. Hundreds of merchants, makers, and artisans sell their wares here, arranging themselves in a disorganized riot of commerce. Tents, stalls, wagons, and other temporary structures dominate, for as the name suggests, the Open Market is a massive public square. Five sided, four of edges of the Market are surrounded by the high stone walls and thin towers that so dominate Holdan architecture. The Western side of the Market faces the Sea of Mir, trapped behind a retaining wall so that the citizenry may have some control over the elements. For the Open Market is a neighborhood of canals and and rivulets, salt and sea water mingling to form the city's breathing center of commerce.

Rising unopposed in the center of the Market is the House of Mortren, a dominating facade overlooking the neighborhood. There is no place from within the Open Market that doesn't have a clear view of the revealed House. Their influence felt among the varied merchants, comers, and goers of the markets by the roads they maintain, by the permits that must be issued, and by the careful audits that must be provided and accredited to those bound to the House and it's lesser way-stations that spread out throughout the district. From each of these, like clockwork, emerge seemingly endless patrols of house guard in the green and gold of House Mortren and led in kind by the more martial and oft lesser of the Housebound of their order and faith. Their presence a constant reminder of the peace of law enforced upon the Merchant Quarter and an unsubtle reminder of other eyes and precautions worked into the very stone and wood of the district.

### The Songs

* *Controlled by: House Melifloran*

North and West of the Open Market is the Songs, so named for the joyous calls of welcome to the city that the criers and singers of House Melifloran issue every morning when they throw open the great doors of their House. One of the few revealed Houses, Melifloran rises over the surrounding apartments and alleyways on an expanded cliff shaped plot of land seemingly only accessible from a single winding path, shadowed only by the Citadel and overlooking the rest of the neighborhood. The Songs is teeming with the industry of commerce, filled to the brim with the workshops, smithies, tanneries, alchemists, jewelers, and other assorted artisans and experts who supply the barkers in the Open Market with their wares. The narrow streets are more often canals than cobbled stone, though walkways, bridges, and other pedestrian paths wind their way through the crowded buildings.

### The Handle

The Handle is so named for the way it wraps around the South-Eastern diamond of the Open Market. A small neighborhood, it is split nearly in half by the Markt Road, with its South-Western side surrounded in turn by the Sea of Mir. Most of its narrow streets are canals, separating the high walled apartments that hold most of the merchants and vendors who ply their trade in the Open Market from each other. The Handle is almost entirely a residential neighborhood, a place for the low, but still high enough to maintain their place within the protection of Pirika's Wall.