Diamond Lake

**Diamond Lake** is a small mining village in Mokeria, ruled by Mayor Lanod Neff on behalf of Bretagnan the Impetuous.

## Description

This small mining town is full to the brim with desperate folks trying to scrape a meagre living from working the mines of the great Free City three days to the East. Diamond Lake resides in the Cairn Hills, rocky hills full of metals important to the Free City’s economy, important enough for them to directly control the mines via mine managers. The mine managers are constantly struggling against one another to gain more power and wealth for themselves, while the common folk try to distract themselves from their bleak situation.

As there are folks spending money, no matter how meagre, there is a thriving business in supplying distraction. The Emporium is a large den of iniquity specializing in liquor, women and a freak show to rival any travelling circus, all for just enough money to draw the customers in. Games of chance abound, including the Rat Game, where rats race to the end of a small maze, and then the winner gets to fight jermlaines while spectators bet on every aspect of the game. For a more cultured taste, Lazare's House is a cosy gaming parlour across the street, specializing in Dragonchess for those with the wits to play. Those too poor for the Emporium find themselves at the Feral Dog or similar dive. Dogfights are the height of entertainment at most other venues surpassed only by the bar fights.

The Cairn Hills get their name from the large number of ancient burial cairns and tombs that dot the region, evidence of a half dozen different, ancient cultures. The last known cairn was stripped dry decades ago though, and folks are always eager to find a new one, but the chances seem unlikely.

As previously mentioned, Diamond Lake nestles in the rocky crags of the Cairn Hills, three days east of the Free City to which it is subject. Iron and silver from Diamond Lake's mines fuel the capital's markets and support its soldiers and nobles with the raw materials necessary for weapons and finery. This trade draws hundreds of skilled and unskilled labourers and artisans, all hoping to strike it rich. In ages past, Diamond Lake boasted an export more valuable than metal in the form of treasure liberated from the numerous tombs and burial cairns crowding the hills around the town. These remnants of a half-dozen long-dead cultures commanded scandalous prices from the Free City elite, whose insatiable covetousness triggered a boom in the local economy. Those days are long gone, though. The last cairn in the region coughed up its treasure decades ago, and few locals pay much mind to stories of yet-undiscovered tombs and unplundered burial cairns. These days, only a handful of treasure seekers visit the town, and few return to Free City with anything more valuable than a wall rubbing or an ancient tool fragment.

In the hills surrounding the town, hundreds of labourers spend weeks at a time underground, breathing recycled air pumped in via systems worth ten times their combined annual salary. The miners are the chattel of Diamond Lake, its seething, tainted blood. But they are also Diamond Lake's foundation, their weekly pay cycling back into the community via a gaggle of gambling dens, bordellos, ale halls, and temples. Because work in the mines is so demanding and dangerous, most folk come to Diamond Lake because they have nowhere else to turn, seeking an honest trade of hard labour for subsistence-level pay simply because the system has allowed them no other option. Many are foreigners displaced from native lands by war or famine. Work in Diamond Lake is the last honest step before utter destitution or crimes of desperation. For some, it is the first step in the opposite direction: a careful work assignment to ease the burden on debtor-filled prisons, one last chance to make it in civil society.

## The Nature of the Town

Diamond Lake crouches in the lowland between three hills and the lake itself, a splotch of mud, smoke, and blood smeared across uneven terrain marked by countless irregular mounds and massive rocks. The oldest buildings line the lakeshore, where fishing vessels once docked and stored their impressive catches. That commerce has abandoned the town entirely, for the shining waters that once gave Diamond Lake its name are now so polluted as to make fishing impossible. Many old warehouses have been converted into cheap housing for miners and labourers, and no one is safe outdoors after dark. As one walks north along the streets of Diamond Lake, the buildings become sturdier and the spirits of their inhabitants likewise improve. A great earthen road called the Vein bisects the town. With few exceptions, those living north of the Vein enjoy a much better life than the wretches living below it.

All of the town's social classes congregate in the Vein's central square. Roughly every two weeks, someone in the town upsets someone else so greatly that the only recourse is a duel to the death at the centre of a ring of cheering miners. The bookmakers of the Emporium and the Feral Dog do brisk business on such occasions, which tend to draw huge crowds. On less violent nights, the square is still home to a thousand pleasures and poisons; if Diamond Lake is a creature, the Vein's central square is its excitable, irregular heart.