Yosthaven

The center of power of Sundevalda, Yosthaven is a city of sharp contrasts and even sharper truths. Many blocks of the city still lie in ruins from the seemingly unending struggle against the Kryat Arcaneocracy, a microcosm of Sundevalda itself. Strange curses prowl these shattered streets, twisting and warping those who dare to scavenge there. Others are bustling markets, densely packed residential apartments, or thriving centers of industry and commerce. The people of Yosthaven are a study of opposites as well, the wealth and Craft of the Great Houses highlighting the desperation of the teeming masses. Not to say that the common folk are devoid of joy. Like all Sundevalda, they are a fatalistic and determined people. Generations raised under the threat of annihilation by their Northern neighbor has led many to fatalism, but even those are sure to squeeze every last ounce of pleasure they can from the hand they have been dealt.

## People

The people of Yosthaven are a mixed lot, as is to be expected of any port city, though the vast majority are either Amenni fled from the Arcaneocracy or Holda natives. Enclaves of every race abound, though most are obviously suspicious of any of the Kryask who choose to try and take up residency. Generations of outside threat have bonded the people of Yosthaven to the Great Houses, for without their work the city and the nation would have fallen long ago. Yet while many of the common folk understand and respect what the Great Houses have done to preserve the city's independence, for many others it means merely that the boot which crushes them isn't foreign born. A common enemy only goes so far to unify a populace living such a grim existence, and the wealth inequality between the Great Houses and those they lord over is a constant source of strife and discontent.

Yet a city that was just death, plague, and misery would not stand long, regardless of the strength of the Mantles of its Craftsfolk. While some city blocks are smoking ruins or curse riddled death traps, there are many that are vibrant and colorful and alive.

## Industry

From the humblest beggar to the mightiest Great House, **Melucrum** is the foundation of Tar. Kingdoms and empires mint their own as needed, but there is no issue of exchange rates between nations, for anyone grasping the cold and pale blue metal from which **Melucrum** are made can instantly divine the weight of **Meluc** contained within. Infusing such a coin with one's personal store of **Meluc** is an intuitive thing, a natural thing, as easy as breathing, though far more precise. There is no counterfeiting possible, no deception to be woven. **Meluc** is power, be it stored within a person's Mantle or a coin of **Melucrum**, and it does not take one of the Craftsfolk to measure it.

Wrapped around a narrow inlet of the Sea of Mir, Yosthaven is a major port city. Ships from Duun'Raath, Nuravia, and the rest of the known world frequently find safe harbor there, for the Kryat have never been a strong naval power. As such, it is a bustling center of commerce, with the Harbour Ward filled with foreign goods and foreign tongues. The dense woods to the North ensure a constant supply of raw materials for ship building, with many brave loggers ridding their wares down the Merilang to sell in the Harbour Ward. Barges from what farmland remains untouched by Kryat aggression are also a common sight, emerging from the fog to deposit their loads of grains, vegetables, cheeses, and smoked meats.

Within the Market Quarter, many can make a living collecting and refining the many material ingredients required for Soulcraft. The purveyors of these lucrative trades are often just as much smugglers and spies as they are skilled laborers, for Craftsfolk pay dearly for discretion. Learning how to refine Material Components to the proper resonance for Craft is a valuable skill, but so is hiding receipts and records in unbreakable cyphers so that they cannot be read if they are stolen by the rivals of one's best customers. The makers of the Market Quarter's are specialists in many regards, often building up select clientele, with whole generations sometimes never having more than one lucrative client.

## Districts

### The Old City

* *Go to: The Old City*

High upon the hill, the Old City is an imposing mesa of black stone, twisting towers, and endless tunnels. There is no place within the city where one cannot see it, for even the lowest of its structures has its foundations rooted high in the stone.  The architecture of that place is like nothing else within Yosthaven, coiled designs that look to have been grown out of the rock rather than carved. High arches and towers that are all curves and alien angles, rather than the straight lines and hard corners that dominate the rest of the city. No doubt, that fact fuels the rumors that the Old Capital predates Yosthaven, and likely predates the Sundevaldan themselves. Whoever built it, or fashioned it, their names are long lost to even the learned Gods of the realm

Wider than it is tall, the Old City is claimed by House Yassir. Yet even that mighty House is not large enough to have mapped every inch of the district, let alone control it. The exact location of the Great House is a mystery kept from all but their Housebound, for the paths into the Old City are many and winding, and it would be astronomically expensive to attempt to bar, patrol, or ward them all. Far more efficient to hide the House itself, and rely on the House's reputation to keep out interlopers.

### The Market Quarter

* *Go to: 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.

### Pirika's Wall

* *Go to: Pirika's Wall*

The wall known as Pirika's Wall was once a wonder of the world, a towering wall fifty feet high, carved from foundation to parapet with an endless series of defensive wards empowered by each of the Great Houses at the city's founding. The rumors have changed and molded over the decades, but the story holds that it was only by contributing to the defenses of Pirika's Wall could one of the Houses of Craft even become a Great House. Whatever the truth of those legends, the Houses have changed and shifted as the tides of the war have ebbed and flowed, and great sections of Pirika's Wall have fallen into disrepair. In some the wards have merely failed, the magics which infused them cut off from whatever **Meluc** had empowered them. In other places the wall is simply gone, reduced to ruin and rubble by some incursion of the Arcaneocracy.

### Harbour Ward

* Go to: Harbour Ward

No where is the contrast of Yosthaven more evident than within the Harbour Ward. Resting alongside the opaque waters of the Sea of Mir, the Harbour Ward has seen more incursions of Kryat military expeditions and Cursecraft than any other district in the city. Whole blocks are smoking ruins, dark miasmas within which nothing can live. Horrors sometimes emerge from within these ruined places, twisted weapons somehow laying dormant for years before seizing the **Meluc** needed to animate themselves. Yet despite the history of death, disease, and war that has ravaged the District, it remains the most populous Ward in all of Yosthave. Most of the docks have been rebuilt, and from these come a constant stream of ships from all of Tar.

Most of the district is a slum, densely packed apartments and other tenements resting on the second or third floor over inns, taverns, and shops. Massive warehouses hold the bounty of other lands, patrolled by stern faced **Housebound** of the Lesser Houses. The Greater Houses have interests here as well, employing the Lesser as proxies and fronts to disguise the true extent of their wealth and influence. People of a dozen different nations and a hundred different tongues fill the streets, though they are sure to give the Craftwarped neighborhoods a wide berth.

### Rotter's Gate

* *Go to: Rotter's Gate*

The largest District in Yosthaven, Rotter's Gate is where most of the population lives. Outside of the ragged protections of Pirika's Wall, the denizens of Rotter's Gate have mostly had to fend for themselves. There are no Great Houses of Craft here, no repositories of power and knowledge. Instead, roving gangs patrol the streets, alliances of kin, clan, or merely convenience. The Craft of these streets is dirty and violent, for it would have needed to be to resist the Arcaneocracy for so long. Not to say that it is a cruel place, for it is no more or less so than all of Sundevalda, but hard times as left the Rotters a resilient and untrusting people.

### Greyrock

* *Go to: Greyrock*

Within the boundaries and protections (however decayed) of Pirika's Wall, lies the District of Greyrock. Protections does not mean perfectly protected, and some neighborhoods have succumb to the horrors that so much of Rotter's Gate has been forced to endure. It is a densely packed District, full to bursting with the thin towers of grey stone, punctuated with sharp spires and bronzed domes in the traditional Sundevaldan style. The streets are narrow cobbled, choked with shadows from neighboring apartments, and soot from blacksmith's forges and baker's ovens.

Greyrock has no City Watch, no guard to keep the peace. That burden falls upon the Lesser and Great Houses, most of whom maintain their warded holds within the District. Some Housebound are just and fair, others capricious and cruel, and so the common folk have learned that it is generally best to give the Crafted no reason to notice their business. So while Yosthaven possesses a bustling underworld, the criminal elements of the city are sure to never let their misdeeds spill over to the point that it attracts a Great House's attention.

### The Hill

* *Go to: The Hill*

Were it not for the towering black expanse of the Old Capital, the Hill would be the highest point on Yosthaven. In days gone by, the Hill was the closest thing the city had to a military installation, a series of barracks from which the Great Houses kept Tal mercenaries who were tied with **Melucrum** rather than oaths and **Craft** to the Houses they served. That ended twenty years ago, when Lithomancers bound in service to the Tieril Clan of the Kryask sacrificed themselves to erase the Hill in a single night. Shattering the wards of Pirika's Wall, they unleashed a deadly miasma upon the District. The choking mists corrupted flesh and dissolved stone, twisting the towers and melting them into alien versions of themselves. Though two decades have passed, the miasma remains, the power of the Kryat sustaining it despite the souls of Lithomancers who wove the dark Craft having long since faded to nothing. Strange, twisted things sometimes emerge from the crimson tainted mists, running loose in Greyrock before being put down by Housebound. House Driar appears to have claimed the District, for it is a rare occurrence indeed that they are not the first to respond to such incursions.

### The Camp

* *Go to: The Camp*

It would seem strange that citizens of the Arcaneocracy would be allowed anywhere within a hundred miles of Yosthaven, and yet the advancing Kryask invaders drove many peoples before them over the course of the **Unification**. Many fled into Sundevalda, and many of those have found their way to Yosthaven. Yet generations of Kryat incursions and assaults of Craft have left their scars upon the city, and upon the psyche of its citizens. Amenni who flee to Yosthaven aren't killed on sight, but they certainly aren't trusted, for too many of the Arcaneocracy's refugees have proven to be double agents for any to not be treated with the deepest of suspicion. Thus, The Camp, a slum of patchwork tents and lean-tos outside the Eastern walls of the city. From there, Those who prove themselves useful or trustworthy can earn places elsewhere in the city, or else uncover ways to sneak in. The Camp does possess a gate that leads through Pirika's Wall, and while it is usually open, the defensive Wards in place make its use a deadly proposition for most.

### Little Nurav

* *Go to: Little Nurav*

The Bloodcursed are not an uncommon sight within Yosthaven, with enough of them having made the city their home that they have formed an enclave. The District takes its name from the Gate outside of which it rests at the base of Pirika's Wall. Originally a slum like The Camp, a great Craftfire raged through the District 37 years ago, killing hundreds. The Bloodcursed claimed the District as their own, and in the intervening years have rebuilt it in a manner similar to their homeland. Thus, despite being Sundevaldan, the Little Nurav is filled with buildings built in the Nuravian style. The most common are the curved wooden balconies surrounding the upper floor of circular, two story buildings.

### The Barrowgardens

* *Go to: The Barrowgardens*

Outside the walls, the Barrowgardens is a District shared between the living and the dead. Many of the farmers and woodsfolk who tend the Northern fields live here, drawing forth what life sustaining sustenance they can from the choking woods that surround the city. Their homesteads and garden plots are woven around and someimes through the man graveyards that fill this District, miles of land often surrendered to the dead. Yet not all the dead are still, and the hands that tend the fields and the feet that patrol the lone stone walls are more often those of **Revenants** than mortal flesh. The people of the Barrowgardens are generally poor, but they have learned the value of pouring what **Melucrum** they earn into the construction and maintenance of such creatures.

### Murkyloft

* *Go to: Murkyloft*

Flanking the long collapsed banks of the Merilang, Murkyloft is a District of flooded towers and crumbling foundations. Many of the buildings in this District have long since begun to sink into the mud, water bubbling up from the ground to turn the streets into muddy canals. Yet the people have remained, building ramps, bridges, or merely pushing boats and gondolas between the still standing towers.

### The Merilang

* *Go to: The Merilang*

Flowing from the North, curving along the Southwestern flank, before finally disappearing into the Sea of Mir, the Merilang brings murky water and endless fog to Yosthaven. The locals took to calling it "Murky Mari" in ages past, a mixture of love and derision highlighting the words. The name has long since stuck, and is often shortened only to "the Murk." It is a wide and slow moving river, yet full of hidden currents that can suck the unwary over. While none are foolish enough to swim within its murky depths, plenty of barges and fishing ships ply their trade along it. Yosthaven is simply too large to be sustained on by the Sea of Mir alone, even with trade and commerce supplementing that bounty. While much of the land outside the city has been poisoned, some fertile patches remain, and upon these farmers scrape out a life raising animals and growing crops.